The consequences of the Official Languages Act continue to roll across the nation. Since it was enacted in 1969, it has exploded into a bloated monstrosity. It has alienated Anglophones from coast to coast, has cost untold billions, and has forced many thousands of competent Anglophone public servants into early retirement.
- Ontario has let itself be led into developing expensive bilingual programs while serving only a miniscule population of Francophones – who are themselves, fully bilingual.
- Quebec is working desperately to fill the Supreme Court of Canada with fully bilingual judges, with Quebec being the judge of who will qualify as ‘bilingual’ and who will not.
- The Alberta government has been forced - by the Supreme Court of Canada, no less - to fund the legal costs of a group of Francophones that is suing Alberta – in the Supreme Court of Canada - because Alberta refused to issue a French version of a traffic ticket to a Francophone truck driver. A French win in the Supreme Court is expected to cost all provinces billions of dollars to accommodate their demands.
- The Yukon Government has been ordered, by a Francophone judge, to spend $15 million to build a school, complete with a student-run radio station, for 41 Francophone students. The government is appealing the ruling.
The list of horror stories is long and it demonstrates that Quebec has absolutely no interest in a partnership with Canada; it wants to own Canada. And while politicians such Daulton McGuinty are working hand in glove with the French to give them whatever they want, most Canadians remain blissfully unaware of the disastrous consequences of the Official Languages Act. - Gerry Porter
Canadians for Language Fairness,
July 30, 2011
By Kim McConnell
It appears that Canada is starting a new trend in human relations – SEGREGATION is in vogue, people!!! First we have the New Brunswick government being lobbied by the Acadian community (funded by the general taxpayers) to support separate schools and health facilities for the French, while also supporting bilingual facilities for the rest of the population. Bilingual facilities favour the employment of French-speakers – that is a fact!!!
We have seen this happening in Ontario as well, especially in areas that have any size of French-speakers. In the City of Ottawa (less than 15% French-speakers), SEGREGATION has been a policy supported by taxpayers for years – separate schools, separate community centres, separate health facilities!!! The City of Ottawa itself follows a hiring policy that favours French-speakers as it is obliged to follow the Language policy which, Bob Chiarelli insisted, is “Practical Bilingualism”. This policy at the City, along with the OLA at the Federal level, has led to more Quebecers moving into Ottawa to take jobs that are designed to favour them.
As the power of French-speakers grow, they can demand more segregation. Don’t forget that these French-language lobby groups are fully funded by your tax dollars and they can pay high-powered lawyers whose agenda is to increase the power of the French-speakers with every victory. The Grant School project has been in the works for many years now, carefully guided by the various French-language groups and led by many French law firms. CFMO was given a grant of $1.9M last year to “buy” the property (valued at $3.94M) and it was given three years to turn the facilities into a mixture of non-profit and commercial facilities serving the French in West Ottawa.
First of all, grants should not be given to commercial facilities to compete with other commercial facilities as this would be unfair competition. I wonder if the other commercial facilities (dental clinics and for-profit retirement homes) are aware of this facility that will be set up in competition with them but with the help of taxpayer dollars.
By the way, to complete this project, at least $50M will be required - and who do you think they will get the money from? That’s right – YOU!!!
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$4M grant will help create west Ottawa francophone centre.
Plan will see old school transformed
Ottawa Citizen, July 29, 2011
By Neco Cockburn
A $4-million Ontario government investment will help a francophone group move ahead with efforts to turn the former Grant Alternative School site into a community centre, the group's president said Thursday.
Roger Farley said the Centre multiservices francophone de l'ouest d'Ottawa (CMFO) will be able to go ahead with the first piece of its development plans - renovating the old school and transforming it into a "multi-service community centre."
The CMFO already has an agreement with the city to buy the site, at 2720 Richmond Rd., and the funding will "permit us to move forward and look at buying the property," perhaps in the next few months, Farley said.
Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli made the funding announcement Thursday, and said in an interview that thousands of francophone residents "will have a community hub" for health care, social and education services.
The CMFO project is meant to serve west Ottawa's francophone population of about 28,000 people.
The second phase of the plan includes a co-operative seniors' housing project, while the third phase involves a long-term care facility, Farley said.
City council in August approved a conditional land transfer for the property.
Bay Councillor Mark Taylor called it "good news" that the project is moving ahead.
"In Bay Ward and in the west end of Ottawa in particular, there's a large and growing francophone population, and they really don't have anywhere near the service capacity that they do in the east end of the city," he said.
"Having something in the west end is more about being equitable than it is anything else."
The project does have its critics, and became one of the issues tackled by Bay Ward candidates during last fall's municipal election. At least one candidate, Terry Kilrea, vowed to scrap the centre if elected.
On Thursday, Kilrea said the project segregates people based on language.
"Why are you making a community centre just for francophones? Should we turn Barbara Ann Scott (Arena) into an English-only complex?"
Taylor said the project is to be a "community hub" despite being a francophone centre.
"They're not intending to keep it closed off, and in fact what they want to do is open it up as broadly as they can to anybody and everybody in the community who wants to come in and take a class, or take a course, or use one of the services," he said.
Residents who attended a community meeting on the centre didn't raise concerns about language, but focused on issues such as parking and traffic, said Taylor, adding that another public meeting is likely to be held within a couple of months.
The old school was built in the 1920s and is considered a heritage site as part of the former Britannia Village. In March 2008, the city bought the school property from the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board for $3.94 million.
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The Citizen published the following letter from a concerned Ottawan.Re: $4 M grant will help create west Ottawa francophone centre
July 29, 2011
As a taxpayer, I am completely disgusted with this blatant attempt at vote buying by Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli and the Ontario Liberal government.
This francophone centre is "meant to serve west Ottawa's francophone population of about 28,000 people". But, according to the last census, the number of francophones in west Ottawa adds up to less than 15,000 no matter how you look at it. The only way to boost the number to 28,000 is by including anyone according to the census who speaks French including bilingual anglophones, something that the McGuinty government did by changing the definition of francophone.
And, why is the CMFO being given a grant when the McGuinty government recently announced that they would give low interest loans to non-profit groups to develop facilities, loans that would have to be repaid to the Ontario taxpayers. Is it because the CMFO actually is not “non-profit” and so does not qualify for these loans because they are including for profit businesses in their plans such as a dental clinic which will compete with other private dental clinics in the area?
It is time to end all government grants to francophone centres that, once operational, will deny services to non-francophones while still requiring all other centres to serve the bilingual community. This practice is simply unfair to the vast majority of Ontario taxpayers who are non-francophones.
Bob H., Ottawa
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Court orders Yukon to build $15M school for 41 francophone students
National Post, July 28, 2011
Citing the need to protect minority-language rights, a Yukon court has ordered the government to give its lone French-language school $2-million and begin a multi-million-dollar school expansion to house an arts studio, separate classes for every grade and space for a student radio station.
In a French-only ruling released this week, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Vital Ouellette ordered the government to build a $15-million high school within two years to house the board’s 41 French high school students.
Maxime Faille, the Ottawa-based lawyer who represented the Yukon government, warned Thursday the ruling would create a “huge inequality between francophone students and other students in the territory.” At around one teacher for every 10 students, student-teacher ratios at the school are better than many others in the territory, Mr. Faille said.
“People in Toronto pay [up to] $50,000 a year to have their students in private schools with student-teacher ratios that are worse than what they have in this school,” he said. Meanwhile, schools for Aboriginal students, who make up 30% of the territory’s population, are so underfunded that students often have move hundreds of kilometres away to Whitehorse to go to high school.
“If another high school has to be built in the Yukon Territory, I’m not sure it should be in the City of Whitehorse for the francophone population that already has a high school, a very good one,” he said.
Whitehorse’s École Émilie-Tremblay was built in 1996 for $6.2-million, shortly after Yukon created its only school board, whose sole job is to run the territory’s lone French school, serving 184 students among a 1,200-strong francophone community.
Since then, officials with Commission scolaire francophone du Yukon have complained that the government hasn’t handed over complete control of Émilie-Tremblay’s nearly $5-million annual budget. The board argued that the government never consulted school board officials when it diverted $2-million in federal French-education funding to pay for French immersion programs in the territory’s 27 other schools.
Judge Ouellette found the government violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom’s protection of minority language education, and ordered it to return the federal money to the school.
The government said it plans to appeal the new case to the Yukon Court of Appeal, arguing Judge Ouellette, who was once president of a minority-language francophone school board in Alberta, was biased in favour of the school board, Mr. Faille said.
The territory appealed to the judge to recuse himself last year, saying he had laughed at some of the government’s witnesses and joked around with the school board’s lawyers. The judge refused, saying that while he didn’t deny he had joked around, judges couldn’t be expected to maintain their composure the entire length of an extended trial. His association with French language education in Alberta was well-known before he was appointed to the bench in 2002, he added.
In previous court rulings, the judge ordered the territorial government to build new portable classrooms at the school and give the board money to hire three new teachers.
Roughly 4% of Yukon’s population is francophone, numbers school board officials said during the trial were underrepresented because, they argued, the Statistics Canada census was flawed. The judge agreed, saying there could possibly be as many as 400 students who could qualify for French-language education in the school. English students who want to learn French can also enroll in the school.
Roger Lepage, the lawyer who represented the school board, called the ruling a “resounding victory” in a news release. “The positions of the judge are well supported and consistent with Canadian jurisprudence,” he said.
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By Kim McConnell
Tim Hudak and Randy Hillier, along with Randal Denley and the other Conservative candidates for the October Ontario election should be contacted with the question of where they stand on this issue:
It appears that Bob Chiarelli and Dalton McGuinty are going after the French votes. What is the Ontario PC's policy on SEGREGATION in Ontario? It is a well-known fact that the minority French-speakers, which make up only 4% of Ontario's population, have far more clout than the 96% majority English-speakers. They can demand anything at the taxpayers' expense and NO political party dares to say or do anything.
Is SEGREGATION also the policy of the Ontario PC Party?
Contact Tim Hudak: tim_hudak@ontla.ola.org
Contact Randy Hillier: randy.hillierco@pc.ola.org
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