In Defense of French Quebec

By: J. G. Porter

That the language and culture of French Quebecers need to be defended is evident. Aside from the fact that perhaps a third of the world’s seven billion people speak English, the more compelling case is that some seven million French Quebecers are surrounded by some 330 million Canadians and Americans.

This is untenable! Quebecers, through no fault of their own (other than by being defeated on numerous occasions), are outnumbered. There are more of us than them.

Given these numbers, seven million vs 330 million, Canadians were easily persuaded that the French language and culture were indeed endangered. If Quebécers were ever to be our resourceful and productive national partner, we would first have to protect them. So we promptly rewrote our constitution and enacted legislation to protect, to preserve, and to promote these critically important elements of Frenchness.

As an ancillary step in the business of preserving, protecting, and promoting French language and culture, Quebecers pitched right in and declared their province officially unilingual and enacted legislation to restrict the use of English within its national borders. Canadians, freshly minted multiculturalists, cheerily responded, “What a great idea. Every little bit helps.”

Are these major initiatives paying off? Well let’s, for example, examine Canada’s paper currency; on the front, French and English each have a first place, while on the back, French is first - a significant gain. (Although the two serial numbers on the back appear to be identical, one of the numbers really is French.)

Highway signs display both languages - except the arrows. Quebec was unable to devise a French arrow and so went with the English version. We were so relieved that they did not get angry with us.

Quebecers are well represented in the federal bureaucracy. With 23% of Canada’s population, they fill 29.2% of public service jobs and 32.0% of management-level jobs. A revealing statistic that rightly favours nos amis français menacées.

Quebécers have also done well viz-a-viz our Supreme Court of Canada. Of the nine seats, Quebec, with less than one quarter of the population, is guaranteed one third of the seats. Canadians are rightly proud that Quebecérs, given their record of governance, have been richly rewarded. I’m sure this arrangement dispels some of their sense of victimhood.

Then there is the vexing matter of the Nation’s Capital, the City of Ottawa. Francophone groups are quietly demanding that Mayor Jim Watson declare Ottawa officially bilingual. Mayor Watson says that what we have now is essentially the same thing, mais sans le étiquette.

Mayor Watson just doesn’t get it. By declaring the Nation’s Capital Officially Bilingual, he would effectively tell the nation and, indeed, all places in the world that really matter, that Quebecérs are a force to be reckoned with. These folks have the power and influence to move governments; they know how to get things done.  Quebecers are just what we Canadians need to transform our nation’s capital, indeed our nation, into really terrific places.

And speaking of Francophone groups, I am heartened to learn that the list of Francophone organizations operating in Ontario runs to 47 pages, with a Table of Contents thirteen pages long. These organizations, dedicated to the welfare of Ontario’s Francophones and financed from our public purse, work diligently and quietly to expand their power and influence in Ontario. We need to encourage such entities, because they are, apparently, desperately needed to preserve, to protect, and to promote French language and culture.

We should also amend Ontario’s French Language Services Act to include funding for all communities of Francophones under our funding umbrella regardless of their numbers. Premier Wynne can simply shift funds from our education and infrastructure budgets, because, I’m convinced, that if our respective circumstances were reversed, Quebécérs would do the same for us.

On the downside, our efforts are encumbered by many unhelpful businesses; restaurants with English-only menus, and shops using price stickers with the dollar sign up front rather than at the back – as in 4.99$. One can only imagine how exasperated Quebecers must be.

And then we suffered through that embarrassing Air Canada/Sprite debacle. Canadians, realizing that Quebecers would be further victimized, were mortified. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Air Canada and, perhaps, causing Quebecers considerable angst.

Determined to get it right, Canada hired Graham Fraser, a latter-day Bulldog Drummond, to deal with such miscreants. Mr. Fraser runs the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages.

With an annual budget of 20$ million, the OCOL receives some 800 complaints per year, examines the minutiae of our sins, and dutifully reports them to the Federal Government.

At a cost of ~$25,000$ per complaint, some churlish Canadians point out that Mr. Fraser is little more than a high-end tattletale. They point out that OCOL’s 20M$ annual stipend would send two or three hundred young Canadians through four years of university.

I say we disregard his generous budget, and consider that Mr. Fraser, by his very presence, if not his handiwork, must surely be a terrific morale booster for Quebecers, and, of course, further evidence that Canada cares.

On learning recently that Quebec does not have an Office of Anglophone Affairs, Mr. Fraser promptly called for one. Premier Couillard said, in effect, “Vous plaisantez!”, and I agree!  Mon Diéu, such a move would surely undermine Canada’s diligent efforts to preserve, to protect, and to promote the French language and culture. Just imagine if we had to pitch in to preserve, protect, and promote the English language and culture in Quebec as well!

Since we are discussing costs, other churlish Canadians grump about the costs of official bilingualism. I say, costs must not be considered a drag on the economy especially since this money is spent on such a national resource as vital as Quebec. 2.4$B a year is a pittance.

When Canadians venture into la Belle Province, we see virtually all French and very little English. In fact, one can travel many miles in Québec and see no English. And that’s as it should be. Bits of English scattered hither and yon serve only to exacerbate Quebecers’ sense of victimhood.

So, is Quebec an avid, productive, resourceful, diligent partner in building a healthy, vibrant nation? I say definitely not! Canada must work much harder on this file. As I mentioned earlier, we must increase funding to Francophone organizations in Ontario, and the other provinces, and eliminate the degrading restriction, “Where numbers warrant’.

We must also increase Quebéc’s share of equalization transfers from 50% of the total to, at least, 75%. How are they to otherwise increase, or even maintain, their ever popular subsidies for tuition, daycare, and electricity? At $1.3B$ per month, the cost of keeping Quebec in Confederation is fair value.

Quebec currently receives only 40% of all corporate subsidies. I say that la belle province should get much, much more, especially now that Bombardier is ailing – again.

And speaking of this iconic Quebec corporation, some churlish Canadians are demanding that Bombardier repay the 1.3$ billion in loans it has received from Industry Canada since 1966. I say, forget it; if Bombardier can’t pay it back, so be it. And besides, being a Quebec company, Bombardier most assuredly needs special considerations.

Another disparity that needs to be fixed involves Newfoundland’s Churchill Falls Power Generating Station. Quebec’s take from this facility is only 1,700M$ per year, while Newfoundland gets a whopping 63M$. Because Quebecers’ needs are far greater than those of Newfoundlanders’, our East Coast brethren should turn its share over to Québec.

Ontario spends about $1,275 per minority person – including Francophones, while Québec spends about 85$ per minority person – mostly Anglophones.  I urge Premier Wynne to visit the bond market and ramp this number up, and Premier Couillard to spend far less on resident Canadians. We are not the needy ones in this nation.

Despite my optimism concerning Quebecers’ aspirations to be an equal partner, the folks with whom I discuss these matters remain bitterly hostile. They insist that equal partners we are not; this relationship is horribly lop-sided. They say Canadians are givers and Quebecers are takers. They liken Canada to a big hose gushing cash into Quebec’s pond - a pond that leaks a lot! I urge patience; leaky ponds can, perhaps, be patched. Which is essentially what Madam Justice Charbonneau may be attempting to do. Considering Quebec’s comfortable relationship with its endemic corruption, we wish Madam bon chance avec ça!

My friends insist that, by their indifference toward Canada’s generosity, Quebecers demonstrate their deep sense of entitlement and of contempt. If Quebecers were interested in an equal partnership, they would, as do other cultures in Canada, earn their way rather than suck up billions in welfare.

My friends tell me that, contrary to popular belief, Quebecers haven’t the slightest interest in sharing power with Canadians. As evidence, they point to the Cornwall General Hospital, a bellwether facility governed, of late, by Francophones, and which is now a place where Canadian workers are no longer welcome. I say that Quebecers are just gaining much needed managerial experience. If they intend to govern Ontario as well as Canadians occasionally do, they need to start small and learn along the way.

My friends point out, at times darkly, that our new constitution and language legislation are monstrous. These things are coercive, intrusive, cumbersome, burdensome, horribly expensive, and seriously biased to favour Quebecers. They insist these two national initiatives, terrific achievements they may be, do not unite our two solitudes; they divide.

In my darker moments, I agree.

Quebec government opposes expanded access to French language instruction

Fears it will result in expanded access to English-language education in Quebec

 By Taylor C. Noakes

CJAD 800 AM News-Talk-Radio

The Quebec government has appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada to prevent expanding access to French language education for Francophone minority communities in the rest of Canada. Quebec has argued that expanding access to French language instruction outside Quebec may result in having to also expand access to English language instruction in Quebec, which the provincial government argues may result in potentially ‘grave consequences’ here in La Belle Province.

The issue at hand is Article 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which provides a guarantee for minority language education rights throughout Canada. The demand for French language education outside Quebec has been on the rise for many years, and generally speaking, public Francophone school boards outside Quebec have not adhered to the strictest interpretation of Article 23.

For roughly 20 years, multiple provincial governments have ignored the strict limitations of the article so as to accommodate more students than would otherwise be permitted (such as children whose parents weren't educated in French, or the children of French-speaking immigrants who settle outside Quebec).

In 2009 the Supreme Court forced the Yukon territorial government to open its doors to new admissions and provide the necessary financial support for increased enrolment. However, the appellate court sided with the territorial government, which is why the issue is back before the SCOC.

Quebec’s appeal to the Supreme Court to maintain the strict interpretation of the law is as a consequence of the same article’s potential impact on access to English-language education.

If access to French schools is expanded outside Quebec, it also means access to English schools would have to be expanded in Quebec.

The Quebec government has argued that ‘any increase in administrative control (regarding access to English schools) for the linguistic minority would have grave consequences on the protection of the French language in Quebec.

The half dozen groups representing Canada’s Francophone minority communities outside Quebec, who are also presenting their arguments to the Supreme Court, are reportedly dumbfounded with Quebec’s actions.

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http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/2015/01/25/quebec-government-opposes-expanded-access-to-french-language-instruction#.VMUDFUeLqTo.facebook

"Let Them Learn French": Canada's Bilingual Elite Hold All the Power

By J. J. McCullough

Huffington Post, March 17, 2014

According to the 2011 census, only 17% of Canadians claim fluency in both official languages. An English journalist who tweets in French is thus purposely engaging in a weird sort of audience-alienating behaviour, and I've never understood precisely what motivates it.

Not that I begrudge anyone who's proud they can do it, given that knowledge of French is the price of admission to the upper echelons of the Canadian elite.

To be prime minister of Canada you have to know French. To be governor general of Canada you have to know French. To be chief justice of the Supreme Court you have to know French (and debate rages about the other eight). To be head of the Bank of Canada, the Canadian armed forces, the CRTC, or the CBC you have to know French.

In 2012 Parliament voted unanimously in favour of making it mandatory for the "auditor-general, the chief electoral officer and a number of commissioners, including those for privacy, information and ethics" to know French. Above a certain rank, most federal bureaucrats (regardless of what province they work in) invariably hit a promotional glass ceiling unless they know French.

This is an awful lot of power to concentrate in just 17% of the population. If you heard of some third world dump where a linguistic minority of less than 20% held a permanent, legally-protected monopoly on all of the country's top jobs, you'd probably think it wasn't much of a democracy.

You'd be right. Discriminatory, arbitrary barriers to full civic participation remain a blight no matter where they're practiced, and we undermine any pretence of being a truly egalitarian nation when we seek to normalize or rationalize them. Yet a lot of Canadians seem distressingly eager to do so.

Premier Brad Wall of Saskatchewan recently laughed off the idea that he had prime ministerial ambitions by quipping "I struggle with one official language," as if lack of fluency in a tongue only 0.5% of his constituents speak at home was a perfectly rational reason for excluding Canada's most popular and competent provincial politician from higher office.

Justin Trudeau once quipped that non-bilinguals are simply "lazy," a Marie Antoinette-like bit of victim-blaming ("Let them learn French!") popular with segments of the Canadian elite who simply can't fathom why more peasants can't find the time to study an exotic dying language utterly irrelevant to their daily lives.

Since the party's 2011 Francofication, the NDP has never missed an opportunity to clamour that ever-larger segments of federal jobs should be exclusively reserved for bilinguals, while the Prime Minister has honed a habit of ostentatiously opening with French in absolutely every speech he delivers -- even when speaking to the White House press corps or the Israeli Knesset.

Journalists and academics have long played a role in this "unilingual shaming" as well, posting long, untranslated French quotations in books or articles, excessively praising the merits of being "fluently bilingual" when evaluating the suitability of potential leaders, and of course, drifting in and out of French in supposedly public forums before overwhelmingly unilingual, English audiences -- including social media.

Consciously or not, this sort of thing helps foster class anxiety and self-loathing in the 83% of Canadians who were unfortunate enough not to grow up in urbane Montreal households or spend a couple semesters in Paris, and normalizes the idea, as Jean Chretien once said of himself, that bilinguals are simply "better Canadians" who deserve to be in charge of everything. It's even worse when such smugness is accompanied by condescending untruths about just how easy it is to learn a second language later in life, or how welcoming Canada's existing bilingual elite is towards those who try.

There is a case to be made in favor of institutionalized bilingualism. 60-ish% of Quebec residents claim to speak French exclusively, and Ottawa has an obligation to not make their relationship with the state unduly difficult. But Canada's cult of bilingualism has clearly mutated well beyond that humble, utilitarian goal into something far more destructive and disturbing, giving rise to a kind of permanently stratified society in which a bilingual ruling class inhabit a privileged bubble that insulates them from appreciating the rareness of the peculiar talent they possess, or empathizing with those who lack it.

People can speak -- and tweet -- in whatever language they want, but Canada's second-class, 83% majority have equal right to recoil from an overzealous, ostracizing culture of bilingualism, which is not, nor has ever been, rational, given the demographic realities of this overwhelmingly English country.

The self-serving Francocentric affections of our betters are particularly worth noting amid all the furious denunciations of the separatist threat filling the nation's editorial pages lately, in anticipation of Premier Marois' supposedly looming re-election.

After all, should Quebec finally leave, Canada's bilingual elite would suddenly be robbed of the primary justification for their existence.

You can forgive them if they seem a bit testy.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jj-mccullough/bilingual-elite-canada_b_4977174.html

Truths About Canadian Bilingualism

On January 24, one Hugo Rodriques wrote a piece praising bilingualism in Canada; it is published here:

http://www.standard-freeholder.com/2015/01/24/vive-la-francophonie-in-cornwall-and-sdg

On January 25, Jamie Gilcig, Cornwall Free News, responded. His piece follows.

Hugo Rodrigues, Here Are Some Truths About Bilingualism in Canada

Cornwall Free News

By: Jamie Gilcig, January 25, 2015

CFN – Hugo Rodrigues, editor of the Standard Freeholder and President of the CAJ, recently wrote an article about bilingualism.

I am a refugee of Quebec.   I left, and most likely will never return simply because of the fact that the people of Quebec, after nearly sixty years of their Quiet Revolution do not support the values that Mr. Rodrigues supports in his column.

Canada is one of the kindest and considerate countries in many ways, but since the days of Pierre Trudeau there has been a Pax Francophonie across this country that has not turned it into some idealistic bilingual Mecca, but has simply given huge advantages to one segment of society over another.

Is that right?  Has it helped Canada?  In my opinion it hasn’t.  The investment this country has made in Francophone services, education, etc has been a very costly social experiment, but essentially a pointless one.  If Quebec itself, with its majority French population, doesn’t support bilingualism, what the heck is the rest of Canada doing, and why?

In a country with two official languages, fluency in both is always an asset, even if you’re living somewhere where one of them is rarely ever heard. Knowing any language that is present with any significance in your community is always a powerful asset too.

Sorry Hugo.  The only advantage to being bilingual in Canada is to gain employment because of artificial barriers created by government agencies.  Isn’t that nuts?  Our Tax dollars creating limits to employment and giving one segment an advantage over another?

In Quebec you really don’t get an advantage if you are a Francophone that speaks English.   Bill 101 and other laws that wouldn’t pass the sniff test at the United Nations push for 100% French work places to the point where we have seen grocery stores sanction employees for chatting with each other in English.

In Quebec the Civil service and other government agencies essentially discriminate against English speaking citizens as the numbers clearly show.   This sadly has encroached into health care where there have also been cases of EMS staff refusing to speak to patients in English.

There is no organic economic spin off for Canada to be bilingual.  Our biggest trading partner is the US.  French in the US  offers no Economic advantages.  Spanish does.  Heck Chinese does.  French, not so much.

The response on our comment boards was disappointing – which is quite the statement if you read through them often. We clearly have readers who cannot let go of a distaste for decisions made almost two generations ago and speak from a position of ignorance that being an Anglophone in this community allows them.

Ouch.  Hugo the Canadian people were never put to the question about bilingualism in Canada.  It essentially was a linguistic coup d’etat.   Let go?  Of a gross social injustice that has fractured families and nearly led to the dissolution of our great Country that has survived in spite of official bilingualism?

Yet the proof is in the pudding. Across Canada, even in those areas where French is rarely heard, enrolment in French-language education programs is steady or growing while overall enrolment shrinks. Why?

Well Mr. Rodrigues, I would wager school enrolment is up because many parents justifiably so wish their children to gain access to jobs artificially mandated to be bilingual including our military where it’s very hard to get a promotion past Major without being bilingual.

We are a bilingual region in a bilingual province and country. If we could choose to learn something at a reasonably easy cost that gives us an advantage, why wouldn’t we? To argue against someone else being able to do so, or get angry when the advantage it gives them benefits them is beyond silly.

Hugo we are not a bilingual province.  We in Cornwall live in an area that has a larger French population chiefly due to our location close to the Province of Quebec.

Quebec does not allow certain inter-provincial trade and has linguistic laws that make it very difficult for many Canadian companies from Ontario to work in the province.  Ontario does not have those road blocks which is why you see so many Quebec companies working on projects in Cornwall, especially in construction for example.

It’s time to admit that bilingualism is holding back our great country. Quebec is a French Province.  The Rest of Canada clearly is predominately English and English should be the official working language as French is in Quebec. There just isn’t any reason to support a policy for a small portion of the population at great cost when the reciprocal isn’t being done in la belle province.

The lines should be clear and we really should stop spending billions of tax dollars trying to change the reality.

To suggest that uni-lingual French people should have the right to all services in French in every place across Canada just doesn’t make sense, especially when Quebec seems to make a point of refusing to offer English services to people that didn’t wander into Quebec, but for many were a huge part of its growth in cities like Montreal.

If we are going to have National policies like Bilingualism they have to be observed Nationally.  That is not happening, and clearly never will.

So Hugo I think you owe Ontario an apology for saying we’re a bilingual province when we’re not.  Cornwall btw, isn’t a bilingual city either.  And it probably never will be.

That being said I have no problem with any culture supporting and advocating for itself.  When the Richelieu Society wanted to pay for a flag pole in Lamoureux Parc at its own expense, I was a full supporter of their initiative, but it’s time for the countless agencies and groups, that are publicly funded on the tax payers dime, to stop getting our dollars.  It’s time for our government to realize that they can offer services in 2015 to unilingual French speakers who chose to reside outside of Quebec without huge swathes of Federal, provincial, and even municipal workers having to be bilingual.

And the sooner we make these lines clear the sooner we can invest those dollars in health care, education, and infrastructure instead of a dream that never will come to be of value.

And it’s time to truly consult the people of Canada about bilingualism.

And Hugo, if you’d like to have an on-camera debate about Official Bilingualism I’m game - if you are.

* * * *

http://cornwallfreenews.com/2015/01/hugo-rodrigues-here-are-some-truths-about-bilinguaism-in-canada-by-jamie-gilcig-jan-25-2015/

In Response to a Plea from Thomas Mulcair for Money

Sir,

I do not vote NDP.  I am a firm believer in capitalism, free markets, and governments that shun excessive welfare and regulation.  Governments that coddle their people with too much welfare and needless services, transform many independent folks into dependents. My motto is simple: the more governments do for their people, the less their people can do for themselves.

My political heroes are Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Joey Smallwood, and Peter Lougheed.  Tommy Douglas was a well-meaning man, but I did not vote CCF because I distrusted his progressive inclinations.  I once believed that John Diefenbaker might be a good PM, but he fell short. When he cancelled the AVRO CF-105, my modest admiration for the man turned to scorn.

Pierre Trudeau, with his Francophone-enabling multiculturalist policies, his cumbersome, coercive, intrusive, and immensely costly language legislation, was, undoubtedly, our worst Prime Minister. His National Energy Program was an absolute disgrace and an immense burden on Alberta. I despised the man and I despise his memory.

I believe that Jack Layton was a self-serving man who, had he become PM, would have enriched himself at the expense of the nation.  And, quite frankly Mr. Mulcair, having watched, listened, and studied you since Mr. Layton died, I am inclined to believe that you may well be cut from the same cloth. 

I do not particularly like Stephen Harper, but I vote for his party because I distrust him far less than I distrust either you or Justin Trudeau.  I believe that if either you or Mr. Trudeau were to form the government, you would not only seriously mismanage Canada, but you would also eagerly give Quebec ever more of Canada's, i.e. Alberta's, wealth than that besotted province is currently receiving, and certainly far, far more that it deserves or, indeed, has earned. 

Quebec is a millstone on this nation. It is the only province that has earned the title of the most corrupt place in Canada - ever. It is a place in which corporations, governments, and politicians walk hand-in-hand with the Mafia.  And not only are Quebecers seemingly comfortable with corrupt practices, they are also imbued with such a deep sense of entitlement that it beggars the imagination.  

Mr. Mulcair, it can't have escaped your notice that Quebecers have matured little since the days of their French ancestors.  Napoleon Bonaparte, an astute observer and not one to mince words, once described the French as "de grains de sable, epars, sans systeme, sans reunion, sans contract". In other words, Mr. Mulcair, Quebecers are, in essence, neither chalk nor cheese.

Politicians who favour transferring ever more money into that swamp of petulant, corrupt, statist, and inept people, and who are intent on forcing official bilingualism into the nation’s fabric, must be cast in the very same mold. I gather that you, sir, are just such a politician.

Gerry Porter
Ottawa
December 22, 2014

How the feds poisoned the well of official bilingualism

Ottawa Citizen, August 29, 2014

By Kelly Egan

On Sept. 9, Canada’s Official Languages Act turns 45.

Expect no candles, no cake: 1969 is a foreign country, never to be visited again.

The idea of an officially bilingual city of Ottawa is an idea that was born in that era, only to slip into a coma from which it sometimes wakes.

A group is lately pushing the proposal as a 2017 project (Canada’s 150th), and there was Ottawa-Vanier MP Mauril Bélanger supporting the idea in a newspaper interview this week.

Many, including Mayor Jim Watson, have indicated this is a bird without wings, destined to stay flightless for the foreseeable future.

But no one has expounded on the real reason, which is this: In a government town like Ottawa, where thousands have been forced to drink the Kool-Aid, the feds have poisoned the well.

The workers in the public service know that official bilingualism, which is a fine idea in theory, has been implemented in a way that makes people cynical, if not crazy.

Designated jobs. Language training. Oversight bodies. Endless translation. Put it all together and, from the rank and file, you hear stories of colossal career frustration, wasted millions, immense personal stress — all of which produces a work environment where English still dominates and a person’s “weak” language is used for pleasantries at the start of meetings.

I’ve written close to 1,500 columns since 2003 and no topic generates as much feedback as codified bilingualism in the public service. The level of simmering resentment, in a workforce already demoralized, is scary.

Rightly or wrongly, people see careers topped out, advancement of the less qualified, language training that takes months, or years, to no great avail. The total cost is only to be gaped at.

Watson, of course, knows this and he’d be a fool to invite this multi-spoke language machinery into everyday municipal life.

We actually know, by using unofficial bilingualism, how to get along in this city.

Once you enshrine these things in law, you get the guy who takes Air Canada to court because he couldn’t order a 7Up or Sprite in French. Or somebody complaining about John Baird’s mostly English twitter account. Or inspectors checking out signs in airports.

Take a flip through the public materials offered by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. Honestly, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

We live in a country where wounded military veterans are on the verge of suicide for lack of timely help and young native women, culturally adrift, are being dumped dead by the side of the road. And we have money to spend on an inspector who ensures signs at airports are fully in both languages?

“In 2012, the Office of the Commissioner conducted 1,792 observations in eight international airports in Canada to determine how well airport authorities and federal institutions were meeting their obligations under Part IV of the Act, which concerns communications with and services to the public,” reads the office’s last annual report, followed by charts galore.

To read this stuff is to be left speechless.

“Over the past five years, the $1.1 billion Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality 2008-2013: Acting for the Future has been the federal government’s primary tool in supporting official languages.”

$1.1 billion roadmap? How about $1.1 billion on an actual road?

It is not, of course, the fault of the commission. It is merely the cop/carrot or inspector/enforcer that needs to be set up when language is “officially” set up as a legal right in the workplace and service world.

Surprisingly, if such a thing is still possible in this language sphere, the most complained about federal institution under Part VII of act, from 2009 to 2013, was CBC/Radio-Canada. It had 896 complaints over the loss of French broadcasting in Windsor.

In Ottawa, as we daily inhale this stuff, we love to whine.

“Most complaints received by the Commissioner between 2009 and 2013 came from the National Capital Region and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and primarily concerned a lack of French on the part of federal institutions.”

In Ottawa, meanwhile, there was a brief flap when incoming fire chief John deHooge was hired in 2009 without the ability to fluently speak French. I know, yes, the horror. He pledged to take lessons and one can only hope Vanier or Orléans is not burning because he’s busy looking up the word feu.

Ottawa should not stay away from official bilingualism because it’s a terrible idea. We should stay away because we don’t have a sensible plan to make it work, only a bad one to run from.

From: http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/egan-how-the-feds-poisoned-the-well-of-official-bilingualism

Quebec: Les Enfants

By Kim McConnell, Canadians For Language Fairness

From: http://languagefairness.net/

Canadians who, initially, were deeply concerned about the Official Languages Act (OLA) and its disastrous consequences, are getting old.  When this battle for the English language was started (by APEC – Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada in 1977* - see below for short history), there were many public servants who were directly affected.  It wasn’t too difficult for APEC to get the attention and support of English-speaking public servants and get them to write letters and organize protests. 

Remember that, since the passage of the Official Languages Act (1969), Canada was under the control of the Liberal government (except for the short stint under Mulroney), and it wasn’t until 2006 that Stephen Harper’s government took over. 

During the years between 1969 and 2006, the Liberals - led mostly by Quebecers - made huge strides in increasing the power and influence of Francophones simply by entrenching Official Bilingualism, the Official Languages Act, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in our Constitution. Francophones gained even more power when Quebec-friendly policies, such as Equalization Payments and Multiculturalism, transferred massive amounts of cash into Francophone hands, and allowed them to establish thousands of well-organized, and well-funded, Francophone groups right across Canada.  It is very easy to attract prominent leaders to your cause when generous funding is readily available.

Anglophone politicians are easily cowed into silence by the threat of legal challenges mounted by the well-funded French groups. Not a single Anglo politician has spoken against these measures because they know that the courts and judges are governed by a Constitution mandated to Protect, Preserve and Promote the French language. 

In 2012, Galganov and Brisson mounted a legal challenge to the Russell Township by-law which declares that all business signs must be in English and French, and that it is illegal to use any other language. Even as the judges admitted that the bylaw infringed Section 2b (Freedom of Expression) of the Charter, they applied their interpretation of the Notwithstanding clause (clause 1) to over-ride that infringement.

So, having no recourse to our justice system, Canadians can either meekly accept the tragedy of Official Bilingualism – or we can fight back.  We expect that, as more Canadians understand why we are fighting so hard against the Frenchification of Canada, they will pressure the Conservative government to curtail the immense, unearned, power and influence given to the French.  The CPC is already doing it in small steps (such as ending the $800 annual bilingual bonus to people who got their jobs because they were bilingual).  This was initiated in the CRA, but I’m not sure if it has been extended to other departments. 

The unions (controlled mainly by the French-speaking public servants) are a powerful group (weren’t they largely responsible for the recent Wynne government’s majority victory in Ontario?), so the Conservative government has to tread carefully. They are hoping that tax cuts resulting from cut-backs in the public service might persuade Canadians that money in their pockets is better than money sent to the government in the form of taxes.  We have about 30 – 40% of Canadians who perpetually live off the government so it is up to the rest of us to make sure that the socialist parties like the Liberals and the NDP don’t assume power next year!

Kilroy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWcMg6pKxHg) has done excellent work in reaching more people with his very effective videos, and I have attached some to this message.  We need more young people to help us fight because it is really their future at stake.  If anyone has ideas that we haven’t tried, please feel free to forward them.  In the meantime, do what Sharon has suggested – keep a short message that you can send to any company that gives prominence to the French language as opposed to the English language, and ask them why.  A threat to boycott their product will also help – several people have sent me examples of their own efforts to do this and these efforts have brought results.

As I say, this is not just a battle for Canadians for Language Fairness – it is a battle that all Canadians must take on as their own.

Here are two links to some very effective video messages that Kilroy has created:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abOWJkf-Vh8&feature=player_detailpage#t=579

Complete video on Quebec and how the French are using the OLA to retake Canada from the English victory on the Plains of Abraham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW33xkVB-oI&hd=1

The boiling frog syndrome

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_the_Preservation_of_English_in_Canada