Bilingualism fiasco heating up

Canadians for Language Fairness, September 8, 2011

By Kim McConnell 

The battle against the Official Languages Act (1969) has been going on since its inception by many people who saw how the Act was going to be disastrous for the English-speaking majority of Canada. Too many people of the Liberal mind-set saw NO problem with giving a minority the reins of power and unfortunately for us, they still exist, especially in Quebec.

Many people have criticized the Harper government for not doing anything to rescind the Act which we all know they are not totally in support of. However, that task will be a long and arduous one because the Canadian people are still very divided about Official Bilingualism. The fact that a whole new industry has grown up around the language debate means that there is a lot of vested interest in keeping in going. The translation industry is huge and the billions spent because even perfectly bilingual public servants don’t trust their own grasp of the language to be able to write their own documents.

A letter to the Ottawa Citizen says: “The City of Ottawa spends $1.8 million annually on translation - alone”.  The Federal government’s translation costs are even higher: The Department of National Defence has been trying to comply with the Official Languages Act and have doubled their translation costs since 2005. The bill went from $11.5 million in 2005 to more than $23.8 million last year. This year, so far, National Defence has spent $14.2 million on translation costs!

Apart from the cost of translation, there are literally thousands of French-language organizations, each given a very generous grant to “protect, preserve and promote” the French language and culture. Their collective voices can be pretty loud and most governments are afraid of these vocal groups. Without financial assistance, the English-rights groups cannot be quite as effective because they lack the funds to carry their messages to the public in general.

I say again, thank God for the Sun media & especially to SunTV – the only TV station that dares to challenge the obviously discriminatory effect of the OLA which is slowly but surely leaching down to provincial and municipal levels.

New Brunswick is facing a particularly difficult time as the Arcadians demand more French-only services while demanding that all English-language institutions become bilingual.

Just in case Ontarians think that we don’t need to worry because our percentage of French-speakers is so low (just over 4%), think again!!! The Liberal government under Dalton McGuinty (with pressure from Madeleine Meilleur) is ensuring that they can create more Francophones by classifying anyone who speaks French as a Francophone.

Even the attempt to make Ontarians more aware that they are being marginalized in so many ways (e.g. signs that place French first and to the left, disregarding the F.I.P) as is being done by the Ontario Parks Authority, is not meeting with over-whelming success. People are just not worried about being dominated by Quebecers!!!

The brain-washing effect of Official Bilingualism has created many Canadians who blithely repeat the mantra, “Canada is a bilingual country” without even considering the fact that, with only 12% of Canadians truly bilingual, and a province – Quebec - that has declared itself officially French, Canada cannot be, and will never be, bilingual!

Until and unless we can persuade more Canadians to join the fight to abolish the OLA, the Conservative government has to obey the Act.

I’m hoping that, behind the scenes, they are doing things like making “where numbers warrant” an enforceable guideline for the policy. We are not anti-French and don’t want those who speak only French to be denied service.  “Where numbers warrant” should be defined so that they do get government service where it makes numerical sense. As it is now, it is enforced right across the board so that ALL public services in Ottawa are controlled by French-speakers.

I was at the Ottawa General Hospital a few days ago, and all staff members were speaking French, which means that they are all Quebecers working in an Ontario hospital. If you speak English only, don’t expect a job in any provincial or federal government office.

Anyway, judging from the comments regarding Angelo Persichilli, the PM’s new Communications Director, you can see that there are more people speaking up about this travesty of justice. Add your voice to the growing storm.

Should bilingualism be a requirement for senior officials in government?

Kim McConnell