Sign the petition.
Joe_Stalin @ Sun Apr 27, 2008 7:43 pm
$1:
Canadians for Language Fairness Inc.
P.O. Box 40111
Bank & Hunt Club Postal Outlet
2515 Bank Street.
Ottawa, ON, K1V 0W8
Tel (613) 321-7333 Fax (613) 524-3247
Website: www.languagefairness.ca Email: [email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 27, 2008
Graham Fraser's office costs Canadians $18.2 Million a year (according to the Ottawa Citizen, Oct/08/03) and to earn his very high salary, he has to do everything possible to promote the policy of Official Bilingualism. This includes chastizing newspaper columnists whom he accuses of not doing adequate research. As more & more mainstream columnists write about this glaring example of a failed social-engineering policy and the billions wasted on the futile attempt to bilingualize Canadians, our case for opposing it gets stronger. I have done a great disservice to Randall Denley's efforts to enlighten his readers. I have not circulated these excellent efforts. On January 26th, he wrote, "Bilingualism a very low glass ceiling in Public Works" & on February 10th, he wrote, "Time to rethink raison d'être for bilingualism". Both are excellent articles and if anyone has missed them, I'll be very happy to pass them on. It seems the public service unions are finally getting upset with this policy - they should be - they are the ones who are suffering the most!!! The rest of us are just opposing this policy as a matter of principle - we believe that it is wrong to impose a policy that puts the majority under the control of the minority, based solely on their knowledge of the minority language.
Dan Gardner wrote an eye-opening article entitled, "Bilingualism Nonsense" on April 18th which was circulated last week & is still available at this link:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/new ... 8586f72770
Graham Fraser, our esteemed Language Commissar, wrote a response which is reproduced below and his inane arguments enraged Mike N. so much that he had to write a response. Thank you, Mike!!! Somebody had to straighten Mr. Fraser out.
I have responded to many people who have asked for the petition requesting the Conservative government to shelve Bernard Lord's report but I've been asked to reproduce it as part of the CLF message. Each sheet only carries 5 signatures so that it won't be difficult for people to collect signatures from family members & friends. If you find the formatting not suitable, please contact me and I can either send you the form as an attachment or I can mail you several copies if you will send me your address.
Kim
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Response to Graham Fraser’s letter in the Citizen
It’s no surprise when Canada’s highly placed mandarins have unrestricted access to the Ottawa Citizen whenever they wish to reproach some little person with the full weight of their office. I’m referring to the letter by Mr. Graham Fraser, Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages (Apr. 23/08), who was commenting on Dan Gardner’s column that criticized the mandating of bilingualism for New Brunswick’s RCMP officers.
First we read a remarkable admission from Mr. Fraser, that Canada’s language policies must be vigorously debated. This would be funny were it not so sad. The Ottawa Citizen has rigorously stifled debate on the “language issue” until very recently, and has given large amounts of newsprint for government mandarins such as Denis Coderre and Graham Fraser, for instance, to quote government ideology and to stifle any opposition. The government itself brooks no negative comments about its language policies, avoiding them entirely: witness Bernard Lord’s cross-country trip that bypassed Ottawa.
It is indeed ironic that our language czar decries Mr. Gardener’s use of “cocktail party clichés” by responding with his own clichés, official Liberal party dogma. “Linguistic duality” is a political slogan with little basis in reality, given that less than 5% of Canadians outside of Quebec cite French as their mother tongue. This fact from Stats Can puts lie to the ridiculous notion of Canada’s “linguistic duality”. But Mr. Fraser tosses the “linguistic duality” slogan around like, well, a cocktail party cliché.
Were the government to enshrine the culture of cod fishing into the constitution, our government would develop “occupational duality”, and mandate that all new hires must have fished cod in addition to their principal job. This would certainly favour one particular “minority group” or region, say Newfoundland. And let’s face it, that’s what “linguistic duality” is all about, favouring one region and one minority group.
Mr. Fraser shamelessly suggests the French language requirement barrier that visible minorities face getting a job with the federal public service is a theory, which is apparently being “thrown around” (surely by malingerers and whiners at cocktail parties). He cannot grasp that if a person sees that they do not meet an arbitrary requirement to speak a minority language and are rejected a few times for it, THEY GIVE UP. Fraser points to research done on visible minority access to government jobs and I have to ask how can this phenomenon be documented by researchers, when all the people these researchers had access to are the people who persevered to get that government job? Of course, these people would report that it wasn’t much of a barrier; after all, they succeeded! Strange, too, that the government didn’t research the impact of the French language requirement barrier on people other than visible minorities i.e. the majority, English-speaking Canadians, after all, aren’t we all Canadians?
Mr. Fraser also states that Canadians “want their federal government to be able to function in both languages”. This statement I would characterize as a deliberate distortion, if not an outright lie, and I challenge Mr. Fraser to quote his source word for word on this. Canadians do want front-end services in both languages but do they want a government that speaks both languages top to bottom? This I find highly doubtful. In fact, the commissioner goes on to say that “Canadians understand that not everybody has to be bilingual for that to happen”. What can we make of a government official who says that “not everybody has to be bilingual” but ignores the government’s own bilingual imperative hiring policy implemented in 2003, which virtually guarantees that the position is a bilingual one and that a French speaker, who is about five times more likely to be bilingual than his English counterpart, will get that job.
Mr. Fraser states further that “It is important to be coherent. You cannot provide bilingual services without some bilingual first-line employees. And you cannot have both Anglophones and Francophones working side-by-side delivering services to Canadians without supervisors also speaking both languages.” This is a non-sequitur. Agreed that to provide bilingual services we need bilingual front-line employees. But then we read the last remarkable assertion that masks a giant implication, that the “Francophone” has the right to be supervised in his own language, no matter where he is in Canada. In reality, to provide bilingual front line services, you really only need a few bilingual people, you don’t convert your whole organization to be bilingual just because there are a few on the front line. And if they are truly bilingual, can’t they talk to their bosses in English? But this is the monstrous premise behind Graham Fraser’s statement, borrowed directly from Quebec’s Bill 101 (actually Law 101), the charter of the French language, the Francophone’s right to be supervised in their own language. Truly Canada is becoming Greater Quebec.
Mr. Fraser writes that “it seems only reasonable that the RCMP be required to meet New Brunswick's requirements of bilingualism when it enters into a contract with Canada's only bilingual province.” Since language is the domain of the provinces, I have to wonder why Mr. Fraser is commenting at all. If he were at all concerned about linguistic injustice, he could comment about Quebec’s infamous Law 101, which strips the constitutional and democratic right to freedom of expression from one minority group. But to comment about the greatest linguistic justice of them all, the elephant in the room, Mr. Fraser, like his dogmatic predecessor, would be demonstrating that he wasn’t just a quisling and government stooge after all.
There is a stench rising from Ottawa. It is the stench of mendacity. Lies repeated over and over become the Truth. Echoing Mr. Gardner’s sentiment, I find that very curious indeed.
M.N.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/new ... 150e95e8f6
The Ottawa Citizen : April 23, 2008
Coherence, not myth, needed in language debate
Re: Bilingualism nonsense no longer even registers, April 18
I am the first to argue that Canada's language policies must be vigorously and publicly debated. However, I was disappointed columnist Dan Gardner used Ottawa cocktail party clichés rather than his usual well-researched, systematic approach.
Had he dug a little deeper, he would have seen that the research on the access of visible minorities to the federal public service actually shows bilingual staffing is not a particular obstacle for visible minorities. Members of visible minority groups are just as bilingual (English-French) as Canadians whose mother tongue is English -- in fact, slightly more.
The theory that language requirements are a barrier to visible minorities is just one of several myths about linguistic duality that is being thrown around by commentators.
Maybe, just maybe, the fact that polls indicate Canadians support the basic elements of linguistic duality shows that they understand the issue better than media observers. They want their federal government to be able to function in both languages. Canadians understand that not everybody has to be bilingual for that to happen.
It is important to be coherent. You cannot provide bilingual services without some bilingual first-line employees. And you cannot have both anglophones and francophones working side-by-side delivering services to Canadians without supervisors also speaking both languages.
There is no question language training should be more effective and available to employees early in their career. I have learned of many instances where employees were denied appropriate, long-term language training. As a result, they were left ill-prepared for promotion to a supervisory level, or had to put their work aside for a year-long intensive language course.
Many public servants become bilingual despite this incoherence and some organizations have come up with imaginative ways to help their employees acquire and retain language skills on the job. But we would see a great improvement if the heads of all departments understood bilingualism as a leadership skill to be developed early in a career, rather than a set of requirements to be complied with grudgingly.
Finally, to address the issue that provoked Mr. Gardner's column, it seems only reasonable that the RCMP be required to meet New Brunswick's requirements of bilingualism when it enters into a contract with Canada's only bilingual province. Mr. Gardner suggests that it is curious that Canadians don't find it curious. Again, maybe they think it is normal that a bilingual province should be able to expect a federal agency to provide bilingual service.
Graham Fraser,
Ottawa
Commissioner of Official Languages
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PETITION TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA TO REJECT BERNARD LORD’S FLAWED REPORT ON THE GOVERNMENT CONSULTATIONS ON LINGUISTIC DUALITY AND OFFICIAL LANGUAGES’
WHEREAS on DECEMBER 03, 2007, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages asked Bernard Lord to conduct the above-noted Consultations and then to prepare his Report;
AND WHEREAS Mr. Lord’s final Report {hereinafter referred to as the ‘Lord Report’} was completed in February 2008 and not surprisingly found that the federal policy on Linguistic Duality and Official Languages is a success and notably recommends that the level of funding, in the next phase of the Government’s strategy in this area, “increase substantially, with a minimum allocation of $1 billion over five years”.
AND WHEREAS the ‘Lord Report’ is seriously flawed in that Statistics Canada has confirmed that the federal policy on Linguistic Duality and Official Languages rather than being a ‘success’ it has been a major failure since the percentage of Anglophones, outside of Quebec claiming to be bilingual, has increased by a mere half of one percent (.5) in the ten year period 1996 to 2006 (i.e. from 6.9 to 7.4). Moreover, Canadians who list their mother tongue as English is virtually unchanged since 1951 whereas the percentage of Canadians claiming French as their mother tongue “has declined from 29% to 22.9%” during that same period.
AND WHEREAS the $1 billion expenditure recommended in the ‘Lord Report’ will just add to the untold billions that have already been wasted on this frivolous and detrimental policy;
AND WHEREAS Bernard Lord’s native Province – Quebec, strictly follows a policy of unilingual French and is therefore not receptive to the federal policy on Linguistic Duality and Official Languages in the first place;
THEREFORE, WE THE UNDERSIGNED CANADIANS Petition the Prime Minister of Canada to REJECT the Bernard Lord Report on the Government Consultations on Linguistic Duality and Official Languages tabled with the Government this past February.
Full Name Address Signature_________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please make sure that the names are written clearly. No erasures or white-outs are allowed.
When completed, please send this form to: Canadians for Language Fairness, P.O. Box 40111, Bank & Hunt Club Postal Outlet, 2515 Bank Street, Ottawa, ON K1V 0W8
P.O. Box 40111
Bank & Hunt Club Postal Outlet
2515 Bank Street.
Ottawa, ON, K1V 0W8
Tel (613) 321-7333 Fax (613) 524-3247
Website: www.languagefairness.ca Email: [email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 27, 2008
Graham Fraser's office costs Canadians $18.2 Million a year (according to the Ottawa Citizen, Oct/08/03) and to earn his very high salary, he has to do everything possible to promote the policy of Official Bilingualism. This includes chastizing newspaper columnists whom he accuses of not doing adequate research. As more & more mainstream columnists write about this glaring example of a failed social-engineering policy and the billions wasted on the futile attempt to bilingualize Canadians, our case for opposing it gets stronger. I have done a great disservice to Randall Denley's efforts to enlighten his readers. I have not circulated these excellent efforts. On January 26th, he wrote, "Bilingualism a very low glass ceiling in Public Works" & on February 10th, he wrote, "Time to rethink raison d'être for bilingualism". Both are excellent articles and if anyone has missed them, I'll be very happy to pass them on. It seems the public service unions are finally getting upset with this policy - they should be - they are the ones who are suffering the most!!! The rest of us are just opposing this policy as a matter of principle - we believe that it is wrong to impose a policy that puts the majority under the control of the minority, based solely on their knowledge of the minority language.
Dan Gardner wrote an eye-opening article entitled, "Bilingualism Nonsense" on April 18th which was circulated last week & is still available at this link:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/new ... 8586f72770
Graham Fraser, our esteemed Language Commissar, wrote a response which is reproduced below and his inane arguments enraged Mike N. so much that he had to write a response. Thank you, Mike!!! Somebody had to straighten Mr. Fraser out.
I have responded to many people who have asked for the petition requesting the Conservative government to shelve Bernard Lord's report but I've been asked to reproduce it as part of the CLF message. Each sheet only carries 5 signatures so that it won't be difficult for people to collect signatures from family members & friends. If you find the formatting not suitable, please contact me and I can either send you the form as an attachment or I can mail you several copies if you will send me your address.
Kim
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Response to Graham Fraser’s letter in the Citizen
It’s no surprise when Canada’s highly placed mandarins have unrestricted access to the Ottawa Citizen whenever they wish to reproach some little person with the full weight of their office. I’m referring to the letter by Mr. Graham Fraser, Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages (Apr. 23/08), who was commenting on Dan Gardner’s column that criticized the mandating of bilingualism for New Brunswick’s RCMP officers.
First we read a remarkable admission from Mr. Fraser, that Canada’s language policies must be vigorously debated. This would be funny were it not so sad. The Ottawa Citizen has rigorously stifled debate on the “language issue” until very recently, and has given large amounts of newsprint for government mandarins such as Denis Coderre and Graham Fraser, for instance, to quote government ideology and to stifle any opposition. The government itself brooks no negative comments about its language policies, avoiding them entirely: witness Bernard Lord’s cross-country trip that bypassed Ottawa.
It is indeed ironic that our language czar decries Mr. Gardener’s use of “cocktail party clichés” by responding with his own clichés, official Liberal party dogma. “Linguistic duality” is a political slogan with little basis in reality, given that less than 5% of Canadians outside of Quebec cite French as their mother tongue. This fact from Stats Can puts lie to the ridiculous notion of Canada’s “linguistic duality”. But Mr. Fraser tosses the “linguistic duality” slogan around like, well, a cocktail party cliché.
Were the government to enshrine the culture of cod fishing into the constitution, our government would develop “occupational duality”, and mandate that all new hires must have fished cod in addition to their principal job. This would certainly favour one particular “minority group” or region, say Newfoundland. And let’s face it, that’s what “linguistic duality” is all about, favouring one region and one minority group.
Mr. Fraser shamelessly suggests the French language requirement barrier that visible minorities face getting a job with the federal public service is a theory, which is apparently being “thrown around” (surely by malingerers and whiners at cocktail parties). He cannot grasp that if a person sees that they do not meet an arbitrary requirement to speak a minority language and are rejected a few times for it, THEY GIVE UP. Fraser points to research done on visible minority access to government jobs and I have to ask how can this phenomenon be documented by researchers, when all the people these researchers had access to are the people who persevered to get that government job? Of course, these people would report that it wasn’t much of a barrier; after all, they succeeded! Strange, too, that the government didn’t research the impact of the French language requirement barrier on people other than visible minorities i.e. the majority, English-speaking Canadians, after all, aren’t we all Canadians?
Mr. Fraser also states that Canadians “want their federal government to be able to function in both languages”. This statement I would characterize as a deliberate distortion, if not an outright lie, and I challenge Mr. Fraser to quote his source word for word on this. Canadians do want front-end services in both languages but do they want a government that speaks both languages top to bottom? This I find highly doubtful. In fact, the commissioner goes on to say that “Canadians understand that not everybody has to be bilingual for that to happen”. What can we make of a government official who says that “not everybody has to be bilingual” but ignores the government’s own bilingual imperative hiring policy implemented in 2003, which virtually guarantees that the position is a bilingual one and that a French speaker, who is about five times more likely to be bilingual than his English counterpart, will get that job.
Mr. Fraser states further that “It is important to be coherent. You cannot provide bilingual services without some bilingual first-line employees. And you cannot have both Anglophones and Francophones working side-by-side delivering services to Canadians without supervisors also speaking both languages.” This is a non-sequitur. Agreed that to provide bilingual services we need bilingual front-line employees. But then we read the last remarkable assertion that masks a giant implication, that the “Francophone” has the right to be supervised in his own language, no matter where he is in Canada. In reality, to provide bilingual front line services, you really only need a few bilingual people, you don’t convert your whole organization to be bilingual just because there are a few on the front line. And if they are truly bilingual, can’t they talk to their bosses in English? But this is the monstrous premise behind Graham Fraser’s statement, borrowed directly from Quebec’s Bill 101 (actually Law 101), the charter of the French language, the Francophone’s right to be supervised in their own language. Truly Canada is becoming Greater Quebec.
Mr. Fraser writes that “it seems only reasonable that the RCMP be required to meet New Brunswick's requirements of bilingualism when it enters into a contract with Canada's only bilingual province.” Since language is the domain of the provinces, I have to wonder why Mr. Fraser is commenting at all. If he were at all concerned about linguistic injustice, he could comment about Quebec’s infamous Law 101, which strips the constitutional and democratic right to freedom of expression from one minority group. But to comment about the greatest linguistic justice of them all, the elephant in the room, Mr. Fraser, like his dogmatic predecessor, would be demonstrating that he wasn’t just a quisling and government stooge after all.
There is a stench rising from Ottawa. It is the stench of mendacity. Lies repeated over and over become the Truth. Echoing Mr. Gardner’s sentiment, I find that very curious indeed.
M.N.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/new ... 150e95e8f6
The Ottawa Citizen : April 23, 2008
Coherence, not myth, needed in language debate
Re: Bilingualism nonsense no longer even registers, April 18
I am the first to argue that Canada's language policies must be vigorously and publicly debated. However, I was disappointed columnist Dan Gardner used Ottawa cocktail party clichés rather than his usual well-researched, systematic approach.
Had he dug a little deeper, he would have seen that the research on the access of visible minorities to the federal public service actually shows bilingual staffing is not a particular obstacle for visible minorities. Members of visible minority groups are just as bilingual (English-French) as Canadians whose mother tongue is English -- in fact, slightly more.
The theory that language requirements are a barrier to visible minorities is just one of several myths about linguistic duality that is being thrown around by commentators.
Maybe, just maybe, the fact that polls indicate Canadians support the basic elements of linguistic duality shows that they understand the issue better than media observers. They want their federal government to be able to function in both languages. Canadians understand that not everybody has to be bilingual for that to happen.
It is important to be coherent. You cannot provide bilingual services without some bilingual first-line employees. And you cannot have both anglophones and francophones working side-by-side delivering services to Canadians without supervisors also speaking both languages.
There is no question language training should be more effective and available to employees early in their career. I have learned of many instances where employees were denied appropriate, long-term language training. As a result, they were left ill-prepared for promotion to a supervisory level, or had to put their work aside for a year-long intensive language course.
Many public servants become bilingual despite this incoherence and some organizations have come up with imaginative ways to help their employees acquire and retain language skills on the job. But we would see a great improvement if the heads of all departments understood bilingualism as a leadership skill to be developed early in a career, rather than a set of requirements to be complied with grudgingly.
Finally, to address the issue that provoked Mr. Gardner's column, it seems only reasonable that the RCMP be required to meet New Brunswick's requirements of bilingualism when it enters into a contract with Canada's only bilingual province. Mr. Gardner suggests that it is curious that Canadians don't find it curious. Again, maybe they think it is normal that a bilingual province should be able to expect a federal agency to provide bilingual service.
Graham Fraser,
Ottawa
Commissioner of Official Languages
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PETITION TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA TO REJECT BERNARD LORD’S FLAWED REPORT ON THE GOVERNMENT CONSULTATIONS ON LINGUISTIC DUALITY AND OFFICIAL LANGUAGES’
WHEREAS on DECEMBER 03, 2007, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages asked Bernard Lord to conduct the above-noted Consultations and then to prepare his Report;
AND WHEREAS Mr. Lord’s final Report {hereinafter referred to as the ‘Lord Report’} was completed in February 2008 and not surprisingly found that the federal policy on Linguistic Duality and Official Languages is a success and notably recommends that the level of funding, in the next phase of the Government’s strategy in this area, “increase substantially, with a minimum allocation of $1 billion over five years”.
AND WHEREAS the ‘Lord Report’ is seriously flawed in that Statistics Canada has confirmed that the federal policy on Linguistic Duality and Official Languages rather than being a ‘success’ it has been a major failure since the percentage of Anglophones, outside of Quebec claiming to be bilingual, has increased by a mere half of one percent (.5) in the ten year period 1996 to 2006 (i.e. from 6.9 to 7.4). Moreover, Canadians who list their mother tongue as English is virtually unchanged since 1951 whereas the percentage of Canadians claiming French as their mother tongue “has declined from 29% to 22.9%” during that same period.
AND WHEREAS the $1 billion expenditure recommended in the ‘Lord Report’ will just add to the untold billions that have already been wasted on this frivolous and detrimental policy;
AND WHEREAS Bernard Lord’s native Province – Quebec, strictly follows a policy of unilingual French and is therefore not receptive to the federal policy on Linguistic Duality and Official Languages in the first place;
THEREFORE, WE THE UNDERSIGNED CANADIANS Petition the Prime Minister of Canada to REJECT the Bernard Lord Report on the Government Consultations on Linguistic Duality and Official Languages tabled with the Government this past February.
Full Name Address Signature_________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please make sure that the names are written clearly. No erasures or white-outs are allowed.
When completed, please send this form to: Canadians for Language Fairness, P.O. Box 40111, Bank & Hunt Club Postal Outlet, 2515 Bank Street, Ottawa, ON K1V 0W8
Just do it.
Benoit @ Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:40 am
Stalin would have sent to forced labor camps those Russians who would dare sign a petition!
Bodah @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:55 pm
Bumped...
Someone I know who works for the feds told me the public service is starting to have a hard time staffing alot of the positions in the NCR, since most of them are bilingual mandatory positions. That's what they get when the government limits themselves to 14% of the population to fill jobs with the countrys largest employer.
Couple that with the deluge of civil servants retiring within the next 10 years, they might have to actually start hiring unilingual Canadians, omg the horror.
Bilingualism is finally starting to kill itself. ![[cheer]](./images/smilies/icon_cheers.gif "Cheer"){kind=icon}
Streaker @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 2:11 pm
$1:
the percentage of Anglophones, outside of Quebec claiming to be bilingual, has increased by a mere half of one percent (.5) in the ten year period 1996 to 2006 (i.e. from 6.9 to 7.4)
hmm.... That's something like a 7-8 percent increase over a period of ten years. Not a bad showing at all, actually.
Bodah @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 2:23 pm
Streaker Streaker:
$1:
the percentage of Anglophones, outside of Quebec claiming to be bilingual, has increased by a mere half of one percent (.5) in the ten year period 1996 to 2006 (i.e. from 6.9 to 7.4)
hmm.... That's something like a 7-8 percent increase over a period of ten years. Not a bad showing at all, actually.
You have to take that with a grain of salt, the people that "self-claim" they are bilingual just because they can say. Bonjour, comment ca va ? Ou est la salle de bain. Usually dont do to well when they get put through a real language exam.
Streaker @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 2:26 pm
Do you think people in 2006 are doing more of this "self-claiming" thing than was the case in 1996?
hurley_108 @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 2:32 pm
Bodah Bodah:
Streaker Streaker:
$1:
the percentage of Anglophones, outside of Quebec claiming to be bilingual, has increased by a mere half of one percent (.5) in the ten year period 1996 to 2006 (i.e. from 6.9 to 7.4)
hmm.... That's something like a 7-8 percent increase over a period of ten years. Not a bad showing at all, actually.
You have to take that with a grain of salt, the people that "self-claim" they are bilingual just because they can say. Bonjour, comment ca va ? Ou est la salle de bain. Usually dont do to well when they get put through a real language exam.
If only that was the standard. I'd be octo-lingual. I like to be able to say a few words in as many languages as possible. People really open up when you can say a few words in their language, particularly politeness words like please and thank you.
Zipperfish @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 2:43 pm
Bodah Bodah:
Bumped...
Someone I know who works for the feds told me the public service is starting to have a hard time staffing alot of the positions in the NCR, since most of them are bilingual mandatory positions. That's what they get when the government limits themselves to 14% of the population to fill jobs with the countrys largest employer.
Couple that with the deluge of civil servants retiring within the next 10 years, they might have to actually start hiring unilingual Canadians, omg the horror.
Bilingualism is finally starting to kill itself.
Someone I know who works for the feds told me the public service is starting to have a hard time staffing alot of the positions in the NCR, since most of them are bilingual mandatory positions. That's what they get when the government limits themselves to 14% of the population to fill jobs with the countrys largest employer.
Couple that with the deluge of civil servants retiring within the next 10 years, they might have to actually start hiring unilingual Canadians, omg the horror.
Bilingualism is finally starting to kill itself.
That's why Ottawa is run by Quebecers now. Whihc is bad news for BC and Alberta.
Bodah @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:01 pm
Zipperfish Zipperfish:
Bodah Bodah:
Bumped...
Someone I know who works for the feds told me the public service is starting to have a hard time staffing alot of the positions in the NCR, since most of them are bilingual mandatory positions. That's what they get when the government limits themselves to 14% of the population to fill jobs with the countrys largest employer.
Couple that with the deluge of civil servants retiring within the next 10 years, they might have to actually start hiring unilingual Canadians, omg the horror.
Bilingualism is finally starting to kill itself.
Someone I know who works for the feds told me the public service is starting to have a hard time staffing alot of the positions in the NCR, since most of them are bilingual mandatory positions. That's what they get when the government limits themselves to 14% of the population to fill jobs with the countrys largest employer.
Couple that with the deluge of civil servants retiring within the next 10 years, they might have to actually start hiring unilingual Canadians, omg the horror.
Bilingualism is finally starting to kill itself.
That's why Ottawa is run by Quebecers now. Whihc is bad news for BC and Alberta.
Yup,
I know bilingualism and its impact doesn't register much on peoples radar outside of Ottawa and may seem much to do about nothing for those people. But considering its our government it important enough, it is having a serious impact here in the Ottawa area, its comon knowledge that if your not bilingual in this region good luck at getting a good job. Pack your shit and leave or hope you like busing tables and working at Tims.
The bilingualism policy despite alot of fighting is slowly creeping its way into the city of Ottawa as well, mimicking the federal version.
Theres a reason why they have built more parkways and extra lanes linking Gatineau to Ottawa. See which way the traffic goes in the morning, and which way it heads at night.
sasquatch2 @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:29 pm
I am one of those Canadians who when calling the government, presses 1 for english, or 2 for english, and then if&when somebody answers, you think you pushed the wrong button.
Something I learned from the Quebecois, if the person has anything other than a pure laine accent then it is unacceptable.
That's when I say----Hello...Hello....Hello.....Hello...Hello...Hello....Hello.....Hello...
until I get a click.
fifeboy @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:37 pm
Joe_Stalin Joe_Stalin:
$1:
Canadians for Language Fairness Inc.
P.O. Box 40111
Bank & Hunt Club Postal Outlet
2515 Bank Street.
Ottawa, ON, K1V 0W8
Tel (613) 321-7333 Fax (613) 524-3247
Website: www.languagefairness.ca Email: [email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 27, 2008
Graham Fraser's office costs Canadians $18.2
blah blah blah
P.O. Box 40111
Bank & Hunt Club Postal Outlet
2515 Bank Street.
Ottawa, ON, K1V 0W8
Tel (613) 321-7333 Fax (613) 524-3247
Website: www.languagefairness.ca Email: [email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 27, 2008
Graham Fraser's office costs Canadians $18.2
blah blah blah
I would, except I have to drive my grand daughter to French Immersion.
kenmore @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:49 pm
if all schools were bilingual then there wouldnt be a problem.. both languages could be taught like any other subject and future generations would be fluent in both official languages..money well spent..
fifeboy @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 5:50 pm
kenmore kenmore:
if all schools were bilingual then there wouldnt be a problem.. both languages could be taught like any other subject and future generations would be fluent in both official languages..money well spent..
Benoit @ Wed Apr 30, 2008 7:56 pm
fifeboy fifeboy:
kenmore kenmore:
if all schools were bilingual then there wouldnt be a problem.. both languages could be taught like any other subject and future generations would be fluent in both official languages..money well spent..
The premier of New Brunswick said recently against the immersion program: there is a tradeoff between learning a second language and learning another subject.
fifeboy @ Thu May 01, 2008 4:11 pm
Benoit Benoit:
fifeboy fifeboy:
kenmore kenmore:
if all schools were bilingual then there wouldnt be a problem.. both languages could be taught like any other subject and future generations would be fluent in both official languages..money well spent..
The premier of New Brunswick said recently against the immersion program: there is a tradeoff between learning a second language and learning another subject.