Gained In Translation

What He Said 62 Comments

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose! – Revisited…

The rate of unilingualism among francophones is 58 per cent. Among anglophones, it was 90.6 per cent. Among allophones, 87.9 per cent.
Thus, according to the conventional wisdom as enunciated by Graham Fraser, the overwhelming majority of Canadians should never be considered for any of Canada’s top jobs.

h/t John D.

62 Replies to “Gained In Translation”

  1. It also demonstrates that without massive tax funding and punitive law making, English Canada has a much stronger language and culture than Quebec does.
    See Quebec …. you catch a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar.
    We don’t want to speak French because we resent your position in Canada and your moe-dze Englais attitude.

  2. Once again the tail wags the dog. In this case,I nominate Chief Clarence Louis of the Osoyoos Band for G-G.
    He’s a Canadian that’s accomplished a great deal for his people,and Canadians in general with his positive get-off-your-ass-and -work message and he IS bilingual, though I don’t believe his second language is French.

  3. Turdeau’s legacy, our constitution, the Quebec and Legal Full Employment Act.

  5. I don’t think it’s the case that ‘we don’t want to speak French’ out of resentment against Quebec.
    We don’t speak French because we don’t need to; we don’t use it in our everyday interactions on the street, the markets, businesses etc. A language is only viable when it’s functionally used.
    To impose a language on a people – as Canada has done with its bilingualism – is an authoritarian act. You can’t make a people speak a language unless they use it in daily life.
    I maintain that Trudeau’s Charter of Rights has nothing to do with Canadian rights – and its clauses are contradictory on this – and everything to do with setting up official bilingualism. Most of the Charter deals with that.
    The enormous financial costs of enforcing bilingualism, of having every two-cent post office necessarily staffing someone bilingual, of requiring all federally funded institutions to have bilingual staff (eg, on an Air Canada flights)..of translating everything..etc, etc.
    And the result is that our federal govt is heavily staffed with francophones who are more readily bilingual because, in Montreal and Quebec, you become bilingual from the television, the news, and the necessity to use it in business transactions.
    The result is a small closed set of mandarins from Hull, Montreal, Quebec who essentially form the bureaucratic class of our federal government and guard against any intrusion of outsiders to this class.
    The result of that..is that our bureaucracy, which lasts longer than any political government, has a Quebec-Ontario focused mindset, considers the ROC as irrelevant and ‘redneck’ and ‘uncivilized’, supports multiculturalism as a way to deal with immigrants and keep them controlled; and is about 30 years out of date with modern Canada and the world.
    As for ‘English Canada’ having a strong culture – my experience in Quebec is that they adamantly insist that the ROC has NO culture. None.
    Only Quebec has a culture. They explain this by saying that there is no difference in the ROC between ‘anglo Canada’ and the USA. Plus, the many immigrant communities water down any development of a unique anglo-Canadian identity.

  6. If you want to get them to speak English in Quebec City, just flash an American 20 dollar bill. Not all anglos are equal in Quebec, and American anglos are much more equal.

  7. This is not a matter of French vs English,or right vs left.Petty political conflict is a diversion to keep people from uniting around a common cause which should be freedom sovereignty and free speech.The global bankers are using our inherent weakness to manipulate the populations.We waste time money and effort abandoning meaningful purposes.The greatest challenge will be .to convince people to see the real enemy for what they are.Goldman Sachs is looting country after country with impunity the perpetrators of climategate have been exonerated,dont you think we need to ask why justice is being ignored.Apathy is our greatest weakness.Please wake up look for the bigger picture we are running around in circles while the global elite herd us in an ever smaller pattern of thought and behavior.Are we too dizzy to see clearly now.

  8. To impose a language on a people – as Canada has done with its bilingualism – is an authoritarian act.
    Nobody imposes you that. The huge majority of jobs in English Canada do not require you to speak French. Some jobs, like customer service for large companies, require you to be bilingual. It’s the same if you want the GG job, or any other top federal civil servant job. That’s just a job requirement, like being a engineering graduate is a requirement to do an engineer’s job.
    Anybody can learn a language. My mother tongue is french, when I moved to Ontario I learned english. I did not expect anyone to accomodate me even though I spoke one of the official languages.
    All those ‘mandarins’ in Montreal and Hull made the time and effort to learn English. If they get ahead thanks to their efforts, more power to them.

  9. I have encountered unilingual French from people based in Winnepeg for training in Sask. Why would a unilingual position be in Winny? We had people that could communicate the training if they could understand Cree French.

  11. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the majority of bilingual people in Canada have French as their first language. It’s a reality of living in a sea of nearly 400 million English speakers. Why that means they get all the plum jobs, however, only St. Pierre can answer. Afterall, the one bilingual French speaker in Biggar may insist on being served in French.

  12. Canada’s official bilingualism policies are founded on the fallacy that Canada is a bilingual country. It is not. It is a country with two official languages. The majority of Canadians speak one or the other; a tiny minority speaks both.
    Bilingualism policies force the public service to recruit from that minority. Lay affirmative action on top of this requirement and you have an explanation for why government is such a colossally expensive cluster-f**k. Talent and skill are afterthought recruitment considerations.
    Outside of Ottawa and its suburbs, where most of the people adversely affected by these policies reside, this issue barely has any public profile. Yet it costs us all enormous sums to implement and enforce bilingualism and to correct the screw-ups of poorly qualified, yet bilingual, public servants.

  13. I am an anglo married to someone that is French. His mother language is French but learned English in school and speaks both languages well. All of his family is bilingual. I am shocked at the jobs that his sisters are able to get because they can speak French. They are largely unqualified and uneducated for the positions. I was determined to teach my kids French for this reason, but living in a English community it is hard to learn/teach French as it is not a useful skill. French people have an advantage learning English as it is a useful language to have as popular television, music and most of the internet is in English.

  14. My Wheatties taste so much better when they come out of the French side of the box.
    Superior French cuisine or something like that.

  15. It’s pure and simple corruption. To insist that only a certain minority have the RIGHT to government jobs in Canada is flat out BS. English only people can run the biggest projects, conduct the greatest global research and travel anywhere without problem…or French.

  16. greenneck – when it is a requirement for a job, to speak and write both languages, then, this is an imposition.
    No, it is not the case that ‘anyone can learn a language’. If you are growing up outside of Quebec, you do not use or hear French. Therefore you do not learn it. And by the time you are a graduate, it’s a bit late to spend all the time and money to learn that second language in order to be allowed to work in the federal govt, or to be on various federal committees etc. You may be a highly qualified world expert – but if you don’t speak French…you’re not eligible.
    You moved to Ontario; you learned to speak English by using it. Were you a child or an adult?
    The mandarins in Hull and Montreal didn’t have to make a great effort to learn English; it’s spoken all around them – on the TV, in movies, on the radio. And their French is native. But for anglophones in the ROC – they NEVER hear or use French. That’s an enormous difference.
    Therefore, as JMD so correctly points out, the result is a bureaucratic class recruited almost entirely from this small set of bilinguals in Montreal-Ottawa-Hull. They run our country, and their isolate mindset does our country no good.
    Only about 20% of the entire population of Canada is bilingual – and most of this set resides in that area. The ROC outside of this area is unilingual; same with Quebec outside of this area.

  17. ET is right on the money:
    “A language is only viable when it’s functionally used.”
    Despite my 5 years with the Legion….my french is now halting…..
    My complaint is that beyond what Pandora describes……bi-lingualism in practice means a proficiency in French, and little else.
    I call the government and push #1 for English, and then some-one answers and I wonder if I pushed the wrong button……
    Alors….I can understand my unilingual anglo peers frustration….a lot of these folk(“bilingual” swivellel servants)language problem is far beyond an accent.

  18. “…the next governor general must not only be an accomplished and respected individual…”
    I guess the next governor general won’t be coming from the CBC.

  19. Although I personally agree with the general tone of the thread, reality dictates my decisions. There was a time when I didn’t see the value in a second language; after all, I’m from Alberta, where that and a Toonie can get you a cup of coffee at Tims. Time has past, and I’ve often regretted not putting my kids into a French immersion program. Fortunately there is a late beginners program that my youngest has been accepted to, and will start next year. I’m very excited for my daughter, and myself considering I’ll have to learn a lot of French to keep-up with my girls studies.
    I believe the main reason Anglo Saxon’s have such a low rate of bilingualism is limited access to French immersion in public schools. There are only two immersion schools in Saskatoon, and they’re both very small. I believe if this program was offered in kindergarten to all students in all areas of Saskatoon people would enrol enmass.
    This begs the question: Why is access to learning French so limited to Anglo-Saxons in Canada? It’s my belief that this is deliberate, but I’ll leave the whys for another day.
    The bottom line is, I’ve become weary of liberty’s plight; and although I believe it is important to raise independent and self reliant thinking children, I also believe its important accept reality and prepare my kids for the likelihood that Trudeau’s vision of Canada flourishes.
    Call me a sell-out or call me a loon; but for a long time I’ve taken solace in the fact that both of my kids are girls, and both have dark skin. In a country where being a man and being Caucasian(gawd forbid you’re both) has become a legal and societal detriment, I glad I haven’t passed this burden on to them.

  20. In the west you do more for your children’s future by putting them into K-12 French Immersion school than worrying about university. In French Immersion they get free buses to school, etc. They will get a better job (even in the west) being able to speak French then with a degree. That they will use this ability to speak French anywhere from seldom to never is not part of the mix. Get on with the referendum….just make sure we get to vote too.

  21. Where do I sign up for Bloc membership?
    The sooner those leeches are gone, the more we can concentrate on unshackling this country from the chains of Trudeaupia.

  22. What you folks fail to understand is, if the only “distinctiveness” of Quebec is taken away (ie. the ability to speak French fluently) then Quebec “victimhood” would have to disappear overnight. Therefore, this would never happen. Case in point. Just try to get your child enrolled into an école française (French school) without French language rights. It’s laughable that although Canada is supposedly a bilingual country the provincial governments actively disallow Anglophone parents to get the chance to let their children become fluently bilingual(this occurs in Quebec but with English). Instead, they try to make unilingual Anglophone adults into fluently bilingual adults (which is extremely hard and cost-prohibitive both in money and time).

  23. Indiana, I hope your child does benefit from late French immersion but I wouldn’t bet the grocery money on it. The experience with immersion is that kids emerge bilingual but quickly lose the second language because they do not use it when no one around them speaks it. So for them, the second language is a reality only in the hothouse environment of the school.
    Unless you live where your second language is routinely spoken by the majority, you have little chance of becoming fluently bilingual. You may be able to stumble through some basics of your second language but you will not be fluent. That describes the situation of most Canadians and explains why Canada will never be a bilingual country, despite the posterings of successive federal bilingualism commissars.
    The whole program represents a scandalous waste of money and of human talent.

  25. I’ve family members who smugly claim to be bilingual. When asked the last time they said more than bonjour, a long pause… as they begin counting back the many years since they graduated.

  26. sasquatch -“I can understand my unilingual anglo peers frustration….a lot of these folk(“bilingual” swivellel servants)language problem is far beyond an accent.”
    Too true! There are probably thousands of “bilingual” civil servants whose bilingual status comes solely from taking a federally funded language course and not from actually having to demonstrate competence in a day to day working environment. It is truly irksome to encounter people in the federal service who draw the bilingualism bonus, but can’t even conduct a meeting, or even participate effectively, in the other language.

  27. I am a native french-speaker. I grew up in Quebec. One thing you should all know: the ‘bilinguism’ stats are very misleading. They are based on what people THINK about their level of proficiency in their second language. In Quebec, most french speakers believe they can hold a conversation in English. WRONG. I was one of them and I hit a wall when I moved out of the province several years ago: I had to fast-track my ESL classes because I was completely not functional in English.

  28. “In Quebec, most french speakers believe they can hold a conversation in English. WRONG. ”
    That seems to be true of people everywhere. Many years ago as a summer job I often gave orientation to German tourists. I quickly came to realize that the majority of Germans considered being fluent in english as the ability to nod continuously and respond “yah.. yah” to everything. 😉

  29. You begin to see why the RCMP was unable to fill their recruit requirements a few years ago and had we not had a war the military as well.
    About 10 years ago at Van Isle Marina I overheard a conversation of about a dozen or so navy cadets tied up at the gas dock for the night. The conversation was about french and the military, everyone agreed that the only reason they were there was to get their education then get out. Why? Because of the language issue, as they put it, they knew it was a dead end.
    As my own resentment grows all I can say is support the Parti Quebecois, get rid of the bastards, their language, the cost and the government favoritism of one segment of the population. I think it’s called racism.

  30. Growing up just north of Detroit I speak Eubonics quite well. Ya suppose…

  31. Part of the problem never discussed is the different levels of “bilingualism” for the two sides. In federal testing, a Francophone who can order a sandwich in English at Tim Hortons’ is bilingual (okay, only slightly simplified). An Anglophone has to be able to decipher complex documents in French to achieve the same grading. I know this from experience – my own French test involved administrative orders, an accident report concerning a CF-18 and an amphibious assault operations order. In other words, I had to have detailed administrative, technical and operational knowledge in entirely different fields – I’d rather have been asked to order a double-double in French.

  32. sasquatch – exactly. Call the federal govt, push the button for English and you get a heavily accented, barely understandable individual…whom you even have to help with the vocabulary.
    Why are they hired? Because they speak French..and a bit of English. While, as Aviator pointed out, speaking English and a ‘bit of French’ means you don’t get the job. Why? Because the officialdom in Ottawa is that mandarin bureaucratic class of Ottawa-Hull-Montreal that hires its own.

  33. You know what’s funny? Everybody in the USA thinks all Canadians can speak French.
    I wonder where they got that idea from? TV maybe?
    Aviator, they have two levels of testing because they expect one side of the equation to perform, while they’re happy if the other side shows up mostly on time and mostly sober.
    Kind of like how -two- women are allowed to carry the same ladder one man is expected to carry in the fire fighter’s exam.
    And before any #*^%$*#@$#$!!!!! leftist screams racism, the above is my objection to the people who -set- the tests, not the people who -take- them. Just so there’s no mistake among smaller-brained readers, y’know what I’m sayin’.

  34. No need to worry JMD.
    My wife’s bi. 🙂
    Actually, we are displeased with my kids elementary school already. The child I mentioned is a straight E student and my wife and I feel she needs a challenge that her current school doesn’t seem to be able to provide. Right now my daughter’s school has what I’ve called a “culture of losing” and my wife and I were seriously considering the Catholic school down the road as an alternative.
    Regardless of how well the French sticks, I’ve been shown the numbers and the French emersion kids in Saskatchewan do substantially better than others in high school. My research tells me that kids in such programs are more serious and focused on their education; these are the type of kids I want my daughter hanging around with.
    I’m trying to ensure that we raise the bar for my daughter. Her basketball and softball coaches push her waaayyyy harder that grade 1 thur 5 ever has. I think that’s crap, and this is what were doing to address it.

  35. ET, I must share an amusing discovery about the phone company.
    If you call Bell (or Telus!) and press for English, you get to talk to a very nice, cultured person in Bangalore or Delhi. A person who’s English is impeccable, but who knows -nothing- about your phone, software etc. other than what they read off the screen in front of them. Sometimes it helps if you speak Hindi to them but not always, because they get in big heck if they stray off-script.
    If you press for French, you get a Canadian who speaks English pretty good, and knows how to get Mozilla Thunderbird to work with Bell’s idiot DSL system. In Linux. Because that’s what they run at home, and they don’t care a damn for the script because they’re Canadians, not likely to be pushed around by some flipping management weenie.
    So I always press French. ‘Allo bonjure, parlez Anglais silverplate?

  36. I hate French because I hate French people. I refuse to speak it. I will remain a second class citizen, because I will never learn a language that I have no love for.
    Gaelic should have been my mother tongue, but the damn frogs wouldn’t allow Gaelic on board as a national language. The traitor Liberal governments in Nova Scotia had kicked it out of schools (100,000 native speakers in NS a century ago is now a few hundred and they’re all dying). They decided that the kilts and fiddles were Celtic-y enough to attract tourism, and that Gaelic was in the way of progress, so they went on a vicious campaign to convince us that Gaelic is for poor, smelly, stupid peasants that lots of the old folks who know the language but who were around for that “-ocide” still refuse to speak it because it’s so stigmatized. They don’t know why the younger kids want to learn it, because they’re so thoroughly convinced that you’re just learning something that makes you sounds worthless.
    I want French out of government, off of my cereal boxes and I want them to do to French the same thing that they did to Gaelic!
    Bastards.
    English only. It won. Admit it.
    Frenchies can speak all the damn French they want and they can offer it as second language courses regionally (2nd languages, after all, being wonderful things to learn) so as to not completely destroy it, but having two languages and one law is completely ludicrous.
    To those who have a native language, like Gaelic, that was smooshed in favour of French — fight back. In a place like NS, you can ask companies to send mail according to its Gaelic place-name. If you constantly put pressure on a company for your favourite non-French language to be offered, it might happen.

  37. I have had to go thru french language trg to move up thru the ranks in the Canadian Forces. I have always asked why and the typical answer is that a Snr NCO or a Snr Officer should be bilingual if he/she has subordinates that are francophone regardless if they are bilingual or not. The testing administered by the Public Service gives a person a grade of A,B,C or E in reading, writing and speaking with A being the lowest mark and E being exempt from further testing in your lifetime. For a senior appointment the member must attain C in all three categories. I have attained C in both reading and writing and if I had squeaked a C for speaking I would, in the eyes of the Public Service, been qualified bilingual and been able to take a command position. Being tested with several officers who are now Generals/Admirals and Snr NCOs who are Chief Warrant Officers I know what their skill level is and aware that almost none would be comfortable counselling a subordinate in their second language, writing and reading a technical or legal document where peoples lives or millions of dollars depend on fluency and understanding of the language nuances. Whereas a judge rules on technicalities in the law are we saying that bilingualism at a Public Service Level C will be adequate to make rulings? Common sense prevailing I would think that he/she would use a translator to ensure accuracy. Bilingualism in govt is just another ploy to have francophones in the power positions. I believe that it is great if a person can be bilingual however a highly intelligent, qualified, unilingual employee is not able to have the positions of authority whereas a less intelligent, less qualified bilingual employee can. This is not to say that we don’t have some superb bilingual leaders, but it does say that we have some citizens of this country that cannot show their true potential because they have an inability to learn a second language. Do we want the best person we can get to lead in their profession or do we want someone who is the lesser but has good language skills?

  38. It would be really nice if there was a way or a law to prevent those French language advocates from disqualifying 80% of Canadians from government jobs or positions because they do not speak French. What ever happened to the concept of the best qualified person getting a position?
    I can`t help but wonder if this kind of crap would fly if we ever get lucky enough to get a REAL conservative voice in Canadian politics. The closest we came was the old Reform Party lead by Preston Manning and we all saw how he was stabbed in the back by our current so called conservative party that is barely to the right of the Liberals.

  39. “I maintain that Trudeau’s Charter of Rights has nothing to do with Canadian rights – and its clauses are contradictory on this – and everything to do with setting up official bilingualism. Most of the Charter deals with that.”
    Agree wholeheartedly,ET, and further believe Trudeau was one of those “grievance” French Canadians who think they’ve been oppressed by the ROC, and had the power to exact revenge.
    An acquaintance I knew back in the early 90’s was a Captain in the Canadian Forces,due a promotion to Major. The first requirement before the promotion was speaking French, and he was sent off to a six week crash course in Ontario,leaving his family behind in B.C.
    He didn’t have an aptitude for languages, and was flunked out,and that ended his chances to move up in the military.His competence at his job was never in question, he had a degree and had done it for many years, but French was essential to move up from Captain.
    It must be discouraging for a competent professional to find his career is permanently stalled because he can’t speak a language he’ll never have to use on the job.
    As someone said earlier, the ROC would be better off if Quebec DID decide to separate,then we could run the Country in the one language everyone in business, science, and aviation uses on a daily basis.

  40. Canada has two official languages. It is the law. Fine. The law and custom should also reflect reality. Whether one likes it or not, the lingua franca is- well- lingua anglia. English is the language of commerce. I got a well-paying job in South Korea because I could speak English, not French. Indeed, I can go anywhere and would find a job teaching English as a second language. That is the way of the world. Francophones need to accept that. If they are concerned about the survival of their language and culture, they can do what groups have done throughout the ages- perpetuate those things themselves. Quebec used to keep its language and traditions alive through the Church. Now that it’s done away with the Church, all it can go on is forcing others to see things their way. That’s bullying. Insert own honey/vinegar pithy remark here.
    Furthermore, whether it’s spite or mere public school laziness, adjectives reflecting nationality have CAPITAL letters. That’s how the English language functions. Deal with it.

  41. “Make bilingualism mandatory for supreme court appointments and you’ll still get good people, but you won’t get the best” Former SC Judge John Major…” You won’t get the best” This comment says it all, whether it’s the snivel service, the RCMP, the military etc. you won’t get the best, not to mention that it’s completely unfair, bias, and without accountability, and in some cases dangerous. I remember the Somalia inquiry and how the leadership of the officers, who were mainly francophones,were seen as a joke by the rank and file soldiers who did all operations in English. The officers were treated as a joke because the only reason they were officers was because they could speak french, so that made them special, and every soldier knew it, and therefore paid little or no attention to these bureaucratic appointed leaders. Forcing Bi-lingualism (French) on an English speaking nation was, and is an insult, institutionalized racism conjured up to make one Tribe more equal then any other. Another Trudeauism used as a tool to purge Canada of it’s Brtish heritage and traditions. Bilingualism is a massive social engineering program that has cost 100’s of billions of dollars since it was imposed, and has absolutely no accountability, it’s operations and costs are kept hidden from the public. How long does Bilingualism (forced french) continue, when is it deemed a success or failure ? When will Canadians be able to see the books, and thus know the real costs, and will Canadians be allowed to have a say and judge whether this Trudeauvian social engineering scheme has any relevance ? Bilingualism is an insidious tribal scheme, a distortion of reality and history, the costs of which, both monetarily and socially are kept hidden from the people. No discussion, no debate, if you don’t like Turdo’s “personalized bilingualism” you will be labelled a racist, this keeps people marginalized, estranged, and gagged.

  42. Yeah, I’ve got a “Been there, done that merd” T-shirt too. Never made it above an anglophone sergeant because languages are not my forte. Even after two french language courses, although, in all honesty, it was a bit difficile to practice in Yellowknife other than with my bi-lingual teen daughter. My Tex-Mex Spanish isn’t any better although I could practice it more in Texas.
    The running joke at our immersion course in St. Jean-Sur-Richelieu was that by the end we could order beer and get ourselves slapped in any bar in Montreal.
    As mentioned before, the Supreme Court has dedicated positions for judges from Quebec so there is no need for a “French” presence with a bilingual nominee.

  44. I’m fluent in French and English and can read a teleprompter ( which was Michaelle Jean’s previous job at Radio-Canada )
    So I guess I can apply for the job???…

  45. ET’s commentary on this issue was excellent. Indeed calling Canada a bilingual country has always (and remains) a distortion of the real situation.
    Regarding increased opportunities for those speaking French — do not get your hopes up. Yes, it is better to have French than not, but there is evidence that the public service also has a tendency to favor hiring Francophones. This is done in sometimes subtle and sometimes more overt ways. So even if you speak French, if you have an anglo (or other non-French) last name, you will not necessarily get a fair shot.

  46. Well, Kate, it would be news to me to find out that the position of Representative of The Queen, is a job in the civil service. Seeing that it is not, this pipsqueak Fraser has no business pontificating on whether the Queen’s representative can speak either of our Official Languages.
    Someone above has nominated Clarence Louie for the position. I think I would support that although Louie would probably decline. He already has a more important job. I might suggest another probable non-French speaker, Norman Kwong. He actually has experience.
    I also note The Citizen’s snide remark about the bilingual requirement for Supreme Court members bill going through the Commons without any controversy. Of course, The Citizen can point out any of the several articles they have written about this bill as it made its way, or point out all the coverage in the so-called National Media, hmmmmmmmm?
    Myself, I only found out about it after it was a fait accompli (does that make me bilingual?). Can’t remember how exactly, saw it on some blog, I think.
    Oh, and the concept of appointing members to our Supreme Court based on what languages they are fluent in is complete crap.

  47. At the government level in Canada, language standards are so low, both in order to accommodate the growing influx of ESL immigrants in terms of government services, the general decline of capability in either language that has occurred post-WWII, coupled with the insistence of francophonie in government, there is no fluency in either language in most supposedly bilingual civil servants. The native language is heavily colloquial, and the acquired language is just plain deficient.
    Because there are comparatively few francophones in Canada compared to the general population, there now is an overabundance of ESL francophones in government. As a result, the language standard for English amongst bilingual civil servants, administered mostly by francophones, because most anglophones are not bilingual, is very low. The two languages of Canada, by fiat, is French and English. The two languages of the government of Canada is in actuality Francais and franglais.
    What is spoken by most ESL francophone “bilingual imperatives”, especially in the capital region, is NOT English, nor can their comprehension of both written and spoken English be trusted.

  48. Recently while deplaning a flight from Montreal, a passenger approached me and asked” har you da wun dat speak da french”? When I responded “yes”,he then said to me,” your french no good” I then asked him if my french was as bad as his english.Only an idiot would insult someone trying to converse in their language,another reason I avoid Quebec destinations altogether.

  49. Good comment, ET. “To impose a language on a people – as Canada has done with its [“official”] bilingualism – is an authoritarian act.”
    Cross-posted @ Blue Like You:
    Trudeau’s “official bilingualism” is a crock, and I’m someone who spent a summer in Quebec as a teen to try and learn French better.
    It’s a totally failed experiment. Kids by grade 5/6 HATE learning French and most drop it in high school as soon as they can.
    So, who gets all the jobs with the feds? Canadians who speak French and, let’s face it, francophones have a much higher motivation to learn English than anglophones to learn French.
    Canadian francophones hear English on the street, on the radio, on TV, in the movies, etc., whereas anglophones rarely hear French or have any need of it, unless they live in a French area of the country.
    Trudeau did another number on Canadians.

  50. The real tale is told by what makes up the bureaucracy. Who runs the show day to day interpreting new laws & old.
    This was obviously put in by Trudeau to keep the elite in a perpetual status quo.
    Only the language approved may apply.
    Makes you wonder how many good people have been left on the curb from this insidious control mechanism.
    http://cansim2.statcan.gc.ca/cgi-win/cnsmcgi.pgm?Lang=E&SP_Action=Result&SP_ID=3057&SP_Par=3055&SP_TYP=50&SP_Sort=-0&SP_Portal=2

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation