Diversity Is Our Strength

“And here are the deputy ministers of the federal government’s departments — the people often considered the true leaders of the cabinet ministries — in early September…”

 

Hiring this one-sided is usually blamed on overt and covert prejudices that combine to form the sort of “systemic barriers” Trudeau’s throne speech alluded to. In the Canadian public sector, one such systemic barrier has always been obvious — and is indeed routinely cited by diversity advocates: mandatory French-English bilingualism.

JJ. McCullough, in the Washington Post.  I can’t guarantee it’s not behind the paywall, though I was able to access. It’s a good one.

59 Replies to “Diversity Is Our Strength”

  1. Brilliant! I was thinking at first, how odd that this should come from a U.S. publication – the Washington Post. Then I gave my head a shake. Out course it had to come from the U.S! The hypocrisy is stunning.

      1. “brother/sister marriages”

        Why didn’t you just say ‘Trump supporters’. I’m pretty sure that’s who you are alluding to.

  2. The article is bang on. That was certainly my experience in Ottawa. In fact its probably the norm in provincial and municipal governments as well. We are nothing if not hypocritically smug in Canada.

  3. I take it will be policy of skin colour and not best qualified candidates picked.
    I tend to think our country is too cold but our government is bound by US policies.
    We just have good obedient politicians that are terrible leaders.

  4. Canadian official bilingualism was a lie from the get-go. It was never about actually having Canadians able to speak both languages. Otherwise we could have educated three generations (since the sixties) toward that end, and today we’d actually be a bilingual country.

    1. It was never, and is not about Canada’s phony bilingualism.
      Canada’s only bilingual province is even phonier.
      Surprise. It’s not apartheid Quebec, who chased 1/2 million Anglos down the 401 and outlawed the anglais mot.

      NB. Bilingual like the media is honest.

      Someone once said, ” I gave you the keys to the country, now use them”.

      They are.

  5. The problem is, that they will change the make-up of these important positions and we will have diversity hires running the country instead of a meritocracy if that even exists anymore.

  6. Silly you, it’s not what they do, it’s what they SAY that matters! Just ask Canadian voters.

    1. Your Government knows best.
      They are fully backed and supported by the Media.

      Your Government has decided that the only way to atone for black racism is by employing Institutional and systemic Government instigated and approved racism against Whites until further notice.

      This dovetails nicely with the long ongoing Government and Media war against misogyny which of course entails Institutional and Government instigated and approved misandry until further notice.

      Government-approved racism, misandry, bigotry is different than the regular kind. Better.

      All disbelievers, naysayers and deplorables to be directed to the Conservative Party where, as usual, they will be marginalized, castigated and laughed at for their utter and total ineffectiveness.

    2. It’s nice to know there is another Nanaimonian … on this string. So there may be two of us here in the sea of leftist gruel.

      1. There’s a few south islanders here too, Westy. As a matter of fact, I’m also a DP Nanaimoite, tolerating the socialist utopian landscape down here. Mind you, the land of Stupich isn’t much better, now being run by Greentards, and that despotic Krog creature.

    3. I would laugh but the level of stupid has reached the point where tears are necessary.

  7. Service Canada and every other Fed Govt Agency is run by Quebecers – For Quebecers.
    the Fix has been in for DECADES…dontcha know..??

    Other Systemic RACISM that is in yer face obvious:
    CBC will NEVER hire White males
    RCMP seeking those with MS-13 backgrounds. No White Anglo Males allowed.
    Summer Student grants – NO CHRISTIANS allowed – No PRO lifers allowed.
    theres more I’m sure…

    LIBERALS just like their Democrat Cousins in the US are the Real RACISTS as should be obvious to the most obtuse among us.

  8. Good for JJ for continuing to hammer on this point.
    Again, here is something for the Torys to distinguish themselves on. Merit based hiring at the federal government level. They could build a great case for it that is valuable to public policy, administration of public services and is a political winner with their base and key voting groups.
    But it won’t happen. They won’t even consider it. It won’t even occur to them to try.

  9. It is by far the most discriminatory hiring practice. French is my “first” language and I consider myself bilingual. Living in Ottawa I could have gone to work for the feds some 40 years ago (and would be retired with a juicy pension by now), but I could not have handled the bureaucracy, union rules, etc. I really don’t understand why not being bilingual today would be such a barrier to government employment…after all when you call any government department you have options: press 1 for English, 2 for French. It is not necessary for the person answering the call to speak both.

  10. Great article! No Canadian media could or would report on this. I’ve always said that “official” bilingualism is a scam. My French Canadian sister in law cut me out of my brother’s life for saying it. She got a great job as an interpreter for the Liberal Party of Canada!

    1. “My french canadian sister in law cut me out of my brothers life for saying it “‘
      Thats because your sister in law understands that “bilingualism” benefits french talkers like her, she knows that “bilingualism” is an inherently bigoted scheme that solely benefits her and people like her. Institutional bigotry. Your sister in law is a bigot.

  11. Kate you missed the headline by one. You should have called This the Social Disease. Or maybe at least subtitled it.
    Go total WEXIT.

  12. L-The bilingual requirement for fluency in fed. govt. hiring, in effect, has reversed the result of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham of 1763, without firing a shot.

    The political and cultural values of Quebec’s 12 percent not only dominate federal government policy enforced, by armed agents of the state, across Canada; the most productive citizens of the remaining 88 percent pay a “special” tax (equalization) for the privilege of being ruled by that 12 percent. Historically, such a tax is the tribute of a conquered people to those who have conquered them in battle.

    No self-respecting, self-governing citizenry would surrender their political heritage to such iniquity. “I want a new country !” is the “cri de coeur”(cry of the heart) of patriots, of those standing on guard for the foundational principles of Canada, the true “North, Strong and Free”.

    1. All of them. You saw External (global) Affairs welcome reception in the lobby of their building when Trudeau visited. It was worse that the 14 year old girls waiting for the Bay City Rollers out front of Chum FM on Young street in 1976.

  13. Don’t give the Spawn any ideas. He’ll likely import all of Haiti and give them senior government jobs. At least we have the vagina quota topped up.

    JJ is a good read, much better than watching him squirm and say abooot.

  14. I blame the education system. They promised to teach me how to communicate in French, but occupied three years of my time teaching me how to parse obscure irregular verbs. In the end I couldn’t order breakfast in small town Quebec.
    A thirty day Berlitz course in Spanish let me do quite well in Spain and in South America.

    1. It wouldn’t have helped anyway. Unless you have a French name being bilingual does you no good.

    2. In the end I couldn’t order breakfast in small town Quebec.

      The last few times I’ve been in Montreal, which was more than 30 years ago, I stuck out like a sore thumb as a westerner whenever I tried speaking French because we were taught the Parisian dialect. The people I spoke with, however, usually appreciated the gesture.

      Speaking of ordering breakfast, I tried practicing my French in the cafe of a hotel I was staying at in Montreal. Big mistake. Not only wasn’t I all that fluent, but the waiter was speaking Franglais (“Voulez-vous le bacon?” “Huh?”)

  15. I recently had the occasion to visit Montreal and rode the public transit system. Zero English. Rien. Nada. Signs, directions, announcements all in French. Bilingual country you say?

    1. That’s all for show. If you want to get served in a store in much of Montreal, over 40 years after Bill 101, you’d be better off with Chinese than with French.

      I have had a francophone store clerk order me (rather nastily too) to stop putting on airs and to ask for help in English, because my broken French was just making her job harder than it absolutely had to be.

      French is only a genuine necessity in the poorest and most backward parts of la belle province, where no non-French Canadian with any choice ever tried to settle.

  16. Liberals believe you have to create an unequal system to create equality which as history shows us ends in fascism.

  17. What it shows me is who I vote for is a tiny fraction of bloated government agencies and representatives that I had no vote or say in….
    I inherited this terrible system of indoctrination that should have changed as society became more educated.
    Instead, it takes more and more of my liberties.

  18. Have you ever heard any of these idiots actually try to speak French? “Comme une vache espagnole” would be an insult to cows, Spanish or otherwise.

    Nobody was ever passed over for a top job in Ottawa JUST on account of his miserable French. I’m sure it has requently made a good excuse to pass people over on account of their dubious loyalty to globalism and the Liberal Party, though.

    It’s much lower in the pecking order that not being “diverse” enough becomes a real obstacle to hiring or advancement. Even there, though, Arabic or Chinese is as much of an asset as French—probably more so—for the STEM jobs (like IT) men normally seek.

    It’s for women’s work—sorry, “people-oriented positions” in HR or admin posts—that French becomes a good substitute for a college diploma or ten IQ points.

    1. Our Executive Director, Canadian Grain Commission, was sent back again and again to learn to speak French for a mandatory Bilingual position. HQ’d in Winnipeg. He eventually moved on and went to work for SGS and never did pass. He was replaced by someone who didn’t know red spring wheat from barley but was, apparently, proficient in French.
      I used to attend union conventions and noticed that while we had, at great expense, instantaneous translation at all meetings, with few exceptions, only the Anglais used the service. The PSAC sucks, by the way. Stalinist organization.

      1. No different in the military. The biggest and most important discriminator for promotion is bilingualism. All things being equal, competence and talent does not count.

  19. Well, I don’t actually see much wrong with that line up except too many French names. Too many Liberals.

    Bilingualism is an abomination for Canadians who don’t live in Quebec. It presents a barrier to English speaking Canadians who my wish to be part of the federal government, but who do not wish to have to learn an ineffiecient language that is in decline in the rest of the world.

    1. It is not good enough to be fluent in French you have to expect the French culture to have a top position in the Canadian civil service
      or armed forces.

  20. It’s the “two solitudes” some pretentious politician from Quebec that fancied himself to be prime minister back in the 70’s uttered that explains this mindset.
    Ask anyone from outside Quebec to define confederation and they respond it’s a union of ten provinces and three territories. Ask the politicians in Quebec and its a power sharing agreement between Quebec and the rest of Canada.
    Do WEXIT and they will see the error of their ways.
    Please

  21. When I was dating my wife back in the 80s, I was visiting a customer in Montreal in early December and wanted to buy her an Xmas gift. My customer recommended I go to Ogilvies on St. Catherines Street and try one of their boutiques upstairs. So I walked down there and into the store, whereupon a salesgirl walked up to me and said something in a high-speed string of french that went by me faster than a politician jumping on a stupid idea. She was already looking at me quizzically while I was still parsing “bonjour.” Not understanding entirely what she had actually said, but assuming it was something along the lines of “Hello, may I be of assistance?” , I replied, in my fractured Joual, ” Oui, Mam’selle, j’ai besoin d’acheter un cadeau pour ma blonde.” After that, all I needed was my two fallback french phrases: “Ok, ok, ok.” and “merci beaucoup.” Bapteme! This bilingual stuffis easy. I have a harder time understanding english speakers in rural Newfoundland.

    1. Good for you. Most people want to be polite. At least, opening a conversation or trying to respond with a little French is not a bad thing. Bonjour. Merci. When in Rome and all that. I lived in Montreal for a couple of years way back when and learned that the attempt is usually appreciated. Back then they would generally switch to English. As for the Quebecois, I used to joke with them that I’d learn French when they did! Ba dum pum!

    2. Joual is hillbilly french – almost as bad as ebonics FFS – and you’re missing the point.
      The fucking french control the bureaucracy and the government and the judiciary and basically everything in this fucked up country and you give us a turd of an anecdote from the 80’s?
      You can only get so high in the public service – as one example – without french. (A frog’s “hinglish” can be monstrously poor but they’re considered bilingual.) Its been like that forever and its as bad as ever and it won’t change without a lot of blood being spilt. I’m not advocating that, just pointing out the fact.
      Even if you could wear a translator that made your hinglish words come out french and vice versa you’d still be a 2nd rate person.

      1. Quebek french is known as , “Horse French”… and if you don’t speak it you will never advance in the federal bureaucracy… just as designed “bilingualism” discriminates ( forced french) is a racket imposed on an English nation for the express purpose of handing the power of the country and its institutions over to a minority of french talking people almost exclusively from Queerbek. Institutional bigotry designed to exclude the majority population. Well over a trillion taxpayer dollars have been flushed down the “bilingual” toilet since Peeair imposed his french language act in 1969.

  22. It should be noted that … white women … have been the #1 financial beneficiary/recipient of every affirmative-action program. Nope. Not POC. Have a look at the photos. White women are doing quite well in the leftist hierarchy of systemic racism.

  23. What annoys me is having French simultaneously translated. Trudeau was on TV again today and tells us his info in both languages. Let me listen to his French not some youngish woman with an accent.

    1. You’re the only person who has ever wrote they wanted to hear that pole thmoker thpeak.

  24. Do as I say, not as I do!

    Bet they all have their assets in a family trust like JustUN, all safe from all those nasty taxes that he and Jagmeet are unleashing on us!!

  25. Sometimes I think things are better left alone. This so called “policy” is not going to change; and since closer adherence to bad policy for the sake of appearances is a Canadian value, I think the WaPo just screwed you.

  26. Good for JJ exposing the inherent bigotry and discriminatory nature of Peeair Turdholes forced french act, not to mention Liberal party hypocrisy. The french speaking mafia from Queerbek are in charge of the federal Government because that was the achieved goal of imposing french as an “official language” in the first place. Forced french is a racket and a bigoted social engineering scheme to be sure, but it also served as a means for Peeair Turdholes purging of the federal civil service from a “public service”, of an historically English speaking institution to a permanent bureaucratic class run exclusively by careerist Horse franc talkers from Queerbek… the permanent Government. Speaking french became a source of employment. The french talker racket pays very well too, it is run exclusively by french talkers for the benefit of french talkers primarily as an all purpose slush fund with no questions asked from the french speaking people in charge of doling out the bottomless pit of slush fund cash. Large cash bonus’s are routinely handed out to french talkers as “bilingual bonus’s”, a sort of reward for being a Queerbek french talker. The forced french act was designed to be discriminatory, it still acts to discriminate, its architects were well aware of “bilingualisms” inherent bigotry and discriminatory nature, it was an intended feature of the legislation not a quirk. Good for JJ pointing out this destructive and divisive scheme.

  27. Agreed Now lets get on with WEXIT because we will always be second class in this country.

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