Bilingualism

Canada is the only country I know of where 75% of its people are excluded from working for the federal government just because they aren’t bilingual. Alberta has something like 3 ½ million people and only 20,000 native French speaking people – about ½ of one percent. Why is it necessary for someone to speak French in Alberta when he will never, ever need to talk to anyone in French? I studied French in school for 7 years and have never needed it – not even in Paris! Why are so many federal government jobs now classified as being mandatory bilingual? I don’t even see the need for the Prime Minister to be bilingual. Who listens to him anyway?

Why do private and public companies have to conform to hiring according to population demographics (i.e., affirmation action) but the federal government doesn’t? The fed seems to be hell bent on turning itself into a 100% bilingual entity despite the best interests of the people of Canada. Doesn’t this seem like discrimination? How many of us would like to get a federal job with a guaranteed security and a nice fat pension? How many companies with great products would like to get contracts but can’t because they don’t have bilingual employees (at least, not in French)? Have you ever read the specifications for a job or contract with the federal government? Not very demographically fair if you ask me.

Do you know who has the majority of public service jobs with the government? Quebecers. More than 56% from one province! Why is this? Because there are almost no bilingual people outside of Quebec, northern New Brunswick and eastern Ontario. Well, why should there be? So what if they want to speak French in Quebec. They can speak Klingon for all I care. What I do care about is being able to work for my own government without being unjustly discriminated against because someone in Ottawa has arbitrarily said that some unimportant non-public facing job is now bilingual. It’s unacceptable that ¾ of the population is discriminated against by the federal government on this basis. It’s also demoralising to the 44% of public servants who aren’t bilingual. They will rarely be promoted and could never get hired on again if they left their jobs.

Every official document in the government has to be in both official languages. It costs us, as taxpayers, a fortune. I have a brother who works for the federal government out in Victoria. They spent a whole year and over $60,000 trying to teach him to speak French and yet, in 20 years, he has never used it because he lives in Victoria. What a waste of money. I have friends who send their daughters to a French immersion elementary school. Will they remember French in 15 or 20 years when they graduate University? Probably not. I’m all in favour of learning other languages, however. I spend a lot of time learning the languages of places I visit. And if I was living somewhere where I needed French, I would be studying it, too. But what monumental discrimination this bilingualism rubbish is in the federal government. In tough economic times or not, the government is one place where a citizen should be able to have a fair chance of getting hired without being from Quebec.

Doesn’t the government realise that Canada is not bilingual. Oh, we have two official languages but we’re not a bilingual country. Not like Switzerland or The Netherlands or India. They are truly bilingual. Forcing people to learn a language that they will likely never use, whichever one it is, is an expensive exercise in futility. We need to understand each others culture, certainly, but that day won’t come so long as Quebec has its bigoted language laws and the federal government keeps insulting the Canadian people by discriminating against them.