NWCanuck

This topic makes me groan every time I trip across it. So a muni gov't someplace is wrestling with what to do with bilingualism. So what. This seems to have dragged the typically fossilized stereotypes and propoganda out of the closet. Anglos are repressive, french is being "shoved down the throats of english canada" (my favorite), fracophones are being "oppressed" (another good one). It all gets more than a little tiring. I've been hearing this whining and complaining from both sides of the cereal box my entire life and I'm fed up with it. It's complete and utter bs fabricated by a quebec separtist party trying to drive wedges between the anglos and francophones any way it can and a group of head up ass federalists who can't see the forest for the trees. Don't like bilingualism? You probably learned that one in junior high along with not liking math, history, science, or school in general. Why? It lacks immediate applicability in your life and society with the sneaking (and stupid) inclination that somebody, somewhere is trying to take over your society with somebody else's culture. Jesus. I always feel like I'm listening to the dumb guy in the junior high trying to justify why he's quitting school to become a roofer (it's the money and the dope man....) How about this instead: biligualism (and fracophone society in general) is a smart thing to keep around as it helps relate to much of the rest of the planet. How could this be? Simple. As you probably already know french and spanish are both romance languages; know one and you pretty much know the other. Who speaks spanish? Look south, waaay south to that giant pile of rock called South America that we are forming free trade deals with. Want to deal with them? Of course we do! If you've been anywhere other than an english speaking nation you know how well it's recieved when you can parle with the locals. Want to speak french only? Fine. There are a plethora of former french colonies like Canada that maintain a french dialoge that happen to be swimming in this black stuff called oil. But that's me, I'm greedy with poor sentence structure. Case in point: go to your map and find British and French Guyana. Side by side and get along ok - with the exception of the fact that they were never merged like Canada was. Offshore drilling with a polite border dispute, a potentially PERFECT fit for us. How about Algeria? They hate/love France, speak french and again, sit on a lake of oil. Need I go on? Vietnam (well kinda..)? huh? But what do we do? Take a look at this thread. People trotting out bullsh#t that's been bandied about for the past 25 years to no avail. To hell with what the haters and find a solution, or at least a process that would lead people to finding a solution. Stop arguing about the constition because everyone on this thread and in this nation (that includes Quebec) understands that it needs work. Set up a college or somesuch that would be required to put forth amendments every five years for general public discussion on how to make it less irksome and more workable. Worried about losing your franco/anglo culture? Put the problem to the college and fill the college with intelligent people from all over Canada and move it around from university to university so no one province can claim domion over it. Hell, it can start in Labrador and make a lap around Canada clockwise! If France can patch their constitution over 200 times, so can we! Canada can produce some pretty damn good policy makers and by the end of it, no one will know what the hell is going on and we' just go and pound some beer/biere/however you spell it and curse Ottawa in unsion. As a fifth generation anglophone I've pounded many a beer with francophones and are proud to call them my friends. This kind of crap brings shame to the game. As for the nonsensical argument that there are no francophones in the west, that's just crap. Take out a map and start looking at towns (small ones) in Alberta. Scrape the rust off of your french vocabulary and find places like Beamont, Castor, Pouce Coupe (ok, it's in BC but I had to add it - WHO HURTS THEIR HAND AND NAMES A TOWN AFTER IT???? Probably a BC french student..... Start driving around and checking these places out for curiosities' sake, and you'll be suprised. Hell I grew up in the Peace River country and there's a francophone population there along with a full scale french immersion program should you choose to enroll. It's kind of all over in a patchy, quirky, understated way that in itself is quite Canadian. It's taken my more than a few years to start understanding this place, but the more I understand it the less tolerance I have for the stay-at-home armchair quaterbacks puking out their hate. I could give a crap about which map/document is more insightful of 18th century Ontario/Quebec settlements and look to the future. The world is integrating and and if any of us don't want our grandchildren speaking nothing but Cantonese (not taking a shot here - I just picked another language at random) we'd better pull up our socks and stop whining. I'm going to bed.

I have to agree with Jerry WRT the slide in the income of Canadians over the past quarter century. Outsourcing our manufacturing has resulted in the degredation of the average income of the working individual, a clear impact of the widening trade relations with developing nations. If we wish to recapture our income levels we must provide products/services that are worth more than we currently produce. That, and we need a gov't that provides us with a venue to export them, not to mention protect the remaining lower end manufacturing so we've got something to fall back on. The basic argument for paying a little more for Canadian made products. Population density really impacts this figure. If the average 2 lane highway costs 10 000 $/km (ballpark) to develop and you take a look at the population base that has to connect with each other across Canada, that figures into a substantially higher investment per capita vs. the US. Granted they have more roads, but there is a savings with the higher population density (10 x Can). The same applies to electrical power distribution, water/sewage distribution & treatment, bridge construction, telephone infrastructure (gov't installed in both the US and Canada - for the most part). Results in greater tax burden/ capita. More extreme examples of this effect lie in the post WWII era. Japan was bombed flat with 50% of their population killed and two cities vaporized in 1945 and is now one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Like England, they have no real resources of their own and must import everything. Unlike the UK their neighbors really don't like them very much and don't really trade with them. China, Korea, Malaysia ect. were really unimpressed with their behavior during WWII and tend to be prejudiced against them. Yet here they are. Europe is another good example: bombed flat (ok, no one got vaporized but it was pretty bad) with a big chunk of the population dead and split in half. Europe and Japan were able to quickly rebuild themselves because of high population densities that require less overall investment to get the populance around and connected. Size of government is a popular straw man but really doesn't seem to be as much of a factor as one might think. If anything, the largest proportion of tax dollars that could be considered "sqaundered" would be the 33 Billion tax dollars we spend annually to finance the federal debt. With that kind of bank we could have a really kick ass military, healthcare system, educational system, space agency, and a healthy tax break. The concept that Canada is heavily socialized is nothing more than US political propaganda that's wandered across the border - right along with their ads saying we have no health care services, we live in igloos and no one owns a gun. IMV, anyone wishing to express frustration at our lack of services/$tax should be railing against our lack of progess on debt repayment. As for our pals across the line, I say good on them! Considering that they've managed to build what they've built is pretty cool, but I don't think that we're sitting on our ass either. At least I'm not.... well I am posting at 4pm.... I apolgize in advance for my hurried editing....