Machjo

Just a point about the meaning of the word artificial. Linguists are generally in agreement that all languages are, by definition, man-made and thus artificial. What many Canadians mean when they refer to an 'artificial' language is what linguists would generally refer to as a planned, or constructed, language, as opposed to an ethnic or ad-hoc language. Yet even that leads to confusion, since most languges involve some degree of planning, so perhaps looking at it as part of a spectrum would be more accurate. for example: Ebonics: Minimal to no planning whatsoever. English: Though the language developed in an ad-hoc manner for the most part, much of its scientific lexicon was developed by the Royal Society in the 1700's in a planned manner. Later, Style Manuals appeared, establishing the prescriptive norms of 'tandard' English. French: Mostly ad-hoc in its development, but the French Academy has played a significant role in its development over the centuries none-the-less. Turkish: Switched to the Roman Script under Ataturk, and the Turkish Academy has purged the language of many Arabisms and Persianisms and revived many archaisms, many of which have stuck through introduction in the school system. Bahasa Indonesia: Developed prior to 1949 by a group of linguists, based on a regional pidgin, and incorporating words mainly from regional languages. Its grammar is strictly regulated by the govenment to avoid creeping exceptions to the rules. Esperanto: Except for the roots, the language is planned by the Esperanto Academy. Yet even the roots must conform to Esperanto spelling or pronunciation rules. Volapuk: Even its roots are considerably contorted. We see the same with scripts and spellings: English: Originally unplanned, with the ad-hoc spellings having since become convetionalized by dictionaries. Chinese: On the mainland, the script has been somewhat simplified. Korean: The current script was created by a group of scholars under the supervision of King Sae Jong the Great in the 1300's, which explains its extremely logical structure, learnable by a Westerne in a few hours. So looking at it that way, even if we use the popular definition of 'artificial' as it applies to languages, that would still include most of the world's languages to varying degrees.

Wow, the respect for culture! I may oppose official bilingualism, but with very different motives in mind. I just want a more efficient and just system. Sounds like your out to crush the opposition.

Oh, yes. I should also say that I like your signature. I'm pro-life too. That being the case, I'd rather live in society and see how I can help it than just isolate myself in my own coccoon sitting there and pointing fingers at those who are struggling. Being pro-life means being active in helping others, not just isolating myself from them. If I isolate myself, then I'm also responsible for my neighbour's abortion if I never tried to help to the extent possible. Being pro-life means sacrificing myself for the good of all. Otherwise, I'm among the guilty, not matter how I may vote once in a blue moon.

Strange, I chose to live downtown 'cause it's near work and saves on Canada's resources... and 'cause I've got plenty of good friends there. I'm a vegan non-smoking teetotaller who has given much of his time and money to the community (and intend to again, though this year is a little busy for me). One thing that irritates the hell out of me though is when a suburbanite drives his gasmobile to and from downtown evey day and insists on living in the burbs because he doesn't want to put up with the smog he's created with his gasmobile. If a suburbanite lives and works in the burbs, that's fine by me. But if he's polluting my air, then his complaining simply shows not only his ignorance of what he's contributed to, but also to his total lack of sensitivity to how his actions affect others, living in the burbs to escape his own dirt, leaving it for the rest to breathe in. Now having said that, I happen to live near downtown in a mixed neighbourhood (business, residential, parks, multi-ethnic, etc.) and near a large park, so not much smog here considering. I should also say that most of my friends are not of European descent, and many, maybe most, fo them are also teetotallers, non-smokers, etc. And a few are vegan or vegetarian. They have various religions and don't mistreat their children. So cut the bigotry already.

I wans't proposing this or that system. I was merely pointing out the relative efficiency and justice of various systems in theory. I'm sure you could agree to the following: 1. No official language: saves money on translation and language teaching, but will likely segregate language communities and eventually lead to the language hegemony of the larger language, likely to promote reaction from the minorities. 2. Make all languages official: Highly inefficient, extremely expensive, but at least just in principle. 3. official bilingualism: Gives French and English Canadians a distinct advantage over the Inuit and other minorities beyond what the free market itself would give them. Somewhat expensive, and enusres equality at least between Canada's two predominant European cultures, though not necessarily for the rest. 4. An easy-to-learn common auxiliary language: Somewhat inexpensive (though some spending on language education would still be needed), puts all language groups, be they European or indigenous, on an equal footing, and protects all languages from the hegemony of any others. So, regardless of how likely it is a scenario, we can't deny that it is a just scenario. A scenario needn't be likely for it to be just. It simply needs to be just in principle even if there is little popular support for it. After all, Official Bilignualism is popular, but that doesn't make it any more just.

I'm all for recognizing differences if confomrant to justice. Otherwise, no. In Canada, it seems that recognition of differences must always legally entrench the privilege of the European side of our culture even though it has an advantage in the free market already! For instance, Ontario has the Catholic School Boards, thus giving Catholics even more advantage than they have already simply owing to their majority population. Jews, Muslims, and others, even protestants, are thus implicitely recognized as legally less equal. Same applies to our language laws. English and French are major world languages already, even without government support. Yet the Fedral government supports TV5? Why not an equal international chanel for Canada's Inuits abroad? Of course I'm not suggesting that we do that, it would be too expensive for the few Inuit around the world outside of Canada. But then why do it for French and English when the private sector coud take care of them quite fine already? Government should not be entrenching advantages the majority has already! Where is the justice in that, unless we insist that some ethnic groups or language groups or religious groups are more equal than others?

As for the Inuit having special rights, I have mentioned that just in the post above. There is a difference between accessing services and having access to all government documents. For example, a citizen might want to know what federal laws apply to Canada's military abroad. THough this might not impact on his personal life, he might still want to know as a matter of principle, to hold the government accountable for tis actions. After all, in a democracy, the citizens are the government. While all such documents would be available for the scrutiny of French and English Canadians, they are not available for an Inuit. Sure, we could argue that an Inuit who is interested in such things is likely to know one of our European languages already. But it's the principle that matters here. It could occur that an Inuit who is not gifted in languages is still intelligent and wishes to have access to a wider world. If he is a Canadian citizen, and if Canadians of European descent are guaranteed access to all federal documents, then so should the Inuit. If the Inuit don't, then neither should we. And notice the ethnocentrism in your post: "It was decided that Canada would have two official languages because of our history and because of the way our country was formed." Clearly you're excluding the First Nations from the 'our', which thus makes 'them' 'them' and 'us' us'. So Canada recognizes 'our' history, but not 'their' history. Are they or are they not part of Canada? If so, then tei history should be included in our history, making their langugaes about 30,000 to 50,000 years more legitimate than ours. As for adding more languages to our official languages, let's not forget that translation is also expensive. There are various solutions confomant to justice and equality that I can see: 1. All Canadians have access to all federal documents in their language. This would be extremely expensive, but would conform to the principle of equality. 2. No language is official, government use of language being but defacto. This would likeley mean that access to government information would be more or less proportional to Canada's language demographics, with most documents available in English, many in French, and few to none in Canada's other languages. It could save much money, but would also marginalize Canada's linguistic minorities, especially in central Quebec and Nunavut. Though such a policy would be hegemonic and would thus likely lead to political conflict, it would save money on translation, though the savings would likely be lost in conflict. 3. Creating a common auxiliary language. This would cost moeny in second-language teaching, as the federal government would need to guarantee that all Canadians could learn this language well. But it would save money on bilingual services, as the government could then simply translate everything into that language. It would be equal as all would have to learn a second language and all would have access to government in that language. A major challenge there would be its defiance of hegemony, likely resulting in English and French speakers opposing it. I'm sure there are other solutions, but these are some, 1 above focussing on justice, and 2 above focussing on saving money at all costs, while 3 aims at a synthesis of the two. And like I said, I'm sure other solutions exist that could promote more equality between Canada's citizens of European descent and those of Aboriginal descent.

I personally believe that justice requires that a policy applies to all or none. As such, to spend so much on the CBC/SRC, TV5, etc. simply adds to the sepcial privilege we Canadians of European descent have over our Northern neighbours. While we not only enjoy complete translation of all government laws into our languages, we also enjoy government support for our arts and entertainment, on tope of all the benefits we have in the free market already. Meanwhile, many of Canada's Northern Peoples still don't have access to their government's laws in their languages, and would be hard pressed to get the government to hire an interpreter if they wanted to communicate with an MP other than their own. I'm not necessarily suggesting that we increase government spending on the Northern Peoples. If I'm not mistaken, they do have some government funding for the CBC in their own langugages, education, etc. and those federal laws that are most likley to impact their lives are translated into their languages too, I'm sure. But that's a far cry from having the government translate all laws, as a basic right for citizens to know so as to be more effective participants in democracy.\ So while I'm not necessarily asking that the government increase spending on the Northern Peoples, I do believe, concerning the clear advantage we have over them already owing to sheer numbers of people, that the government cut spending on official bilingualism beyond translation of government laws. There are plenty of private English and French TV and radio stations to not need government pampering for that. While I can agree on such spending for the Northern Peoples, our languages are far from being threatened.

Et pourquoi le français et l'anglais seulement? Pourquoi les Canadiens de descente européenne devraient être garantis plus d'accès aux services gouvernementaux que leurs homologues autochtones? Sommes-nous plus égaux qu'eux? À mon avis, la justice doit s'appliquer à tous ou à nul. Dans une démocratie, chaque citoyen canadien, que sa langue maternelle soit l'anglais, le français, l'inuktitut ou l'inuinnaqtun,devraient avoir le droit à l'accès aux lois de son pays. Ne serait-il pas plus démocratique, au lieu de dépenser de l'argent sur TV5, rediriger cet argent vers la traduction de documents du gouvernement au profit des peuples apparamment moins égaux? Le français et l'anglais sont des langues du monde. Elles n'ont pas besoin de protection contre l'extinction. Couper le financement de la CBC/SRC ou TV5 ne tuera pas ces languges et ne réduira pas l'accès aux services et à l'information gouvernementaux de la part des Canadiens de descendance européenne. Réorienter ces fonds en vue de traduire les documents en Inuktitut ou en inuinnaqtun pourrait non seulement aider à maintenir les petites langues, mais aussi et surtout, de donner l'accès à de plus amples informations aux peuples du nord du Canada, favorisant ainsi la démocratie.

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/commerce.we...agePolicies.pdf According to this study: Governments spending up to $1.8 billion every year to meet federal bilingualism requirements.

This is not a uniquely Liberal thing. It seems all parties, including His Holiness the Harper's party, react the same way. Last election, the Greens were already starting to show signs of the same corruption, and they were only at 10% in the polls. Really, is it even worth voting anymore?

Yes, why would we want to promote unity among Canadians? It's so much more fun to bash them! If Harper can't even respect a man he sees in the same room with him five days a week, how can we expect him to respect average Canadians? His contempt shows in his behaviour. Having said that, the NDP and Liberals were quite slithery too. I was disappointed to find last election that even the Greens snuck in some attacks of their own in their campaing, their only saving grace being that their attack adds were more subtle. Shame, really. In some ways, the Greens are the Reform of the left. The Reform Party was to clean up all this mess, but once merged with the PC, that was th end of that. The Greens will likely be just as corrupt if they ever become as significant. No wonder we have a low voter turn out. All we have to vote for now are clowns.

Just when you thought you'd seen it all. Now geographical relocation is viewed as a negative virtue. Well, according to the logic of that attack add, a person who'd never left his house all his life woud be the perfect candidate.

Now this I fully agree with. We should aim at ensuring all Canadians know two languages, but that does not mean French-English bilingualism specifically, but rather knowledge of whatever two languages could be most useful to each school. In vancouver, that might be English and Chinese. In Montreal, likely French and English. In more remote parts of Quebec where English is too difficult for most to learn, perhaps French plus a similar language like italian, Spanish, etc. (no point learning a language that's too difficult for them to learn as statistics suggest). In more isolated parts of English Canada where French is not present, perhaps English and another Germanic language. English and ASL or French and the LSQ might be useful for children with deaf friends or family members, etc. First Nations and the Inuit could be bilingual in their own languages too. We need to redefine bilingualism not along the narrow ethnocentric concept of English-French bilingualism only, but rather in the wider sense of a knowledge of any second language, as the world market demands. No point foisting English and French on those who can't learn it. Let them learn alternative second-languages instead. As for government administration, however, ideally that should be unilingual whenever possible for the sake of administrative efficiency. An appropriate model might be administrative unilingualism and personal bilingualism.

Sorry, I might be wrong on that. But it's de facto language in most cases is English except for certain services directed specifically to its French-speaking community.

Now I don't know if there are any Inuqtitut or Inuinnaqtun-speaking Quebecers who know neither English nor French, but I do know that they do exist in Nunavut (8% in fact). So, would you say that they should have equal rights with their European compatriots across Canada, or should it be strictly on a provincial basis, or local basis? Which is it?

The Municipality of Montreal is Bilingual. Why should we waste so much money province-wide when most of the Anglophones are limited to Montreal Island? Ideally, any level of government should strive to limit itself to one official language at most, though granted politics might get in the way as we try to choose a language all can agree to. In some cases it's been done (Most provinces and municipalities in Canada are officially or defacto monolingual). Really, it's only the Federal government, a few municipalities, Nunavut and New Brunswick which officially recognize more than one official language. In the case of Nunavut, it's four.

I don't know about New Brunswick, but I do know that official bilingualism in Ontario is limited to the municipalities. Ontario has but one official language at the provincial level.

I fully agree with what you say here. The individual instances I'd given were more to show just how extreme the cases could be. One particular violation was quite universal though: forced separation of children from their families with government backing. This was explicitely intended to assimilate the Aboriginals into white culture. That alone shows the lack of respect official instances had for Aboriginal cultures, a lack of respect which was bound to spread down the chain of authority sooner or later, which obviously it did, thus creating an ideal environment for these abuses. Not true at all. They don't even use the term tribe much themselves, but rather nation. For instance, the First Nations, the Mohawk Nation, etc. That's no different from our notion of Canada's 'Founding Nations'. In fact, from my experience, English Canadians often make more reference to other English-speaking countries (for example, a person going to work in the US, or studying in the UK, or referencing the concept of the Anglosphere), than they do to Quebec unless it has to do Canadian politics. They also tend to communicate more with English-speakers of other countreis than they do with monolingual French-speaking Quebecers, read more British and US newspapers than they do Le Devoir, watch more US and British TV than they do SRC, etc. We find the same pattern among monolingual Canadian speakers of French in their interactions with Frenchmen, Swiss, belgians, Algerians, Camerounians, etc. more than they do with monolingual English-speakers across the Ontario boarder. Our notions of 'nation', essentially a less derogatory concept than 'tribe', are no different. The only difference perhaps is that we might legitimize Europeanist conceptions of nations while trying to delegitimate Aboriginal ones by using different vocabulary for each (e.g. we have nations, but they have tribes). They're well aware of this condescending connotation of the word tribe, which likely explains their use fo the word 'nation' instead. If a stranger abuses another stranger, causing that person to suffer severe psychological tauma, though I might not know that victim, it's only natural that I have a duty as a human, even if I'm in no way at fault for the offence, to try to help that person. When I give to charity with no expectation of return, that is a part of that responsibility ot my fellow man. The same applies here. Regardless of who is responsible for this cultural genocide (and it has already officially been acknowledged as such by the Truth Commissions, as there is plenty of evidence that it had official government backing, which is the people in a democracy), we as a people have a duty to try to repair the damage done to their languages and cultures. I have never been abused to the extent that these children have been on a large scale (even just being forcibly separated from parents at a young age and forced into a completely different cultural context for assimilative purposes is cruelty in its own right in terms of the emotional scars it's bound to lead, let alone all the other abuses piled onto that for at least some of these children), but can imagine how such abuses can leave deep psychological wounds that, if left untreated, can be passed on from generation to generation. When I'd lived in China, it was interesting to note how China is still recovering from the Opium Wars, let alone the anti-Japanese Wars. Some modern Chinese still hear the abuses that their great grandparents' parents had suffered. And that can only be cured through reconciliation by acknowledging how it had indeed retarded the development of the nation considerably. History follows us. If I should have bene abused as a child to the degree some of these children have, there is the possibility that I could be an emotionally or psychologically unstable parent, thus passing a whole bunch of new baggage to my child, who in turn can pass it on to his child. Let's make no mistake about it. The abuses of the past are still affecting children today through the emotional health of their parents. Cycles are not always easy to break. That had nothing to do with socialism (though I'mnot fond of socialism myself mind you), but cutural imperialism. And what about the international treaties we'd signed with them? I can agree with abolishing the Indian Act. In fact, many Aboriginals themselves, or at least the ones I knew, agreed. They thought the Indian Act is racist and paternalistic at best. Bear in mind though that some of the Aboriginals I've seen (and not all quacks; one of them is a successful businesswoman) don't identify themselves as Canadians except as an administrative legal status but nothing more, and feel that the reason Canada still has outstanding international (yes, I did say international) obligations with the Aboriginals is due to the occupied status of Aboriginal lands. Some of them (I have no idea what percentage, but I have met some so they do exist) see themselves literally as occupied nations whose treaties are yet to be respected by the courts. The businesswoman I'd met woudl actually like the treaties upheld with those lands becoming completely autonomous regions. Not necessarily handouts, but simply compensation for legitimate loss due to abuses committed under federal authority. Compensation is not handouts, but a ligitimate greavance for damage incurred. Interesting. Some Aboriginals I've talked to agree that the Indian Act must be scrapped, and see it as paternalistic and imperialistic at best. One of them had come up with a conspiracy theory about it. She's a successful businesswoman so can't be too loopy. But her theory was that the government feared a better educated Aboriginal community since it would likely become increasingly aggressive in international fora to try to pressure the Canadian govenrment to fulfil its international legally binding treaties with the FNs. She'd also argued that many Aboriginals don't identify themsleves as Canadians but rather as occupied peoples (from my observations, there seems to be a split in opinion among the ones I've met on this, some think they're hyphenated Canadians, others that they're not Canadian at all but have the treaty rights to various lands). Though I think her idea is likely wrong (I have a hard time imagining that the govnerment would intentionally try to keep the First Nations down), we can't deny that racism against them is widespread and as such it's not inconceivable that the government, or more accurately some persons within the government, could choose to keep the First Nations down as a matter of national security. After all, we're not as likely to take a 'drunken indian' as seriously as a society of aboriginal entrepreneurs.Again, I don't really buy into her theory, but it was an interesting one none-the less and it does beg the question, why would the federal government chose to keep the First Nations down.

Very true. A leader must genuinely love his fellow man.

Add to that that it doesn't help nation-wide cohesion when Aboriginal children hear waht the 'White man' did to heir parents. Cases of physical abuse, sexual abuse, punishment for speaking the mother tongue, even cases of broken bones and death. Forced separation from family, essentially attempted cultural genocide. This will take a long healing process and not a 'if you don't like us, get the hell out of our country attitude'. They have evdry right to be angry with a country that has done this to them.

I hope the CBC is independent enough for you: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/05/16/...al-schools.html According to this, it was essentially forced assimilation along colonial lines, and the last school closed in 1996. It was forced attendance removed from family. So unless you think 1996 is the dark ages, we have an issue that will likely take at least another generation to correct, if we get onto it now to ensure the problems don't get passed on from generation to generation.

As for the needle through the tongue routine, I'd heard it on the CBC a while after the Oka Crisis. A woman was telling a panel of MPs how her father refused to teach her his language because he associated it with the pain he'd suffered during his time in residential school. He'd told her of one instance when a teacher had forced a needle through his tongue for speaking his language. On the same programme, a panel at a prison had found that most of the Indian prisoners had gone through the residential school system. One female prisoner was there for having murdered her baby; she couldn't bear the memories of her rape as a child every time she hugged her baby, because whenever she was hugged it was usually to be raped as a child. As for the question of history, don't you think that if the current generation of Aboriginal parents and grandparents have gone through such an ordeal, that their children and grandchildren might suffer too? Remember, they were separated from their parents, the ones who were supposed to teach them the basic parenting skills they were to pass on to their children. The last residential school was closed down in the late 80s! So we're going to feel the repercussions of this for at least one more generation, assuming that we take action to provide necessary parenting skills to those we'd taken that education from. Otherwise, it will just get passed on again. Through the residential school system, we'd not only hurt a generation, but by separating them from their parents, also removed tfrom them the parenting skills needed to raise their children, which risks being passed down until corrected.

OK I voted, make it illegal.

My answer's not in the poll, so I can't vote. Morally, I'd say don't allow abortion at all. Politically, I'm less certain, as there are different arguments. Elizabeth May, for instance, is one politicial on record to have said that she opposes abortion morally but sees its prohibition legally as unwise sinse it could result in many back alley abortions, thus costing even more lives. So as to the political front, I lean in favour of prohibiting abortion, but wouldn't make it an election priority, but morally definitely oppose it.