Machjo

Thanks. Keep the comments coming folks. I did link this thread to a French forum.

I just got challenged on a French Québec forum and need your help. I proposed that instead of a sovereignty referendum, Québec should have a referendum on official unilingualism in the Constitution and federal administration. For example, it could propose that the English provisions of the Constitution and federal government administration, packaging and labelling, etc. would not apply to Québec. I'd pointed out that one advantage would be money saved for the taxpayer. Another would be that Federal employment in Quebec could be more accessible to those who don't know English and so make it more accessible to indigenous and allophone Quebecers too. Another would be that Québec would no longer be obligated to provide English language education. It would probably still do that but could limit it more to where numbers warrant it for example without any Constitutional obligation to do so. Another would be that Quebecers could import products from other countries with or without English labelling and so expand consumer choice. One forum member said he liked the idea but that English Canada would never agree to it. I explained that English Canadians are just as tired of having French imposed on them as Quebecers are of having English imposed on them. I'd given the example of an entrepreneur in BC who'd run into the problem of importing US products with no French labelling. He eventually had to quit importing it because it wasn't worth the expense of French translation in BC. He was still unconvinced, believing that English Canadians would gladly impose French on themselves if that is what it took to impose English on Quebec. He seems to believe English Canadians are that massochistic. I disagree. So, who's right? Would you agree to drop English in Quebec and French in the ROC? I'll post this thread in the other forum too.

Are you saying that indigenous, deaf, and other Canadians are all second-rate citizens? How many official languages do you propose to correct this great injustice?

How is that relevant except to the private sector and diplomats. For the rest, the government just needs an easy to learn language.

But we also expect the employee to communicate with the public. I had read a CBSA report written in broken English in Ontario accusing a foreign national of having violated IRPA based on a complete misunderstanding of an interview through an English-Chinese interpreter. Of course it went to the IRB, etc. all at taxpayer cost, only for the judge to through it all out due to the 'evidence' having been all wrong. That's why I think it would be preferable to have Federal official unilingualism in the language of the province. That way the CBSA could hire the best qualified in the language of the province rather than a semi-literate in both official languages. Under such a policy, only the highest ranking officials dealing with Canada wide matters would need to know both languages well, especially in law and immigration enforcement or any work through interpreters.

The one who can't function in the working language of the office.

For for example, would Canadian forces in Quebec function in French? Would French be printed on the currency? Would laws and the Constitution be in French? Would Federal offices in central Québec need to include English?

Now I am in favour of extreme decentralisation with the Federal Government handling only what all of the provinces agree the Federal Government could handle better. But even then, if you de-officialize French, you'd have to include at least some easy language in the mix. For example, English and Esperanto. At least that way there's a language in the mix that any Canadian could learn quickly if he lacks the aptitude to learn a more difficult language like English.

The vast majority of Quebecers is not even functional in English. The only way I could see your proposal working would be through extreme devolution of powers to the provinces, leaving the Federal Government to deal with currency, citizenshio, international trade, border security, national defense, and international relations and nothing more. And even that would be hard for Quebecers to swallow.

So you'd leave the Constitution as is?

And why?

So Cybercoma and Bryan, what concrete policy change would you propose to the Constitution to improve the lot of the Deaf in a just and efficient manner?

One problem in discussions between anonymous participants is that no claim matters. Only logical analysis does since the logic of it proves itself. Nothing wrong with making anecdotal claims of course, jut that on its own it advances no argument in an anonymous online forum. You can have a PhD in deaf linguistics for all I care. But on here, it's logical analysis that counts.

Sorry, ignore this post. Double post.

Who cares about a mother tongue? The advantage of an IAL is that it's multiple times easier to learn than a national language, so everyone can learn it well in no time flat. I'd taught taught myself Esperanto with a self-instruction book, a dictionary, and 100 hours if self instruction. I'd met Chinese in China who's done it in 300 hours of self-instruction. At an hour a day, that's not even a year. An IAL is a no-brainer.

So according to your knowledge, which would benefit the deaf community the most? 1. Official bilingualism and personal bilingualism. In other words, Fédéral agencies operate officially unilingually in the dominant local language but each employee must know a second language, whether French, English, ASL, Ojibwe, Chinese, Esperanto, etc.? 2. Official bilingualism Canada wide where hiring preference always goes to the bilingual in English and French over other bilinguals, possibly the only exception being departments that specialises in the deaf community as a community apart. 1 or 2, and why?

And a second quote from Wikipedia: The Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Book I, General Introduction, Paragraph 19, states: "Still, as we have pointed out earlier, there is such a thing as a French culture and a British culture. Of course, the differences between them are not as great as they would be if either were compared to one of the many Asian or African cultures. In Canada, the Anglophones and the Francophones wear the same sort of clothing, live in the same sort of houses, and use the same tools . They are very similar in their social behaviour, belong to religions which are not exclusive, and share the same general knowledge. To a greater or lesser extent, they share a North American way of living."

For those who think official bilingualism is a progressive ideology, here's a quite from the Wikipedia article: The introduction to Book I of the report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism published on 8 October 1967, states: Our terms of reference contain no allusion to Canadas native populations. They speak of 'two founding races,' namely Canadians of British and French origin, and 'other ethnic groups,' but mention neither the Indians nor the Eskimos. Book II Chapter V.E of the same report, published on 23 May 1968, states that the governments policy with reference to indigenous Canadians is to integrate these students as completely as possible into the existing provincial school systems. This last statement is reinforced by the Honourable Jean Chrétien, Minister of Indian Affairs, in Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy (the White Paper) presented in 1969 when he states that the Indian culture can be preserved, perpetuated and developed only by the Indian people themselves.

Read Book I of the Report. Contrary to your assertion, it explicitly defines the 'two founding races' as 'Canadians of British and French origin' apart from 'the other ethnic groups' to the explicit Exclusion if 'the Indians and the Eskimos.' That's from Book I, General Introduction, Paragraph 21. Book I, Chapter 1, paragraph 19 then distinguishes between us and the various Asian and African cultures. Official bilingualism is very much a reactionary ideology against the others.

Given that both English and French are oral languages, would English-ASL bilingualism not be less redundant for Air Canada?

And that's where official bilingualism is a problem. In official unilingualism (English in English Canada and French in French Canada for example), then government offices could give hiring priority to English-ASL or English-Chinese in Burnaby or French-LSQ bilinguals, and unilingual English and French could just suck it up. If the government want to guarantee some right to English in Quebec or French in BC, then why not a 'meet-us-partway policy. For example, if the government offered Esperanto (five to ten times easier to learn than English) civil servants in BC could learn that and Quebec travelers to BC could learn it too. That way, Nunavummiut could benefit from it too. How do the deaf, Chinese-Canadians, IR Nunavummiut benefit from official bilingualism?

At a conference in Beijing in 2004, I'd met someone who worked in the UN building in New York who said outside the Assembly Room, in the hallways, etc. informally they all switched to English. They use the other languages only in formal contexts for show.

We have never even had a common language, let alone a common culture. The Indian Act, the Gradual Civilisation Act, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the residential school system, abrogating the rights if German Canadians to send their children to school after WWI, official bilingualism, etc. all aimed or aim to reduce Canada's cultures to two. I'm thankful that all attempts have failed so far, yet they keep trying.

I'm a French Canadian who knows Chinese and use it daily in the NCC. You see, one just never knows what language he'll need in life, and that's why the Government should promote official monolingualism as much as possible. It's no coincidence that some of the world's most multilingual states (e.g. Indonesia) are officially unilingual.

Where I live, that would be Ojibwe, of which I've learnt at least a few words and phrases. Aanii.