Machjo

That's false logic. The ASL community maintains itself with minimal government assistance and the government probably even discriminates against it in immigration policy. The Chinese community in Canada is more swamped by English and French than vice versa and is also at a disadvantage over the British and the French when writing the immigration test, yet it still thrives. The Esperanto-speaking community in Canada has sustained itself for many decades in spite of no official recognition and general prejudice against it. Yet you are saying that even the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteeing protection for English isn't enough to protect English from extinction, but that we need protection for English in immigration policy too. I have more confidence in my English than you do in yours. That's why I tend to favour more protection for a sign language, the local indigenous language, and an international auxiliary language: because I have full confidence in the ability of English to thrive even where it has no official recognition.

I don't know the situation in the rest of Canada, but in BC Wawa served as a lingua franca sometimes in parts of the province, even in some urban centres like parts of Kamloops, until the 1930's. Given that the residential school system had started in the 1800's, likewise the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Indian Act, and discriminatory immigration policies favoring British immigration first, Europeans second, I can't imagine that these policies did not contribute to the demise of Wawa as a lingua franca. I could be wrong about the residential schools. Maybe discriminatory immigration and other policies played a greater role, maybe it was a combination of all of these policies combined, but the indigenous languages certainly did not decline through the operation of the free market.

Had it not been for the residential school system, large swaths of Canada today would likely speak neither English nor French. And to say 'I'm confident about the future of English as long as we stop Chinese immigration' translates in my book as 'I'm not confident about the future of English without immigration and other laws to promote its progress.'

I would actually support reducing the official status of French in Canada. Though I recognize that politically it can't be done overnight, we could start with Federal offices operating only in the dominant language of their respective provinces to start. That alone would save much money. We could always explore further de-officializarion later. What you seem to be proposing for English is the opposite, ever more statist linguistic intervention and encroachment into the private sector. I'm confident that my French can thrive without any special status. Are you equally confident about your English?

I totally agree that provincially in Ontario, the Liberal Party is more ethnocentric than the Green or PC parties. I was still living in Ontario at the time of the last Provincial election and had voted PC mainly due to its being far less ethnically prejudiced than the Liberal Party. Or at least in my riding anyway. Federally the situation was reversed. I'd voted for the local NDP candidate because I couldn't reach my Green and Conservative candidates for questions and my local NDP candidate was somewhat of a maverick not afraid to somewhat openly challenge some NDP policies like official bilingualism. She was actually open to the idea of Federal offices operating only in the dominant language of their respective provinces and media vouchers as an alternative to government-directed public media funding, ironically what we should expect more from a conservative candidate.

How does asking questions which would already have been asked in the minutes detail over the course of days at an IRB hearing increase the legitimacy of our story? All I could see was redundancy, which to me shows time-wasting. I won't label anyone an idiot, but to not just look it up does seem to show lack of familiarity with his own database. If you have it, use it, and save everyone some time in the process.

Interesting. I'd run into the CBSA a few weeks ago at YVR with my fiancée and her friend on my return to Canada. Though free to leave Canada, My fiancée was legally obligated to return to attend a CBSA appeal hearing. While in mainland China, I'd run into problems with my cell phone so had to reset it. As a result, I'd got all of my electronics and baggage checked at secondary. The officer stated they were checking for child pornography. Given that resetting a cell phone would be reason enough to investigate child pornography, fair enough. However, given that my fiancée was returning to attend a CBSA appeal hearing since the IRB had ruled that on a balance of probabilities my fiancée had not worked illegally in Canada as the CBSA had claimed (the IRB concluding that it was an unsubstantiated case of guilt by association and ethnic profiling), and the CBSA disagreed with the IRB's decision and so appealed, the agent, in spite of the fact that my fiancée's case should have been covered in detail in the CBSA's own database, decided to waste our time reinventing the wheel, asking me when we'd met, how we'd met, where we'd met, through whom we'd met, how I'd met her cousin (i.e. the person through whom we'd met), etc.. I answered each question always adding politely that all of his questions had already been answered in detail at the IRB hearing. I was also quite offended at the accusatory tone in which the questions were asked. It had reminded me of after my fiancée had first won her bond hearing. The CBSA officer had acted most unprofessionally in trying to discourage me from paying her bond, saying that the CBSA had irrefutable evidence that she had worked illegally in Canada. We'd later learnt at the admissibility hearing that the CBSA had nothing more than two uncorroborated police officers' statements and a CBSA statement (much of the latter having been proved false at the bond hearing). Add to that the police officers' statements themselves never accused her of anything and that the CBSA had tried to suppress any witness statement, of which the IRB had taken note in deciding in my fiancée's favour. The appeal seems to be based on the idea that officers' statements should not be challenged and that the decision should have been based on the officers' uncorroborated statements alone and that it is unreasonable to expect officers to obtain witness statements just because witnesses are present. Given that even the police statements never actually accused her of anything, the accusation was actually based on a CBSA officer's mere interpretation of the police officers' statements and her interview notes, with that officer's notes themselves having been proved false at the bond hearing. Given that I knew that he'd have to check his database anyway, I was asking myself if refusing to answer his questions and just refer him to his database would accelerate the process, but chose not to take the risk of it backfiring, so I answered but always informing him that it should all be in his database already anyway. My fiancée had more guts than I did. She just told the agent interviewing her that her main reason for returning to Canada was to attend the CBSA's own appeal hearing and that if he wants to refuse her entry, then she wants his name and CBSA ID number to pass on to hEr lawyer in Canada. He backed right off her and left her alone after that. Now I understand why she was just sitting on a bench waiting for me and wondering what was taking me so long. I can learn a lot from her on how to speak to authority. Them again, she'd managed over 500 factory workers under her in the past, so that probably gave her plenty of experience in dealing with matters of authority.

Should we go pro-reo, I could see the return of the PC and Reform Parties as two separate parties again, the PC mostly in the east, and Reform mostly in the west, with maybe a few Libertarian Party votes hurting the Reform Party somewhat. I could see the Libertarian Party winning a few seats too along with the Christian Heritage Party. Meanwhile on the left I could see the Communist Party winning a seat or two too.

The office of religious freedom was both redundant (doing the same work as the UNHCHR) and hypocritical (it could not comment on Canada's own separate school system which the UN had already criticized as discriminatory), thus making it untrustworthy and so ineffective, all at taxpayers expense. The proposed Barbaric Cultural Practices hotline would have done the exact same work as 911, so another proposed complete redundancy. As for prohibiting Canadian advertising companies from advertising sexual services on their websites while allowing sex workers to freely advertise overlooked a major loophole: sex workers were already advertising their services on foreign (and mostly unregulated) websites, which made that law completely useless. Had the government done its homework, it would have continued to allow Canadian sites to advertise such services, require such sites to meet specific sexual advertising standards (e.g. pages advertising such services also advertise government trades or professional education, STI information, crisis help line, information on various addictions (drugs, gambling, etc.) including sex addiction and where to get help, etc.), and then, while allowing a sex worker to advertise his services on foreign webites if he wants to, make it a fineable offence to advertise on a website (foreign or domestic) that does not meet the required advertising standard. Then on the matter of the niqab debate, that was pure identity politics, even politics of outright hate. As for cutting funding for abortions abroad, I'm pro-life myself and so agreed with it in principle. But to do that while defending abortion in Canada made it look more like the conservatives were just playing the social conservative card to cut funding for foreign aid under the guise of fiscal conservatism. I could go on, but it seemed like the patients had taken over the asylum of the Conservative Party of Canada. It seemed like most of their proposed policies were either prejudiced, redundant, hypocritical, or just poorly thought out.

On the contrary. Experience in Europe has shows that pro-rep benefits the fringes, so expect a greater chance of the Communist Party of Canada or the Christian Heritage Party winning a seat or two at the expense of the main parties. Since the conservatives would no longer need to worry about winning a plurality of votes to win seats, assured that it will be given the number of seats voters give it proportionately, if anything you can imagine the CPC shifting even further right and the NDP further left. With no more strategic voting, they would likely both gain votes on the Liberal party.

You say your ancestors should have ensured that our language disappeared too. So by definition, you're condoning cultural genocide. If your ancestors did not want French, why did they invade New France then?

And again, when have we ever had a clear implied social contract? Wawa was used as an international auxiliary language between some people in parts of BC right into the 1930's!

Given that some of Panama's public schools and the biggest university in Nigeria now offer Mandarin as an alternative to English, and that English has likewise given way somewhat to German and other languages in the Hungarian school system, and to other languages in the Polish and Italian one too, if we stop taking in immigrants, then that will obly further reduce the value of English in the world and English and French Canadians themselves will increasingly need to learn other languages to trade with the world. Either that or we bring in immigrants to trade for us. Most who work in imports and exports and in the tourism industry know a language other than English or French. Unless we'really prepared to devastate our immigration industry and lose our share of world markets, our choice is between learning other languages or accepting more immigrants. Considering the success of our public schools in second language teaching, it looks like it must be the latter option.

I've also been to restaurants in Scarborough that were packed full of Chinese customers speaking Chinese as far as I could hear.

Some South-East Ontario towns are predominantly French-speaking and the English must learn French to find work there.

Some jobs are advertised only in Chinese papers, and in Chinese to boot. If you can't find work from an English paper, you might want to grab a Chinese one to read its classifieds.

As a result of its extreme diversity, Indonesia now has a common language and a shared literature. It may be that few speak the official language as a mother tongue, but a common language need not be a common mother tongue. A common second language is all Indonesia needs to promote its unity. Its diversity is what made its unity possible.

Not enough to reach critical mass. Indonesia contains over 100 linguistic regions with the largest representing only 40% of Indonesia's population. While it might be possible for a state to juggle 2, 3, or maybe even 4 official languages, there is no way it could possibly juggle over 100. As a result of Indonesia's linguistic situation reaching critical mass, circumstance forced a common language onto it. Had Indonesia had only two major linguistic regions, it would likely have become divided today by two official languages like Canada is.

What implied social contract? British and French Canada negotiated its first Treaties with the indigenous peoples through interpreters, establishing the residential school system only after some of the Treaties had already been signed. English Canada had first welcomed Germans and Ukrainians to settle in Canada and send their children to school in their own languages, introducing a prohibition on the practice only once they'd already established such schools after WWI. Many if not all of the first coolies probably conversed with their foremen in Wawa as an international auxiliary language of the Cascadian region. Many Indigenous, English, and French traders of the Hudson's Bay Company likewise once conversed in Wawa throughout that same region. Many Indigenous peoples of the Pacific North West today are of mixed Indigenous and Chinese blood from the coolie period onward. Some people still conversed in Wawa as an international auxiliary language in parts of British Columbia and Washington State, including in urban centres like Kamloops and Seattle, well into the 1930's, and Wawa is still spoken today (albeit now in creolized form) in Grand Ronde reserve in Oregon, and some still speak it as a second language in Kamloops today. Given that many German Canadians in Ontario and Ukrainian Canadians on the prairies might descend from ancestors who were first permitted to establish schools in their own languages, and that many Canadian-born Chinese of the Pacific North West might descend from ancestors whose foremen would have taught them and conversed with them in Wawa rather than English, presicely what implied social contract did they sign onto? The only implied social contract I see is to be prepared to to have the goalposts changed on them once they arrived. Just to give an idea of how new our modern society is, some would be shocked to realize that less than 50% of France's population spoke French as a mother tongue up until the 1930's. Given that statistic, it should not surprise us that instruction grammars and dictionaries to teach settlers Wawa (usually referred to as Chinook Jargon in English at the time, and usually Wawa in the language itself, or otherwise lalang (from 'la langue') among its French speakers)) were published in the late 1800's. Even as late as the 1960s, many Inuit parents had to communicate through translators to the administrators of the residential schools their children attended (residential schools having arrived later in the North). Though English and French Canadians have long thought of Canada as being Anglo-French, others have not always seen it through the same eyes.

Reason enough to weaken the Anglo-French majority in Canada.

Why must they thrive in English? I don't care in what language you thrive. Why do you care so much about the language in which I thrive. Can't we just be happy for people's success in life?

My point was that the reason Indonesia chose a common mostly second language was precisely because it had no clear linguistic majority among its many languages. The reason Canada can't agree on a common language is precisely because of the excessively powerful British and French lobbies in the country who oppose a common language for Canada.

The problem with English and French is that they are both among the more difficult languages to learn, thus making them the worst candidates for a common language for Canada. What I can say is that expanding immigration could help to unite Canada. Chinese Quebecers won't support splitting from Chinese Ontario.

He is partially right. Growing religious and linguistic diversity can incite imperialists to violence to adherence to their religion and language. We've seen it throughout Canadian history from the Indian Act to the Chinese Exclusion Act.

In spite of Chinese enjoying no particular constitutional or legal status in Canada, and in spite of Chinese Canadians having to navigate an Anglo-French constitutional and linguistic policy, the Chinese Canadian community is thriving. Are you saying that English and French Canadian cultures are so feeble that, in spite of their larger populations, they would simply collapse like a row of dominoes without Constitutional, legal, and taxpayer support? If they are indeed that feeble, are such frail cultures really worth preserving?