Machjo

Interesting experience just a few minutes ago. The Via Rail ticket agent at Toronto's Union Station switched to French on seeing the family name on my credit card. We both laughed at the irony of the fact that I'd used much more spoken Mandarin than spoken English and had heard no French whatsoever in the last few days in Scarborough except during a phone conversation with my mother in French. Of course Via Rail is under Federal jurisdiction and so must submit to the Official Languages Act. The contrast just showed the apparent disconnect between the languages of Government and of the private sector. I had been using more English today though as I'd traveled from Scarborough town centre to downtown Toronto. Earlier today at a bookstore I'd had a conversation in English with the manager and teller (she was the only person working at the bookstore today), and after I'd mentioned just how Chinese Scarborough is, she'd mentioned one shopping centre (I forget the name) where she doesn't even bother shopping anymore because she can't communicate with the staff there. She wasn't saying it in any meanspirited, bigoted or prejudiced way, bit just in terms of factual practicality. My trip from Scarborough to Toronto and the corresponding linguistic shift that accompanied it was like transitioning from one ghetto to another. I was even surprised at the multiculturalism of the Chinese-speaking community itself, comprising Mainland Chinese, Hongkongese, Macauese, Taiwanese, and Malaysian (and others I'm sure), as well as noticing both a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant and at least one Christian Church that I can recall with Chinese characters on the front, and hearing a hijabi speaking Chinese at one restaurant. The shift from no face-to-face French in neither Scarborough nor Toronto's private sector to experiencing it for the first time only at a Federally-regulated institution (Via Rail) further accentuated the seeming disconnect between Federal policy and my experience among friends and my experience in the non-federally regulated parts of the region.

I'd say we've been far more accepting of multiculturalism since we closed the last residential school in 1996, and even more so since 2008 when the Prime Minister formally apologized for the attempted cultural genocide of the indigenous peoples. We'd abrogated the Chinese Exclusion Act long ago, gave indigenous people's the right to vote in the 1960's, and have not interned Japanese Canadians since WWII. The evidence seems to point to more multiculturalism over the devades, at least in the non-government sector. The Federal Government is de-facto bicultural, the private sector increasingly multicultural.

I guess if the goal is merely to raise an obedient child...

I can speak from experience as a child. My father struck me when I was very young and in later years only needed to threaten it to keep me in line. Did it work? Sort of. I did become extremely obedient, but also emotionally distant from him to this day. Even as an adult I'd sometimes feel an irrational fear just by being in his presence even though the last time he'D struck me was when I was about 8, and before that probably when I was around five. Past the age of five, all he needed to do was raise his hand, or even just verbally warn me. I remember overhearing him giving friends advice with their kids when I was about fourtwen, telling them how he let me know who was the boss at an early age and haD few problems with me since, praising me for how obedient I was. Now our relationship is courteous, which really is a sad word to use to describe a father-adult-sun relationship.

Greetings from Toronto. I'd say I'm integrating nicely. This is my second day in Toronto and I've used English only with hotel staff since arriving. All of my other conversations with friends and restaurant staff at two Chinese restaurants and one Malaysian restaurant have been in Chinese. Last night though I understood little of the conversation since it was mostly in Cantonese, but most could interact with me in Mandarin without any difficulty, including the restaurant staff. I don't intent to assimilate though, only integrate. I still want to keep my French and English and see no reason to assimilate when integration suffices.

The only lesson you learnt was don't get caught next time. Two basic kinds of parenting past a certain age: 1. If I catch you shoplifting I'll spank you. 2. Don't steal because it's wrong. People work hard for their property. Etc. He learns a different lesson from each example. From the first: Don't do it when the cops are around.

Who? Me? I'm in America at present. Toronto to be exact.

Does this mean a wife spanking her husband in the bedroom will now be illegal? Would his encouraging her make him an accomplice to the act?

My guess is that the HRC will also consider the cost of translation and the reality thst, unlike a government, a business might have more limited means. It might still rule in favour if interpretation in spite of this, but probably only because it did give the original owners a reasonable impression that it would provide English service, meaning that any such ruling is not likely to suddenly expend to the Spanish-speaker for example.

And just to clarify, my knowing Chinese does not make me a 'Chinaman.' It just makes me a more educated French Canadian.

They probably intended to save money on hiring an interpreter (which is very expensive) and were probably tired of sitting through relay interpretation (consecutive interpretation being even more expensive, requiring listening devices for all).

So the rhetoric goes. In reality though, one could more accurately describe Canada as two melting pots: English and French. You only need to look at the Indian residential school system, the Gradual Civilization Act, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the abrogation of the freedom of French, German, and Ukrainian Canadians to send their children to school in their own languages in the English-speaking provinces after WWI, the French Language Charter, school underfunding on reserves and discriminatory immigration and education policy to see that, rhetoric aside, we have always had an assimilation policy, albeit more subtle today. Consider that all of those Chinese-speakers in Richmond must send their children to school in English. As for the USA, the official language of El Cerito, TX, has Spanish as its official language, so the USA has a cultural mosaic of sorts too. Canada and the USA are not all that different except in their choice of rhetorical stereotyping. If anything, Canada might be more two melting pots and the US more the cultural mosaic than Canada considering its greater tolerance of Spanish in schools, funding and legislation for its indigenous languages, etc. Whereas Ontario's all have to learn French and Québécois English in high school as their second language, US students can choose ESL. Under Bush, the feds also provided funding (and maybe still do) to encourage Russian, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, and Korean in high school (presumably for national security interests). Students living outside of Grand Ronde reserve in Oregon can also learn Chinuk Wawa to fulfil their second language requirement. So again, which is more the melting pot (or two) and which is the cultural mosaic is not so clear when we look at the facts.

Last I checked, my knowledge of Chinese has not changed my skin colour. I'm still as white as any Old Stock Frenchman.

I disagree. Supposing that a Spanish-speaker signed an English contract with no accompanying Spanish translation that never said anything about Spanish-language services. Given that the corporation would not have done anything that could have given the buyer the impression that it would provide Spanish-speaking services, why would it then be obligated to now do so? Interpretation is extremely expensive. The corporation should be obligated to provide interpretation only for those languages that its contract stated or gave the impression the corporation covered.

Sounds like our Western Parliamentary system taught them well. Joking aside, a legal guarantee to service in the language of the contract you signed unless the contract in question states otherwise would have prevented this from happening since as long as some owners had signed a contract in English with no linguistic specification in the contract, they would then have been bound to provide service in English. To say that those who don't regularly vote should lose the right to vote won't fly.

When reasonableness is not defined in law, we end up with expensive HRC or even legal battles. Why not define reasonableness at least somewhat more clearly in law to avoid this problem? Would it be that difficult to say that, unless the contract a person signs states otherwise, the corporation must serve him in the language of the contract which he agreed to sign?

And that's why such contracts should present no surprises. It is reasonable to assume unless the contract states otherwise that the corporation will provide service in the language in which the contract was signed. It would not be unreasonable for a law to require a corporation to offer service in the languages in which its contracts are signed unless the contracts themselves state otherwise. In this particular case I assume that these owners had signed an English-version of the contract (or at least one that included English translation) and with no mention of the corporation's linguistic policy, which led them to reasonably assume that the contract guaranteed service in English. If the corporation intended otherwise, then it should have either refused to provide an English version of the contract or at least inscribed its linguistic policy into the contract. It did neither and so the Government should draft a new law requiring the corporation to provide English service in this case.

I think it's time to wake up to reality though. Lately, most of my spoken interactions among friends have been in Mandarin, my English, French, and Esperanto being limited to the written form except on occasion at the shop or restaurant where I'll use either French or English. In any environment, official monolingual ism is ideal, and so I agree with the condo corporation in principle. I've sat through bilingual meetings multiple times and they aren't fun. That said, I disagree with the corporation's method in this case and so it should include English in this case given the circumstances.

Last I checked, French is not an official language of the BC governmemt, and rightfully so. Only Federal is bilingual in BC.

I was talking about any document the owners themselves signed to agree to. Should the bylaws have been incident in these, explicitly or impicitly, then it would include the bylaws too. In such a case, if the bylaws are printed in English and it is reasonable for the home buyer to conclude by this that unless a linguistic policy is explicitly stated in the bylaws, meetings will provide English interpretation if necessary, then such interpretation ought to be provided. It should be the corporation's responsibility to avoid such confusion. If the bylaws are understood to be part of the contract the buyer is signing on to, the bylaws are printed in English, and the corporation has no intention of providing service in English, then the onus should have been on the corporation to specify explicitly in the contract or bylaws what the linguistic policy is so as to avoid misunderstanding. Not having done so while knowing full well that English bylaws could lead to the assumption English services will be provided effectively puts a moral obligation on the corporation to provide service in,English. As for a legal ibligation, unfortunately it appears that that might not be the case, in which case provincial laws will need to be updated to address this problem. If bylaws are printed in English and the corporation does not intend to provide service in English, then that should be explicitly specified in the contract or the bylaws to avoid any confusion.

Though it will likely consider other factors and recognize that its decision could set a precedent. For example, let's suppose the corporation intended for English as its written language and ASL as its spoken wit no services provided in othe language to proot efficiency. Going by official status in the Constitution, the Deaf would then have no rights. Besides, the Charter deals only with the languages of Government and of education, and not of the private sector, and rightfully so. To go by the official languages of the Constitution could also violate Treaty rights should a condo corporation decide to work in the local indigenous language, again monolingually to save money. For these and other reasons, I can't imagine the HRC giving much weight to the Constitutional status of a language when deciding g on a provate-sector dispute.

Simple. If monolingual English meetings ate allowed, then so are monolingual Chinese meetings. That's the human right to non-distinction. In conclusion, there won't be much the HRC could do. I don't even know if the HRC's mandate allows it to make legislative recommendations to the Government to fix the problem. If so, it could do that, otherwise its hands will be tied. I don't think this will stop at the HRC though. I'm sure once the HRC dismisses the case due to a lack of legislative tools at its disposal, the next step will be for the public to call on the Government to legislate a solution. To my mind at least, the solution I'd proposed above would be among the most just. And if indeed BC law requires for there to be an English version of a contract, then unless the contract specifies the company's linguistic policy, the company should be required to provide service in English. Since I imagine the contracts with the plaintiffs were in English or at least included an English version, and presumably did not specify any linguistic policy, then yes, perhaps it's time to adopt a law requiring companies to provide service in the languages of a contract where no linguistic policy is specified in the contract.

To answer the first question, they probably wanted to save money on interpretatiin and so settled on the majority language. To answer the second question, according to the article, it would appear that they do know the law. The problem here seems to be a lack of clear laws on the matter. That's why I'd proposed a new law requiring businesses to provide service in the language of the contract that was signed unless the contract itself explicitly states otherwise. I'd then proposed that we might even want the law to require that all such businesses clearly inscribe their spoken and written linguistic policies into all of their new contracts so as to avoid any ambiguity in the future. Again, the problem here does not seem to be that the company is violating the law, but rather that a law is lacking where a law should be.

We're exploring the policy of establishing a boarding house in a few years with marketing targeting Chinese who want to send their children to university in Canada. I can guarantee that the contract will spell out the house's linguistic policy clearly, unambiguously, and in detail.

We might also ask whether the law should explicitly require strata property contracts to to specify property council's linguistic policy.