Evening Star

I have literally never heard anyone give this reason for official bilingualism. I'm pretty sure it wasn't Pierre Trudeau's reason.

If you're actually in favour of a co-ordinated global effort like this, maybe overseen by the UN, that's a little intriguing. I don't think Canada should move towards an official-Esperanto policy prior to this. And it wouldn't just be a matter of Hollywood and Game of Thrones: there are centuries' worth of literature and scholarship in the major European languages that we (or at least I) would want to preserve. This is a more important matter to me than the (noble) ideal of moving towards a more neutral and scientifically designed invented language.

Yeah, people from all over the world manage to learn English quite well when they immigrate to English-speaking countries.

It only occurred to me a day or two ago that it could be a clever Machiavellian strategy, for the reasons KIS gives: the opposition parties all get to attack each other (probably mostly focused on the NDP) while Harper sits back and watches.

The US does not have a legislated official language per se, yet people still use English. For Esperanto to overtake English on anything resembling a global scale, it seems that there would have to be a co-ordinated effort with the US and UK to actively impose Esperanto on a presently English-speaking population, which doesn't seem realistic. (I actually have some interest in learning Esperanto at some point btw; I'm still fine with keeping English and French as our official languages.)

JT is ridiculous. You'll get no argument from me there. The most surprising thing to me is that he maintained his popularity as long as he did. I preferred Dion, frankly.

There was nothing exceptionally impressive about Harper's performance in the 2011 debate; Ignatieff crashed and burned on his own. As for Layton's performance, the 2011 election was a real breakthrough: he took the NDP from fourth place to Official Opposition. Mulcair has always been a stronger debater than Layton imo and now Harper has a seriously threatening main competitor; this is quite different from the last two elections.

Here's a Forum poll from last month that states that 10% of 2011 CPC voters plan to vote NDP this time: http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/Federal%20Horserace%20News%20Release%20(2015%2006%2016)%20Forum%20Research.pdf

I think this still assumes an affinity between the LPC and NDP that I'm not sure is there. The LPC has historically been happy to have the NDP support them in minority situations but I'm not sure if they would be as eager to be the 'junior partner' to an NDP minority (and they've generally been clear that they would not form a coalition with the NDP). I don't think they would be so opposed to the NDP as to bring them down right away but I think they might more or less behave the same way they did under the CPC minorities from 2006-2011. Unless what you're saying is that the CPC didn't get anything done in that period; I'm not sure I agree with that.

Wales sends 40 MPs to the UK Parliament, uses the pound, is protected by the UK military. I'm not sure it has greater sovereignty than Canadian provinces do at present.

It is a sub-sovereign jurisdiction but is still part of the UK, not a 'country' in the way that Canada is a country. Afaik, there are no Welsh army, Welsh currency, Welsh embassies, etc.

People are able to choose their second language of study in many places (and when I grew up in Ottawa, people could choose to take e.g. an Italian or Spanish class as well as French). The example of BC has already been given. This is under provincial jurisdiction and has nothing to do with federal policies regarding official languages. Yes, in Ottawa, French is a compulsory course, as it should be, notwithstanding bizarre arguments about the dominance of Chinese.

The most logical solution, obviously. But should British Sign Language and French Sign Language both be given official status?

I linked the stats already. Chinese does seem to come fourth after Arabic but it does not come close to dominance. (Hindu isn't a language btw).

I'm still not sold on this 'Chinese dominance over French' in Ottawa. Using the StatsCan numbers, the number of people whose language most spoken at home is "Chinese, n.o.s." is 8475 with 4000 claiming Cantonese and 5190 claiming Mandarin. I don't see how that could result in anything resembling dominance.

Out of curiosity, how do you know these people are monolingual? Are they identifying themselves as such? Have you asked them why they are defending 'compulsory French'?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ottawa#Languages For Stats Can figures: http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CSD&Code1=3506008&Data=Count&SearchText=Ottawa&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&A1=All&B1=Language&Custom=&TABID=1#tabs2 I grew up in Ottawa and live here currently and your comment makes no sense to me at all. I hear and (try to) use French all the time. Ever been to University of Ottawa campus? Vanier? Orleans? Anywhere downtown? Edit: The only way I could understand this is if you were in a west-end suburb.

French immersion programmes do a decent job of providing a basic fundamental competence in the language ime, at least in Ottawa. (True fluency only comes from actually using a language on a regular basis.) Core French programmes, where you just take one French class every year, do not really do this and do not try to: they give an introduction.

Agree with most of this. Anyone who thinks there is some sort of alliance between the Liberals and NDP is deluding themselves imo.

That suggests that the CPC vote might be more efficient than the NDP vote.

Cite? Even if this is true, unless the current QC government has made this request (which I doubt), I'm not sure I can regard this as QC's request. It would basically be an abandonment of the Official Languages Act, but only for one province. That makes no sense to me.

Yes, I agree, and I don't think that Tory tax breaks make this sustainable.

Is this really Quebec's wish? Has Couillard asked for this? Have the NDP, who represent the most Quebec seats federally, asked for this? Edit: And even if they did ask for this, what would make this a good idea?

In the world? Sure. In Canada? I doubt this.

Tbf, I'm not much of a scientist, despite my Dad's accomplishments in the area.