Canadians needs a bilingual education

[Bakunin]

Or, since life is difficult anyway, perhaps people should decide for themselves who they are ans what they do, exercise the full extent of their rights where, when and how they see fit, and tell those who don't like it to get lost.

I agree as long as they don't complain about public funded school in canada not giving them other choice than english and french.

[Bro]

Bro,

The notion that equal rights actually means that the minority dictating to the majority is so old, has been applied to so many situations and is so obviously false that it is not even worth commenting on it.

Now, some facts. To begin with, most jobs in our country's federal civil service still do not require knowledge of both French and English.

LOL,equal rights for English in the Je Me Souvien province?

And to your facts,most jobs would require only English,but

peference is given to our minority population of Francophones when hiring is done at any level in the government.

[CANADIEN]

Bro,

I have said what I think of the linguistic rights of Quebecers and their violation by the Quebec government.

As for the policies by some governments to open some jobs to some minority groups (which are more likly to be visible minorities and women, btw), they have outlived their usefulness.

[CANADIEN]

Bakunin,

Whether they are right or wrong, it is not people who would like government funded Maori schools in Saint-Jovite I have a problem with. After all, whether they are right or wrong, their demand does not violate the rights of any Canadians. My problem is with those who believe that is was a mistake in the first place to acknowledge and protect the linguistic rights of Canadians.

[CANADIEN]

Stoker,

As I said before, it is not about culture, it is about the individual rights of each Canadians. That is, in this case:

- access to publicly-funded education (an universal right, we agree on this, don't we) in the Canadian language of their choice (the absolute rights of Canadians, but which the Quebec government violates and you want to disappear);

- access to government services (now, would anyone dispute that everyone should have access to those) in the Canadian language of their choice.

Now, you are free to use your wallet as the only measure of whether or not the rights of Canadians should be respected. I'll go with using the rights of Canadians as the primary measure of what our government should and should not do.

And on this note, folks, I am switching to another thread. I have said all that needs to be said on this topic.

[JWayne625]

I look at it this way. Canada for whatever reason through ruling's from our Liberal-minded Supreme Court is attempting to be all things for all Canadian's, without a thought as to the fiscal costs of some of these decisions. Since there is only so much money in the kitty, priorities like healthcare and education are quickly becoming thing's that we are having difficulty funding, yet the Supreme Court just keeps coming with these rulings which in reality is making law instead of interpreting it.

The reality is that we cannot be all things to all Canadian's and it is quickly reaching a point whereby priorities like healthcare and education are going to have to be given the priority they deserve. When we have a situation, like we now have, with long waiting times for non-elective surgeries. We have student's either not being able to afford to attend post-secondary education at all, or are graduating so heavily in debt that they have to move back home with mommy and daddy because that is the only way they can afford the student loan payments.

Let's face it people, these Supreme Court Judges' could care less what the impact of their decisions have on ordinary Canadian's and they could care less, because they are so busy living in their utopia that they cannot see that their decision's are destroying this country. What we need is for their power to be redefined, and be made subject to some common-sense, democratic rules. In other words they have to be somehow made accountable to Canadian's for their decisions. Things like it is not within their realm of responsibility to instruct the elected leaders of this country as to what laws they are going to make and how they are to be worded. If that can't happen, I fear for the future of this country. These people who sit as Supreme Court Justice's aren't god's, but somehow they have to be made aware of that fact. Right now they think they are, and our PM by saying they are they ultimate authority in this country is only enforcing that belief. Something needs to chance quickly, before more harm is done.

[Bro]

As for the policies by some governments to open some jobs to some minority groups (which are more likly to be visible minorities and women,

You are correct to a point,but the visible minorities are still mostly from french speaking cultures or countries.

If you don't believe me,check with stats Canada,providing they have legitimate hiring records.

And women can be francophone ,can they not?

BTW,which "some" governments are you talking about.

I was talking about the feds.Are you talking about the quebec gov.,whose policy is not to hire any english minority,mostly because they control their own immigration,a freedom not extended to other provinces,and allow only immigrants from francophone nations?

[JWayne625]

Bro; As a matter of fact I am talking about New Brunswick. And still those in authority that have been hired through bilingual policies are mostly men not women, and their qualification is that they speak French, as there seems to be no testing criteria as to their English language skills. As long as they speak French and broken English that seems to be good enough.

[ticker]

here is a quote from your idol PET MS. If he say he didn't intend for everyone to learn 2 languages what are you carring on abouy how it is time for the whole counrty to learn french.

"Sometimes I wish we had never described the official languages policy as `bilingualism' – because the word apparently implied that our intent is for all Canadians to learn two languages. Such is not our intent at all."

April 18, 1977

Speech to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters in Winnipeg

[Big Blue Machine]

Canadians should learn the language of the majority of people in their province.

[JWayne625]

Big Blue Machine: I agree with you, but I live in New Brunswick where the language of the majority is English, but our politicians with the help of the other provinces have entrenched it in the Constitution that New Brunswick will forever and a day be a bilingual province whether we can afford it or not, there it is. While every other service including health and education get's slashed at budget time, money for French incentives is never subject to budget restraints. In fact last year the Official Language Commissioner's Office in Ottawa, with a satellite office in Moncton, NB, was apparently not good enough for Bernard Lord, because he decided that we needed to follow Quebec's lead and have our own language policeman, along with a whole new bureaucracy to surround his office.

Bilingualism started out to be a choice to learn a second language, now in many cases it is a requirement in order to become employed. In New Brunswick for instance French has become a required subject in order to graduate from High School. Our government is so short-sighted that they are sitting back and watching English language graduates pack up and leave New Brunswick in droves, simply because there is very little work for unilingual English language people. Before anyone rebutts that assertion I don't consider a Call Centre to be a real job.

[JWayne625]

Here's an example of what I mean by this not being about "Official Bilingualism" in New Brunswick. Today on CBC.ca features a story on the NB site which quotes the President of the Acadian Society of New Brunswick.

The President of the Acadian Society of New Brunswick, Jean Guy Rioux wants several things segregated, the first is creating a separate French Day Care system across NB. Not bad considering English language parent's now pay for their own Day-Care. He wants our New Brunswick Community College System which presently operates bilingually, to be split into French and English, so as to allow French students to attend a French only campus. He wants extra funding extended to the Universite de Moncton, over and above what English language Universities are allotted, simply because they are a French language institution. And lastly, for now, he wants the New Brunswick Government to allow Francophone's to work exclusively in French, even though their got their jobs in the first place, because they are supposedly bilingual.

Are all New Brunswicker's now supposed to learn French in order to interact with our government or are we expected to hire more bilingual civil servants so that the majority can be served in their chosen language? So much for Bilingualism.

As I said before, this organization could care less where the money is coming from to fund this insanity, or what other programs have to be cut to achieve their agenda. Their intent seems to be set on segregating New Brunswick based on language, and that is becoming more of a reality every time politician's cave to the demands of special lobby groups, like this Acadian Society.

[Shivaji]

This guy Trent can stick it as far as I am concerned. He makes out that having one's education in French is a fate worse than death. People need to stand up to people like this and defend the French school system. Guess what? I attended the French school system, and I am still able to read and write and speak English. Imagine that!

Maplesyrup, the guy wants his kid to have a French immersion education. You also seem to support bilingual education. French immersion education means that the child will receive his education in both English and French, which is a bilingual education. One year all subjects are in one language, the next year all the subjects are in the other. That's precisely what you're saying English Canadians should own up to, and that's what he's doing. And respectfully, you seem to have very good English, but not having been educated in the language does make a difference which is why French Canadians outside of Quebec have fought so hard to have French language schools available to them. If you're not educated in the language, your conversational abilities may be totally fluent, but when it comes to politics, philosophy, science, or other types of higher thinking, a person just won't have the words necessary to be able to express oneself. The man in his article is giving his child the gift of being able to do that in both official languages. There's nothing wrong with being able to do that in only one, but the advantage of being able to do it in both languages is obvious.

[Pat Coghlan]

There's nothing wrong with being able to do that in only one, but the advantage of being able to do it in both languages is obvious.

Yes, and if you're providing a *service* (compensation, HR etc.), it makes sense for your position to be bilingual.

The problem occurs when people expect employees to work in both languages. To me, if e-mails and meetings are all conducted in the majority language, then all positions (unless a service is being provided) should be unilingual <majority language for the region>.

If 80% of people complete language training and never use their 2nd language, what does that tell you?

[JB Globe]

Non-immersion French classes in English schools are a joke. I don't know anyone, including myself, who went through these classes from grade 5 to grade 10 and has any sort of real skills in French. Most of us can't speak a single sentence, and those that can usually had to go elsewhere to pick up more French.

Frankly I think they're just a political ploy - to make it seem as though Ontario is promoting bilingualism in its education system, but in reality is failing miserably. I think I would've benefited from some Immersion classes being made mandatory for all students - not having learned another language at an early age has made it difficult for me to learn languages now - learning Hindi has been a slow process because of this.

Even if students don't end up speaking French fluently, learning some French at an early age and keeping some basics of it around would at least keep some doors open in the future if those students decide to learn another language (ie - if they want to learn Mandarin to go along with their business degree in the hopes of improving their work skills)