Majority English provinces

[Leafless]

The Constitution of Canada has enshrined English and French as Canada's official languages since 1982, but this declaration is only valid for federal government and it's divisions.

The ten provinces and three territories of Canada are free to grant English or French the status of an official language, or not to do so.

Since Canada was created since 1867, the Constitution has made Quebec subject to certain obligations. It must adopt it's laws in French and English and guarantee parliament, judges litigants and parties to a legal proceeding with the use of the two official languages.

But we all know what happened when the Liberal Quebec government of Robert Bourassa in 1974 made French the official language of Quebec and Bill-101 or the French Charter that allows Quebec to almost function as a unilingual French province. Which I might add included the blessing of the federal government who made bilingualism mandatory in the federal public service with discriminatory aspects with a bilingual mandate that greatly exceeds the original concept of bilingualism in the federal public service.

This federal concept of bilingualism has crept into majority English speaking provinces primarily Ontario removing job opputunities from not only the federal public service but from private employeers who discriminate against the majority English by demanding of employees fluency in both official languages.

I must ask you a simple question, why are majority English provinces so gutless to demand that their provincial premiers obtain the status as a officially English speaking province, like what Quebec has done.

Why should our sons and daughters be deprived of work in their own majority English province because of employers who are allowed to discriminate aginst our sons and daughters based on a discriminatory federal language policy that has no legal weight since the only province in Canada that is officially bilingual is New Brunswick.

[tml12]

The Constitution of Canada has enshrined English and French as Canada's official languages since 1982, but this declaration is only valid for federal government and it's divisions.

The ten provinces and three territories of Canada are free to grant English or French the status of an official language, or not to do so.

Since Canada was created since 1867, the Constitution has made Quebec subject to certain obligations. It must adopt it's laws in French and English and guarantee parliament, judges litigants and parties to a legal proceeding with the use of the two official languages.

But we all know what happened when the Liberal Quebec government of Robert Bourassa in 1974 made French the official language of Quebec and Bill-101 or the French Charter that allows Quebec to almost function as a unilingual French province.  Which  I might add included the blessing of the federal government who made bilingualism mandatory in the federal public service with discriminatory aspects with a bilingual mandate that greatly exceeds the original concept of bilingualism in the federal public service.

This federal concept of bilingualism has crept into majority English speaking provinces primarily Ontario removing job opputunities from not only the federal public service but from private employeers who discriminate against the majority English by demanding of employees fluency in both official languages.

I must ask you a simple question, why are majority English provinces so gutless to demand that their provincial premiers obtain the status as a officially English speaking province, like what Quebec has done.

Why should our sons and daughters be deprived of work in their own majority English province because of employers who are allowed to discriminate aginst our sons and daughters based on a discriminatory federal language policy that has no legal weight since the only province in Canada that is officially bilingual is New Brunswick.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Canada=A country that has two official languages and isn't bilingual.

Quebec=A province where you are discriminated against if you don't speak French.

As far as I am concerned, the Quebec government isn't willing to accomodate anglophones, so why should anglo provinces be willing to accomodate francophones? As an anglophone Quebecer, I learned French to be able to participate more fully in Quebec society. Francophones in other provinces would be wise learn English and do the same. No one really believes the bilingualism myth anymore.

[fellowtraveller]

Relax. None of this will matter nearly so much when Quebec departs next year.

I'm planning on taking advantage of the vast marketing /advertising opportunties that will occur then. Think of all that blank space available on every consumer product and label as the ROC goes unilingual English......

[tml12]

Relax.  None of this will matter nearly so much when Quebec departs next year.

I'm planning on taking advantage of the vast marketing /advertising opportunties that will occur then.  Think of all that blank space available on every consumer product and label as the ROC goes unilingual English......

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You just may be right...

[Black Dog]

This federal concept of bilingualism has crept into majority English speaking provinces primarily Ontario removing job opputunities from not only the federal public service but from private employeers who discriminate against the majority English by demanding of employees fluency in both official languages.

Proof?

[Leafless]

Black Dog

You wrote- " Proof. "

The majority of jobs in Ottawa, Ontario for instance concerning private buisness do require fluency in both official languages or in other words you must be bilingual even though the province of Ontario is not officially bilingual.

This is because private buisness is following the federal example concerning bilingualism and simply do not want to miss out on any type of buisness by francophones in the Ottawa area many who refuse to speak English even though they can.

There have been reports for years in this area of English speaking residents of Ottawa being forced to move to other cities in Canada that do not display this type of outright discrimination concerning the avaiability of English speaking jobs in their own majority English province.

English Speaking federal employees also have lost jobs to make room concerning the federal francophone invasion from the mid-sixties onward with many older senior federal employees to-day being squeezed out by bilingualism since their French learning capabilities are limited.

Other cities in Ontario are begining to see this bilingual movement including Toronto.

The only proof I can give you is to experience this situation yourself, family or your friends to try to gain employment in English only in a city like Ottawa.

But I heard the federal government is expanding francophone positons to many Canadian cities where as it will not be long before these francophone employees will be demanding services in French like they have done in Ontario even having public tax money support their own French school boards and schools that they acheived with their Ontario French language services act.

[speaker]

Canada=A country that has two official languages and isn't bilingual.

Quebec=A province where you are discriminated against if you don't speak French.

As far as I am concerned, the Quebec government isn't willing to accomodate anglophones, so why should anglo provinces be willing to accomodate francophones? As an anglophone Quebecer, I learned French to be able to participate more fully in Quebec society. Francophones in other provinces would be wise learn English and do the same. No one really believes the bilingualism myth anymore.

Why should anglo provinces be willing to accomodate francophones? because two wrongs don't make a right.

[tml12]

I respect the French and I have a great degree of respect for Rene Levesque...HOWEVER, they become unreasonable when they discriminate against Quebec's anglophone community.

Speaker wants to talk about two wrong not making a right. Well, when the anglophone community in Montreal got angry when the Montreal metrocard was made bilingual (instead of English only) 50 years ago, francophone Quebecers complained. Now they are French only...how do the French think we feel???

The PQ maintains that English Quebec "has access to all services in its own language." Yet, sucessive PQ governments have sought to criple the English community. Many parts of the Quebec government website are French only. Why should we appease Francophones in Alberta? When were the French ever in Alberta? The English were here historically too. I respect francophones but I do not respect discrimination as imposed by the federal Liberals and provincial PQ.

[speaker]

The French were in Alberta first, and are still here. Check out some of the french sounding place names.

I can see the frustration that comes out of a situation where you aren't understood, or can't understand what's going on. This same problem has affected the original peoples, and in more ways than simple language. The French and then the English used their dominance to try to force the natives to speak their respective languages.

The French imposed French while this was a French colony on the English, Scots, Irish, and others who came for the fishing and furs. That was reversed when it was an English colony, Then an English Country, As you say, it goes back into history, like the Isreali/Palestinian conflict in the Promised land. two wrongs, three wrongs, four wrongs,,,, maybe we'll get it right next time.

[Leafless]

tml12

Re: " Now they are French only... how do the French think we feel"

You are correct in making this statement and this only magnifies to show the arrogance and self righteousness of Quebec's provincial government to show such a disregard and disrespect for the majority language of Canada, English.

I could understand Quebec's language positon in a more realistic light if they were fully self sufficient but unfortunately they are not and depend on the Canadian taxpayer for their survival.

To discriminate this way against the majority language of Canada and of North America and is in fact somewhat comical as this situation would not survive anywhere in the world without serious consequences except in this politically induced undemocratic republic Canada.

[speaker]

hahahahahaha politically induced undemocratic republic Canada hahahaha wtf

[tml12]

hahahahahaha politically induced undemocratic republic Canada hahahaha wtf

If you are laughing at the comments made by either Leafless or me than you must not live in the same Canada we do. Just look at the facts...

[Leafless]

Speaker does not realize the artificial self imposed importance of the French language in Quebec produces nothing in it's inability to cut the economic cheese with out being financially padded by the ROC.

What does this really say about Quebec and it's peference to discriminate against English speakers in Quebec utilizing English the major working language of Canada and Noth America and the language that is the international language of the world.

And what does this say about the Liberals who have been the political party who have been most active to say the least, to promote this linguistic discrimination into the federal government and even out of federal jurisdiction into the jurisdiction of English majority provinces.

I always thought bilingualism was suppose to be free flowing, i.e.- I become bilingual for what you have to offer me if I choose and you become bilingual for what I have to offer you if you choose.

[Bakunin]

...

First, quebec and canada depend on usa for its economy. Quebec most important economic partner is usa and not canada, in fact ontario depend more on quebec for its exportation than quebec depend on ontario.

Second, id prefer be an anglophone in montreal rather than a francophone in any other city of the ROC...

Its alot more open, you can get any services in english, newspapers, tv station, radio, hospitals and etc... In montreal, often its harder to be served in french than in english...

As for the school language law, you can learn english if your parent went to english school wich is prolly the case for any of you, there are alot of school and the subsidies for those school are enormous, just the 3 english university in quebec gets 27,7% of the subsidies while they deserve 8,4 of the population (english).

There are english school evrywhere while in other provinces the french are trapped in small ghetto, unable to get services in french...

there is 1 small french hospital in ontario for 400 000 francophone. (i don't even know if the hospital still exist)

there are 18 english hospital in quebec, and they are constructing a mega english hospital center wich will cost more than 1 billions.

I think its sad to see so many ppl pick up on quebec when pratically all english provinces sucessfully assimilated their french population and simply failed (problably on purpose) to give them any support and 1/10 of the services an english speakers could get in quebec.

[Chronic]

This issue has pissed me off for ages. To begin with, the majority of the world speaks english, if only haltingly to better be able to do business with the western world. And here we are fighting over wether or not we shoudl have to speak french to live and work here.

Although I beleive that if we should be forced to learn a second language that it should be a more globally accepted language. I'm going to offer a different direction for this.

You can't have it both ways, either we are a bi-lingual country (french/english) or we are not.

That means that if we are, quebec shouldnt be discriminating against english speaking people. And vice versa, no other province should be discriminating against french speaking people.

OR, we are not a bilingual country, in whcih case, if quebec wants to remain a solely french speaking province, than there shoudl be no reason for any other province (unless they choose to) to be bilingual.

Same goes for employment opportunites, if people living in quebec wish the freedom to get and maintain jobs in other provinces, then they shouldnt be discouraging other provinces people from getting or maintaining jobs in quebec.

THe thing that botheres me most, is the attitude that the rest of the country should bend over backwards to appease quebec when it has no desire to even remote work towards co-operation.

[tml12]

This issue has pissed me off for ages. To begin with, the majority of the world speaks english, if only haltingly to better be able to do business with the western world. And here we are fighting over wether or not we shoudl have to speak french to live and work here.

Although I beleive that if we should be forced to learn a second language that it should be a more globally accepted language. I'm going to offer a different direction for this.

You can't have it both ways, either we are a bi-lingual country (french/english) or we are not.

That means that if we are, quebec shouldnt be discriminating against english speaking people. And vice versa, no other province should be discriminating against french speaking people.

OR, we are not a bilingual country, in whcih case, if quebec wants to remain a solely french speaking province, than there shoudl be no reason for any other province (unless they choose to) to be bilingual.

Same goes for employment opportunites, if people living in quebec wish the freedom to get and maintain jobs in other provinces, then they shouldnt be discouraging other provinces people from getting or maintaining jobs in quebec.

THe thing that botheres me most, is the attitude that the rest of the country should bend over backwards to appease quebec when it has no desire to even remote work towards co-operation.

You make many good points here.

[Leafless]

Bakunin

You wrote- " I think it's sad so many ppl pick up on Quebec when practically on English provinces successfully assimilated their French population and simply failed (probably on purpose) to give them any support and 1/10 of the services English speakers could get in Quebec"

Well, the fact of the matter is in Canada both langauges are NOT equal and symmetrical.

This statement alone blows away everything you said in your post as false concerning language and assimilation concerning English provinces.

Outside of Quebec French is a minority spoken language.

Even IN Quebec French is still the minority language since Quebec being part of confederation calculations must be based on all of Canada.

Quebec has been helped tremendously by the federal government of Canada and Canadian tax-payers and would be fair to say without this constant source of help Quebec would simply not exist as a productive province.

It should be noted Quebec is the only province to declare it's French language as 'officially French' and should be noted that nowhere in Quebec is an policy concerning bilingualism.

What the federal government did with official languages that is creating official bilingualism within it's federal entities can be viewed as outright linguistic discrimination since this policy was unilaterally implemented WITHOUT the consent of Canadian citizen's.

Quebec's language Bill-101 or otherwise known as it's French Charter also discriminates aginst English speakers in Quebec.

There is no ofiicial bilingualism in any Canadian province except one being New Brunswick.

But even at that in Ontario an English province for instance has always boasted provincial French language policy and is applicable 'where numbers warrant'.

In the City of Ottawa, Ontario does in fact have a French bilingual policy with all major hospitals proving bilingual content which includes the newly expanded Montfort hospital which is a teaching hospital that

Ontario tax payers fund which BTW not only trains French doctors in Ontario but also trains French doctors from Quebec.

Ontario hospitals also open their doors to MANY Quebec residents event though Quebec excludes Ontario residents and is the only province in Canada that does not pay medical procedures at a lower rate than other hospitals concerning Quebec residents who flood Ontario hospitals.

And then we have schooling with Ontario residents funding the bill to create French schools with their very own public funded scholl boards as well as their own English school system.

But even with this francophone groups are pushing for Ontario to become officially bilingual even though their numbers are only represented by a single digit and back in Quebec draconian undemocratic language policies are alive and well.

The one question I have is why does Quebec continue to shoot itself in the foot trying to operate a province exclusively in French when surrounded by a sea of English and are only hampering their own economic success and making themself dependent on Canadian tax payer welfare?

Correction- Quebec in fact pays less for medical procedures than other provinces in Canada.

[Bakunin]

I don't know if all province are officially billingual, i know that quebec is officially french (80% vs 8%) but what i know is that the city the most billingual is definatly and by far montreal.

The fact are that the other provinces doesn't deserve 1/10 of the services and sometime even less like for hospitals. Are there any french university in ontario ? There are 3 english in montreal.

The one question I have is why does Quebec continue to shoot itself in the foot trying to operate a province exclusively in French when surrounded by a sea of English and are only hampering their own economic success and making themself dependent on Canadian tax payer welfare?

I have a question for you, why does Canada continue to shoot itself in the foot trying to operate a country when surrounded by a sea of American and are only hampering their own economic success and making themself dependent of the american ?

I wonder why canadian want to be so much different than the american and not understanding the quebeckers working hard to keep their identity wich is problably more different than the canadian-american indentity.

If you think canadian are doing a better by being a country instead to be part of the usa well if you would be a quebecker you would problably be sovreignist. I think the truth is lying in between, economy should be one thing and culture & politics another thing. I beleive in free trade and this is why i think the problem canada and quebec is facing is a politic and cultural problem, we a want political liberty and an international economy. The best way to frustrate a quebecker is to ingerate in its political and cultural affair, maybe you feel by not doing so it would be concession to quebec but for quebeckers by doing so, it would be concession to be part of canada. Just take the war on iraq, canadian where so proud to stand up to american, well you know sometime quebeckers feel like that, sometime they like to cut the string usually manipulating them.

Another part of your answer is that to you quebec may be a simple province like the other but for us quebec is more than a province, its our identity, our culture, our way of thinking, in other word our nation or what the russian would call our mother land.

[Riverwind]

If you think Canadian are doing a better by being a country instead to be part of the usa well if you would be a quebecker you would probably be sovereignist.

This is false logic. Canada exists - it represents the status quo and it more or less works. So saying that Canada is distinct and should remain a separate country from the US means that you support the status quo and are not advocating radical changes that would profoundly affect the lives of millions of people.

On the other hand, advocating the separation of Quebec is advocating the over throw of a gov't and will have serious economic, political and social repercussions. For this reason, you cannot compare Canadian nationalism to Quebec sovereignty.

[Leafless]

Bakunin

You wrote- " I don't know if all provinces are officially bilingual, I know Quebec is officially French (80% vs. 8%) but what i know is that the city the most billingual is definatly and by far montreal"

It's a fact and I'am surprised you don't know New Brunswick is the only offical bilingual province in Canada.

Montreal always did have a strong English presence and to suggest that somehow this makes the city in a compulsory sense bilingual is false. Your Quebec government would like to see nothing better than for all English speakers to be banished from Montral like the thousands that were forced out by Bill-101 earlier.

I would like to ask you a question concerning who originally paid for English hospitals and univeristy's in Montreal? Ottawa, Ontario is home to the French University of Ottawa and other university's offer French courses. But I would like to point out French primary and secondary schools especially in Ontario where numbers warrant, French are provided their own school boards and schools by all tax payers of the province not only French.

You wrote- " Why does Canada continue to shoot itself in the foot trying to operate a country when surrounded by a sea of Americans and are only hampering their own economic success and making themselves dependent of the American"

I guess that's because Americans never had a problem like Canada unifying their country.

Canada and the U.S. were basically born from the same mother country Britain and political disagreement led to the creation of the U.S.

Canada was very successful concerning trade relations with the U.S. and if you really examine the situation Bakunnin you will see Canada is unable to compete internationally in the way of trade for many reasons to create trade with other foreign countries in a successful manner. Besides the U.S. contrary to your belief is the best ally any country in the world could ask for.

As far as I am concerned U.S. influence creates a tremendous advantage in many areas.

You wrote- " Quebecers working hard to keep their identity which is probably more different than the Canadian -American idenity."

And what idenity is that Bakunin? Quebecers live no differently than anywhere else in Canada and are basically granted the right to use your French language from Canadians who fund all the bills to allow you to do that.

Your mother country France and the 'Treaty of Paris' left NO French rights on the North American continent.

You have no nation and never did.

[Guest eureka]

And, Bakunin, the 10% of the population that was expelled from Quebec following Bills 22 and 101 considered themselves as Canadians with the rights and freedoms of Canadians, That included the Right to speak their language and to preserve their culture.

Those rights were abrogted by the government of Quebec using the threats of social violence from those who think like you.

[Bakunin]

Im sad but not surprized, i thought i could at least get just a very small agreements but once again instead of reconsidering that maybe sometime it has no points to bash quebec all the time, maybe one day you will start trying to understand them instead.

I beleive at least i try to understand other provinces.

[Guest eureka]

I realise that you do try to understand other provinces, bakunin.

The problem is that you do not understand your own. You do not understand the sins it has committed in its obsession with ethnicity.

[Leafless]

eureka

You wrote- " You do not understand the sins it has committed in it's obsession with ethnicity."

I don't think Quebec can be the only one blamed with this as the Quebec wing Liberals and Liberal Party for years has supplied Quebec with a constant source of support both financial and political which in turn has transformed Quebec into a powerful political entity based on power and greed.

The horse is now riding in the cart.

[fellowtraveller]

Interested in other provinces Bakunin?

This are the opportunities for French Language, Francophone education for Kindergarten to Grade 12 in Alberta

Note that this is Francophone education(wholly French spoken,, no English at all). There are also many many French Immersion program schools in the Public and Catholic School Boards.

All are paid for by all taxpayers in the province.