Ottawa not French-friendly

[Leafless]

This has got to be the joke of the year.

Newly appointed language czar Graham Fraser has slammed Ottawa for not embracing it's responsibility as the nations capital by being more "welcoming" to francophone's instead of adopting a "resistant attitude towards their demands.

Firstly, Ottawa the Capital of Canada at a federal level already overly accommodates francophone's to a level best described as discriminatory to English majority of residents of Ottawa and for that matter English majority residents of Canada pertaining to federal employment.

Queen Victoria made Ottawa the capital to accommodate the federal government and make it the home of federal government. Undemocratic decentralization by federal Liberals destroyed this title and moved a substantial number of federal departments and entities to Quebec removing significant federal importance as Ottawa the Capital of Canada.

Secondly, the city of Ottawa has an extremely generous bilingualism policy (albeit discriminatory since there was never a municipal referendum to decide this) something regardless the neighbouring province and city of Gatineau, Quebec does not have and for that matter anywhere in Quebec has a bilingual policy.

Thirdly, Ottawa private businesses employs many bilingual Quebecers co-operating with the city's bilingual policy. In Quebec you will be hard pressed to find private employment for any kind of bilingual employment for a English mother tongue bilingual Canadian.

Graham Fraser is unilaterally placing all the responsibility concerning English-French relations while totally ignoring Quebec's responsibility to the English.

He also neglects the fact the city of Ottawa is like any other municipality in Canada and residents of Ottawa have NO official responsibility towards accommodating any culture just like Quebec has no official responsibility to accommodate any other culture but THEIR OWN.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/s...cfc&k=68233

[M.Dancer]

Last I heard, Ottaw wasn't in Quebec.

Alcan shares bound to soar

[Leafless]

Last I heard, Ottaw wasn't in Quebec.

THANK GOD!

[Higgly]

Codswollop. Anybody who thinks Ottawa is not French friendly has never lived there.

[Argus]

This has got to be the joke of the year.

Newly appointed language czar Graham Fraser has slammed Ottawa for not embracing it's responsibility as the nations capital by being more "welcoming" to francophone's instead of adopting a "resistant attitude towards their demands.

Well, at least he is continuing the history of Federal Language Commisioners. Every single one has been a moron.

In the bureaucratic bafflegarb of his ilk, Fraser offers up no reasons, nothing to back up his squishy desire for feel-good "welcome" to Francophones. He suggests private companies in downtown Ottawa are ignoring Francophones as possible customers, without ever saying how or who. Anyone think you can go into any downtown hotel or major store or restaurant and not be served in either language? Maybe a few of those mom and pop outfits don't speak French, but that's because they're family affairs. I can't think of any major enterprise of any kind in Ottawa which deals with the public on any level which isn't bilingual.

[bradco]

Codswollop. Anybody who thinks Ottawa is not French friendly has never lived there.

Higgly: Have you lived there? If so Id like to ask you how often french is used. If someone wanted to use it would most businesses/people be willing to do so? Im planning on moving to Ottawa in a few years for school in part because I want to be able to work on my french.

[Borg]

Very friendly to the francos. Certainly all services are there now. Certain parts of the city have only franco signs. Most businesses have franco capability.

Heck even good old Cornwall just down the road in Ontario has a franco only medical clinic. I wonder what would be said if there were an Anglo only medical clinic. I am sure it would be a pretty big deal.

As for the other side of the border - well, the entire province lacks fair treatment of the Anglos.

Tit for tat or shut up I say.

The minister should be bringing the country together - this divides the two even more.

Borg

[Leafless]

What a farce!

First Mr. Graham says the federal government has no jurisdiction in the affairs of municipalities concerning bilingualism.

Now he favours tying federal university funding to bilingualism but yet has no legislative authority to do this.

He cites the Official Languages Act preamble," there are whereases in terms of promoting both official languages. This is the part what I hope to do", he says.

The only trouble is, when you are out of the confines of federal authority, federal 'official languages' are no longer OFFICIAL but in fact OFFICIALLY NON-EXISTENT provincially speaking, except in the case of the single province New Brunswick which is 'officially bilingual'.

IMO Graham Fraser is acting in contempt of provincial language legislation which is a under provincial jurisdiction and not federal.

It seems Mr.Graham has trouble understanding Canada is 'nationally speaking' is NOT officially bilingual and federal authorities outside of the confines under it's federal jurisdiction have no business favouring, tying university funding in provinces to the federal wish dream of making Canada 'officially bilingual'.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/s...b92a&k=7952

[Argus]

Codswollop. Anybody who thinks Ottawa is not French friendly has never lived there.

Higgly: Have you lived there? If so Id like to ask you how often french is used. If someone wanted to use it would most businesses/people be willing to do so? Im planning on moving to Ottawa in a few years for school in part because I want to be able to work on my french.

What kind of business? The high tech business is mostly English, and almost all business would be conducted in English. Government is mixed. Retail is bilingual on the floor but I couldn't say for higher up. Sales are clearly bilingual, be they corporate, government or retail.

[Borg]

Codswollop. Anybody who thinks Ottawa is not French friendly has never lived there.

Higgly: Have you lived there? If so Id like to ask you how often french is used. If someone wanted to use it would most businesses/people be willing to do so? Im planning on moving to Ottawa in a few years for school in part because I want to be able to work on my french.

What kind of business? The high tech business is mostly English, and almost all business would be conducted in English. Government is mixed. Retail is bilingual on the floor but I couldn't say for higher up. Sales are clearly bilingual, be they corporate, government or retail.

The international language of high tech, agriculture, business, medicine, aviation, engineering, military and many others is English.

Bombardier, CAE, Mechtronix - Montreal based - may work in the language of their choice - but they always deal with the client in English.

Money is the key. To make money the language must be common - and English is the common denominator. As for parochial infighting - do not like the language being spoken?

Move.

Ban the language czar - he only works for 9 out of 10 provinces. The tenth has already has decided how it will be.

Quebec appeasement - situation normal all f^%$ up.

Borg

[Higgly]

Codswollop. Anybody who thinks Ottawa is not French friendly has never lived there.

Higgly: Have you lived there? If so Id like to ask you how often french is used. If someone wanted to use it would most businesses/people be willing to do so? Im planning on moving to Ottawa in a few years for school in part because I want to be able to work on my french.

Sure you are. Go down to the market and buy some tomatoes.

[Higgly]

...Government is mixed. Retail is bilingual on the floor but I couldn't say for higher up. Sales are clearly bilingual...

So what more do you want?

[mcqueen625]

What a farce!

First Mr. Graham says the federal government has no jurisdiction in the affairs of municipalities concerning bilingualism.

Now he favours tying federal university funding to bilingualism but yet has no legislative authority to do this.

He cites the Official Languages Act preamble," there are whereases in terms of promoting both official languages. This is the part what I hope to do", he says.

The only trouble is, when you are out of the confines of federal authority, federal 'official languages' are no longer OFFICIAL but in fact OFFICIALLY NON-EXISTENT provincially speaking, except in the case of the single province New Brunswick which is 'officially bilingual'.

IMO Graham Fraser is acting in contempt of provincial language legislation which is a under provincial jurisdiction and not federal.

It seems Mr.Graham has trouble understanding Canada is 'nationally speaking' is NOT officially bilingual and federal authorities outside of the confines under it's federal jurisdiction have no business favouring, tying university funding in provinces to the federal wish dream of making Canada 'officially bilingual'.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/s...b92a&k=7952

Even New Brunswick is "Officially Bilingual" on paper only, the fact is that less than 17% of New Brunswicker's speak French. THat percentage may be going up because of the bilingual policy of the government of NB and the fact that unilingual English speaking NB are packing up in droves and heading west, because they cannot find meaningful employment in their province of birth. Employers in Ontario and the west are more interested in actual employment skills than they are in one's ability to speak French.

Even the French Immersion programs in New Brunswick schools do not produce fluently bilingual graduates. One of the former Education Minister's in Bernard Lord's government. Elvy Robichaud, and Acadian stated publically that: "The French Immersion Program in New Brunswick was not designed nor expected to produce fluently bilingual graduates." This statement is contrary to the stated goals of being Officially Bilingual and the mechanism put in place to provide a level playing field for graduates applying for jobs designated as Bilingual (French Immersion Program in schools). This program is a total failure in providing that level playing field because as the Acadian Society has stated, it is not good enough to simply be bilingual as only an Acadian understands an Acadian, according to one of their former presidents. Since most Anglophone graduates of the French Immersion Program wind up with poor English skills and are only functionally bilingual upon graduation this leaves them with a total disadvantage since all bilingual jobs with the province requires fluency in French to qualify.

Recently, Acadians who obtained their jobs because of their supposedly bilingual capabilities are now complaing that they are forced to work in the English language because clients and many co-workers speak English, so they are now demanding that they be allowed to work exclusively in their mother-tongue, French. New Brunswick is no longer even talking bilingual they are talking duality, and duality is nothing but segregation. South Africa spent years trying to overcome appartied, and the NB government and the Acadian Society is actively promoting this concept based on language instead of skin colour. No wonder people are climbing on buses, trains and planes and leaving NB in droves.

[Leafless]

Recently, Acadians who obtained their jobs because of their supposedly bilingual capabilities are now complaing that they are forced to work in the English language because clients and many co-workers speak English, so they are now demanding that they be allowed to work exclusively in their mother-tongue, French. New Brunswick is no longer even talking bilingual they are talking duality, and duality is nothing but segregation. South Africa spent years trying to overcome appartied, and the NB government and the Acadian Society is actively promoting this concept based on language instead of skin colour. No wonder people are climbing on buses, trains and planes and leaving NB in droves.

The big thing in all of this is many Francophone's have been linguistically assimilated into the majority English speaking sphere and then they turn around and are in self denial. They resent this fact, plain and simple.

They want to play 'tit for tat' but there is incentive to do this, outside of the phony imposed discriminatory federal one.

Common sense, common sense, where is our federal leadership or are they a major player in this 'tit for tat' linguistic revenge scenario at the expense of the English?

[GostHacked]

Codswollop. Anybody who thinks Ottawa is not French friendly has never lived there.

Been here 9 years to know that much. It is as much french here as it was back in Sudbury ON. So Quebec and that dude can le piss up la rope.

[jefferiah]

If we all grow moustaches and parlez vous and drink wine and eat cheese all day, we still wont be accomadating enough for Quebec.