Federal government extends French funding

[Leafless]

This article appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, Tues, Jan.9, 2007.

It is a short article, not on the net, so I will write the whole article.

" The federal government made good on a promise yesterday and gave the City of Ottawa $500,000 to support French language services. The funding is a one year extension of as $2.5 million five year agreement signed in 2001. Last June Josee Verner, the federal minister of francophone affairs, said the federal government was prepared to extend the funding arrangement for a longer period if the province contributed to French services in Ottawa, but it refused to. City Hall spends $1.75 million per year providing services in French. This includes recreation programs, document translation, and having people available to answer all questions in both official languages."

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The City of Ottawa has a bilingual policy chosen by its own free will, WITHOUT the consent of Ottawa taxpayers.

Why then is the federal government along with potential provincial government intervention, providing more funding to a municipality NOT under federal jurisdiction.

Why is the federal government of Canada forcing Canadian tax payers to fund a private municipality 'bilingual policy' that is discriminating against the possible will (since there has never been a referendum) against the tax payers of Ottawa and their right to their majority English language in their city?

There is no forced federal linguistic intervention in Quebec so why is the federal government trying to and continuing to discriminate against the English language?