Kevin O’Leary is taking a page or two from Donald Trump in the US and trying to position himself for a leadership run to replace Stephen Harper for the Conservative Party.
Like Trump he’s picking off popular topics that are getting him a lot of press.
It’s not rocket science. Hold out hope to large groups of voters for issues they care about even if you most likely will not follow through. Justin Trudeau successfully used this tactic to gain a majority win in the last election.
While the bombastic O’Leary is no Donald Trump on any level really, the trend of populist loud mouths shows the frustration voters have with slickly displayed puppets with ties to the powers that be and how helpless most voters truly feel.
Maxime Bernier, a long time MP and shining star for the Conservatives dropped the gloves and stated that Mr. O’Leary couldn’t lead a party because he’s not bilingual. He called the former anglo Quebecer “a tourist”.
It’s really time for Canada to have a National debate about our bilingual policies that essentially give Quebecer’s an unfair advantage over most Federal jobs, and now many Provincial ones. The cost and over head of mandating bilingualism when Quebec itself is unilingual is clearly at a time for review. If Quebec doesn’t need to be bilingual why would any other province in Canada?
From Supreme Court Judges to high ranking military brass; by demanding bilingualism you are essentially excluding the majority of the most qualified candidates from advancement because of a language that is a small minority in the country.
Bernier talks about stopping bailouts to sacred cows like Bombardier and other Conservative candidates talk about funding for the CBC, but the cost of official bilingualism clearly costs far more than both bailouts and funding the CBC.
It also impacts our society, and has crippled the futures of so many whose only fault is not being able to pass ridiculous Francophone tests that many native French speakers could not pass.
Loading ...Isn’t it time to focus on merit rather than language which has caused such a divide in our great country?
Quebec clearly has made its choice. Isn’t it time for Canada to make it without being told by politicians what our choice is?
Technology in 2016 has made it easy and accessible to provide service in any language conveniently.
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When Kevin O’Leary moves back to Canada then he can have a say in what and how we do things. Until then he should keep his trap shut.
Way past time for Canadians to insist on making their opinions known regarding this disgusting forced, treasonous nonsense.
Bilingualism has gotten Newbrunswick in a shambles financially and linguisticly. And the province is none the better for it. I pity any unilingual whose looking for work, because a lot of good folks are being turned away because their French, isn’t good enough! And soon it will be coming to a community near you!.
Finally,somebody with enough backbone to address this deplorable situation with bilingualism forced on the majority of English Canadians.The time has come,We have had enough.
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It is certainly time to stop having the French language shoved down our English throats period
Ted Ross.
Bilingualism should be history and one day will be if Canadians will pull their heads
out of the sand and stand for something!
Whatever happened to that good old Canadian spirit?
Way past time Bilingualism Got the Boot !!
Perhaps the time has arrived for English speaking Canadians to hold a “national referendum ” ! Pose this question : Should Canada separate from Quebec and close all federal offices and stop transfer payments entirely? (payments to Quebec are 49.4 % of the total amount nationally) Stats. Canada figures. Those working in Quebec at Federal jobs shall be terminated amd not transferred to another province to work. Canada could then adopt a working language in English and stop the present 50 yr old ( bilingual? ) program that has not worked and never will work. It was brought in under P. E. Trudeau without any public input or vote and supported by mainly Quebec M.P.s in his government. Time to ask the rest of Canada their wishes !!!
{MODERATED} and you will start a Civil War in Canada and I am not kidding. The eastern provinces of Canada contain a great deal of French people (les acadiens) and they are bilingual and will not accept such nonsense. You would have them cut off from the rest of Canada and I myself would not stand for it. I would much prefer to move out of Canada entirely than to balcanize the country. If you cannot accept the French people then take yourself and go abroad and see how they will accept you. We have family in a couple of countries where we can go but a lot of people have no family where they can go. You along with Howard Galganov and some others are causing a great deal of trouble. If you have not lived in a country where Civil War has happened and hell on earth believe me you cannot live. Shut your mouth and learn to live with others or you will regret what you have said. It is people like you who are causing trouble here in Canada.
The name Cormier is French but the given name Lynn is English. That is the problem here in Canada with francophone surnames and the people don’t speak their native tongue of French and are ashamed of it. That is terrible and I mean terrible. The name Cormier is well known in Atlantic Canada. Thank God I am not ever going back to live in Cornwall because it is so mighty racist that it is like living in the Deep South in Mississippi and worse with the KKK and all. I cannot live in a world like that at all. If you all have the tongue to lash out hatred then I would put a gun in each of your hands and go and kill each other but leave the rest of us peace minding people alone with your mindless stupidities. Take a look at Jeb Bush who speaks fluent Spanish and his wife is Mexican and they get along well. Canadians have to be low lifes and ignorant which they are to come out with those hateful words. I am literally ashamed to be Canadian anymore and I mean that. This is racism to its core.
Stop this ridiculous Bilingual Sherade immediately,that only benefits one sector of people in Canada before it is too late.
My answer to Jules is he should take his family and move to France, it would better suit his agenda. The English people of New Brunswick have bent over backwards to appease the french but they just keep pushing and wanting more, They are only 30 per cent of the population of N.B. but want half of everything while the 70 percent English pay for it. So what’s fair about that! With pressure from the nest of separatists at the U de M pulling all the strings the English people don’t stand a chance in hell of being equal. Furthermore with all the new french schools being built with taxpayers dollars there is no excuse for them to be losing their language as you claim. The french don’t want bilingualism, they want french. Bilingualism is a word the Government of NB uses to con the English while the french radicals are
ruining the province with their greed.
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If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it should be good enough for Canadians.
As a New Brunswicker, time and time again bilingualism has cost taxpayers much needed monies that should have been diverted too other matters that are in need of fixing, instead, we are wallowing in stupidity, it costs alot to keep this going, foolish in my line of thinking. Take a look at the public schoolbus system we have, then that will explain a whole lot right there, and thats only one example!!!! Dare I mention the jobs I dont qualify for, because I am not considered bilingual?
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Jan I am a woman not a man and jules is only an addy. About the French language I am from a family of English and French and neither has ever seen eye to eye with one another and I have nothing to do with my relatives at all and feel a terrible alienation from all of them. I went to a French school in Cornwall from kindergarden age and I had my share of hell with the French kids but I can tell you that I paced the floors back and forth till all hours of the night and morning while the French kids were sleeping. I took hold of poetry and everything else by the horns to learn and I put up with being insulted by these people like you would not believe.
One day we had a history exam and I was in grade 3 and I scored 98% and it was in French and believe me the kids were as jeolous as hell and one kid in the back said that I cheated where I didn’t because I worked the hell out of myself to learn. I can recall till this day one very stupid mistake or I would have scored 100% and it had to do with very hard work.
My daughter worked with a woman from New Brunswick Denise is her name and she is back here in Ottawa and is from New Brunswick and is very French. I met the lady through my daughter when she was here visiting one of her friends. New Brunswick like everywhere else lacks jobs and Denise is now working in a hospital in Gatineau doing transcription work in French.
We had a girl in the federal government who was unilingual French and was hired to do the French work. This girl wanted to learn English and that she did. She took hold of the English work and did a good job and then went to learn English on her spare time and she wanted to learn and she did just that.
If you want to learn you sure can. I listened to Jeb Bush speak Spanish and he spoke it fluently and his wife is Mexican and they speak that language at home. I had my mom at home but our language at home was mainly English because of dad. We put our daughter in a French school and today she has the language but when it comes to speak she is rusty because we speak mostly English. I myself have not forgotten my French and one day when I went shopping a Spanish lady who knows no English understood me when I used French and I told her that some words can be understood since it is all from Latin and she agreed. My daughter is used to translate on all the jobs that she has had here in Ottawa. Some of my daughter’s co-workers are Italian and some are Arabic and other languages and they come in mighty handy to communicate with the public. If you don’t have French you are stuck in the sewer no matter what the cost it is a necessity and not an option. You should have seen the little girl who was in Brownies with my daughter little Christine who went to a French Public School Alta Vista Public School where all her studies were in French and she was so cute and wanted to learn and she was an anglophone. If you want to learn you can you have to work harder than the other students and that I did and I am most grateful today. I am a woman of 65 years old now and I can keep up with the rest of the young if I was able to get employed at my age – I haven’t lost it and I type very fast.
The English population in New Brunswick are offered a chance to learn the French language during the school year. The problem lies in the fact students use the French language while in school but then the weekend happens. From there they have Xmas break, Easter break, March break, Professional Development Days, snow days and then summer break which lasts close to 3 months. All of this off time they live in the English language. After 12 years of schooling they are advised that their French is not good enough! The French powers-that-be expect the English to compete with them on a linguistic basis. They, on the other hand, are exposed to the English language from the moment they are born. A small percentage of them are completely unable to communicate in English. How bilingual does one have to be to aid or find help if it is needed?
Weather is a fact, arithmetic is a fact, even computer literacy is a fact, … none of us invented any of these but we need them, so we equip ourselves and our children to handle it.
If after 40 years — disregarding the preceding 450 — some people haven’t recognized that French in Canada is a fact, and they haven’t educated themselves for that, nor developed a plan “B” … well they’ve short changed themselves, along with their children.
And perhaps more’s the pity… they’re left underarmed in their fight.
Jules……I DON’T want to learn French . Only a small percentage of the population of Canada is French…..We are not Bilingual , we are a multilingual county. How about you speaking English. The majority of you know how to speak it but are so bent on gettig their own way and crying “I’m special ” ….that it has become a joke !!!
I live in New Brunswick where the French rule and the majority English pay !!! We can’t afford the duality that the French are now demanding . We have French towns that designated French only . ..However the English towns God Forbid ever declared English only , we would be shot dead !!! We have an idiot French language commissioner demanding jibs be bilingual. Ambulance NB demands all bilingual ……They took away from English and brought in people from Quebec….. If Quebec doesn’t need to be bilingual why would any other province in Canada?
The French want their own hospitals in French only but demand English hospitals be bilingual. English hospital are being policed by University of Moncton students at $30 a hours to police English hospitals and make sure the workers are also saying Bonjour !!!!!
They have taken this broke province and added French Cafe’s in English hospitals ……no English cafe’s in French hospitals by the way …..Money that could be used to fund or health care and got forbid our education system that is lagging at the bottom of the country in low test scores…and I dare say immersion plays a huge part in that !!!
We are nearing bankrupt …..our youth have to leave the province for work because the English kids don’t qualify for the higher paying or government jobs. They go to the FRENCH PEOPLE WHO CAN SPEAK ENGLISH and Not ENGLISH FOLK THAT CAN SPEAK FRENCH ….Because the reality is no matter how well the English speak French it would never be good enough……..The majority of French immersion kids don’t pass the French proficiency test.
So for the 5% French in Canada……it would be much cheaper for you to learn English then forcing the majority to learn French when in fact very few countries use it !!!!
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If you don’t use French at home or with friends on a daily or almost daily basis then you forget the language. When I was in school back in 1956 and onwards if we were caught speaking English in the school yard at recess or any other time we were penalized and on our knees at the principal’s office back then. God how many times was I sent down for that reason – cannot even count them – too numerous. LOL LOL. I remember getting the strap (in those days we got the strap literally with the leather belt and metal pieces on the end) for not knowing our cathechism and other school work.
Back in the 1980’s era my husband’s nephew got my daughter enrolled into a French school and both my husband and I speak fluent French but the French board was very racist and this is no lie nor joke. It took my husband’s nephew to sweet talk this male principal into accepting my daughter. He was what the French of France call “un pédé”. The principal here in Ottawa extended his hand like a lady would do for a man to kiss it. LOL LOL. Somehow Dani sure did his thing (no not kissing it) but we roared with laughter like children after my daughter was accepted in the French school system. Dani lived in France for five yeas and knew about them and their ways and if you knew the crazy things that he would do here you would cringe and say that you didn’t know him. LOL LOL. I miss him and he is now very sick with brain cancer.
If you do not speak and read in French as well as listen to French programming then you lose it. My husband and I used to look at a lot of programs from France including their news on cable TV France 2 et France 5, etc.
I do know about the people of New Brunswick being racist and yes I know about them and we had supers (a man and his wife) from New Brunswich Paul and Paulette Gionet and Paul worked for the federal government here in Ottawa as an auditor and his wife would look after this very same building along with another couple from Montréal and I saw that Paulette really changed on her Facebook page. I never tried to contact her – she has changed a lot. Today I am a tough old bird unlike what I am portrayed here on CFN and I would put people in their place in real life. The French don’t bother me any nor others. The Lebs are the same along with others – mentality that is. I would put people in their place where they belong. You have to have the French language and if it isn’t for you then you have to put your kids through the system so as they can succeed. This is nothing new and my much older sisters who were born in the early and mid 1930’s era had to have French in Cornwall in order to work back then. My eldest sister who was an RN (registered nurse and administrative supervisor of nurses) was able to get by with basic French but my other sister who did office work was completely lost without French and had to leave her job and got a pidly nothing of a job without French.
O’Leary will get my vote.
Canadians are all about “sunny ways” appparently, and the 10 pounds of dung in a 5 pound bag that wants to lead the Conservatives is probably not worth losing sleep over.
But getting back to Trump… while odds are that Donald Trump’s political run will end much like George Wallace’s… if it doesn’t, then we’ve got worries.
Just remember, Hitler was a joke too until he weaseled his way into office “democratically”… but then came Anschluss, followed by all h*ll hitting the fan on Kristallnacht, and after that, the sh*t broke loose, and every nation within a thousand miles ended up pretty f’d over.
This ignorant fascist that is Trump and the drooling knuckledraggers that support him, are NAZI and Brown Shirts all over again, and while Stephen Harper’s demise seems to guard against our own Anschluss with America, with O’Leary in the wings… we may yet have a problem, and it’s much bigger than French.
I find it ironic that he’s getting support from the KKK & Louis Farrakhan. That’s as weird as it gets.
The fact is that the policy is a failure – after over 40 years of being forced on Canadians by Trudeau’s 1982 Constitution, only 17.5% of Canadians are “self-assessed” as bilingual but that only means they are verbally bilingual. Asked to take a government test, only about 12% can pass (according to Jack Jedwab – Exe. Director of the Asso. of Canadian Studies) and most of them live in Quebec. It is costing Canada a lot of money – billions over the 40+ years and all it has done is create a society divided along linguistic lines. Any attempt at making the policy apply “where numbers warrant” have been ignored because the French zealots have insisted that even 1% of French-speakers must be served in French. On the other hand, in Quebec, a municipality must have over 50% English-speakers to get service in French. If the Francophiles cannot see the unfairness in that, there is NO point talking to them. They talk about how wonderful it is to be able to communicate in many languages – nobody denies that. It is not multilingualism we’re opposing – it is FORCED BILINGUALISM which favours the French-speakers. This has led to an over-representation of French-speakers in our public service and also increasingly in our private sector where French-speakers push to be served in French, not because they cannot speak English but to push the French agenda. The French are given millions of taxpayer dollars (Fraser Institute in 2006 reports an annual budget of $600+ Million) to organize their political force and to advertise to the private sector that they should be able to provide service in French to the French customers. In Ontario just about 4% are mother-tongue French and most of them are in Northern and Eastern Ontario. This policy is very expensive and in a province that has a debt of $308 Billion, severe shortage in Healthcare & other more urgent services, I’m sure that we can find a better use for $600 Million. Even the Francophiles who want their children to be imbued in the French language & culture, watch nothing but French movies and have only French friends must understand that money doesn’t grow on trees!!!
We live in the Digital Era. As Justin would say it is 2016. If you have ever attended Question Period in the House of Commons you know that instantly you can follow along in the language of your choice (English or French). Universal translators (i.e. the ETACO 500AL) are becoming more sophisticated and affordable (some models starting at $40.00). Other than Federal services (where numbers warrant) bilingualism 40 years after the fact does not have the same validity. Given the debt that the current government is now committed to (current bank reports forecast over 180 billion in 4 years up slightly from Justin’s 30 billion promise) the savings in paring back unnecessary duplication would help pay for some of the interest which will consume more and more tax dollars leaving less and less for minimum services.
Justin said he was about change. We will see. Hasn’t been a good view so far.
Kim McConnell the French (Quebec) most certainly know that money does not grow on trees After decades of being a have not province the French know that money comes from English Canada. The real truth or reality is that the French (Quebec) have been complacent in accepting hand outs and not only does official bilingualism need to be revisited but even more importantly our transfer payment system which devours 8-9 billion dollars annually needs a desperate overhaul.
P.E.I is actually the worst offender, I believe, at nearly $2,000.00 per person per year.
Jules, I don’t think Canadians will go into a civil war because of honest discussions about a language policy. There will be a need to provide services in French to the 49,205 French only speakers in all of Ontario, or 2,195 in Alberta and a few bilinguals that need it. How much is a reasonable and responsible question.
By the way, Quebec has 4,010,880 French only speakers of Canada’s total of 4,141,850, how much “bilingual” service is really needed? People want to get along, and will without so much government intrusion.
It’s funny how we are supposed to be so progressive compared to our forefathers but they did not need language laws to create our beautiful country. It wasn’t until FABIAN Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (who went to FABIAN founded London School of Economics and who studied under Socialist FABIANS) that language laws were forced on us. Forty years later, the same French elites that forced that on us are the ones behind the movement to make the City of Ottawa, NOT the National Capital Region, officially bilingual. Think ADSCAM. Several years ago, when CANADIANS FOR LANGUAGE FAIRNESS led a delegation that met with then Minister of Official Languages James Moore, he admitted 3 times that they KNEW bilingualism WAS FAILING, but it was a case of TRIAL AND ERROR. At a cost of 2.4 BILLION dollars EVERY YEAR, I for one, am tired of my HARD EARNED MONEY being used as a guinea pig, and I know lots of disgusted French Immersion graduates who are still being told they aren’t FRENCH ENOUGH (meaning their names are English) which has resulted in so many potential Ontario taxpayers, moving south or west, to find work based on skill and not language. Tax dollars that Ontario desperately needs. It is a SOCIAL ENGINEERING agenda that divides a formerly united Canada. And, for the person that mentioned how so many French surnames don’t even speak French and should be ashamed, I say give your head a shake. My husbands father was a Francophone and his mother was English. Guess who stayed home and raised the kids? THAT’s why so many French names have little or no French connected to them. Those people don’t have a language bias at all. Neither should you. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION is a GOD-GIVEN right that we shamefully, let be taken from us in the 1970’s. Translators need work too.
David Oldham, the amounts are higher, Quebec for example will get 21.4 Billion in 2016/17. You are right, add eqalization to the list of sacred cows in need of review.
http://www.fin.gc.ca/fedprov/mtp-eng.asp#Prince
Beth Trudeau you mentioned about the Fabian Society and yes I read one time a book that someone published naming Pierre Trudeau belonging to a secret society and pushing bilingualism and not only that but the secret societies are all behind what is going on today and it is they who run the world. It is the “black pope” no not by race but a black cassock and they run all the secret societies and the world at the Vatican. The problems that we face world wide come from very high up making trouble for all of us. Trudeau was educated by the Jesuits and the Jesuits have been chased out of more than 100 Catholic countries because they make trouble. Trudeau Sr. took some studies by the Chinese and Russian communists and what did Justine Trudope say just lately “that he admires the Chinese or something like that” now what kind of a PM is he who admires the Chinese? A lot of us would much prefer Trump. Trudope has no personality at all and will bankrupt Canada very soon. Trudope is paying for all the expenses of the Syrian refugees and the Syrians cannot be trusted at all. All the gangs here in Ottawa stems from the Arabs as well as the Somalis and some Italian as well. The gangs here are a maffia. Trudope has to be mighty desperate for people to go and treat the Canadian people like they didn’t exist but to go and spend billions of dollars on refugees who don’t want to be in Canada but only temporary and they will suck us all dry. That is the kind of nutcase that a lot of you have elected. I get so many criticisms about Canadians electing a brainless idiot as PM. I am going back to those discussions just now.
Charley Bartlett, you touch on cost of duality in New Brunswick. Just so people know, when New Brunswick talks duality they mean one French only hospital or school etc. and one other entity that is bilingual (not English only) doubling the costs and reducing job opportunities for a large population. Our federal commissioner of .official languages (whose Twitter feed only seems to represent French happenings)uses the word duality to represent 2 languages. It makes it even more confusing for people to follow, perhaps on purpose.
When I worked in the federal government there was an elderly man very close to retirement and he had cancer. This man was in his 60’s and was forced to go on French training at his age and condition and he died not long after going for training. My supervisor in the federal government was in her mid 40’s when she was told to go for French training on Carson Rd. and it was then that she had a heart attack. Not everyone can learn French (not as an adult but as a child) since children are like sponges and can learn faster than an adult. The daughter of the Jewish lady down the hall from me sent her daughter to a French school and the little girl who must be 12 years old now is stressed out. Well I went through a tremendous stress in my day and it got me the jobs. Without French it is like climbing a mountain here in Ottawa – it is in demand whether you like it or not. Children have to be taught from kindergarden age in order to absorb everything. A person cannot have a learning disability at all to learn French and it is complicated. I had to laugh earlier because I came out with a French word instead of an English one – I am tired. LOL LOL.
It is time to allow and encourage all of the Canadian provinces to follow the same path as Quebec when it comes to language policies. The language spoken by the majority of its inhabitants should be the official language for a province or territory. Official bilingualism has been divisive, extremely costly and unnecessary. The entire idea of OB seems to have been created only with the idea of placating Quebec and giving them hegemony over the entire country. All it has succeeded in doing is to make English speakers into second class citizens. That has to end. A nation can have two or more official languages and many do. However not all languages are equal. It is clear that only Quebec needs to be French speaking in Canada. Kevin O’Leary is making very good points regarding this issue and many others as well..
All provinces should follow the path of Quebec? Sorry, no. I see Quebec as a failure in the bilingualism experiment. Punishing people and / or companies for using English is just wrong. Whether it’s English or French a good balance must be found.
Putting the language issue aside, having an obnoxious clown like O’Leary leading the Cons would guarantee that the Libs would win the next few elections.
There was a book called Two Solitudes about Canada and I haven’t read it yet but I bet I know what it contains. Each one is divided and living in his own cocoon and fighting over language. Canada was founded by both French and English and you cannot get along with one another and how in heaven’s name are you going to get along with others?
In NB the language commisioner says ENGLISH do not deserve to work in Government jobs!!
http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2684782390/
Furtz the continuance of the Liberals beyond 4 years at the Federal reigns is likely. The example of that possible reality exists in why the province of Ontario handed the Liberals their majority mandate. In a word “entitlement”. Why would any refugee, immigrant, teacher, fireman, police officer, ems personnel, civil servant or any unionized worker benefiting as a result of the liberal party vote against their paycheck or future? Now couple that with the voting trends among the under thirty crowd and I ask; how can the results be any different?
David every reliable polling firm would tell you that Ontario was willing to give the Cons the reigns of government. That includes many from the groups you mentioned. Unfortunately the party of Angry Ignorant Old White Men prevailed and they literally snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory at least once, if not twice.
For the Cons to defeat Wynne (the dippers have no chance) they need to move even further than leader Patrick Brown has. Whether they choose to do that remains to be seen. Here in Eastern Ontario I don’t think there’s any chance of that. Evidence locally where I gave Mr. Brown every opportunity until he fell under the shadows of such political giants like “Tammy Hart” & “Jim McDonell”.
David, it was the Ontario Cons who handed the Libs their majority power. They deliberately threw the last two elections that they could have and should have easily won by choosing and staying with an obnoxious weasel for a leader. The Ontario voters have been fed up with the Libs for many years, but they weren’t presented with a credible alternative. And so far, Patrick Brown doesn’t look very promising either.
He kinda looks like a vampire bat….
He kinda acts like one too. Has Brown paid back the money he “earned” as a sitting MP while he campaigned full time for his current job?
Political giants – Tammy Hart” & Jim McDonell?? I hope you were kidding. The two of them together couldn’t run a playground, let alone anything political.
I don’t think the Cons deliberately threw the last two elections. It was more that they had a leader who knew how to put his feet in his mouth and come out with unrealistic political promises. As you said we “weren’t presented with a credible alternative.”
Yesterday night I went on youtube.com and came up with Two Solitudes in French, Deux Solitudes and I listened to it about French to be spoken in Québec and even Saskatchewan and such places. Québec has a majority of French and that is their language and heritage that they are trying to preserve. I saw a high school in Montréal that was English and was being closed down. I saw minorities who had to learn French and most didn’t mind it at all. I have seen teachers speaking among themselves about the school closing down because the law came into effect where the language had to be French and a lot of these teachers were speaking French. I have seen in Saskatchewan where French speaking people were only 3%, I don’t know what the present percentage is now but who knows. I do know that English is the business language but French is very much in demand even to communicate with a lot of Europeans and others around the world. I am on a site and I ran into a German man who wrote to me in French and I wrote back in French as well. French is an essential language and the English Canadians shun at anything and are very narrow minded not wanting to learn something new. Your queen in England speaks seven languages and one is French. If your queen can speak all those language why not the English get off their keester and go and learn but the English are so mighty stubborn and narrow minded that they don’t want to learn and all they do is fight.
The French want to preserve what is theirs in a country and continent that is mostly English and the rest is Spanish and Portuguese. The French spoken in Québec is not real French and even worse in New Brunswick that only they can understand one another but it is theirs and they wish to preserve it and that is what all this is about and I don’t blame them.
I listened to the tape about New Brunswick having to deliver services in both official languages and that is true. When I worked for the federal government and I had a supervisor who was anglo and the person on the end of the phone was French she passed the phone to me since her clerks were on lunch and Claude the other supervisor who was bilingual was also on lunch. I took the phone and spoke with the client and it wasn’t my job since I was a word processor. I spoke to an Anglican minister in Québec who did nothing but curse and swear because nothing was done about his application. I had a way of calming him down and taking down his information so as a clerk can get back to him. I spoke to the supervisor what was going on and even though it wasn’t my job I handled the situation for her. The same thing for the other supervisor I had in the world processing unit who was anglo but she had tons of years of experience and always had a certain amount of bilingual staff and I was one of them along with Lise and one other person to translate.
My daughter worked for a non government job in Kanata and she was a Data Entry Clerk. Many times she had to translate and that was the job of Denise a woman from N.B. with whom she worked for (higher than my daughter) but left to work for another company. When Denise left my daughter did the translation and mostly by e-mails but was able to speak in French to those in Québec in their preferred language. People have the right to speak in the language of their choice even if they can speak perfect English. I know I came across this a number of times. I even spoke French to people who were Spanish and Italian who could not speak English nor French but French was the closest to their own language which Latin is the root of those languages. Bilingualism is a MUST and if you cannot speak French then you as a parent send your kids to French schools and stop being a bull headed person because that child’s life is in your hands. Yes people in Québec are deprived of English and they will pay the price of that. Even pilots worldwide have to speak English in the communications and not French, Arabic or any other but English. The problem is both ways you have to know both languages equally well or just about. Government of all levels must be bilingual. To also throw something at you now in my husband’s Lebanon which is Arabic, those who work in the government have to know Arabic first and the second language is French and they speak the dialect of France. English is the third language and today all the young people in Lebanon speak English as well and not like the older generations – everyone today has to have at least two and three languages.
No Hugger. They deliberately threw the last two elections. Nobody, and I mean nobody could have thought that Hudak would lead the party to victory. They clearly didn’t want to win.
Jules, the English look at language as a way to communicate and the French look at their language as something to preserve. Well, to be blunt, preserve it then. Teach your kids and grand kids the language. Don’t blame the English for being lazy, that is just divisive. How about the French taxes go to French programs and the English stop paying tax towards the French programs?
And it is also your Queen!
Eric taxes are divided among all schools whether public, catholic, English, or French and the only ones where taxes are mostly exempt is in the private schools where parents pay huge payments out of their pockets to send their kids to those facilities and are geared to the rich or very high income families. There are places in Kanata and other areas where these schools exist including on Riverside Drive where there is a private school from France where kids of the PM’s, embassies, etc. go called Lycée Claudel. The best schools are private as well as home schooling.