[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[viper37]

And again, signing your kid up for French immersion so that 40 years later they can aspire to be a high level government bureaucrat requires an amount of forethought that only a lot of privilege will allow.

if one of your boys told you he wanted to stop school because he does not need it for the kind of work he wants to do, would you let him?

It requires a lot of forethough to keep your child in school when he clearly hates it just so that 40 years later he might need to calculate the square root of a triangle's side.
But I'm betting that, as a good parent, when of your kid complains about learning stuff that has no use, you keep telling him something along the lines of "you never know when you'll lead it".  Why would it be different with languages?

[viper37]

How fluent do you need to be for these positions anyway?

Bonjour! Hi!.
[/i]

[crazy canuck]

Which is why the article talks about "systemic barriers".  French language training within the government involves going to French language training in Quebec for a number of months.  Yes you're still paid to do so, but being able up uproot your life for a number of months (while you probably have a number of obligations at home) requires a certain degree of privilege.  Similarly being able to plan for your peak career goals early on also requires some privilege.

And for Quebecers to learn english does not require to uproot themselves?  You think no one here has evern done immersion in another province, or for some, in another country, far away from home?

Besides, there are french classes in all provinces and in at least one territory.  My cousin used to be a french teacher in Yukon, in schools as well as for adults.  And we have television and internet everywhere.  Do you think I stay here only for the charming personality of all members?

AFAIK, one of CC's son studied in a french a school and is bilingual.  I've never heard he moved to Quebec for a decade.

And there are other parts of the country where they speak french.  Like a good part of New Brunswick, despite the government's best effort to assimilate them.  Around Louisbourg in Nova Scotia is still french, with french schools and even english speakers who can speak french quite fluently.  Eastern and Norhtern Ontario are home to large french speaking communities, especially close to Quebec's borders.

It also seems to negate the fact that many people learn to speak Spanish, despite not having a single province in the country where Spanish is the official language.  If an American living in New York can learn spanish, why can't a Canadian living in Toronto learn french?

For once, I'll agree with CC, if you have higher up ambitions, don't think about learning the other official language once you decide to make the jump, begin earlier.  I've never heard of someone waking up one morning and deciding he/she wants to be a national party leader or a Supreme Court justice.

Oh, I am pretty sure we have agreed more than once. 

I didn't want to use my own family as an example, but yes, I am the only non French speaker in my family.  Both boys are bilingual.  Mrs. CC became bilingual as an adult.   We have gone to Quebec for week long trips.  And we have travelled in France.  Oex is right it is easier when in a place everyone is speaking French.  Hell even I picked up a bit...  But really the CC clan learned French here in BC.

At GF, please don't lump me in with the "they"

[crazy canuck]

How fluent do you need to be for these positions anyway?

Bonjour! Hi!.
[/i]

Sadly, yes.

[viper37]

So then why is it that in a country where 22% of people identify as a visible minority, all those positions identified in the article are 100% white?

I don't know, there a lot of non whites who speak both official languages and some more in this country.

But if you're from a disadvantaged community,

And that is a news how, exactly?

a new immigrant,

And that is a news how, exactly?

or where English is already your second language,

And of course, there is nowhere in the world when someone could come from tha they would have only a limited grasp of english but be fluent in french and their local language.  It's like people coming out of Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia would speak french & arabic but no be overly fluent in French.  It's not like many Africans speak French + their mother tongue and struggle to learn english.  Nope.  Never happens.  The world is one big english speaking sphere, the cards are stacked against these poor english speakers whenever they wish to emigrate to Canada.

you're not able to take the long view and go "you know I should try to learn French today so in 20 years I can get a really senior position".  No, you're just trying to get through the day.

I did not have to learn english.  No one forced me to it.  I could have studied accounting where every manuals are in french, where every standards is available in french, where new research are not much relevant and where fiscality law can be read in both official languages.  Anything that touches art is done in french.  There's no required reading in english, no need to parse through thousands of pages of studies written in a different language than the one I was raised on.
At the last census, my village has 1 717 souls.  Do you think there is a vibrant english speaking community where you can easily practice your language skills?  Whenever I have a problem with one of my cable channels I'm met with disbelief since no one else subscribes to them around me, there are no report of any troubles with their signal.  Just yesterday night, I saw a young woman at Subway who had to call on her boyfriend to come to the restaurant and translate for her english speaking client.  It definately is not a given for anyone to learn english here.
But I did it.  Because I had the will.  Because I figured early on it could be extremely useful to me.  Because I forced myself to watch english tv even if I did not understand much of it.  I watched the transformers in english and in french taking notes of the similarities between the episodes to understand the meaning of words.  I kept bugging my elementary english teacher to give more vocabulary to practice. I kept reading computer and electronics manuals in french and in english to understand what meant what.  I was bilingual before I entered high school.  It's all a matter of efforts. 

I failed at learning spanish because I had zero interest in the language at the time.  Not because it's an impossible task as an adultl; I'll get back to it now that I have time and possibly money to travel abroad (if that covid-shit is ever over); 10 years ago, I did not envision a future where I would be even remotely interested in visiting South America or the Carribean. Simple as that.  But at least, I did not have political/carreer ambitions in a country where it's an official language.

My parents were both unilingual French.  None of my grandparents spoke english, except for my paternal great grand mother who was born in Florida and whom I've known for less than a year before she passed away. Only a few of my uncles spoke the language, and none of them were living in my area.
If I could do it, anyone can do it, so long as they want it.

The fact is, english canadians are notoriously bad at French because they do not want to be good at it and there are no pressure on them since they're the dominant culture on the continent.  Want to go to the US?  Same language, same culture.  Want to go to Cuba or Dominican Republic during the winter?  People will bend over to speak english since there's so much money to be made by being able to.  Want to visit another province?  8 out of 9 will have the same language&culture as yours, and in the 9th, as long as you keep close to the highway, there won't be a problem of communication.
That's anglo-saxon priviledge for you 

[viper37]

That model is effectively what we have.  The odd thing about BB's article is it was complaining about the top jobs where speaking both languages is a necessity.

It's not just jobs at the very top that require bilingualism however.  Pretty much all middle to upper management requires you to be bilingual.

absolutely not.  In fact, upper management is notoriously unilingual english.

only an handful of jobs are designated as "bilingual".  And even then, you don't need to be bilingual to postulate on the job, you just have to agree to undergo french/english training if you are selected.

Maybe it is different in the army, I'm not sure.  I know french speakers need extensive english training in military schools (even non officers), I'm not sure about english speakers since so many of the international operations would be conducted in english anyway.

[viper37]

The privilege, in this instance, is not about French language requirement: that's just yet another convenient excuse to serve us again that favorite right-wing rant.

Like the left-wing is all saint on language issues.   

[Malthus]

Ahh, the Canada politics thread. A safe space where we can argue endlessly over relatively inconsequential issues, like job requirements for civil servants, and temporarily forget that the entire world is imploding around us. 😄

[Grey Fox]

I never would have thought that I missed Viper's language diatribe so much.

[viper37]

and temporarily forget that the entire world is imploding around us. 😄

why? what did I miss?

[crazy canuck]

Ahh, the Canada politics thread. A safe space where we can argue endlessly over relatively inconsequential issues, like job requirements for civil servants, and temporarily forget that the entire world is imploding around us. 😄

BB posted a pretty fucking stupid article and then went on to defend it.

[Josephus]

Ahh, the Canada politics thread. A safe space where we can argue endlessly over relatively inconsequential issues, like job requirements for civil servants, and temporarily forget that the entire world is imploding around us. 😄

BB posted a pretty fucking stupid article and then went on to defend it.

lawyers 

[viper37]

In other news, unless Canada substantially raise its carbon tax, way, way, way past the point where it could be even considered neutral, the country will not achieve its objective.
Carbon tax must rise if Canada is to meet Paris emission targets: PBO

It has to go from the current 50$/tonne to between 117$-289$/tonne to be effective.

One more smoke&mirror by the Liberal government.

[Barrister]

So while everyone is focusing on the US election, things are getting very interesting in Ottawa.

Some of you will recall the WE Charity scandal - the government outsourced a near-billion dollar program to WE Charity to manage summer jobs during Covid.  It turned out of course that WE Charity had personally given I think it was over $100k to Trudeau's mother and wife for speaking fees.  Opposition demands inquiries - in return Trudeau prorogues Parliament, which shuts down all Parliamentary oversight.

After Parliament returns, the Liberals have been fillibustering any attempt to demand additional documents regarding WE Charity.  Remember of course it's a minority Parliament - Liberals do not have a majority.

Now a few times a year the opposition parties get to move a vote in Parliament.  Today is the Conservatives day.  They move to create a committee to investigate ethical lapses by the Liberals.  Opposition parties seem to support them on this.  Liberals response is to turn this into a confidence vote - that if Parliament passes this motion they will say that the House no longer supports them, and an election must be called.

Man - they're working awfully hard - what exactly are they hiding?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservatives-we-opposition-day-1.5768993

[crazy canuck]

it is as cynical a play as the decision to prorogue.

The government narrative that this was a decision made by the civil service that was forced on the government didn't make sense in the absence of document disclosure and that is likely what the are trying to hide.


They figure if they can force the opposition to back down now this issue will die quickly.  If not the go into an election without the full facts being known and eventually the issue will be overtaken during the course of the election.  Their worst possible outcome is full document disclosure followed by the opposition then forcing an election.