Canada to firmly re-assess its status as a British colony

[Malthus]

That's seeking safety in vagueness.  Sure there are "linguistic rights" - for example, the right of a private citizens to speak whatever language they wish with other private citizens in a private setting.  Or the right to instruct others in languages.  And of course those rights are recognized. 

The question you have raised is whether those rights extend to the right to have publicly funded schools instructing in a given language, and I have not seen any convincing argument that such a right exists outside of positive law.

Not sure what would convince you. How about the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities?

http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/47/a47r135.htm

2 1.    Persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic
minorities (hereinafter referred to as persons belonging to minorities) have
the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own
religion, and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and
without interference or any form of discrimination.
...

4. 2.    States shall take measures to create favourable conditions to enable
persons belonging to minorities to express their characteristics and to
develop their culture, language, religion, traditions and customs, except
where specific practices are in violation of national law and contrary to
international standards.

3.    States should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible,
persons belonging to minorities may have adequate opportunities to learn their
mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother tongue.

You may disagree with this, but please don't pretend such rights don't exist.

The 1867 act is clearly phrased as a union of provinces and that Act delegates educational powers to the provinces.

... yet our Constitution Act, as stated, extends rights to public funding of minority language education in either French or English, throughout Canada, regardless of provincial boundaries, if there exists a minority population that requires it. Obviously this is not a matter simply left "to the provinces", and the express reason for it is to recognize that Canada was historically a union of two peoples.

[The Minsky Moment]

The language laws are merely there to enforce respect by a majority of outsiders who feel they shouldn't respect us. 

You can't enforce respect.  Trying to force respect just breeds resentment.

[Gups]

Malthus, JR

You may find this ECHR case of interest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Linguistic_Case_(No_2)

[The Minsky Moment]

You may disagree with this, but please don't pretend such rights don't exist.

I agree with all of that in principle, but those aren't the rights we are talking about.

... yet our Constitution Act, as stated, extends rights to public funding of minority language education in either French or English, throughout Canada, regardless of provincial boundaries, if there exists a minority population that requires it. Obviously this is not a matter simply left "to the provinces", and the express reason for it is to recognize that Canada was historically a union of two peoples.

Sure but that doesn't address the point.  The question you posed is whether it would be OK for federal Canada to impose English only public schools on all of Canada.   That violates both acts, and through its violation of the '67 act, it attacks one of the bases of the federal union of provinces.  I see nothing in the Constitution Act that would suggest otherwise.

[Valmy]

Persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic
minorities (hereinafter referred to as persons belonging to minorities) have
the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own
religion, and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and
without interference or any form of discrimination.

Yeah nowhere does that say anything about the language of public education.

4. 2.    States shall take measures to create favourable conditions to enable
persons belonging to minorities to express their characteristics and to
develop their culture, language, religion, traditions and customs, except
where specific practices are in violation of national law and contrary to
international standards.

Ok how the fuck do we create 'favourable' conditions?  UN rights suck ass.  Our Bill of Rights is sublte as a ton of bricks saying 'Congress will pass no law regarding such and such a matter' and we still cannot seem to understand what that means.  'States...create favourable conditions'?    Does that mean simply not fuck with people being minorities or does that mean we need to level most of Brooklyn and rebuild it to resemble ancient Israel since that would be favourable to our Hasidic minority to express their characteristics?  Most likely it means...whatever the signing state decides it means.

3.    States should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible,
persons belonging to minorities may have adequate opportunities to learn their
mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother tongue.

What is an 'appropriate measure'?  'Wherever possible'?  'Adequate opportunities'?  What a bunch of vague meaningless platitudes.

God no wonder people think the UN is a joke.  How inspiring.  Humans have the inalienable right to appropriate adequate stuff whenever possible.  Be careful tyrants of the world!  Freedom loving people everywhere will take appropriate measures to defend that adequate right wherever possible.

[Malthus]

Malthus, JR

You may find this ECHR case of interest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Linguistic_Case_(No_2)

An interesting case, and decided on what, at least in Canada, would be considered a very bizzare definition of what constitutes "discrimination". From the judgment:

However, while recognising that this is a harsh measure, the Court cannot share the Commission's opinion that such a hardship is forbidden by a joint reading of the first sentence of Article 2 of the Protocol (P1-2) and Article 14 (art. 14) of the Convention. This opinion could be accepted only if the "hardship" were to amount to a distinction in treatment of an arbitrary and therefore discriminatory nature. The Court has, however, found that, whatever their severity, the legal or administrative provisions touched on by the first question are based on objective criteria.

Article 14 in question:

The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status."

What the court appears to be saying is that discriminating against a minority (however harshly) isn't really "discrimination" for the purposes of Art. 14, if it is "based on objective criteria" and thus not "arbitrary".

This seems ass-backwards to me. "Discriminatory" to my mind has nothing to do with necessarily how "arbitrary" the measure is - the court here is saying that a desire to assimilate others isn't  "arbitrary" and thus discrimination to that effect isn't "discriminatory".

That being said, commenting on the legal process of another jurisdiction and all that. But the protection againstt discrimination here deoisn't seem very robust.

[Malthus]

Persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic
minorities (hereinafter referred to as persons belonging to minorities) have
the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own
religion, and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and
without interference or any form of discrimination.

Yeah nowhere does that say anything about the language of public education.

4. 2.    States shall take measures to create favourable conditions to enable
persons belonging to minorities to express their characteristics and to
develop their culture, language, religion, traditions and customs, except
where specific practices are in violation of national law and contrary to
international standards.

Ok how the fuck do we create 'favourable' conditions?  UN rights suck ass.  Our Bill of Rights is sublte as a ton of bricks saying 'Congress will pass no law regarding such and such a matter' and we still cannot seem to understand what that means.  'States...create favourable conditions'?    Does that mean simply not fuck with people being minorities or does that mean we need to level most of Brooklyn and rebuild it to resemble ancient Israel since that would be favourable to our Hasidic minority to express their characteristics?  Most likely it means...whatever the signing state decides it means.

3.    States should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible,
persons belonging to minorities may have adequate opportunities to learn their
mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother tongue.

What is an 'appropriate measure'?  'Wherever possible'?  'Adequate opportunities'?  What a bunch of vague meaningless platitudes.

God no wonder people think the UN is a joke.  How inspiring.  Humans have the inalienable right to appropriate adequate stuff whenever possible.  Be careful tyrants of the world!  Freedom loving people everywhere will take appropriate measures to defend that adequate right wherever possible.

I agree it's a horribly worded piece of drafting. But that's not the point. Whatever "appropriate measures" may mean, it would be tough to argue with a straight face that they mean forbidding immigrants to attend public English schools.

[The Minsky Moment]

"Favorable conditions" and "appropriate measures" I would read as things like providing translation of key government documents, providing assistance relating to government services in multiple languages, court interpreters, etc.  Plus for significant minorities providing language classes in the public schhols where administratively and economically feasible.

I don't read it as saying that the State is obliged to create muliple, parallel public school systems wherever significant lingusitic minorities are found, in which the principal language of instruction is the minority language.  I don't read it that way because it doesn't say that and such a reading would be both unreasonable and contrary to the actual practice of most of the members of the General Assembly.

[Valmy]

Whatever "appropriate measures" may mean, it would be tough to argue with a straight face that they mean forbidding immigrants to attend public English schools.

Um it says minorites not immigrants.  Like an ethnic group living inside your borders and it concerns mother tongues of those minorities.  The right of an immigrant to join an ethnic minority instead of the majority is never mentioned and certainly no requirement that a State pay to enable them to.

But even if it was it would be said in a vague way that would be meaningless anyway.

[Malthus]

"Favorable conditions" and "appropriate measures" I would read as things like providing translation of key government documents, providing assistance relating to government services in multiple languages, court interpreters, etc.  Plus for significant minorities providing language classes in the public schhols where administratively and economically feasible.

I don't read it as saying that the State is obliged to create muliple, parallel public school systems wherever significant lingusitic minorities are found, in which the principal language of instruction is the minority language.  I don't read it that way because it doesn't say that and such a reading would be both unreasonable and contrary to the actual practice of most of the members of the General Assembly.

"Appropriate measures ...to learn their mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother tongue".

Clearly, states have the obligation to pay public funds for minority language instruction, no? Which is what you guys are denying.

I do not claim that this provision requires states to carry out in full my own, particular program. I merely state that you are incorrect in stating that no such linguistic rights exist outside of the positive law (which you may remember was your contention), and that where (as in Quebec) such schools in fact exist, forbidding a small subset of students (children of recent immigrants) access to 'em hardly comports with such rights.

Unfortunately, real work calls and I must leave this debate for a time.

[Malthus]

Whatever "appropriate measures" may mean, it would be tough to argue with a straight face that they mean forbidding immigrants to attend public English schools.

Um it says minorites not immigrants.  Like an ethnic group living inside your borders and it concerns mother tongues of those minorities.  The right of an immigrant to join an ethnic minority instead of the majority is never mentioned and certainly no requirement that a State pay to enable them to.

But even if it was it would be said in a vague way that would be meaningless anyway.

Immigrants can't be minorities now? 

[Valmy]

Immigrants can't be minorities now? 

Of course they can be.  I said nowhere does it say immigrants have a right to be assimilated into another minority group and it certainly does not say the State needs to pay for it.  It was about protecting ethnic cultures and their mother tongues from being persecuted.  Not 'Serbia needs to provide schools at public expense to help their Albanian minority merge with their Hungarian minority to create a larger and more robust Hungarian minority.'  Or: 'The US must build more schools at taxpayer expense because some of their Asian immigrants want to be taught in the tongue of the Navajo'.

[Valmy]

I have zero interest in splitting my country up into linguistic and ethnic enclaves and while that will happen anyway to some extent (especially in the short term but that is a transition point and not a destination) I certainly would be dead set against funding it and I would regard ANY requirement to do so as tyranny if it were against the will of the people.  Why should a people be forced to artificially create Balkanization in their own country?  And if they were required to do so well...it is a pretty short step to blaming the minorities themselves for the requirement.  Hello justifications for ethnic cleansing.

[The Brain]

This is a horrible, horrible thread.

[Valmy]

This is a horrible, horrible thread.

Are you kidding?  I love this thread.  Best thread evah.