[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Malthus]

I was actually shitting on Toronto itself. I just presumed French would be taught to everybody in school since it is one of the official languages of your country, at least enough to be able to know a little bit.

Feel free to shit on my city, we are used to it - you will have to line up behind practically everyone else in Canada, though. 

Besides I don't see any information about what the first language is of those people who speak French fluently as a second (or third or fourth) language so I lack sufficient information to know which group I should be shitting on.

I'm just gonna take a wild guess that they aren't the Mandarin or Cantonese speakers. 

[HVC]

Thing is, in Toronto you aren't shitting on monolingual English speakers too lazy to learn French - you are also shitting on bilingual third-language speakers not learning a third language that few here actually speak. As pointed out above, only half the city's population has English as a first language.

I was actually shitting on Toronto itself. I just presumed French would be taught to everybody in school since it is one of the official languages of your country, at least enough to be able to know a little bit.

Besides I don't see any information about what the first language is of those people who speak French fluently as a second (or third or fourth) language so I lack sufficient information to know which group I should be shitting on.

It is taught to every student. I took it from pre-K to grade 10. And for a while I was fluent... or passable so lol. My current French ability is lacking from the absence of use

[saskganesh]

hmm. There's heavy demand for French Immersion, across the country, but not nearly enough seats in classrooms. Or classrooms for that matter.

[Camerus]

Few people learn French in the RoC because it's not generally seen as economically or culturally attractive to do so. Not sure government policy could really fix that.

The plus for Quebecois is that they get a huge advantage in applying for the country's many jobs that require bilingualism.

EDIT: Though of course those jobs are largely found in the federal civil service.

[crazy canuck]

Few people learn French in the RoC because it's not generally seen as economically or culturally attractive to do so. Not sure government policy could really fix that.

The plus for Quebecois is that they get a huge advantage in applying for the country's many jobs that require bilingualism.

EDIT: Though of course those jobs are largely found in the federal civil service.

Not sure what is happening where you live but in BC the situation is as Sask has described.  There are not enough spaces to meet the demand for french language instruction in BC.   

[HVC]

French immersion is relatively popular here to. Demand outstrips supply, but not enough to say double the number of schools or something. It appears, at least to me, that it at a demand level that opening new schools would open up too many classes for the student demand, but I could be wrong.

I actually know a few people with kids in French immersion. From what I can see the parents don't do it from a love of Canada's multiculturalism but because they're over involved parents* who see it as a leg up for their kids. Good on the them though, it probably will do just that.


* you know the kind. Every day scheduled Sports, a musical instrument or two, play dates.

[Zoupa]

The plus for Quebecois is that they get a huge advantage in applying for the country's many jobs that require bilingualism.

Oh Quebecois get a huge advantage? Why is that? Could it be because they bothered to learn the other official language of the country?

Jesus fucking Christ. Les deux solitudes.

[Valmy]

Not sure government policy could really fix that.

All I really ask is that everybody gets the honor of compulsory French and English in school. Glad to hear HVC got to enjoy that honor.

Not that my opinion matters

[HVC]

I think compulsory French is important and good. I can still get by, better then most, but my skill has definitely degraded. I think, but I can be wrong, that it's compulsory until grade 10, or at least was. I enjoyed it, and was good at it ( More-so  verbal then written go figure haha). I would have taken it after the compulsory period, but I took geography and history as my bird courses rather than French.

[HVC]

I think, but I could be wrong, the only kids exempt are ESL kids.

[Camerus]

Sure, there's a demand for French immersion, but that hasn't translated in the past to a significant enough  percentage of the Anglo population who can speak French well - in fact the results have been so poor that our Quebecois posters feel like Francophones are second-class citizens when in English Canada!

For the record, I am a supporter of mandatory French language classes in school. I also go out of my way to practice my French by reading news articles and so on from time to time. However, I have to say that the effects of decades worth of mandatory French classes seem to have been fairly minimal.

I also think that attributing to moral virtue / vice why French Canadians are more likely to learn English than vice versa is the wrong way to look at it, when in fact the question is more determined by incentives.

[Oexmelin]

Incentives is perhaps slightly misleading. As long as French is simply, or mostly presented as an asset for federal jobs, there will never be much of an incentive to learn it. For it to become more than a flourish on one's school curriculum requires a full change of attitude from the RoC, and tremendous institutional support from the federal and provincial governments. But such support having been seen as an intolerable inconvenience or a repulsive political imposition in most provinces, and the promotion of French actually undermining the multiculturalist message of the federal government, means that this will not happen. A few people will show up to French immersion (even if those numbers overwhelm the institutions in place), they will feel good about themselves while unwittingly contributing to the assimilation of French communities outside Quebec, and then they will promptly forget their French for lack of use. Haven't you all seen the case of this guy, in Calgary, who was refused boarding in the city bus for presenting a French language ticket? Here was a well-meaning man attempting to do the *bare minimum*, and yet, it turned out to be a fucking ordeal.

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1308674/billet-billingue-francais-rob-maciak-autobus

Note that Calgary transit wasn't even able to bloody get "Journée" right.

This is what is exhausting and frustrating, having to continuously fight bitter fights for *any* advances, even the more symbolic ones.  Having bilingual judges on the Supreme Court? Inconceivable! Having quality translation for stuff sold in Canada? Much too expensive! Ensuring your campaign song is in actual French rather than in Gibberish? Way too much effort! Accepting that a room full of francophones may not automatically switch to English because you are the only one who never bothered to learn another language? How rude! The cherry on top is to be lectured on all this stuff by unilingual people who casually brush aside all this as minimal inconvenience and labor. Even the mere acknowledgment that this is an unfortunate state of affair looks like pulling teeth.

[viper37]

hmm. There's heavy demand for French Immersion, across the country, but not nearly enough seats in classrooms. Or classrooms for that matter.

Not enough teachers who can master the language.

[viper37]

Not sure government policy could really fix that.

All I really ask is that everybody gets the honor of compulsory French and English in school. Glad to hear HVC got to enjoy that honor.

Not that my opinion matters

Afaik, in most provinces of English Canada, French classes begin in grade 7th.  English classes in Quebec now begin in grade 1st, they used to begin in grade 4 in my time.  Apparently, what they did was reduce the total number of hours though, so it comes to the same at the end of elementary school.

[viper37]

I think compulsory French is important and good. I can still get by, better then most, but my skill has definitely degraded. I think, but I can be wrong, that it's compulsory until grade 10, or at least was. I enjoyed it, and was good at it ( More-so  verbal then written go figure haha). I would have taken it after the compulsory period, but I took geography and history as my bird courses rather than French.

Most non social university fields of study require French-English bilinguism to graduate, in Quebec. :)Other languages are optional, but encouraged.  But as Malthus could tell you, sitting in a foreign language class for beginners when you're about the only one who does not grasp the language is kinda depressing 
Should have gone for the "modern cinema class" instead.   My friend had no homeworks, no exams, only a 20 minute expose on one of the movies he saw each week at the end of the session.