Bilingual Canada
Now is this rational? Or is it the expression of a society governed by a bureaucratic idiocy, all in the name of placating the childish plaints of a portion of society that insists it is unique and exceptional and that the rest of society representing a whopping majority must continue to do obeisance to its hurt feelings? Canada is recognized as an officially-bilingual society. An unearned and unneeded courtesy that complicates the lives of far too many people, while scarcely providing a band-aid of mollification to the incessant squeals of complaint from an unappeasable minority.
Why do we bother? Why is this country so obsessed by a historical event dating beyond Confederation when one occupying imperial force managed to upset an equally occupying imperial force? To the historical survivor go the spoils. Those left to pick up the pieces and make of the country a whole, should be required to do so over time with goodwill and a shared purpose. Nursing an ancient grudge that serves only to divide people, to create a sense of ongoing opposition, has done no one any great good.
Two founding nations, two separate languages. Two cultures, two types of heritage. Great Britain and France have always historically been at martial odds, social division, political disarray one with the other. To import that unease of two peoples to another country, recognizing that those differences exist rather than urging the dissolution of differences in the larger interests of an integrated society recognizing its strength in co-operative alliance, represents a failure.
(It is a failure that we see being repeated currently, in other areas, with the migration of people from highly diverse cultures, backgrounds, countries, religions, actually following suit. Canada feels itself to be a country with a prevailing culture, a common heritage, shared values and respect for multiculturalism. Multiculturalism grew out of bilingual blackmail, legitimizing unworkable demarcations between people, allowing ethnic groups to remain distinct, and veering away from assimilation. Only aboriginal peoples were spurred to assimilate.
Multiculturalism, alas, although seeming to be positively inspired at the time it was initiated as an official government position - urging people to cling to their sources, while expecting them to become fully-fledged 'Canadians' - created emotional detachment and social conflict, representing a social dysfunction. While earlier waves of immigrants did successfully assimilate, it is clear that later groups have not done so to the extent that should be anticipated for the greater good of the country and its population.)
That the federal government has been so invested in guaranteeing that the two solitudes remain so has been quite unhelpful. The tradition of selecting a French, then an English prime minister to balance the official situation of two sources equally represented has outgrown its usefulness. Punishing the majority of Canadians who do not speak both official languages, although English prevails country-wide and internationally has only resulted in pushing people further apart, and raising resentment.
Quebecois have never been quite satisfied with any accommodations made by the majority of Canadians to secure their trust, in an ongoing bid to assuage their historically-hurt feelings. A generous-minded decision to give equal status to French and English has not, in the final analysis, proven to be beneficial to the country. French Canada's insistence that it must have sovereignty, while still nursing at the financial teat of the country has done this land ill.
And Canadians who speak the majority tongue, who are skilled professionals are left to languish while government employs far-lesser-professionally-endowed workers to fill vital employment positions simply on the basis that their mother-tongue is French. This dedication to equalization of the languages is hardly apposite. And how is equality in job-opportunities, in the insistence that French be available to perfectly bilingual francophones in areas of small francophone presence useful?
It is costly in the extreme to reproduce everything in two languages, from the federal to the provincial to the municipal level. Quebec, Canada's unique province, with its own self-acknowledged exceptionalism, insists that the federal government assent to giving it independence in areas not normally allotted to provinces, from immigration to a UN presence, affording it a political-hierarchical respect it hardly deserves in a confederation.
As an illustration of just how absurd the entire situation is, nothing stands out quite so quixotically as a a raid by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on a small local grocery store located in Vancouver, specializing in the products and produce of local micro-farmers in the surrounding British Columbia area. The agents looking for contraband items, found them; cheeses, jams, pickles, beef and baked goods, all locally produced.
But horror of horrors, the products were inadequately labelled, many not printed with French translations, or missing nutrition tables. The owner of the grocery, Deb Reynolds, can be excused for feeling hard done by, with the invasion of her Home Grow-in-Grocer market, where over a hundred products were picked over, and she was handed seven pages of infractions. Representing labels absent of bilingual or nutritional data
Eleven suppliers, all local producers, were flagged, in particular one dairy producer whom the agency appears to have a grudge against. Can you imagine, locally baked bread, freshly delivered daily, and with no label!? Ms. Reynolds, cited for unlawful stocking of illegal local products, donated most of the products the inspectors pounced upon to a local transition house. She is more than a little bemused by the affair. Who in B.C. has been hard done by with the lack of bilingual labelling?
"I'm just somebody who is trying to support the local B.C. economy", she explained. Surely, there must be fewer than 10% of Vancouver residents speaking French? And of those who are French-speakers, who among them would complain of inadequate bilingual labelling? Do we even want to know?
Why do we bother? Why is this country so obsessed by a historical event dating beyond Confederation when one occupying imperial force managed to upset an equally occupying imperial force? To the historical survivor go the spoils. Those left to pick up the pieces and make of the country a whole, should be required to do so over time with goodwill and a shared purpose. Nursing an ancient grudge that serves only to divide people, to create a sense of ongoing opposition, has done no one any great good.
Two founding nations, two separate languages. Two cultures, two types of heritage. Great Britain and France have always historically been at martial odds, social division, political disarray one with the other. To import that unease of two peoples to another country, recognizing that those differences exist rather than urging the dissolution of differences in the larger interests of an integrated society recognizing its strength in co-operative alliance, represents a failure.
(It is a failure that we see being repeated currently, in other areas, with the migration of people from highly diverse cultures, backgrounds, countries, religions, actually following suit. Canada feels itself to be a country with a prevailing culture, a common heritage, shared values and respect for multiculturalism. Multiculturalism grew out of bilingual blackmail, legitimizing unworkable demarcations between people, allowing ethnic groups to remain distinct, and veering away from assimilation. Only aboriginal peoples were spurred to assimilate.
Multiculturalism, alas, although seeming to be positively inspired at the time it was initiated as an official government position - urging people to cling to their sources, while expecting them to become fully-fledged 'Canadians' - created emotional detachment and social conflict, representing a social dysfunction. While earlier waves of immigrants did successfully assimilate, it is clear that later groups have not done so to the extent that should be anticipated for the greater good of the country and its population.)
That the federal government has been so invested in guaranteeing that the two solitudes remain so has been quite unhelpful. The tradition of selecting a French, then an English prime minister to balance the official situation of two sources equally represented has outgrown its usefulness. Punishing the majority of Canadians who do not speak both official languages, although English prevails country-wide and internationally has only resulted in pushing people further apart, and raising resentment.
Quebecois have never been quite satisfied with any accommodations made by the majority of Canadians to secure their trust, in an ongoing bid to assuage their historically-hurt feelings. A generous-minded decision to give equal status to French and English has not, in the final analysis, proven to be beneficial to the country. French Canada's insistence that it must have sovereignty, while still nursing at the financial teat of the country has done this land ill.
And Canadians who speak the majority tongue, who are skilled professionals are left to languish while government employs far-lesser-professionally-endowed workers to fill vital employment positions simply on the basis that their mother-tongue is French. This dedication to equalization of the languages is hardly apposite. And how is equality in job-opportunities, in the insistence that French be available to perfectly bilingual francophones in areas of small francophone presence useful?
It is costly in the extreme to reproduce everything in two languages, from the federal to the provincial to the municipal level. Quebec, Canada's unique province, with its own self-acknowledged exceptionalism, insists that the federal government assent to giving it independence in areas not normally allotted to provinces, from immigration to a UN presence, affording it a political-hierarchical respect it hardly deserves in a confederation.
As an illustration of just how absurd the entire situation is, nothing stands out quite so quixotically as a a raid by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on a small local grocery store located in Vancouver, specializing in the products and produce of local micro-farmers in the surrounding British Columbia area. The agents looking for contraband items, found them; cheeses, jams, pickles, beef and baked goods, all locally produced.
But horror of horrors, the products were inadequately labelled, many not printed with French translations, or missing nutrition tables. The owner of the grocery, Deb Reynolds, can be excused for feeling hard done by, with the invasion of her Home Grow-in-Grocer market, where over a hundred products were picked over, and she was handed seven pages of infractions. Representing labels absent of bilingual or nutritional data
Eleven suppliers, all local producers, were flagged, in particular one dairy producer whom the agency appears to have a grudge against. Can you imagine, locally baked bread, freshly delivered daily, and with no label!? Ms. Reynolds, cited for unlawful stocking of illegal local products, donated most of the products the inspectors pounced upon to a local transition house. She is more than a little bemused by the affair. Who in B.C. has been hard done by with the lack of bilingual labelling?
"I'm just somebody who is trying to support the local B.C. economy", she explained. Surely, there must be fewer than 10% of Vancouver residents speaking French? And of those who are French-speakers, who among them would complain of inadequate bilingual labelling? Do we even want to know?
Labels: Canada, Economy, Heritage, Human Relations, Politics of Convenience
posted by Pieface | 7:09 PM
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