Official Bilingualism Pains

Official bilingualism.  Pierre Elliot Trudeau's solution to the sense of malaise and resentment that kept French Canadians from feeling themselves an integral and valued part of Canada.  Those fears of their precious French language being diluted, disappearing with disuse, would be banished with the change he made in Canadian law forging a clear identity for French as a language equal in value to the majority language of English.

Only, alas, it didn't quite work that way.  French-Canadian resentment is as strong and bellicose as it ever was.  The emphasis is now decidedly on the 'francophone', on the nationalist aspirations of the Quebecois who do not think of themselves as French-Canadian, but rather, French.  Period.  It is their misfortune to be living in North America, in Quebec, as a colony of Canada.  That they were made equal partners with the English is of little value to them.

The current Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper went so far as to attempt to placate the perennially-dissatisfied, disaffection of separatests by declaring in the House of Commons that Quebec was indeed a 'nation'.  Unique and respected.  Only temporarily taking the wind out of the sails of the good ship Separation.  The trouble with good-natured and -intentioned attempts at appeasement is that they never work.

And official bilingualism, paradoxically, is officially recognized in every province of this great country, with the noted exception of the Province of Quebec.  Where French has prominence and English barely squeaks by, disdained and held in monumental contempt.  French Canadians are so enormously entitled that official bilingualism has brought them a bonus over other Canadians in obtaining positions with the federal civil service.

Living within the National Capital Region, and most doing so handily on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, countless French-mother-tongue francophone Quebecers draw a nifty paycheque as civil servants, but yet politically support separation.  Within the public service francophones have a decided leg up, both in initial employment and in ascending the ladder to achieve  high level positions, because of their French-language fluency.

Their English, the language of the Canadian majority, may not be too good, but that's life.  That lack of fluency can be overlooked.  To get anywhere in the federal public service you need good French-language capabilities; certainly so in any position of authority.  Official bilingualism, quite apart from the irritating politics, is hugely costly.  It is an overbearing expense brought to the fore by the official capacity of bilingual Canada.

And the teaching of French in schools and in the public service, the translation costs into both official languages, the signage, the documentation and departmental and infrastructure bilingualism is very, very expensive.  Producing literature and documents in two languages.  Commercial signage and dual-language stickers on all commodities and foods. Expensive as well in human costs of people becoming frustrated and sidelined in their aspirations because of their inability to sufficiently master another language.

And if someone has a disability of some kind that holds them back from achieving proficiency in another language, this too must be addressed, otherwise it represents an abridgement of their human rights guarantees.  Which has led to a situation where a Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada advertisement has gone out to tender thousands of dollars for the provision of a one-on-one, one-year language training course for an individual.

An individual who happens to have been diagnosed with a "spelling disability", a 'disability' most people can be excused for never having been aware of previously.  But it involves "sub skill deficiencies with phonetic knowledge, decoding skills, spatial deficits and fluctuation in auditory memory which results in a deterioration in ability to sustain performance in auditory processing on novel tasks presented at a rapid pace."

That head-spinning diagnosis has resulted in "auditory fatigue" for the French-language-learning aspirant, who must be accommodated with full-time language training.  His salary and that of a one-on-one instructor paid for a full year, while he hopes to acquire the laborious learning of another language that he may or may not use very much on the job. 

But it fulfills the criteria of the position.