National Crises

Seriously? The Member of Provincial Parliament for Ottawa-Orleans is concerned that the eventual move of Department of National Defence offices to the new campus in the west of the city at the former Nortel site, now being retrofitted to suit the needs of DND will have the effect of dreadfully discommoding francophone DND employees?

The concern is twofold, evidently; one that there would be an excruciatingly long commute for those employees currently living in Orleans -- travelling from the city's east end where they currently reside to the west end where their employment will be re-located. Two, that those who decide to sell their east-end homes and re-locate their residences to the west end will discover themselves to be in language-alien territory.

Orleans is said to be roughly 35% francophone, and the west end a mere 5% francophone. This obviously represents a human tragedy of disconcerting proportions. The estimate for the number of people affected is in the range of six thousand, inclusive of RCMP and Canadian forces. RCMP personnel also have been re-located to the distant western reaches of Barrhaven. This harmful migratory shift is unprecedented and dangerous.

The MPP has taken his complaint to the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. For the 'vitality' of east-end Orleans will be deleteriously affected by the situation, as well. "It will be a matter of days before we decide if we can review this or not", commented a spokesperson for the language office.

Transit patterns will also be affected, points out this MP helpfully. The downtown core will be harmed and the move will have the effect of creating additional urban sprawl, with people moving to Kanata and as far as Arnprior.

But the Official Languages Commissioner is a very busy man. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to shoehorn in another bit of language malfeasance on the unthinking, oblivious, disturbing part of the Federal Government. 

The Commissioner is already deeply involved investigating why it is that the Julian Fantino, Minister for International Cooperation, has instructed that all letters coming his way be in English solely. This severe transgression of Canada's official bilingual policy is indefensible; that a Cabinet minister feels more comfortable in English than French is simply intolerable.

And yet another Cabinet minister has been caught in the ever-vigilant net of the language commissioner. Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade John Baird, that peripatetic and ferociously engaged individual speaking Canada's mind on international affairs, has the unmitigated gall to order English-only business cards.

 He does, mind, also have bilingual business cards, but appears to prefer the latter variety when he's handing out cards to colleagues and peers abroad for whom English remains the international language of communication.

Two sets of cards, according to Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser, violate provisions of Canada's Official Languages Act. "Providing bilingual business cards on some occasions and cards in English only at other times does not foster the promotion of linguistic duality in Canada and abroad, and does not express the equality of both official languages which is at the heart of FIP (Federal Identity Program) objectives and stipulated by the (Official Languages) Act."

Gratitude is extended to the NDP's official languages critic, Yvon Godin, for responding to the call of duty above and beyond anyone's expectations and alerting the language office to this unforgivable infraction. The country owes much to this man for his vigilance and rectitude, his concern for the country and for the indispensable need to blather on in the language of the minority demographic in the country.

The studious observer of parliamentary affairs has never noticed Mr. Godin's attention focusing on the situation in the proudly francophone Province of Quebec, blissfully engaged in destroying the language rights of its English-speaking minority.