Bilingualism

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Bilingualism


Hi!

I am sorry for having been sarcastic, but I have "reached a point of supersaturation" as far as bilingualism in this country is concerned. To be blunt, I am fed up to be told I am loved by the rest of the Canadian population at every national referendum while I have to fight for my culture the rest of the time. My two years in Timmins, Ontario were an eye-opener: local francophones, which compose 38% of the population, don't receive any services in their language. They shop in English, ride the bus in English and don't see any public sign in French (so much for the "oppressed" Anglo-Québécois). Needless to say that receiving medical services in French at the local "bilingual" hospital is nothing short of a medical miracle.

Here in Toronto, the Toronto Transit Commission has once posted public messages in 25 languages, including Albanian but excluding French, and MPP's send Christmas cards in 12 languages, including Latvian but excluding... (you know).

I won't even speak of bilingualism in our so-called national capital...

You go to Canadian embassies and they don't even know that French is spoken in Canada, federal Web sites are often written in Frenglish, and asking for a glass of milk in French aboard Air Ontario (often even abord Air Canada between Montréal and Toronto) is another exciting episode of Mission Impossible.

I think I filed perhaps 80 complaints in 10 years to the Commissioner for Official Languages, including 3 complaints within 5 minutes the last time I flew to our beloved national capital / capitale nationale.

Moreover, English Canadians seem totally desensitized to anti-French racism. Some eight years ago, the Toronto Sun published a racist caricature, inviting Franco-Ontariens to go «back» (may I stress that francophones arrived in Ontario BEFORE anglophones?) to Québec. It fell into an ocean of silence: the COL didn't react, nor any anti-racism organization, not to mention any media. Replace Franco-Ontariens and Québec with Blacks and Africa, Jews and Israel or Chinese and China, and reconsider that caricature. Do you still find it funny?

A more recent example:

"(...)Third, you're Canadian, PISSOFF, and
you're kinda smug about it.
Yes, you've got fewer religious jackasses,
and you've got porn and pot, and
you'll have gay marriage a lot sooner than we
will down here in the United
States. But you also have a lot of French
Canadians up there. As far as I'm
concerned, French Canadians and religious
jackasses are six of one, half a dozen
of the other."
Dan Savage

Do we tell the Americans they have too many Blacks? Needless to say nobody has responded to Savage's racist comment.

As far as I am concerned, the sooner we leave this country the better (before we all die out altogether). Bilingualism from coast to coast does not work - witness all the CLO's reports - and you know what happened to the attempts of renewing the constitution.

Salutations distinguées

Louis Labrecque
A direct descendent of the composer of the national anthem