Wow, that's really over the top. I don't know where she lived in Canada (although I could probably hazard a reasonable guess), but she isn't describing Alberta.
There's a grain of truth in her discussion of language policy. It is true that in Quebec the French language must, by law, predominate. There has been a ton of stupidity over that in the last 25 years. If you own a business, the sign in front of your shop must be in French, and if you want English there too, the French letters must be larger. And yes, the Office de la langue Francais does send inspectors around to check that stuff. It's unbelievably heavy-handed, and people have lost their businesses over it. It's mostly an issue in Montreal and the western edge along the Ontario border, where there enclaves of English-speakers.
The question of bilingualism in the federal public service is very tangled. On the face of it, it's all very reasonable -- every Canadian has the right to receive federal government services in the official language of their choice. Perfectly reasonable. A significant fraction of the Quebec population in unilingual French, and live their entire lives without ever needing a word of English. And a few in New Brunswick. Just as in the rest of the country you can live your entire life without needing to speak French, and probably only hear it if you're listening to some politician prattle. So in Lethbridge, Alberta, you do not need to speak French to work for the feds, just as in Chibougamou, Quebec, English proficiency isn't required.
The tangle comes in with respect to jobs in Ottawa. I don't know how it is in the States, but in Canada, if you want a meaningful job with the federal government, something that might challenge you as a professional, and something that gives you opportunity for advancement, you're working in the capital. Now, the next perfectly reasonable thing -- as an employee, you have the right to be supervised in the official language of your choice. Having worked there myself, I can see the point. I worked with competent professionals whose command of English was poor -- I don't know how I could have given them a fair performance review if they'd been reporting to me, because my French simply wasn't fluent.
Now the kicker. If you were born and raised somewhere where you never, ever heard a word of spoken French, attaining fluency is a challenge. And not all intelligent people have a knack for languages. A friend of mine who started at the same time I did is still there. He's damned bright MBA, finance guy, and I can tell you for a fact that things he implemented in the area of cash management have saved the government billions. Yes, with a b. Now he's coming up on 20 years service, and yes he's a department head, but he's hanging on by the skin of his teeth. After countless hours of French instruction and immersion courses, he isn't fluent. He simply doesn't have the gift for languages. He knows the rules, he can plod through mechanically, but it's painful to listen to.
The fact of the matter is that people who grow up in bilingual environments have a tremendous advantage over the others. And the only significant, genuine bilingual French/English environments in Canada are in Quebec, principally Montreal, and New Brunswick. Hence the managerial jobs in Ottawa go disproportionately to people from those areas.
The feds say that only 4% of the federal government jobs in western Canada are designated "bilingual imperative." That means you are welcome to have a $35k a year job handing out passports in Vancouver (where, btw, Cantonese would be immensely more useful than French, as would Punjabi). If, on the other hand, you aspire to be a Director or Deputy Minister, you had either have a gift for languages, or you have to have been raised in Montreal.
I don't doubt that this is far more than you cared to know about the issue, but I wanted to get it off my chest. There was a letter this week in my local paper from the federal language commissioner talking about how you don't need French to work for the feds in western Canada. True. But given that I have a Masters degree, I would aspire to far more than providing services in Moose Jaw. I would want to be in Ottawa making policy.
Lest I be accused of sour grapes, let me add that I had a hell of a good run at my jobs with the feds, and I have enough of a gift for languages that the bilingualism thing wouldn't have stood in my way. I left for other reasons -- notably the soul-destroying nature of the bureaucracy, which became even worse as political correctness became more important the job performance. IMHO, the system is being hoist on the petard of it's internal contradictions. |
