Bilingualism forever
Although he did not originate the concept, Trudeau created the bilingual program we have today in Canada. Year after year, the Auditor General and the Official Languages Commissioner have complained that although we spend half a billion dollars a year on it, Canada is no more bilingual now than it was 35 years ago.
By any standard but those of the Liberal Party, the bilingualism program in Canada is an abject failure. After huge expenditure, the bilingualism rate is unchanged. You would think that any sensible government would cancel this expensive and useless bureaucracy.
It has, after all, been applied upside down by the Liberals. They have made it a requirement for many of the top positions in government that the applicant be bilingual. It is not the top positions which need to be bilingual. In my own management experience within the federal government, I always had the benefit of simultaneous translation at any national meetings I attended. We see this service in Parliament every day.
It is the clerks and others who deal with the public in bilingual areas, who need to be bilingual, not the managers.
So why have the Liberals spent so much money on bilingualism, when for decades it has failed in its stated purpose? Why have they applied it at the top, and not at the bottom?
Because from the Liberals self serving view, bilingualism as they have imposed it is a smashing success. By requiring those in the top jobs to be bilingual, there is an automatic bias in favour of filling that job by someone from Quebec. The politicians who have promoted and asked us to pay for the bilingual program, are all from Quebec. It has led to the top levels of the civil service in Ottawa being dominated by Quebec francophones. Before the bilingualism program, when the merit principle was all that officially mattered, the civil service was run by anglophones.
This program has succeeded beyond Trudeau's dreams in having Canada's government taken over and run by Quebecois francophones. Why should the Liberals cancel a program which has achieved exactly what they wanted? We can expect the bilingualism program to be continued exactly as is, if the Liberals form the next government, no matter what the Auditor General or Commissioner of Official Languages might say about its failure.
By any standard but those of the Liberal Party, the bilingualism program in Canada is an abject failure. After huge expenditure, the bilingualism rate is unchanged. You would think that any sensible government would cancel this expensive and useless bureaucracy.
It has, after all, been applied upside down by the Liberals. They have made it a requirement for many of the top positions in government that the applicant be bilingual. It is not the top positions which need to be bilingual. In my own management experience within the federal government, I always had the benefit of simultaneous translation at any national meetings I attended. We see this service in Parliament every day.
It is the clerks and others who deal with the public in bilingual areas, who need to be bilingual, not the managers.
So why have the Liberals spent so much money on bilingualism, when for decades it has failed in its stated purpose? Why have they applied it at the top, and not at the bottom?
Because from the Liberals self serving view, bilingualism as they have imposed it is a smashing success. By requiring those in the top jobs to be bilingual, there is an automatic bias in favour of filling that job by someone from Quebec. The politicians who have promoted and asked us to pay for the bilingual program, are all from Quebec. It has led to the top levels of the civil service in Ottawa being dominated by Quebec francophones. Before the bilingualism program, when the merit principle was all that officially mattered, the civil service was run by anglophones.
This program has succeeded beyond Trudeau's dreams in having Canada's government taken over and run by Quebecois francophones. Why should the Liberals cancel a program which has achieved exactly what they wanted? We can expect the bilingualism program to be continued exactly as is, if the Liberals form the next government, no matter what the Auditor General or Commissioner of Official Languages might say about its failure.
posted by Brian Purdy, Calgary at 9:57 a.m.
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