Anglophones were left out of the latest pronouncement by our federal government. Yet we’re going to be paying for a $1.124 billion program targeted at improving the lot of Francophones in Canada.
To our cynical way of thinking we wonder how much this is crafted to increase the Conservative’s support in Quebec.
The Roadmap for Canada’s Official Languages 2013-2018 focuses on “three pillars that will ensure the vitality of English and French in Canada through education, immigration and communities”, according to a news release by the Hon. James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.
Thirty measures are going to be taken by 15 departments and agencies at a cost of $1.124 billion to implement the ‘roadmap’.
Three lobbyists were quoted in the release.
• Dan Lamoureux, President of the Quebec Community Groups Network. “Bilingualism is a unifying force. The more interaction there is between our minority and majority communities in Quebec and Canada, the better we will understand each other.”
• Marie-France Kenny, President of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada. “It’s important that the Roadmap initiatives seek to strengthen our population through immigration and support for families, creation of services that reach Francophones in all aspects of their daily lives, and expansion of our social and economic development.”
• Lisa-Marie Perkins, President of Canadian Parents for French. “This balanced approach also supports the majority linguistic groups working on cordial relations between English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians. It promotes a more cohesive and stronger society.”
Of course, Moore put it most bluntly. “English and French are an integral part of our history, our identity, and our future. They forge links that unite us and allow us to live together in a strong and prosperous society.” According to him, “The new Roadmap is the most comprehensive investment in official languages in Canadian history.”
Hurray for that. Let’s live in harmony without the antagonism of the current Quebec government which is trying to strengthen its language law by targeting English citizens.
But we doubt the minority government of Pauline Marois is going to back off on Bill 14 which it’s currently promoting. It’s a massive revision and expansion of every section of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language.
A Globe and Mail editorial last month noted “Bill 14 takes away the right of Canadian soldiers stationed in Quebec to educate their children in English. It requires businesses with more than 25 employees to work entirely in French, where the threshold is currently 50 … And it will end the bilingual status of dozens of municipalities that have historic English populations that date back to Confederation.”
In late February an Italian restaurateur complained that an inspector from the Office québécois de la langue française had ordered him to remove Italian words, including pasta, from his menus. Others revealed they had been ordered by inspectors to tape over the “on/off ” button on a microwave, and not use English words on their shopping lists.
The Globe suggested the bill is a “deliberate strategy of confrontation with Ottawa and English Canada designed to create the polarized conditions that would favour another referendum”.
Why should this concern Albertans. First and foremost, because our hard-earned money is going to support Quebeckers through transfer or equalization payments just because our economy is better managed and our work ethic is stronger than that of Quebeckers.
Second, it’s a concern because more of our money is now being poured into appeasing the feelings of a minority which continues to want more than its entitled to receive.
And finally, particularly in Alberta and the west, is the disregard these actions hold for the languages of the Finns and Danes, the Ukrainians and Estonians and all the others who opened this province to settlement.
Sylvan Lake is a community which 100 years ago benefitted tremendously from the multi-cultural flavour of mixed nationalities working together for a bright future.
We need to continue that philosophy without cow-towing to one special interest group.