Canada: Bilingualism goal 'probably' won't be met: Lord

[Harold Schiffman]

 Thursday » December 27 » 2007

Bilingualism goal 'probably' won't be met: Lord

Kate Jaimet
CanWest News Service

OTTAWA - Half of all Canadian high school students will "probably not"
be bilingual by the year 2013 - but that's no reason to stop striving
toward the goal, says the man charged with advising the federal
government on bilingualism policy. "I think it's a long shot at this
moment," said former New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord. "But I think
pursuing the goal of having more children graduate bilingual is a
noble goal."  Lord spoke to CanWest News Service after a whirlwind
tour of the country this month. He is to report his findings and make
recommendations to Josee Verner, the minister of official languages,
in January. Current Liberal leader Stephane Dion set the bilingualism
goal in 2003 when he was intergovernmental affairs minister under
former prime minister Jean Chretien.

But despite hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by provincial
and federal governments on bilingual education since then,
bilingualism among high school students is going down, not up,
according to recently released data from Statistics Canada.
Asked why the drive toward bilingualism appears to be faltering, Lord
said while he is still gathering information, he believes parents bear
a front-line responsibility. "I've always felt that the parents are
responsible for the education of children, and parents decide if their
children will learn one language, or two, or three," Lord said. "The
government has a role to play in education, but at the same time
parents have the first responsibility."

Lord said he will make recommendations about education in his report
next month. He also said he will recommend how much money the
government should spend on bilingualism policy. The action plan
developed by Dion in 2003 allocated $750 million over five years to
foster bilingualism, of which $381 million was earmarked for
education. Lord said his report will also weigh in on immigration. The
2003 Action Plan gave $9 million over five years to help
French-language communities outside Quebec recruit francophone
immigrants. But that policy has recently come under fire from the
Parti Quebecois which argues that it could hurt Quebec's ability to
attract French speaking immigrants from among the same, limited pool.

In the course of his consultations, Lord touched down in Halifax,
Moncton, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Vancouver. He met
with representatives from French and English minority communities,
academics, representatives of the private and volunteer sectors and
government observers. "The people that I met are people that care
deeply about Canada. They feel that bilingualism is a fundamental
value of the country, and it's an asset for the country. They love
both languages and these are people that are determined to make sure
that we continue to build a strong future for Canada," Lord said.

Lord said the people he met were optimistic about the survival of
francophone communities outside of Quebec. This despite 2006 census
results, released earlier this month, that show the number of native
francophones dropping in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and across the
Atlantic provinces.  Lord said that, while immigrants have brought a
huge diversity of languages to the country, the idea of Canada as
bilingual is not outdated. "The country has two official languages,
which means that government accepts that it will function in two
official languages, English and French. In no way does that mean that
it prevents people from speaking more languages, or only speaking one
language," he said.

Ottawa Citizen


http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=d5369422-f1a0-4dc9-a91f-401a8a467e72&k=51751
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