Canada: Fridays with Bernard

[Harold Schiffman]

Friday, December 14, 2007
Fridays with Bernard

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending the Toronto meeting of
the regional policy consultations on official languages, organized by
the Ministry of Canadian Heritage, and chaired by Bernard Lord. It was
an interesting group assembled - organizations representing immigrant
communities, the business community (particularly language workers),
Franco-Ontarian groups, Canadian Parents for French, and a few
university professors. About 20 individuals were at the meeting, in
addition to the Heritage staffers. For the most part, they were
intelligent, well-spoken people who were clearly committed to the
continuation and improvement of the government's policies on official
languages.

There was certainly some trepidation in the room. The current 5-year
plan on official languages is set to wrap up at the end of March 2008,
and the people I spoke with expressed concern that with the
consultations only happening now, it is unlikely that a new plan will
be in place for the start of April - unless these consultations are a
sham. There are major concerns about whether funding for official
languages is going to dry up while the government works up its next
plan. I will say, however, that Bernard Lord appeared to be taking his
job seriously. He was clearly engaged with the dossier, asked
pertinent questions in response to statements from the participants,
and gave no indication that he thought this was not a serious effort.
Hopefully this reflects attitudes further up the chain.

I will not go into great detail on the multitude of issues discussed
over the course of the day. Certain issues do stand out for me though.
There was a widespread call for the federal government to show
leadership on this dossier, recognizing that many sectors that touch
language are actually under provincial and municipal control. Many
participants called for a tri-level approach to language issues, with
the federal government serving as convenor.

The recent statistics on second-language learning, and language
retention among francophone minorities were of concern to many. One of
the most important issues to emerge, in my opinion, was the need for
Canada's governments - and this includes the provinces - to work on a
new strategy for the promotion of language learning, and communication
skills more broadly, as part of the skills needed for the "knowledge
economy". Interventions from the business representatives were quite
telling - apparently Canada is currently unable to meet the domestic
demand for basic language workers such as translators and
interpreters, and there is a similar shortage of bilingual and
multilingual workers in the private sector. There is a demand for
bilingual workers in non-governmental jobs, and this is not part of
common discourse on language learning in Canada.

Other issues were new to me - there is clearly a major conflict within
francophone minority communities, and in their relation with
governments, over the place of immigrant francophones, or immigrants
for whom French is not their mother tongue, but preferred official
language. Clearly there are integration problems, and also problems in
terms of how provincial governments conceive of their responsibilities
to provide French-language services to those who are not "de souche"
Canadian-born francophones.

I am not sure what unfolded in the other regional meetings, but I was
struck (as were some other participants) by the fact that almost all
of the people in the meeting were "the converted". 17 of the 20
participants in the room were francophone, and the three anglophones
represented either universities or Canadian Parents for French. These
consultations need to engage those who do not have quite the same
vested interest in official languages, and I hope that these groups
and individuals are attending the other sessions. I found the day
productive, and I hope that the recommendations from these sessions
lead to a reinvestment in official languages, and a more concrete set
of policies to promote interpersonal contact between anglophones and
francophones, and increased opportunities for second-language learning
in a practical context.

http://pamplemoose.blogspot.com/2007/12/fridays-with-bernard.html


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