Canada: Bilingualism policy was always about services

[Harold Schiffman]

 Tuesday » April 22 » 2008

Bilingualism policy was always about services

The Ottawa Citizen


Monday, April 21, 2008


Re: Bilingualism nonsense no longer even registers, April 18.

Columnist Dan Gardner points to a number of positive developments.
Having gone through some tough times as language commissioner decades
ago, I am happy to note an improved attitude on the part of Canadians.
But there remains an obstacle of perception, and I think Mr. Gardner's
column perhaps bumps up against it, as so many comments do. It never
was, and still is not, the policy of the federal government to make
all or even a substantial number of Canadians bilingual. In very few,
if any, "bilingual countries" is that the case, and Canada is no
exception.

The object of the program was and still is to provide government
services in both languages, and there have been significant advances
toward that goal, as Mr. Gardner himself points out. The problem is at
least partly semantic: "bilingual country" and "bilingualism" appear
to refer to individual bilingualism and no government has succeeded in
dispelling this notion since the Official Languages Act was passed
almost 40 years ago. The result is an unfortunate confusion that leads
a number of commentators to conclude that the program has not worked
-- "bilingualism is a failure" as we so often hear. I would like to
think that Mr. Gardner's column does not reinforce this misperception,
but I rather think it may. If so, perhaps he could clarify matters the
next time he is writing about language issues in Canada.

Maxwell Yalden,

Ottawa

Mr. Yalden was Canada's official languages commissioner from 1977 to 1984.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/letters/story.html?id=2b1be103-ee75-4abe-8315-8effe7948fcc
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