Canada: It's about opportunity, not coercion

[Harold Schiffman]

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

It's about opportunity, not coercion
Graham Fraser,  National Post
Published: Wednesday, February 13, 2008


As Canada's Commissioner of Official Languages, I was intrigued to see
how angry your editorial board became at the idea that there should be
a national standard for evaluating how well students who have studied
French have learned it ("Speaking of waste 
 ," editorial, Feb. 9).
And I was disappointed by how many errors were contained in a single,
short editorial. In only a few words, I was accused of fantasy,
compulsion, harassment, profligacy and, by implication, irrelevance.

The editorial seems to take the view that Canada's language policy is
designed to make all Canadians bilingual and force all public servants
to learn French. Wrong. The policy is, and has been, for almost 40
years, to ensure that Canada's French-speaking Canadians -- four
million of whom speak no English -- get the same quality of service
from the federal government as English-speaking Canadians -- 20
million of whom speak no French. In addition, the policy is designed
to protect minority-language communities -- the million francophones
outside Quebec, and the million anglophones in Quebec.

To serve Canadians effectively, the federal government, Canada's
largest employer, needs employees who can speak both languages.
However, very few of the bilingual positions are in Saskatchewan, let
alone Moose Jaw (as your editorial falsely suggests): Out of 4,500
federal jobs in Saskatchewan, only 180, or 4%, require both official
languages. Let me put the issue of student language testing in
context. The notion is hardly revolutionary. Almost a decade ago,
Edmonton's public school system conducted a study to determine the
best way to ensure that French was being well-taught in the schools it
governs. The educators concluded there was value in regularly
evaluating the progress students have made.

Since then, the Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers has
done a study on the idea of introducing a common framework for
language so that students across Canada would know how well they were
doing in comparison with others. The provincial Committee of Ministers
of Education is now studying this idea. Nor is the idea of
implementing national (or provincial) standards for students
revolutionary. The Red Cross uses this sort of system to rate progress
in swimming, and the Ontario Ministry of Education uses it in
assessing reading and mathematics so that parents can know how well
their children's school ranks with other schools. The Fraser Institute
does a similar evaluation of schools, just as Maclean's does a survey
of universities, and L'actualite does a survey of schools in Quebec.

The news story on which the Post's editorial is based was written by
Janice Tibbetts, who covers education for Canwest News Service. She
asked me in an interview what I thought of the idea of language
testing. Even though the subject is outside my direct purview, I said
I thought the idea was a good one. I think it could be useful for
students, teachers, parents and schools. It should be an issue of
opportunity and quality, not an issue of obligation. This has nothing
to do with whether Canada is a bilingual country or a country with
English-speaking and French-speaking societies that live side by side.
The federal government is committed, by law, to ensuring that
French-speaking Canadians and English-speaking Canadians get the same
level of service, and to ensuring that the 100,000 French-speaking
Canadians who work for the federal government in certain parts of the
country have the right to work in French, just as most federal public
servants in Quebec have the right to work in English.

Respecting language rights does not mean that federal public servants
in Moose Jaw have to speak French. But I think it does mean that
students in Moose Jaw should have the same opportunity to learn French
as they do to learn algebra or physics. There are a number of good
reasons for taking advantage of such an opportunity, including being
able to understand the country as a whole, and being able to aspire to
rising in the executive ranks of Canada's largest employer, the
federal government. - Graham Fraser is Canada's Commissioner of
Official Languages.



 http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=304107

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