New Brunswick: Dieppe transit buses to feature French

[Harold Schiffman]

Dieppe transit buses to feature French

Published Tuesday March 24th, 2009

City council demands signs on buses conform to language policies

Dieppe buses will carry signage and advertisements that reflect its
linguistic make-up after city council agreed unanimously to tell
Codiac Transit that Dieppe's buses must comply with the city's
language policies. The move comes on a motion by Councillor Hélène
Boudreau, who noted the policy dictates that all signage on municipal
vehicles should predominantly feature the French language.

While the full city council voted in favour of Boudreau's motion last
night, it was not without great debate, including by some councillors
who thought the motion should wait until the city is finished
examining the larger question of commercial signage within Dieppe.

Coun. Dave Maltais moved an amendment to table Boudreau's motion
pending completion of that study on the larger signage question. The
vote on the amendment to table ended tied, with those in favour
including Maltais and councillors Roger LeBlanc, Yvon Comeau and Paul
LeBlanc. In favour of the amendment were deputy mayor Jean Gaudet and
councillors Paul Belliveau, Jody Dallaire and Boudreau.That left Mayor
Jean LeBlanc to cast the deciding vote against the amendment.

The original motion passed without a nay vote, however, after
Dallaire's suggestion was accepted to add bus shelters to the motion.
Codiac Transit operates the bus service that serves Moncton, Riverview
as well as Dieppe. Dieppe's working language is French and their
language policy states the mother tongue of 80 per cent of its
residents is to be predominant on its vehicles. That includes
everything from the Ville de Dieppe/City of Dieppe stickers on its
public works trucks to, as of now, the advertising in, and on, its
buses and in its bus shelters. The policy was not enforced on the
city's buses previously though the language policy dates back many
years.

Many of those who wanted the matter tabled were of the mind that the
city is already examining the issue of language of commercial signage
in general and felt the matter of bus advertising could be dealt with
at the same time.

Many of those who wanted to vote on the matter last night cited the
fact there already was a policy about signage on city vehicles and it
was being violated.

The potential loss of revenue from advertising on Dieppe's buses was
not seen as an issue as council didn't have up-to-date figures on how
much revenue is derived from advertising on buses. However, ads in
their bus shelter brought in less than $1,000 last year.

Dieppe residents will soon have a couple of brand new buses on which
to view those signs after council voted to use their money from the
federal Gas Tax Transfer Fund to purchase two new buses at a total of
$828,000, plus tax.

http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/news/article/612956

--
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************