[lg policy] Canada: Graham Fraser: PQ victory pressures Ottawa to get bilingualism policy right: Q&A

Wed Oct 31 14:51:57 UTC 2012

Graham Fraser: PQ victory pressures Ottawa to get bilingualism policy right: Q&A
Published on Tuesday October 30, 2012

Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser met with the Star
editorial board on Tuesday to discuss Canada’s current linguistic
climate and the ongoing importance of official bilingualism. Here’s a
partial transcript of the discussion.

Q: There’s an impression here and elsewhere, among many, that there’s
a big crackdown on English in Quebec. What could you say to
English-speakers who are seeing what they think is an increasingly
negative attitude toward English in Quebec, which in turn doesn’t
create a great climate toward French in the rest of the country?

Fraser: It’s one of the things that worries me. There is a risk of a
backlash in the rest of the country. Even though the Quebec government
has taken pains not to blame the English minority and even though this
is the first government to name a minister who has specific
responsibility for dealing with the English community – and I welcome
both of those approaches – the perception is that the message sent
during the Quebec election campaign gave a moral licence to ordinary
people. There were some unfortunate incidents that happened in the
Metro in Montreal of people refusing people who asked for help in
English. And I think there is a distinction to be made between the
protections for Francophones that exist in Bill 101 and this. I think
there’s human decency, there’s basic respect, there’s basic politeness
which should govern all of our attitudes toward people who speak other
languages.

There is this unfortunate attitude that Francophones suffered for
decades – and now there are examples of Anglophones suffering it –
that hearing another language is an aggression. You know, there was
the famous phrase that too many Francophones have heard, “speak
white,” which thankfully is part of our past. But it would be really
unfortunate if the French equivalent of “speak white” was seen as an
acceptable way of speaking to people who are carrying on a private
conversation.

I mean, this is not unique to Canada. This rudeness, this lack of
respect, exists around the world. Where I think Canadians have evolved
over the last 40 years is that now the polls show there is much
greater support for our official languages policy.

Q: But when you say these things happen all over the world … it’s a
rare place in the world where someone is forbidden by law from putting
up a store sign in another language. What’s unique in Quebec is that
if you’re a merchant, the government law says, “Do your business
white.”

Fraser: Don’t forget that the law that was introduced in 1994 by
Lucien Bouchard actually changed that. It is now possible to have
signs in other languages as long as French is predominant in the
store.

Q: Many people in the right-wing media are calling for the abolition
of official bilingualism. And if you walk the streets of Toronto, you
can understand that argument. How does official bilingualism have any
impact on the people of Toronto, Winnipeg or anywhere else other than
Ottawa and Quebec?

Fraser: I think that linguistic duality is one of the defining
qualities of the country and one of the defining values of the
country. And interestingly enough, one of the things that has struck
me in my meetings with immigrants to this country is that the fact
that we have two official languages is one of the reasons they’ve been
attracted to Canada. Because they see it as a sign of our tolerance, a
sign of our openness.

Q: But most people coming from the Caribbean don’t come because this
is a French-speaking country. And I’m wondering how you justify the
cost of your office and the cost to the federal government of making
Ottawa bilingual, when at the same time places like London, Ontario or
Regina see absolutely no use in continuing official bilingualism when
it has no impact on them or their community.

Fraser: Nobody ever calculates what the cost would be to the country
if we did not have such a policy. There is this belief that the policy
of official bilingualism has as its ultimate goal to make everyone
bilingual. On the contrary. The fundamental goal is to ensure that
people don’t have to learn the other language to deal with the
government. It exists so that ordinary people don’t have to be
bilingual to deal with the state. It’s one of the paradoxes that
officially bilingual countries often have fewer bilingual people than
countries that aren’t bilingual because the government serves as a
guarantor of their right to speak their official language of choice.

There are four million unilingual Francophones in this country and
they have the same rights in terms of services from the federal
government that the roughly 23 million unilingual Anglophones do.

Q: The privy council said in 2003 it wanted to double the number of
young Canadians who speak French within ten years. The number was 16
per cent at that time; it’s gone down since then to 13 per cent.

That was Stephane Dion’s Action Plan, which expired in 2008. In the
Roadmap, which was this government’s replacement of Dion’s plan, that
goal was removed in part because of this government’s, you could
argue, either reluctance to intervene or respect for provincial
jurisdiction. They basically said: “We can’t control educational
outcomes, so why should we be setting objectives in areas the
provinces control?”

It’s one of the reasons why I’ve tried to get at that issue by
recommending that the government work on post-secondary institutions.
The federal government is Canada’s largest employer and, as an
employer, it has rights and responsibilities to say to universities we
need bilingual employees, in the same way that engineering firms will
and do say to engineering faculties, “Here’s what we need your
graduates to be proficient in.” It’s entirely appropriate for the
federal government to be saying to universities – and for universities
to be saying to secondary schools – we’re going to give extra credit
for people who’ve stuck it through to take a harder program.

There are limits to what the federal government can do in education
but it’s widely accepted that the federal government has a role to
play in post-secondary education and I think there is plenty of ground
for the federal government to use its leverage as an employer to send
a cascading message down through universities.

Q: In terms of the government’s performance – a year ago, when Michael
Ferguson was appointed Auditor General, you were critical of having an
officer of parliament who’s not bilingual. And I think the prime
minister has said recently he agreed it was a mistake.

Fraser: It has been reported from inside caucus that he said it was a
mistake. And there are a number of stories that suggest the government
is going to adopt as its own or amend in some way the NDP private
member’s bill that would govern such appointments. I have no official
confirmation of that. In my meetings with ministers, deputy ministers
and the prime minister, I have said that failures are obvious, whereas
success is invisible. A high-profile appointment like that has created
a very damaging impression of the government’s commitment to official
bilingualism. And no one has come back with an argument that I was
wrong in making that suggestion.

The other thing I have said to anyone who would listen is that in this
period after the September 4 Quebec election, it is all the more
important that the government get it right, that the message be very
clear that Quebec does not have a monopoly on the French language, and
that English and French are Canadian languages, not foreign languages.
That’s why I reacted as strongly as I did when the Quebec minister of
education said that English is a foreign language. Excuse me, English
is not a foreign language in Canada; French is not a foreign language
in Canada. These are Canadian languages. And I think it is really
important that the government get it right. The stakes are that much
higher.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1279880--graham-fraser-pq-victory-pressures-ottawa-to-get-bilingualism-policy-right-q-a

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