Cloud 500
For your info I did learn SPANISH in 40 hours of night classes at Montreal High School in 1980 after that I could be functional when I travelled to Spain Cuba and Mexico on holidays. It helped of course that I mastered French and studied Latin everyday in High school, I and my 2 Italian speaking classmates were way ahead of the garden variety anglos in our class. Had I then emigrated to a Spanish speaking country and lived there for six months and not been spoken to in any other language every time my interlocutor realised that I was not a native speaker, I would have been able to function in that language just like the Chinese boy I mentioned earlier and my son when he went to Denmark after High school
One of the greatest disincentitive to learn French in the greater Montreal area is the fact that it is easy to get by and succeed in speaking English or should I say to speak WHITE. Ask Mr Rousseau and Ms Simon.
I was at a municipal office this week in the 450 area to pay my taxes in a City which has no bilingual status. A man who appeared Chinese to me was asking about a building permit in very poor English .This man obviously had had felt no incentive whatsoever to learn French otherwise he would have addressed the clerk not in poor english but in poor french. The clerk switched to English for him. What are the chances in such circumstances that this man will want to learn French as opposed to improve his English? Was not the clerk contributing to the anglicisation of an immigrant? Should I have reported her or encouraged her to have one more child to compensate?
Anyone in government should be able to speak both official languages says you. Are you talking about elected officials or civil servants? Are you talking about all levels of Government in Québec or in all of Canada .If so let me see you see you selling this idea to the average Anglo - Canadian.
The Constitution enacted in 1882 does not guarantee to anyone the right to access justice in both official languages otherwise the Alberta could not have in 1988 ,abolished the right to file pleadings in French in civil proceedings. In the Courts of Alberta one is allowed to use French if one is being prosecuted because of the dispositions of the Canadian Criminal Code which is a federal law and the recent amendments to the Provincial Offences Procedure Act. French was the first European language spoken in Alberta and 6.7 percent of its population speak French but currently less than ten judges can conduct a trial in French
While Alberta has only adopted English as its official language, it is not exempt from having legal obligations to provide certain legal services in French.
www.lesaonline.org
You say that French should keep its a majority status in Quebec by increasing the birthrate of the French speaking population A high birth rate worked in the past under the influence of the Catholic Church which was against the right to choose for women and this phenomenon drew the criticism of the late Mordecai Richler a pro -eminent Anglo Montrealer.
A higher birthrate was also the tool and policy of an authoritarian government in Nazi Germany and more recently is in Communist China
How could he CAQ government or any Quebec government achieve this higher birthrate pray tell? .Granting access to subsidized daycare only to families who speak French at home or giving those families a Super Baby bonus would draw fierce criticism from you.... would it not ?
You say higher birthrates is the best and only solution. If this forum was in French and half of the Merbites women how many likes would you get for your higher birthrate solution?
PSPP says sovereignty would solve the problem. Legault says Bill 97 is good enough .Anglicising all of the immigrants as well as part of its French speaking minority population and of its native population has worked well for the Rest of Canada .
Ce qui est bon pour pitou est bon pour minou.
