From: adrian@splunge.uucp (Adrian Ashley)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Alberta Conservatives & Bilingualism
Date: 9 Apr 92 23:49:57 GMT
Organization: Ashley, Howland & Wood

galbrth@ac.dal.ca writes:

>sbo@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Stephane Boucher) writes:

>  In article <mumble> adrian@splunge.uucp (Adrian Ashley) writes:
>  
>     Sure, I think that in the domain of official government services,
>     providing service in minority languages where numbers warrant is
>     a reasonable approach.  But why only French?
>  
>  Well, it depends... Would you want to translate the laws in german? How
>  many german speaking Canadians? At the federal level, the laws are
>  translated in French for 25% of the population. What would be the % for
>  german speaking Canadians? I guess this all comes down to the meaning of
>  "where numbers warrant".

>Stephane has a good point.  [...]
>You can't expect laws and tax forms to be translated to all languages of
>minorities, can you?

Okay, fair enough.  I'm afraid I haven't got statistics handy on the
% of population speaking languages other than English & French, so I'll
have to concede the point.  I guess the only point I'll cling to (: is
that there's no reason OTHER THAN NUMBERS why we should concentrate on
English and French.

>     I think the more onerous parts of the official bilingualism laws are in
>     areas like commercial packaging ("French on labels in Alberta? Why??"...)
>  
>  Note that the design and drawings of the packages represent a negligeable
>  cost. You then have to show me that it cost more to print a bilingual box
>  than an English only box.

No, actually I don't have to show that at all; you've missed the point.
The government has no business mandating what languages may or must be
printed on packaging.  Let consumers decide.

>If you can't stand French on your cereal box, you've got a problem.
>But I say let the markety drive that...  

Precisely.  Actually, I don't care whether my cereal boxes have one,
two or dozens of languages on them; indeed, I would tend to agree with
Stephane that it's probably cheaper (given that cereal is a mass
market commodity, sold everywhere in the same box) to print boxes in
multiple languages.  But I still think it should be removed from the
force of law.

Stephane wrote:
>  Should the fed translate the laws in Chinese?
>  
>  So, as I said before. It all comes down to how you define "where numbers
>  warrant".

Well, I agree it does come down to that.  If there are significant
numbers of Chinese speakers, *yes*, laws should be translated.
I'll duck the question, for now, of how to define "where numbers
warrant" -- it needs statistics that I don't have nearby...

Peter writes:
>If you never create a climate where french canadians are welcomed to 
>Alberta, where they can find french services from the federal government 
>and French schools, then they will never settle there.  So much for an open
>country.  Granted you can't have emoty school waiting there, but you must 
>have the flexibility to provide them quickly for a limited number of people.

But why must we "create a climate where french canadians are welcomed",
as opposed to creating a climate where EVERYONE is welcomed??  Arguing
that services should be provided in French in Alberta because someday
a significant number of Francophones might move there is silly.  You
could apply the same argument to any other linguistic group.

>I thus argue that French is then different from other minority languages
>because they should be encouraged to move around and keep their language
>and culture alive, instead of assimilate.

Why on Earth should the Francophones be encouraged to keep their language
and culture alive, while others should not??  What's wrong with everyone
doing so?

>You can't do that if you first need the numbers to justify services.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to require numbers to justify
services.  As I said before, doing this lets you be flexible...

-- 
Adrian Ashley in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada  ||  adrian@splunge.uucp
"... Motif is very simple.  However, it is hard to see the simplicity because
 Motif is surrounded by a mass of complexity." --Motif book ad in comp.newprod
Newsgroups: can.politics