From: galbrth@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Alberta Conservatives & Bilingualism
Date: 8 Apr 92 13:10:30 GMT
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

(I think T screwed up on a post, let me try again...)

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

  In article <1992Apr3.000638.16902@splunge.uucp> adrian@splunge.uucp (Adrian
  Ashl
  ey) 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.  What's the service provided?
1- Bilingual clerk at a federal government public-related office to answer
   questions
2- Laws and Tax forms in French (or other language)

You can't expect laws and tax forms to be translated to all languages of
minorities, can you?

     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.

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

     Frank wrote:
     > Having french and english as the two official languages makes sense
     >ONLY because of the demographics of this country, and only because
     >one should be able to get by with the official languages when dealing with
     >federal services everywhere in one's own country.
  
     Well, I argue that looking at national demographics (25% [or whatever it
     is] of the population speaking French) and then applying the same
     policy nationwide is the wrong approach.  It results in silly things,
     and denies official support for languages other than English & French
     in places where it might be warranted.  Given that Canadians appear to
     want a multilingual nation, I think the policy must no longer be a sort
     of national blanket-coverage, "one size fits all" policy, but rather a
     policy tailored to local conditions.  A straight English-French bilingual
     pattern happens to fit in eastern Canada (which, by sheer coincidence,
     is where federal policy is made), but not nearly so well in the West.
  
  Should the fed translate the laws in Chinese?
  
  So, as I said before. It all comes down to how you define "where numbers
  warrant".
  
More important than that I think.
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.

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.

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

 _____________________________________________________________________________
 Peter Galbraith       [Phone: (902) 494-7007] |  GALBRTH@AC.DAL.CA (InterNet)
 Dept. of Oceanography,  Dalhousie University  |  GALBRTH@DALAC     (BitNet)
 Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 4J1         |  {uunet watmath}!dalcs!rhogee