Newsgroups: can.politics
From: robinson@mdivax1.uucp (Jim Robinson)
Subject: Re: Radio stations in Quebec, Western Canada
Reply-To: robinson@mdd.comm.mot.com (Jim Robinson)
Organization: Motorola - Mobile Data Division; Richmond, BC
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: 14 Aug 92 20:45:28 GMT

Gordon R. Strachan (gordon@madmax.uwaterloo.ca) wrote:
>In article <1382@newsserver.cs.uwindsor.ca> hlynka@server.uwindsor.ca (Myron Hlynka) writes:
>>Stewart Clamen = SC
>>Myron Hlynka = MH
>>(in earlier postings)
>>
>>SC Sorry, but I am going to yell here.
>>
>>SC WHEN MANITOBA WAS CREATED (1870), IT WAS OFFICIALLY BILINGUAL.
>>
>>True, but the province of Manitoba was created in some sense when the 
>>federal government had a gun to its head, at the time of the 
>>Riel Rebellion. 
>
>Not to mention the fact that when Manitoba was created it was something like
>75% French speaking.
>
>>   
>>SC The Manitoba provincial government unconstitutionally removed the
>>SC bilingualism provision.  In the early 1980s (I cannot remember the
>>SC year), the Supreme Court of Canada ruled (the appeal case had to do
>>SC with someone receiving a unilingual parking ticket, I believe) that
>>SC Manitoba had been illegally passing legislation all those years, since
>>SC they had not been published in both official languages.
>>
>>When Saskatchewan and Alberta were created in 1905, they were not
>>officially bilingual. The case of Manitoba was fought earlier in 
>>Manitoba and Canadian history, back in the 1890's. 
>>
>>More recently,
>>Pierre Trudeau stacked the Supreme Court of Canada with people who 
>>shared his "vision" of Canada. Then his party sought out someone in 
>>Manitoba who would be willing to a case to court, any case, even a 
>>traffic ticket. Trudeau's Liberal government paid all of the expenses 
>>of the man involved.Of course, Trudeau's hand picked Supreme Court 
>>made its decision as it was supposed to do. 
>>
>
>This is a rather paranoid view what happened.  If you look at Manitobian
>history the Supreme Court was completely correct in its ruling there was no
>need to stack it.  It was clear from day one that Manitoba was in violation
>of its charter.  In fact it is very difficult, if not impossible, to defend
>Manitoba's actions in the past towards the French speaking people there.  So
>we should simply accept the court's rulings and do what we can to address
>past wrongs.

This is going off on a tangent a bit, but I can't help but point out that
although Manitoba may have been clearly in violation of its constitution,
so was Quebec clearly in violation of the Charter wrt at least a part of
bill 101 (the sign law part). And, this same Pierre Trudeau merely shrugged
his shoulders and said that it would be up to private citizens to pursue
that matter in the courts. PET orchestrated a Commons vote condemning
Manitoba; he did nothing even remotely similar with Quebec and bill 101. In
other words, a blatant double standard was applied. PET was far from being
the champion of bilingualism that some would make him out to be - he was
foremost a politician who could add up where the votes were.

>>Instead Manitoba was stuck spending millions of dollars 
>>translating old laws and legislation, much
>>of which was hopelessly dated, in order to satisfy the Supreme
>>Court. It was a lose - lose situation. Manitobans have not forgotten.
>>They did not enjoy being kicked around by Trudeau's Quebec Liberals.
>
>True which is Mulroney found out when the infamous CF-18 contract was
>awarded.  Few people realized how it was linked to the above.

Those people who do not see the linkage are no doubt the same ones who for
the life of them cannot understand why certain western provinces are
demanding a EEE senate (Note: it is not my intent to get into whether a EEE
senate is good for the country). If the federal governments had in the past
acted in a consistent and impartial manner when dealing with bilingualism,
contracts, and general policies, western alienation would be a non-existent
issue. However, because of the inherent conflict of interest that exists
for any government (i.e.  doing the "right" thing vs doing the re-electable
thing), we have come to the point where Outer Canada, and especially
Western Canada, does not believe that it will receive a fair hearing when
its interests run up against the interests of Central Canada. This belief
is grounded in examples such as the NEP, the CF-18 contract, and the
enforcement of bilingualism. 

-- 
Jim Robinson
robinson@mdd.comm.mot.com
{ubc-cs!van-bc,uunet}!mdivax1!robinson

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