Canada, a bilingual country?

[1nick]

You weren't drinking and smoking enough.
All my trips were holidays,visiting friends,Jazz and Blues fest or skiing.

[WeatherWoman]

Here is an example of when forced bilingualism is causing a safety issue.

Environment Canada tornado tweets stalled by language laws

Meteorologists in the United States use Twitter to push weather warnings to the public, but that doesn't happen in Canada — official bilingualism has proved a barrier to weather warning tweets.

Canadian meteorologists are not authorized to tweet because all government communication has to follow Canada’s language laws, according to Environment Canada's executive director of national programs Ken Macdonald.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatche ... ign=buffer

[matai]

[quote="WeatherWoman"Here is an example of when forced bilingualism is causing a safety issue.

Environment Canada tornado tweets stalled by language laws

Canadian meteorologists are not authorized to tweet because all government communication has to follow Canada’s language laws, according to Environment Canada's executive director of national programs Ken Macdonald.
[/quote

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatche ... ign=buffer

This is a LAME excuse. They just have to create two different accounts, one French and one English, like they already do ion Facebook.

But again, why make simple when it can be complicated?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, anything is a good reason to *bleep* and promoting ditching French, eh.

[WeatherWoman]

I am not saying ditch french, what I am saying that such strict laws we are delaying important information. Maybe with flexibility in the laws you would see less angst against it. Forcing people to do something leads to angst and anger, making it a choice empowers people and they may be more interested in learning more.

[Xia33]

This is a LAME excuse. They just have to create two different accounts, one French and one English, like they already do ion Facebook.

But again, why make simple when it can be complicated?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, anything is a good reason to *bleep* and promoting ditching French, eh.

and THIS attitude might just be why English Canadians have/are rebelling against being forced with the French thing? Seriously, WW is totally correct, imo

[WhenWhatWho]

This is a LAME excuse. They just have to create two different accounts, one French and one English, like they already do ion Facebook.

But again, why make simple when it can be complicated?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, anything is a good reason to *bleep* and promoting ditching French, eh.

Yup, sure is. You fools have been trying to ram this idiotic attitude down our throats for way to long

[sobrohusfat]

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, anything is a good reason to *bleep* and promoting ditching French, eh.

Dude, you need to tone it down a bit and understand the reality of where you are and who you're talking to. You could start again by telling us some of the things you've seen that you agree are kind of dumb about the whole bloated bilingualism burocracy and the outrageous costs attached to it. Then people might be more receptive to some of your other observations on the matter.

As it is - seems you're the one doing all the 'bitching'.

[coffeeFreak]

matai wrote:
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, anything is a good reason to *bleep* and promoting ditching French, eh.

Dude, you need to tone it down a bit and understand the reality of where you are and who you're talking to. You could start again by telling us some of the things you've seen that you agree are kind of dumb about the whole bloated bilingualism burocracy and the outrageous costs attached to it. Then people might be more receptive to some of your other observations on the matter.

As it is - seems you're the one doing all the 'bitching'.

Sooooo sobrohusfat, what I hear you saying is matai needs to "tone it down" and critically examine (basically bash) bilingualism, while you on the other hand make statements like the following and expect receptivity? "You could start again by telling us some of the things you've seen that you agree are kind of dumb about the whole bloated bilingualism burocracy and the outrageous costs attached to it."

WW's example was a decent one, but instead of complaining about "forced bilingualism causing delays" why not complain about our federal government taking eight years (twitter has been around since 2006) to get its crap together and address this issue?

[sobrohusfat]

Canada is a bilingual country with two official languages - this means government agencies need to be willing and able to provide every Canadian access to services in either french or english.

Fair enough, but it should be perfectly understandable that people outside of predominantly french regions perceive anything more than that as a needless and costly imposition to be tolerated. So when people complain that there wasn't enough french at the Vancouver Olympics or enough french songs on every BC radio station - what do you think the response is going to be?

C'est pas trop compliqué.

...and then to top it off with attitude?

C'est pas possible!...C'a pas d'allure !

[WeatherWoman]

http://www.obj.ca/Opinion/Letter-to-the ... ncerning/1

[WhenWhatWho]

http://www.obj.ca/Opinion/Letter-to-the-Editor/2013-12-22/article-3553632/%26lsquo%3BForced%26rsquo%3B-bilingualism-concerning/1

As in New Brunswick, it will be useless for unilingual Islanders to apply for employment in their own government. When will Canadians wake up to this discriminating policy?

Soon to come to a province near you.

[matai]

WW's example was a decent one, but instead of complaining about "forced bilingualism causing delays" why not complain about our federal government taking eight years (twitter has been around since 2006) to get its crap together and address this issue?

Exactly! That was the whole point ;-)

[wanderingman]

Canada is a bilingual country, officially, at least.

What surprises me is that commercial radios outside Quebec NEVER EVER play any French Canadian music, even though the French represents 25% of the population.

In Quebec, radios are under obligation to play a certain percentage of French music, it's a CRTC regulation, otherwise, they get their broadcast licenses revoked.

Do you think Canadians would be more open and less racist towards the French culture if their radio were playing some French hits once in a while instead of 10x a day the same (sometimes) boring English song?

boring English song/?? based on what? your lack of knowing a decent song? Talk about racest the French only need look in the mirror

[matai]

http://www.obj.ca/Opinion/Letter-to-the-Editor/2013-12-22/article-3553632/%26lsquo%3BForced%26rsquo%3B-bilingualism-concerning/1

It was interesting, but so biased I didn't finish reading it. Blaming New Brunswick to be on the edge of bankruptcy because of their bilingual efforts, LOL.

So much hate yet in 4 days those same people will celebrate "Canada" and be sooooo proud to be Canadians yada yada. If French Québec & Bilingual Ontario didn't wanted the other provinces to be part of the club back in the days, you'd be living in a country outside of so called "Canada". Remember that.

And maybe that lady should get some education before applying on government jobs and learn why PEI & NB feels the importance of being bilingual:

The Expulsion of the Acadians, also known as the Great Upheaval, the Great Expulsion and Le Grand Dérangement, was the forced removal by the British of the Acadian people from the present day Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and also part of the US state of Maine—an area also known as Acadie.[5] The British first deported Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies, and after 1758 transported additional Acadians to France. In all, approximately 11,500 Acadians were deported.

Without making distinctions between the Acadians who had been neutral and those who had resisted the occupation of Acadia, the British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council ordered them to be expelled.[11] In the first wave of the expulsion, Acadians were deported to other British colonies. During the second wave, they were deported to Britain and France, from where they migrated to Louisiana. Acadians fled initially to Francophone colonies such as Canada, the uncolonized northern part of Acadia, Isle Saint-Jean and Isle Royale. During the second wave of the expulsion, these Acadians were either imprisoned or deported.[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Acadians

Heck if BC feels sorry for the Chinese for "historical" errors, the English Canadians should apologize to the French!

As for NB, for every 4 English, there are 2 French according to Stats Can and this lady from nowhere feels the right to rant about something she have no knowledge about. Better ostracize than unite eh.

Why in Europe are people learning 3,4 and even 5 languages from birth sometimes, and they're happy about it while here it's a big issue to learn the two official languages?

As for constantly blaming Quebec's unilingualism and expect them to be bilingual, if all the provinces would do it first and show the example maybe they'll feel alone and follow. Otherwise, boot them out, as they would have nothing to do within confederation anymore and THEY themselves would have shown inconsideration for the rest of the country and that they're better left alone. But until then, check your own backyard before criticizing your neighbor's one, because the way it is right now, they feel the need to have laws to protect their language and cultural background from being assimilated and disappear, and it's understandable.

And if you can't understand, check what happened in Maine & Louisiana.

And if the other provinces don't want to do the efforts to learn and apply the two official languages, maybe they are the ones who should leave the confederation? Just throwing that in the air like that, because you know, what works one way works both ways.

I see Canada as a marble cake. It looks & tastes great with both colors. You take it all or you leave it all. Otherwise cook a chocolate one, cook a vanilla one and make two separate ones. That's it, that's all.

[sobrohusfat]

Unbelievable - they sure do a disservice to you guys over there.

Marble cake is great. It has chocolate parts and vanilla parts - incessantly moaning that the chocolate parts aren't vanilla enough for you is just plain silly.