This week, the World Francophonie Summit was held in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The bi-annual summit provides a forum for States and governments of countries who utilise the French language to engage in matters related to the linguistic ties that bind. Stephen Harper attended the conference despite his dismal record in defending the langue de Molière over his tenure Prime Minister.
In 1969, the Official Languages Act was passed by the Parliament of Canada. The law recognized English and French as official languages of the Canadian federal state. Sadly, PM Harper has demonstrated neither appreciation nor respect for French-speaking Canadians, although we form almost a quarter of the Canadian population.
SLIDESHOW: PHOTOS OF HARPER AT THE SUMMIT
Last month, Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird and his British counterpart William Hague announced an agreement allowing diplomats of the two countries to merge certain premises of diplomatic missions abroad under the cloak of cost-savings.
"As [British PM David Cameron] said when addressing the Canadian parliament last year: 'We are two nations, but under one Queen and united by one set of values,'" Hague said in a released statement.
The idea of sharing premises and the embassies of the United Kingdom was conveyed without addressing the discomfort that may be felt by francophone taxpayers who may see their right to services in their language of choice extinguished by the flagrant indifference of Conservatives.
One can safely assert that the British do not have the mandate, the obligation nor the willingness to recognize the rights enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which feted its 30th anniversary under the Harper government's deafening silence.
As government disinterested in minority rights, this was hardly the first slight committed by PM Harper who has appointed two unilingual anglophones to the Supreme Court of Canada from its arrival in office. In 2006, PM Harper's first judicial appointment, Marshall Rothstein solicited much discontent from defenders of language rights. According to a transcript of his 2006 hearing, Judge Rothstein admitted that his lack of French knowledge was a handicap: "I recognize that my not being bilingual [...] will require a greater effort on my part to hear and decide cases argued in French...." The jury is still out on which parties will bare the brunt of his shortcoming: the plaintiffs or the Supreme Court.
PM Harper repeated the offensive gesture a second time in 2011 with the appointment of unilingual judge Michael Moldaver. Harper's choices confirm his disdain for linguistic equality at the Supreme Court.
PM Harper again spit on the policy introduced by former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau when he appointed another unilingual anglophone -- this time to the position of Auditor General of Canada. In 2011, the appointment of Michael Ferguson is confirmed despite the fact that the applicant did not fulfill all essential job requirements, i.e. the ability to perform in either official language.
In the House of Commons, the scarcity of French spoken in the Conservative ranks speaks for itself. After nearly seven years in power, it laments the number of Conservative MPs who took it upon themselves to learn French, thumbing their collective noses at free language lessons. Their message, however, does not require translation: they don't give a rat's behind about the French language.
The incessant visits of British monarchs have morphed into annual multimillion-dollar expenditures. Not only the Queen but her children and grandchildren are invited to visit their subjects in Canada. The costly royal tours are defrayed in part by French-Canadian taxpayers whose ancestors suffered so greatly under the UK's colonial tyranny.
Allegiance to linguistic duality is constantly under assault in Canada, despite studies which prove it to be a benefit to children's literacy, a suppressant of dementia, and an advancement agent of cognitive kills summarized in recent New York Times article entitled "Why Bilinguals Are Smarter."
Regardless, Stephen Harper managed to capture his coveted majority government without the support of the domestic or foreign francophonies. We can therefore expect continued linguistic cleansing and additional insults to complement the existing injuries from the francophobe Prime Minister of (English) Canada.
For bottom: PHOTOS OF HARPER AT THE SUMMIT
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After the Conservative victory in the 2006 federal election, he was appointed as parliamentary secretary to Josée Verner, who was serving as the Minister for International Cooperation, Minister responsible for Official Languages, and Minister responsible for La Francophonie.
On February 10, 2006, Menzies received some news coverage when it was revealed that despite being the parliamentary secretary responsible for La Francophonie, he did not speak French. His appointment was criticized by New Democrat Yvon Godin (an Acadian).
In his defence, Menzies replied that "we have two official languages in this country. Not just French. Not just English. We have two official languages." He argued that the best means of representing both languages was with a Francophone minister with an Anglophone parliamentary secretary.[1]
Indeed, fascinating how the comments are totally in another universe on the quebec Huff site.
Kinds of illustrate how so doomed this country is as a joint entity. There is so much hatred on the English site, it's phenomenal!
Expecting the Premiere of Quebec to defend the language is one thing, expecting the Prime Minister of a Bilingual country to "defend" one official language from the other is nonsense.
Promoting French language and cultural and linguistic diversity.
Promoting peace, democracy and human rights.
Supporting education, training, higher education and scientific research.
Expand cooperation for sustainable development
Nothing there about "defending" the French language.
You are no acountant. The figures of the last census rated the pseudo French-SPEAKING population at 20% in Canada. So don't blow up the figures to get an advantage.
No need for any English services in Montreal, a few clicks away from Terabytes of stuffs from the US
Would greatly help to reduce the tax bill in Qc
Thanks
First Decoste complains that we should not save money by sharing some foreign offices, then she turns into a fiscal hawk, saying that the Queen is an un-necessary expense, that's a mid-stream conversion if there ever was one.
Then she goes on about the unfairness of not restricting the Supreme Court to Francophones only, ...."unfairness"....I don't think the proponents of Franco-Only Supreme Court fathom the irony of their position.
And then she says"We can therefore expect continued linguistic cleansing" and expects us to keep a straight face. Ms.Decoste, read the Montreal papers, the only "linguistic cleansing" going on is being instigated by Pauline Marois, who promises to further punish any English person left in Quebec.
And no mention of the 7 Billion a year Quebec receives from ROC....no of course not.
Ms.Decoste, this is a fundamentally dishonest article.
So far in Canada, all accommodation has been a one way street.
Here is an exerpt from the Montreal newspaper The Suburban:
"Pragmatically, it showed that anything, linguistic cleansing included, is possible in a free and democratic society — as long as you do it etape par etape, and marshal enough militant clout on the national stage to press your agenda into law.
Further, from defaced English signs and anonymous threats to vandalized offices and broken store windows — Bill 101 showed that, in Canada, political and social aggression works."
http://www.vigile.net/A-nationalism-that-cannot-be
Help us out here JP. What does she mean here? Does she mean that Britain's colonialism in general was tyrannical (which it certainly was by today's standards as was the colonialism of every European state) or that colonialism in Quebec was uniquely harsh.
The reason I ask is I'm wondering what history books she's been reading. At the time of the fall of Quebec, Catholics didn't have full legal rights in Britain and speaking in non-English (Gaelic) was illegal in Scotland and Ireland (Britain's original colony) .
Those ancestors she refers to enjoyed both privileges, which was unique for the time.
On the other hand, maybe she's referring to Lord Durham's Report 60 years later that recommended assimilation?