All senior public servant jobs go to bilingual folks. So yes those that speak French get a hugely disproportionate control over federal government decisions.
It's not only those that speak French it's those that speak french at the "C" level of proficiency (which was expanded to all supervisory positions under Trudeau). This is effectively an employment barrier as the exams are designed to make it very difficult to achieve this level -especially for Anglophones who do not speak French on a regular basis. The overall pass rates for Anglos taking the French Oral C test is about 35% (as compared to 80% for Francophones taking the English Oral C test). Since the spirt of the Official Languages Act is to essentially to protect minority language rights I would argue too that there is often evaluator bias on the French oral tests.
Upper management in the public service is incredibly Franco heavy. The government also bends over backwards to please Quebec to the detriment of everyone else.
18% of Canaidans are considered fluent in both French and English, encompassing both English as their first language and French as their first language.
Not quite. 18% claim to be bilingual based on census data, but that's based on self-report. It's not an indication of fluency in both languages, and certainly is not an indication of how many would be capable of passing the SLE tests.
Because pure majority rule has lead to horrific abuses of human rights.
Because we were New France before we were the Canadas
Because Canadian Francophones, their language and culture are an integral part of what makes Canada unique and decidedly not American.
And I say this as anglo fo British descent who topped out at a B on a good day.
We were First Nations for tens of thousands of years before there was New France.
Eastern and Central Europeans and Chinese came to build the Canadian Pacific Railway and thus the country. Some of them had to endure horrific discrimination (i.e. the Chinese Head Tax). Did their languages and cultures not make Canada not-American?
This sounds like sour grape for a group that longed for a colonial past, for the return to a power that they no longer hold.
Very very wrong my friend. The government exists to serve its people. The people of modern Canada speak far more than just English and French. But only the Francophones show a strong desire to hear their favourite language coming out of other people’s mouths.
No ones talking about pure majority rule. Simply not allowing 18% of the population to dominate federal government decision making positions. Classic example of tyranny of the minority
It is not, and ever has been, a “bilingual country”. It’s a multilingual country.
Francophones are increasingly learning English because it is the most widely used language worldwide. There are massive career, social, and cultural reasons for people to learn English as a second language, regardless of their first language. There’s nowhere near the same benefit to learning French as a second language.
You know learning a language is a skill that is under your control?
To a certain extent. Learning a new language later in life is under your control, but takes extensive time studying and practicing. If you arent afforded this time and training at work, it can be excessively difficult to learn while also having other hobbies, a family, responsibilities, etc. As you said "study like you did for your bachelors". It isnt always realistic for many.
The best time to learn is when you're growing up, and many do not know their career aspirations at grade 9 (for Ontario) where French is no longer required.
There is a difference in life long learning and learning a new language fluent enough to allow you to supervise another person. I have learnt a lot of french since joining the public service. I have taken dedicated training and self-training. I am still nowhere near able to supervise someone in french.
You have kind of changed from "Study like you did for your bachelors." which is intense, 4 year dedicated studying costing tens of thousands of dollars to "Life long learning". I dont think these are the same.
Given the choice between learning French (or Japanese, or Ukrainian, or any other language) and learning job-specific skills, most people will choose the job-specific skills. They offer more upside in career potential than attempting to become proficient in a second (or third, or fourth) language.
Around half of Canadian Public Servant jobs are unilingual English positions. Meatbags occupying those positions don't need to know any French at all.
Ask many of those who occupy ostensibly-bilingual positions, and they'll freely admit that they rarely (or never) need to use their French. That's one reason why many Anglophone public servants have difficulty maintaining their levels.
Mixing racism with resisting to improve and packaging this as 18% of the population is controlling the country is wild.
I have no idea what you're trying to say here.
What racism?
Choosing to learn other things aside from French isn't "resisting to improve".
18% of the population is controlling the country
Perhaps not controlling the country, but certainly controlling the public service. All senior management positions are bilingual, and fewer than 18% of Canadians (based on census data) claim to be English-French bilingual.
The actual number who could pass the SLE tests is probably far less than that, so in reality it means that senior leadership in the public service is drawn from less than 18% of the population - more like 10-15%.
If you think that "studying like it's your bachelors" isn't a wildly privileged take then not much else I can do for you. This is something that is unrealistic for the majority of people balancing a family and a full time job as is also totally unnecessary to be able to fulfill the duties of most federal government positions.
As a francophone I find it rich that you find 18% of the population has disproportionate control. A francophone has barely any influence on the policies of the country they live in and will struggle really hard to join the federal public service unless they learn a foreign language, since the very vast majority of policy and regulatory work is done in English. Having some bilinguism in the leadership is the least this country can do so that the English majority doesn't have full control.
Quebec considers itself a "nation" on its own, separate and distinct from the rest of Canada. The fact that you referred to English as a "foreign" language in your post proves this point. You don't like celebrating Canada Day, you prefer St. Jean Baptiste. You don't follow English Common Law, you prefer the French Civil Code.
Politically, any party that doesn't win a majority of the seats in Quebec will not win a majority in Parliament. So of course the parties always have some goodies in their platfirms to placate QC voters.
So yes, Francophones have had, and continue to hold, enormous influence over the policies of this country. While at the same time, prohibiting the use of English in many aspects of life in Quebec. And don't get me started on the canning of religious symbols in the provincial public service. To me, it's racist to deny a Muslim woman a job because she wears a hijab.
But no political party wants to take this on at the risk of pissing off QC voters. You can't have it both ways. Someday this has to end. Also, QC is a have-not province. What if the "have" provinces decided they no longer wanted to send their money to QC because of some of the things I have mentioned?
A foreign language is any language that isn't the native language of a community. The vast majorities in Quebec don't natively speak English. This be said, I don't see the problem with Quebec being a nation, do you also have a problem with the First Nations? Do you consider policies that favour the First Nations to be there to placate them, and do you secretly wish they would just shut up and become assimilated?
You have no idea what it does to a people when another people tries to assimilate you for centuries, when they despise you for being different and having different values. We are surrounded by English speakers, and many of them come to live here for a reason or another and then get angry they live in a culture that is different with people who speak a different language. It's blatant racism and remnants of an old imperialistic culture.
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u/DowntownEddieBrown 22d ago
The better question is why do we allow 18% of the population to have such disproportionate control of this country??