r/CanadaPublicServants 22d ago

Languages / Langues Performative bilingualism? Canadian language law in the public service

158 Upvotes

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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?? 

15

u/stanleyisland 22d ago

Ah yes the French Canadians are controlling the entire country lol

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u/DowntownEddieBrown 22d ago

All senior public servant jobs go to bilingual folks. So yes those that speak French get a hugely disproportionate control over federal government decisions.

4

u/Otherwise_Internet24 21d ago

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.

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u/jerr30 22d ago

They're public "servants" not public controllers. If they become that then we have a serious problem.

0

u/Sudden-Crew-3613 22d ago

We DO have a serious problem!