Officially, Justin Trudeau is determined to have a new one Official Languages Act before Christmas. This act bore his name less and less as the English were nowhere threatened. The original name of this Act should have been an Act respecting the survival of the French in Canada.
Some Quebec ministers in the Trudeau government believed wholeheartedly in replacing the French. Mélanie Joly fought for the vulnerability of French to be clearly stated as a fundamental fact of Canada’s linguistic reality. I find Minister Petitpas-Taylor’s leadership very little … (to be polite).
When we look at the whole picture, we quickly get the impression that the Official Languages Act is a cardboard dam to stop the tsunami. Examples are everywhere of situations in which French has been ignored or completely forgotten.
The testimony of the member for the block for Mirabel provides several examples. The MP, who was elected last year, posted a video online of him talking about his experience with French in Ottawa. He had some nasty surprises in this beautiful bilingual country.
There is little ambiguity about the predominance of English in the federal capital and even on Parliament Hill, yet a symbol of what Canada claims to be.
- Listen to Dutriac – Dumont meeting live at 7 am every day. by QUB-Radio :
Inconsistency
Although the Trudeau government has expressed interest in passing new legislation as a matter of urgency, not all of these government actions are consistent. This Prime Minister appointed a non-French Governor General. The mark is not thin.
He also proceeded to appoint a non-French-speaking lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, a province that was to have bilingual status. The Trudeau government was struck down by a court and is appealing to preserve the right to appoint a monolingual English person.
The message seems to have been understood in the province. Premier Higgs has appointed a former leader of an anti-bilingual political party to the Official Languages Act review committee. Francophone communities in New Brunswick are increasingly concerned about their ability to protect their rights.
Foreign Affairs
Le Devoir this week followed up on a report from last year on the difficulty of francophones accessing top positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Despite some efforts, English is still preferred. From high-level meetings to IT systems, things are done in English.
A Senate committee this week also floated the idea that requiring ambassadors to speak French would make it redundant and deprive our diplomacy of fine talent.
Against this backdrop, all this with a heavy immigration policy where only 4.4% of newcomers outside of Quebec speak French.
Justin Trudeau’s French is bad in Canada.
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