Bilingualism in Canada: Lessons for Sri Lanka

Asoka Weerasinghe Gloucester . Ontario . Canada

March 22, 2007

The Editor Daily Mirror Colombo Sri Lanka

Sir:

It was with great interest that I read the Opinion piece *Bilingualism in Canada: Lessons* *for Sri Lanka* by Ayesha Zuhair, who had just returned from a visit to Canada. The last line of her essay said, “Finland was Canada’s inspiration. Let’s hope that Canada would be our.”
My God I hope not!

Here are some of my comments that were sent to The Ottawa Citizen of which a few picked up ink in Letters to the Editor columns. These would give your readers another perspective on the bilingual issue in Canada, which is not as rosy as most of us think it is.

*When Dyane Adam, the previous Commissioner for Bilingualism complained that the Canadian Armed Forces personnel were not bilingual enough, I wrote to ‘The Ottawa Citizen’ on February 9, 2006 :*

* *“It is time that our Bilingual czar, Dyane Adam, learn when to back off with her zeal to push her culture of a “privileged minority and a wronged majority”. She should leave our brave soldiers alone. With 27 per cent of the Department of National Defense’s troops and staff being francophonies, a greater proportion than in the general population, what is she griping about?

What she should be cognizant about is that she should do absolutely nothing to destroy the morale of our brave men and women by sending them on French language training, and when their tutors feel that they are ready to be examined, for the French language examiners to fail them in droves, like what is happening to the staff in all Federal Departments.
These brave soldiers have other things to worry about to be top grade soldiers in their line of duty at their desks, in the field and the theatres of war, without placing a millstone around their necks. Just stop this nonsense Dyane Adams. Let’s have a bit of commonsense and leave our soldier alone.”

*When the Commissioner for Bilingualism asked for intervener status in the Legal Challenge to the City of Ottawa’s Language policy, I wrote to The Ottawa Citizen’ on Marh 3, 2005:*

“Mon Dieu! Dyane Adam. Canada’s Commissioner for Official Languages has no business to put her nose into Ottawa’s Municipal Affairs. Her meddling will only continue to create a wronged majority (Anglophones) and a privileged minority (Francophones), and that is not healthy for this community.

What she has chickened-out in her affidavit that she filed with the Ontario Supreme Court of Justice was not to address the violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, when the City’s bilingual law came in to effect in January 2001. It downright violated the freedom of expression of the English-speaking Canadians by excluding them from city jobs.

Adam also continues to ignore the ground reality that her idealism of the ‘two solitudes’ is turning out to be a destructive force crowding the law makers’ commonsense. But, here is the rub. If the Official Languages Act by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was his dream to unite the country from coast to coast, then after 40 years, it has failed miserably. His intention comes to a grinding halt each time it reaches the Quebec border, as Quebec has a French language policy denying equity for the English language, and the Province still wants to separate. We all know how well the Official Languages Act work in Quebec. So why shove it down the throats of the rest of the country with a passion?

Adam must be cringing to know that part of Vancouver has its own bilingual policy, quite intelligently addressing the ground reality. It is not English and French, but it’s English and Chinese. Why not! The Chinese immigrants too contributed to build Canada since over 100 years, as did the ‘two solitudes’.”

*When a Cornwall, Ontario, medical clinic barred English speaking patients, I wrote to The Ottawa Citizen on February 24, 2006:*

* *“ The news item, ‘Cornwall clinic bars Anglophones’, exposes the cruel side of Canada’s bilingual policy. It has now gone far beyond the borders of creating a divisive society of a ‘privileged minority – Francophones, and a wronged majority – Anglophones. It is now on the war path to discriminate new immigrants who have little knowledge, or not at all, of either of the two official languages, English and French.

It is too easy for politicians to spew words like “we are a nation of immigrants”, to appease new immigrants before election time, but one wonders where a new immigrant who has very little knowledge of English and French fall within this equation.

While Governments are so caught up with the corrective measures for “waiting time for patients”,,, but for new immigrants who would have no access to either an English or a French speaking medical clinic, since they speak very little of either language, for them it would be a mere concern of “waiting time for death” to catch up with them, because of the stupidity of the bilinguial policy which prides on the ‘two solitudes’; concept.

I come from a country where English is the third language and French is non-existent. It certainly would be a start to correct this cruel policy if Ms. Shirley Ravary goes ahead and present her case to the Ontario Human Rights Commission for having been refused treatment at a Francophone health centre because she did not speak French. The new immigrants who would not know of their rights, and would fear to rock-the-boat by complaining such cruel treatment to any Human Rights Commission, will thank Ms. Ravary for helping them out.”

*When the ‘Canadians for Language Fairness’ challenged the City of Ottawa in court for introducing their bilingual policy, I wrote this to The Ottawa Citizen on May 19, 2006:*

“It certainly needs courage to challenge in the courts of law, the bilingual policy of the City of Ottawa. This is exactly what the non-profit group of Canadians for Language Fairness has done. And I doff my hat to this group.

When the City of Ottawa passed the policy on May 9, 2001, it certainly overreached its jurisdiction in its zeal to declare the City of Ottawa as a bilingual city, when it was hardly one when 150,000 residents out of the 800,000 had neither English nor French as their first language, and more than 450,000 were unilingual Anglophones.

Such social engineering should be discouraged, as when jobs at the City are designated bilingual, you exclude the opportunity for a job for almost 450,000 residents.

I wish this group luck and I hope they will prove their case to the Judge, who would hopefully see through this /faux pas/ by the over zealous mandarins at the City of Ottawa”.

Unfortunately for the 450,000 unilingual Anglophone residents in the City of Ottawa, they lost their challenge in court.

And let your readers including Ayesha Zuhair read one more of my several interventions on this bilingual policy issue, which certainly doesn’t look that rosy in Canada.

*After reading The Ottawa Citizen on May 3, 2006, I wrote:*

“These two items in today’s (May 3) Ottawa Citizen were worth as thousand cynical chuckles. On page C3 you said, *“Anglophones faced ‘linguistic cleansing’. Critic* *says proposed closing of two Outaouais schools part of ‘exodus’ of English”. *Then on page A12 you said, *“Guite judge turns away most jurors. Inability to speak English becomes major hurdle.”*

Did you know that Dyane Adam? Looks like the Quebecois cannot operate without the English language! So why all this nonsense continuing a low-grade ‘ethnic cleansing’ operation, trying to dumps the Anglophones from the work place as well as harass the unilingual small businesses operated by new immigrants, who rarely speak both official languages well.

When the media uses the operative words ‘ethnic cleansing’ to explain the outcome of our bilingual policy, Canada does seem to be oblivious to the outcome of ‘ethnic cleansing’ that is going on around us outside our borders, like wars, zealots confronted by international courts, etc. We are certainly accruing an unhealthy bad karma, with the bilingual zealots trying to choke us with the second language that one may hardly use, even at the work place.

For those zealots who have difficulty to quit, I say try to step back and take a time out. Stop cutting short careers and dreams of excellent workers in the public and private sectors because of this unreasonable demand to be able to function in French.”

When there are so many warts in Canada’s bilingualism policy even after 40 years of its existence, Ms. Zuhair should be careful what she is wishing for all of Sri Lanka.

Asoka Weerasinghe
Ontario, Canada