A hard-hitting look at the effects of bilingualism

The Western Standard magazine has recently completed a three-part examination of bilingualism in Canada.

It's plain to anyone who is honest with themselves that bilingual hiring practices in the federal goverment in effect amount to a back-door hiring quota scheme to help buy off and bribe Quebecois to not support the PQ. Now, that wouldn't be so bad if it actually worked to unite the country, but support for sovereignty is increasing, even among Quebecois who are in the civil service - and don't kid yourself ... there are dyed-in-the-wool separatists who earn their living serving Canadians. (Nice work, if you can get it.)

Despite this generosity, there is still a very nasty line of thinking among some narrow-minded and tribal Quebecois who still see Canada as a bicultural, not multicultural country, and hate anything to do with "layzanglay" - whatever that means in 2005's diverse, rich and globally reflective Canada. (Remember money and the ethnic vote? I think Jacques Parizeau just got caught saying what a lot of folks in la belle province say behind closed doors.)

There's no doubt that we're a better country because of Quebec, but I have to ask if legalized discrimination is a Canadian value.

The series speaks for itself.

Here's part one, part two, and part three, excerpted below (highlights my own):

... (E)stimates pale in comparison to the public and private-sector total cost calculated by a retired Toronto chartered accountant who has used the government's own statistics to extrapolate how much money is channelled into maintaining official bilingualism year after year. Jim Allan's comprehensive calculation includes the costs to federal and provincial governments, as well as the burden shouldered by the private sector. His astonishing results show that between 1969--when the Official Languages Act was adopted--and the government's recent fiscal year-end of March 31, 2005, the total cost of forced bilingualism was $772 billion, which is more than one and a half times the national debt. That's an average of $21 billion a year. English language advocates across Canada often cite Allan's calculations to support their argument that governments try to fudge the real cost of official bilingualism by not reporting private-sector costs.

The accountant says he was motivated to do the detailed number crunching after concluding that Canada's bilingual policies are a danger to the country--and not just from a fiscal perspective. With 24 million Canadians now frozen out of the best public service jobs--including the 91 per cent of anglophones who are unilingual, the 57 per cent of francophones who are unilingual, more than 80 per cent of immigrants and 95 per cent of natives--Allan argues that the government is in the hands of the 17 per cent of Canadians who are functionally bilingual. "My Statistics Canada research shows that more than half of that 17 per cent come from Quebec, the province that wants to secede," says Allan. "We are a totalitarian state controlled by people who are functionally bilingual. All jobs in Canada that effectively control the country, from the Prime Minister's Office on down to the military above the rank of major, require functional bilingual ability. Is this 17 per cent control a democracy? Canadians now have taxation without adequate representation, which is something that contributed to the American Revolution."

Allan says he's not against English and French both existing in Canada. "I am not anti-francophone," he says, noting that his wife's mother was from France. But he's alarmed that while the government and the justice system (Supreme Court justices must be bilingual) are being overrun by a small group of elites, even a well-informed politician, such as Reid, can't suggest the 35-year-old bilingualism policy be reassessed. "We have lost freedom of speech, too, through political correctness," says Allan.