Saturday digest

- Even though my wife is a proud Quebecoise, I complain a lot about how ridiculously onerous the requirements for bilingualism are in the Canadian public service. Although the Public Service Commission is now revising the testing format, problems will still remain because the whole requirement to speak with near-native fluency for not only executive jobs, but all posts at the executive minus 1 level, is still in place. As currently constructed, the policy of bilingualism in the civil service for executives is fraught with problems:

Anglophone bureaucrats complained for years about the oral testing, especially at the rigid C-level, required for bilingual jobs demanding the most fluency.

The problem, however, was thrown in the spotlight when the Chretien government made fluency in French and English mandatory for most executive jobs. The policy said the 4,000 executives in the core public service must be bilingual by next year or they will lose their jobs. The policy extends to all federal agencies that fall under the Official Languages Act.

With the pressure of that 2007 deadline, the demand for French training soared, as did the complaints about the number of senior bureaucrats repeatedly failing the oral French exam.

Stories abound about senior anglophone bureaucrats who are off the job for months, even years, undergoing language training because they have failed the oral test time after time. Most people fail a few times, but there are stories of some failing more than a dozen times.

The policy created such a stampede for training that the Canada School of Public Service stopped taking applicants about six months ago to clear the backlog. Bureaucrats also face a seven-week wait for testing.

Last year, the commission gave oral tests to nearly 23,000 bureaucrats, compared with 18,000 four years earlier. At the same time, the pass rates of anglophone bureaucrats taking the tests for C-level French -- the highest level -- was 35 per cent. It dipped to 32 per cent for executives.

Meanwhile, the pass rate was 72 per cent for francophones taking a similar English test and 68 per cent for francophone executives.

I'm sure there are many French Canadians who would agree that this is not a wise use of taxpayer dollars. It holds good people back by putting linguistic capacity in front of merit, makes the achievement of continuity in the workplace difficult at best, and causes difficulties in recruiting because those unilingual Anglophones who aspire to serve their country are discouraged by their inability to speak French, to mention briefly just a few of the negatives of this most political of rules. I'll be looking for the Conservative platform in the forthcoming federal election to recognize that the intent of the Official Languages Act was limited to allow for francophones to be served in their language of choice when dealing with the federal government, and did not and should not extend to 100% of manager/employee relationships in the federal workplace.

- This is one of the most naive editorials I've ever seen. NATO in Iraq? Please. I've seen clearer thinking in third-year International Institutions classes.

- I'd like to see less grandstanding and pissing inside the tent and more of this kid of red-meat fare from John McCain.