The Official Languages Act, a.k.a. The Quebec Nazi Act - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

Resolute 14 · 08-24-2010, 02:44 PM

Successful troll is successful!

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/st...wikipedia.html

Roland Coderre, level headed as he is..., is calling for a public inquiry as to how a Correctional Service of Canada office computer was able to alter the Wikipedia article on the OLA with "racist" commentary.

I'll save you from having to spend my money, Roland: They hit "Edit". Case closed.

I love how the Quebec overreactionary politician is calling garden variety vandalism "racist". I also love how Coderre's reaction took vandalism that was reverted and forgotten about two weeks ago and turned it into a national news story. And judging by the comments in the CBC article, many are sympathetic to the sentiments expressed by the vandalism.

The article, as it appeared when vandalized:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...ldid=378446635

Somebody's getting fired!

IliketoPuck · 08-24-2010, 02:47 PM

If they can trace it to a specific computer, which they did, someone will be unemployed soon, if not already.

Flashpoint · 08-24-2010, 03:17 PM

So basically you have to be bilingual to work in the government in Canada, correct?

If so, couldn't the government just offer free language classes to anyone who wanted them? Wouldn't that give everyone an equal shot for government jobs?

yads · 08-24-2010, 03:43 PM

Heh, someone edited Coderre's wikipedia entry too, although it's been fixed. Here's the cached copy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...ldid=380793176

Resolute 14 · 08-24-2010, 04:18 PM

lol, I can't argue that one.

Coderre loves to be an attention whore it seems. He was the crybaby at the centre of the "OMGZ! The Winter Games opening ceremonies wasn't mostly done in French!!!1" controversy.

yads · 08-24-2010, 04:23 PM

Anyone else read Coderre's comments in a thick french accent?

CaptainCrunch · 08-24-2010, 04:25 PM

DuffMan · 08-24-2010, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flashpoint

So basically you have to be bilingual to work in the government in Canada, correct?

If so, couldn't the government just offer free language classes to anyone who wanted them? Wouldn't that give everyone an equal shot for government jobs?

From my limited exposure to this, if you work in Ottawa, you can have a conversation with someone, and change from English to French every second sentence. If you work at GOC in Edmonton, you can take a year off work to learn French. You may have to be a certain level to do that, but I've heard of it being done.

Ashartus · 08-24-2010, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flashpoint

So basically you have to be bilingual to work in the government in Canada, correct?

If so, couldn't the government just offer free language classes to anyone who wanted them? Wouldn't that give everyone an equal shot for government jobs?

In general you only need to be bilingual for senior-level positions, and as Duffman mentioned, when someone is getting to the level of seniority where they need the second language they can take second-language training (basically an extended French immersion course - I believe it lasts 6 months to a year, depending on how long it takes a person to achieve a certain level of proficiency).

Since anyone can take French classes in school, I don't think the government should be obligated to provide any additional free second-language training.

GreenTeaFrapp · 08-24-2010, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashartus

In general you only need to be bilingual for senior-level positions,

Nope. In Ottawa most positions require bilingual speakers. And because it's more likely for a francophone to be fluent in English than an anglophone in french, the majority of people in the government are francophones.

But anyone at a senior level has to be bilingual.

Devils'Advocate · 08-24-2010, 05:50 PM

When I joined the government, most competitions were "bilingual non-imperative". This meant that both bilingual and unilingual folk were able to apply on competitions for bilingual positions. So in my case, I was a programmer wanting to be a project leader. Project leader means supervising programmers, meaning I needed to be bilingual since my team members could be anglophone or francophone. But the "non-imperative" part meant that I would be trained, at government expense, to be bilingual. I took part time classes for 2 years and full time immersion for 4 months.

However, in 2006 there was a new Official Languages Exclusion Order which mandated that most competitions be imperative. Meaning that the person MUST be bilingual BEFORE applying on the competition. In general, the government is supposed to be supportive in an employee's wish to become bilingual and any anglophone wishing to move ahead should be applying for language training. However, in practice, what this has meant is that mostly francophones are applying on competitions. They grow up watching a mix of french and english TV. There are far more TV, radio, print media in english than in french... so while it is easy for an anglophone to avoid french media, it is more difficult for a francophone to avoid english media. So they are, for the most part, and particularly in Gatineau, bilingual.

Devils'Advocate · 08-24-2010, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashartus

Since anyone can take French classes in school, I don't think the government should be obligated to provide any additional free second-language training.

Maybe today, but not 20 years ago. I did take the highest levels of french available to me in high school. However, that meant 1 1 hour class per day with an Anglophone that got stuck teaching a french class out of a book that she herself didn't know how to read.

We learned to say "ils parlent" pronouncing the 's' and the 'ent'. When I got to Ottawa they told me that I was in a worse situation than having no french at all as I had to first unlearn what I was taught in high school.