Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Why We Need A French Speaking Auditor General

While I am not of the opinion that all bureaucrats or judges need the ability to speak both english and french, on the matter of Auditor General the ability to understand french is very important. Quebec is the most corrupt province in Canada and will be the focus of many AG investigations of fraud and financial mismanagement. The Conservatives have announced a unilingual candidate to replace Sheila Fraser, and I agree with the Liberals that this is a serious mistake. It will be more challenging for the AG to hunt down the rest of the missing sponsorship money if he or she does not speak the local language. Come on Mr Prime Minister, we need an AG who can speak french and shake down Bonhome Carnival for information if necessary...

10 comments:

  1. Why would a federal AG be investigating Que.

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  2. Sorry, but IMO i don't see any need to perpetuate the poisonous imposition of french on a historically English speaking country. The imposition of the OLA has always been a divisive, insane act of tribalism, and a colossally criminal waste of taxpayer dollars. If it makes some people happy, the new AG will be wasting countless hours away from his job so that even more taxpayer money can be flushed down the bilingual toilet while he takes french lessons. The new AG is one of the 88% of the population that can't, and never will be "bilingual" (forced french) no matter how much money is unaccountably flushed away on Pierre the Turds warped, divisive, tribal desires.

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  3. Or perhaps I'm poking fun at the fact that the opposition goes bananas anytime the Tories make any unilingual appointment? If I end a blog post with "..." sarcasm may be involved...

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  4. It would help a lot. As I said on another page, I have worked with figures for 40 years and have never seen the french version of 1,2,3, or any other number. However, some people make a 7 that looks like a 4.
    Every day I, like most with an e-mail address, get all kinds of stuff offering a cd that can teach me any language in 10 days. Perhaps the govt should make any employee want to learn french get said cd. I would even suggest those ndpqers in que get one to learn english.

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  5. Maybe, the AG may not speak french fully but understands it fully to make a report.

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  6. Not 100% whether or not to take iceman seriously with this post, but he is right that the AG should be able to speak french.
    Sean M's divisive attitude is the exact reason why french language needs protection in this country, and ironically if people who shared his opinion piped down and just left francophones alone he'd get what he wants. Also, he might want to check his numbers (according to StatsCan in 2007: over 22% of Canadians were francophone, and over 30% have a working knowledge of both English and French, so I'm curious as to who the 88% is).

    The government does not save money by hiring a unilingual AG, and infact will lose money on translation costs.
    And, if the francophone population of Canada didn't feel threatened by the majority and did not have its identity attacked, then the need for language protection will disappear. In the real world, the OLA makes very little difference to your or my life, but it does matter to the francophone minorities outside of Quebec (like the 200000+ francophones in Sask, BC, Man and Alb). It does not cost you or your friends jobs, or any extra money, but it allows francophone minorities to exist and live in the Official language in which they are able to express themselves. It does NOT force you to learn French, I suspect the only difference it makes to your life is the french announcements on the airplane when you fly. But to the francophone minorities, it makes a world of a difference, without costing you EXTRA money.
    And if you want to claim that Canada is or should be an English only country, remember that the OLA also protects the 300000+ english only speakers in Quebec, and the 600000+ Anglophones in that province.
    And if you appoint a unilingual English AG, then they are handicapped if there are enquiries to be made in any of the french speaking regions of Canada, which would allow for more of your tax dollars to be spent/wasted without control.
    Other than ideological, there is no reason to appoint a unilingual (English OR French only) AG, but there is a lot of reason to point a bilinugal one. And, I would argue, there is no reason to complain about the OLA, except the ideological reasons.

    Drrino (Anglophone, living in an anglophone part of Canada)

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  7. I would suggest that there's no reason to accept the imposition of pierre turdo's OLA , except for ideological reasons, monetary benefit from identity politics, or perhaps a love of tribalism and special status for the few. Sean M ( Non hyphenated Canadian, living in an historically English speaking country, ( including Quebec) but still forced to pay for poisonous, inherently bigoted language policies imposed on Canada by a Quebecer, while Quebec is officially unilingual french, with all the requisite restrictions on the use of English.)

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  8. Actually Drrino, having French as the official language does cost Anglophones and Allophones jobs in ROC. It's simple arithmetic. Assume a small government office (and there are such) is mandated to provide service in French; reality is that for every French-language position, there will have to be three decent French-speakers: one for the job, one for break time, and one for vacation relief. Otherwise, the French service will only be part-time. So, in a small community, most of the potential hires are excluded.

    Incidentally, I do wish that there was the same requirement for decent English skills. I am innundated with various accents when I try to contact government departments, some of which are fairly incomprehensible. And while these people may have passed a written English exam, their comprehension of English as she are spoke can be seriously deficient. And this includes the 'bilingual' crowd; I once ended up discussing something in French, as my French (bad as it is) was better than the civil servant's English.

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  9. Quebec isn't "the most corrupt province of Canada". It is simply the province with the best investigation journalists...

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