Atlantic Canadian Politics Thread

[adamuptownsj]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Not really. Even with their shaky English they are still way more bilingual than 90-95% of anglophones in New Brunswick.

At least they try.

Try, or need to? Anglo New Brunswickers have almost zero need, day-to-day, even monthly, to speak a lick of French. No one consumes French media, speaks French at work, and so on. Not so for Francophones. It's just numbers and geography.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by adamuptownsj

Try, or need to? Anglo New Brunswickers have almost zero need, day-to-day, even monthly, to speak a lick of French. No one consumes French media, speaks French at work, and so on. Not so for Francophones. It's just numbers and geography.

True to a point though at least part of this is by design: a lot has been done over our history to render French "useless" in Canada.

And another thing is that Anglo-Canadians often claim that French is useless on the one hand and then bitterly complain it's being imposed unfairly in situations where it turns out it isn't.

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by CharlotteCountyLogan

In some local news the PCs have nominated a candidate in Fundy the Isles Saint John West. The nominee is a local high school teacher who serves on the fire department and has a impressive educational background.

Wonder if Higgs is hoping to have a different teacher in the legislature to replace Hogan with if he somehow wins the election. As is, Hogan's burned most of his bridges with the Education system, and is pretty much only there because he's a Higgs Yes-man.

[Sunnybrae]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

There’s no one to blame for not following through with it other than Higgs and the ruling PC party.

Its fine to blame Higgs and the current government especially since they didn't follow through with what was said. What about all the other governments since bilingualism was enacted? This should have been done in 1969 by Louis Robichaud. What about Richard Hatfield, Bernard Lord, the great Frank McKenna? Any of them since 69?

[CharlotteCountyLogan]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

Wonder if Higgs is hoping to have a different teacher in the legislature to replace Hogan with if he somehow wins the election. As is, Hogan's burned most of his bridges with the Education system, and is pretty much only there because he's a Higgs Yes-man.

I think that is a good theory. Hogan has burned a lot of bridges and Ian Lee is new to elected politics and would have a clean sheet

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Sunnybrae

Its fine to blame Higgs and the current government especially since they didn't follow through with what was said. What about all the other governments since bilingualism was enacted? This should have been done in 1969 by Louis Robichaud. What about Richard Hatfield, Bernard Lord, the great Frank McKenna? Any of them since 69?

I blame people more than the governments. Bilingualism has been a boogeyman in NB since its inception… if Montreal can have 50/50 bilingual schools so can New Brunswick, at least for the English speaking population. French Immersion is only a fraction of Anglophone students in the NB public school system, replacing both the French Immersion and English school systems within a bilingual one would be a tremendous idea, and set many more high school graduates up to continue learning French and attain bilingual status.

It absolutely matters for who composes our government bureaucracy, and bilingualism still impacts the private job market too. There’s lots of non government jobs, even in almost entirely Anglophone Saint John, where being bilingual matters for getting the job, but doesn’t really matter for actually doing the job. Bilingual schools will at least help far more high school graduates be able to put bilingual or partially bilingual on their resumes.

As someone who moved here from another province, official bilingualism at the provincial and municipal level can really seem like a bit much at times. In reality Saint John is not a bilingual city, yet officially, Saint John is absolutely a bilingual city, which honestly seems ridiculous and excessive.

Based on the requirements for admission to the French School system, and recent immigration trends, I think the demographics at Samuel De Champlain School and other French Schools around the province will be radically different in the near future.

Two unilingual anglophones can’t send their kid to French School, but all it takes is one parent to speak English as their non native language for their kids to qualify to attend French school. I think there will be far more students enrolled in the French system who show up with zero French skills upon entering kindergarten, because of this acceptance of students with at least one parent who is not a native English speaker, and it could possibly make language politics as they pertain to education even more divisive into the future.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

https://www.onf.ca/film/acadie_acadie/

This is a tremendous film on how NB became a bilingual province, but there’s one glaring omission. Our national film board of Canada in Montreal has not provided any English subtitles for non French speakers to understand the film.

YouTube has autogenerated French to English translated subs, but I don’t believe Google voice recognition can fully understand Chiac. This is a really important historical film, and it deserves official bilingual subtitles. For that matter, all of the NFB should have bilingual subtitles in English and French.

I should be able to watch the French TV stations they make us pay for with cable packages in NB with English subtitles. There’s quite a lot of interesting stuff on those French channels, but I have a pretty limited knowledge of French

It’s 2024, it shouldn’t be that hard to have proper bilingual closed captioning so English speakers can actually watch the French Channels that they pay for.

All I can say is NB is a lot more positive than Quebec and their draconian French language police… I love Montreal, but I feel the impacts of the language laws are more and more apparent every-time I return. NB is at least moderately proud of being the only bilingual province, while Anglophones in Montreal are literally victims of draconian language policing and truly excessive language politics that make Anglophones feel unwelcome in their own city.

Bilingualism in NB could be improved and not seem so excessive to Anglophones while still maintaining proper levels of service needed for Francophones around the province, whom are basically entirely bilingual outside of Northern New Brunswick. You still feel more welcome as an Anglophone inside a Tim Hortons in Caraquet than you do as one in Montreal, a basically completely bilingual city. Quebec clearly has a lot to learn from New Brunswick in terms of making bilingualism work and granting linguistic rights to Anglophones in Montreal like Francophones had to fight people like Moncton Mayor Leonard Jones to achieve their own linguistic rights.

Overall, NB makes bilingualism work without it being totally dismal like the situation is for Anglophones in Quebec, but there’s still room to make it less divisive and more people bilingual.

[Sunnybrae]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

I blame people more than the governments. Bilingualism has been a boogeyman in NB since its inception… if Montreal can have 50/50 bilingual schools so can New Brunswick, at least for the English speaking population. French Immersion is only a fraction of Anglophone students in the NB public school system, replacing both the French Immersion and English school systems within a bilingual one would be a tremendous idea, and set many more high school graduates up to continue learning French and attain bilingual status.

It absolutely matters for who composes our government bureaucracy, and bilingualism still impacts the private job market too. There’s lots of non government jobs, even in almost entirely Anglophone Saint John, where being bilingual matters for getting the job, but doesn’t really matter for actually doing the job. Bilingual schools will at least help far more high school graduates be able to put bilingual or partially bilingual on their resumes.

As someone who moved here from another province, official bilingualism at the provincial and municipal level can really seem like a bit much at times. In reality Saint John is not a bilingual city, yet officially, Saint John is absolutely a bilingual city, which honestly seems ridiculous and excessive.

Based on the requirements for admission to the French School system, and recent immigration trends, I think the demographics at Samuel De Champlain School and other French Schools around the province will be radically different in the near future.

Two unilingual anglophones can’t send their kid to French School, but all it takes is one parent to speak English as their non native language for their kids to qualify to attend French school. I think there will be far more students enrolled in the French system who show up with zero French skills upon entering kindergarten, because of this acceptance of students with at least one parent who is not a native English speaker, and it could possibly make language politics as they pertain to education even more divisive into the future.

I use to think as you do. I really did. I thought a fully bilingual education system for anglophones was the solution for jobs and the linguistic divide. As time went on, I guess I have become a cynical old man. My reality became, its not what you know but who you know. I'm probably wrong in all this like most things (as the wife tells me). I see grandkids and nieces and nephews all graduate from french emersion, only to loose it, yet still live productive lives and really, just don't care. They are more concerned with sexual identity and what tattoo they want next.