Official bilingualism has gone too far
Episode Stats
Words per minute
171.7488
Harmful content
Misogyny
2
sentences flagged
Hate speech
1
sentences flagged
Summary
Air Canada was fined $21,000 by a judge after a French-speaking couple filed over 20 complaints against the company, saying that the company was not sufficiently bilingual and violated their linguistic rights as francophones. Andrew Lutton explains why.
Transcript
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You may have seen this story flying around the internet in the last few days.
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Air Canada was fined $21,000 by a judge after a French-speaking Ontario couple filed over
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20 complaints against Air Canada saying that the company was not sufficiently bilingual
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and violated the couple's linguistic rights as francophones.
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Anyone who's traveled on Air Canada, as I do not irregularly, would know that Air Canada
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goes out of its way to do everything in English and in French.
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You have to hear the safety demonstration in both official languages.
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On every flight, you have the opportunity to speak to a French or English flight attendant.
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And yes, all of the materials in the seats, all the movies are available in English or
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But this couple was not denied any linguistic rights.
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When you look at the actual complaints they had, one of them was that the French word
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for exit, sortie, was written in smaller font than the English exit in some cases.
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Or those metal seat belts that tell you how to open them with the engraved word lift did
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Nowhere did the couple actually argue it didn't know how to lift the seat belts.
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Nowhere did the couple argue it didn't know where the exits were.
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Nowhere did the couple argue that it wasn't told any of the essential information needed
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They were actually scanning the entire plane, finding anything they could think of that would
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present an alleged inequality between the English and the French.
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Now by the letter of the law, what the judge found is that Air Canada did not uphold its
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obligation to offer both services in English or in French.
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But any sane thinking person would realize this is an absolutely abominable interpretation
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In fact, one of the things that I think makes Canada so unique is that we have such a linguistic
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But this should not mean that we have the right to demand private companies, which is what
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Air Canada is despite its past as a crown corporation, bend over backwards and go so
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far as to etch French wording into seat belts just because someone wants to pick a fight,
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But the problem is that official bilingualism in Canada has now gone so far that people use
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it as a crutch rather than for its intended purpose, which is to make sure that a significant
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chunk of the population in Canada was not left behind.
0.98
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Take for example, a man in a French speaking area of Manitoba who had a speeding ticket thrown
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out because the police officer who gave it to him spoke English and wrote English on the
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Does this sound like something that's actually about discrimination or does it sound like
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someone is just trying to drive a wedge between English Canada and French Canada?
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These stories like that of the Thibodeaux and their lawsuit against Air Canada only serve
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to grow resentment of French Canadians from English Canada, which is hardly the best application