From the “it’s about goddamn time” department, the folks what run this country are actually doing something else that makes sense and is long overdue. For folks not so familiar with the workings of Canada, we have two official languages. Well, unless you live in Quebec–then there’s one, with grudging acknowledgement of some kind of second language type thing going on over there. thing about it is, people coming to Canada weren’t required to actually learn either of those languages. That makes things really quite interesting–particularly when I run to the store across the street and the guy serving me can speak an entire… maybe… 4 words in English (that’s another entry). The folks over at Citizenship and Immigration would very much like to change that. A new thought bubble to be floated out of the downtown core is that folks wanting to apply for citizenship must now be able to prove, in writing, their proficiency in at least one of our two official languages–English, or French (yes, Quebec, that probably includes citizens who want to live there). Now, here’s a question. How long before somebody on the opposition benches turns that into an attack on immigrants? Any ideas?
4 responses to “Wanna be a Canadian citizen? Brush up on your official language of choice…”
Well how about that, an idea out of this outhouse of a government that I can’t think of a problem with! Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but for now I’m down with this one.
Speaking just for myself, I know that if I were ever to move to a foreign country, I’d want to be able to communicate with the locals. Would make life immeasurably easier.
In most other countries, that’s kind of expected of you. Well, except maybe the US–but then I’m told they don’t even have a legal official language, really. But most other places? Yeah, you don’t speak the language, you don’t get far. Why it’s taken a government of any stripe this long is beyond me.
I know it’s not a PC thing to do nowadays, which is probably why it’s not more widely adopted. But it really does make sense. You can argue that there are lots of people who do just fine, but I think they’d do even better day to day being able to speak an official language competently.
And I believe America’s official languages are English, Spanish and that goobledigook they speak in parts of the south.
I remember hearing somewhere they don’t actually have a legal official language, but the person I heard it from could also just have completely gone off the deep end. Either way, they don’t require folks to learn whatever their official language(s) is/are, and that country’s more conservative in a lot of areas than we are–Stephen Harper’s supposedly hidden agenda notwithstanding.