Mr. Speaker, the Treasury Board minister's defence of enforced bilingualism is full of the same self-serving rationale and selective omissions that have become the hallmark of the government's reckless language policy. Her intention to impose even stricter bilingual requirements on the civil service will result in an expansion of the discriminatory obstacle to federal employment for unilingual Canadians in general, but anglophones in particular.
Indeed, Treasury Board numbers reveal that francophones hold 78% of all federal jobs designated bilingual throughout Canada. Last year they received 68% of promotions and 71% of all bilingual positions. Since 1978 in the national capital region, where systemic language discrimination is most pronounced, the number of federal civil service jobs designated bilingual imperative has increased by 12%, while the participation rate of anglophones has decreased by a nearly corresponding amount of 10%.
Those figures should act as a reality check on the government agenda to expand mandatory bilingual hiring requirements. Clearly, bilingualism is a divisive affirmative action program for francophones but discriminates against anglophones and has served to undermine the principles of merit and the quality of opportunity in federal hiring and promotion.
This fact is reinforced in a study conducted by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which found that the overwhelming and vast majority of respondents who indicated that bilingualism negatively impacted their careers were English.
A similar sentiment was expressed by the director of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers, when he was quoted as saying that the minister's Fresh Start proposals “go too far”.
According to the Public Service Commission, an entire generation of English speaking Canadians will be denied career opportunities in the federal civil service.
The minister is intentionally ignoring the widely though quietly held view that enforced bilingualism is an abysmal failure and serves to perpetuate the myth of linguistic duality instead of its discriminatory consequence and divisive reality.
Indeed, the most offensive premise of the minister's proposal is the laughable assertion that the government's pursuit of bilingualism somehow engenders respect and tolerance, an obviously errant notion given the plight of anglophones seeking federal employment or, for that matter, anglophones living in Quebec. In that province, anglophones comprise 13% of the population, excluding the national capital region, but hold only 7% of federal civil service jobs.
Furthermore, given the federal government's fixation with making Ottawa officially bilingual, it is worth noting that in Quebec the threshold for providing bilingual municipal or provincial services to anglophones is 50%, a far cry from the 5% to 10% “where numbers warrant” formula used to justify bilingual service at the federal level.
The government's double standard on bilingualism, an enforced bilingualism across Canada while condoning and fostering a unilingual Quebec, was and remains a federal initiative to appease francophones and Quebec separatists. In spite of conclusive evidence establishing the inherent injustice of enforced bilingualism and despite objections from advocates of fairness, the government is doggedly pursuing its implementation and expansion.
This blind persistence is best illustrated by its predisposition to attack the messenger instead of debating the issue when challenged with facts about bilingual discrimination. The discriminatory effect of enforced bilingualism with respect to federal hiring and promotion is costly to the vast majority of unilingual Canadians who do not speak French.
In addition to the substantial financial burden to taxpayers and private industry, there is an incalculable social cost of lost opportunity borne by a majority of English speaking civil servants and the public they serve. In view of this, the most pertinent question the government should answer but intentionally evades is this: What about the rights of anglophones?
