I noticed in the Montreal Gazette this morning there was a story about the City of Montreal offering incentives, actually pretty big ones, to families who choose to move there.
$12,500 in addition to the $7 a day child care and the all-round much better quality of cultural life in a city that everyone knows is lovely beyond compare (in the Canadian context,) is nothing to sneeze at. It's cheaper to live in Montreal than it is in most major Canadian cities, the food is better the art is spectacular and the people are hipper than Conan (even the dull people.)
So why are they losing between 15 and 20 thousand families a year? At this rate the city will be emptied out by mid-century. Well, speaking as a member of one of the earliest groups of Montreal ex-pats, I can sum it up for you in one word: French.
See, as much as we diligently try to pretend Canada is a bilingual country, it's not. And like it or not Canada is going to have to accept that we are part of the rest of the world pretty soon. French is the 16th most widely spoken language in the world, right after Marathi and just before Korean. French is well behind German, Bengali, Portuguese and yes, even behind Javanese. Personally, I didn't know there was such a language as Javanese so I was pretty surprised at that.
You learn to speak French if you want to work in France or work in a bistro, a haute-couture house or as a translator. For those of you unfamiliar with Canada's major industries, let me assure you, going to France, French bistros, haute couture fashion houses and translation services do not number in the top 20 contributors to the GDP.
If you live in Quebec, unless you go to elaborate lengths, your kids will be educated in French. The idea is that English is easy to pick up whereas French is hard, I suppose. But English, used and spoken well, is not easy. If you're in Ottawa, call the federal government - any branch, any level, and try to speak to one of the "bilingual" Canadians employed there; as they cough out the broken English that passes for fluency in Quebec, and you'll see how easy English is.
I'm glad I live in a country where learning a second language in the public school system is a common thing but it should be a useful language not one that has been legislated into life. Teach kids Russian, Arabic or Spanish, Chinese or Hindi and they'll have more skills to market globally than if you teach them French. Seriously, what are we thinking?
The thing is this - it's fine for a government to say, "we have two official languages in this country, learn to speak one or the other and you're ok. If you speak one OR the other we will make sure you can get all services in your language." It's wrong to force one on people and exclude the other and plenty of people will tell you, if you live in BC bilingual means you speak Mandarin and English and who is to say that shouldn't be the way things are there?
Here we are, 2010, and Quebec is still trying to force people to act as though it were 1700. It's not. And we're not going to fix a thing by using bait to lure people into a broken, culturally exclusive system.
My father was not a great guy. Anyone can tell you, I didn't idolize him, not even close, but he did instil in me the idea that no matter what anyone pretends is right - whether its because it's popular or because the government says it's right - I needed to think it through for myself and if it did not stand up to scrutiny, it was not right. Canadian linguistic policy does not stand up to scrutiny, it defies common sense, it's not politically correct to say so but it's still true; Trudeau was wrong, we got it wrong.
Boundaries and the artificial perpetuation of an elitist culture (especially one that is straining to evolve) aren't working. Especially those that are based on some outdated ideal of a "founding nation." Unless you are First Nations, you're not a member of a founding nation in Canada. I'm tired of pretending there's something edifying about protecting the obsolete at all costs.
Montreal, here's what I think; if you have to pay people to come to your dinner party then maybe you should rethink the menu.
