LETTER

En réponse au commentaire de Peter A. Ferguson :

 

Normally, I would write to the Bulletin d’Aylmer in French, with the conviction that most of the Bulletin’s readers could read and understand my commentary. However, I am responding to a letter from Mr Peter A. Ferguson entitled “I live in a flood zone, but don’t speak French…”, published in the Bulletin on May 17, 2017. As per your comment, Mr Ferguson, you have lived in Quebec for 12 years and you do not speak French. I want you to understand my response and I will therefore write it in English.

Let me begin by stating that I sympathize with you for living in a flood zone and I hope that the river’s abnormal rise did not overly affect you. I also understand that in certain stressful situations (such as with these floods), it can be difficult not to have access to information in your language.

When you write the following: “Shouldn’t Quebec be providing emergency information in both official languages, like the rest of Canada?”, are you seriously suggesting that this is the case in the ROC? As you probably know, there has also been major flooding in BC this spring. There is a webpage from British Columbia that gives important information on the risks of flooding, on preparedness and on sandbagging. I have yet to find the page in French. On the same English-only webpage, there are PDF documents available with “Instructions on how to build a sandbag dike to protect your property from flood waters.” The documents are available in three languages: English, Chinese and Punjabi. NO FRENCH! You probably also remember the major floods that occurred in Calgary in 2013. We can only assume that the city has put in place an extensive plan pertaining to floods. I looked at the Calgary website pertaining to floods: Again, I cannot find the page in French.

Now, you also write that, speaking of Quebec, we should “Get on board and speak English and French, especially first responders, as across Canada.” All first responders in Gatineau (firefighters) do have to speak French. But I also know that most of them also fluently speak English. The same goes for paramedics, police officers and hospital emergency staff. Unfortunately, although the people occupying the same professions in the rest of Canada are quite qualified, there are very few places outside of Quebec where these emergency responders must speak French, as a prerequisite to occupying their job as a first responder. For example, speaking French is not a prerequisite to becoming a police officer, a firefighter, or a paramedic in Ottawa, our own neighbour and our Nation’s Capital.

I hope you did find the answers you needed in English and that the effects of the floods will soon be a thing of the past for you.

Vincent Villemaire
Aylmer