LETTER

Les anglophone n'ont qu'a dire... Letter August 17th, 2016

 

While I normally enjoy reading the perspective of our local defender of la francophonie, I must take issue with M. Perreault's latest concern. The requirement for Supreme Court justices to be bilingual is a government policy that is less than a year old. It is not law, nor is it in the Charter. In response to concerns that this policy may adversely affect the traditional regional balance of the Supreme Court, the Minister of Justice made a political compromise and defined "functionally bilingual" as someone who could read or listen to their second language but not necessarily write or speak it.

To declare that the watering-down of a job requirement that didn't exist before the last election will result in the destruction of bilingualism as a federal civil service core value is a textbook example of "le sophisme de la pente savonneuse". I fear that M. Perrault's call for an "English strike" is both premature and unwarranted in this circumstance.

Chris Bryan
Aylmer