Amid the litany of promises in his government’s throne speech last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed to pursue two deeply contradictory goals with little introspection. On the one hand, his administration says it will tackle “systemic racism” and break down the “systemic barriers” that exclude people of color from full participation in Canadian life. On the other hand — immediately after, in fact — the speech also vowed to legally consolidate the status of Canada’s “two official languages,” French and English, emphasizing the need to “protect and promote French,” in particular. In the Canadian public sector, one such systemic barrier has always been obvious — and is indeed routinely cited by diversity advocates: mandatory French-English bilingualism. The Official Languages Act also mandates strict and constant auditing of a civil service that’s apparently never quite bilingual enough, giving the whole project a fussiness that can even exhaust true believers.

Source: Washington Post September 30, 2020 13:52 UTC