Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you were building a bridge to span a chasm 300 metres deep and 400 metres wide.
Given such a project, would the ability of the engineering firm chosen to design the bridge be singularly important, or would other factors be more important?
By other factors, I mean non-engineering factors. Would your choice of engineering firms hinge on the status of their affirmative action programs be vital? Would it matter to you if they had a certain number of gay/lesbian engineers, or that 50 per cent of their engineers were women? Would it matter if 10 or 15 per cent of their people were visible minorities, or that all of their computers were powered by wind and solar energy?
If you were building a bridge that, when finished, might qualify as a modern engineering marvel, would your choice of engineering firms hinge on their ability to speak a second language?
In what must be seen as a fit of national madness, we have taken another colossally misguided step at relegating the majority of Canadians even further towards the status of legal and political second-class citizens, and enshrining such status in law.
Bill C-232 is a law that will make bilingualism a mandatory skill for a judge to be seated at the bench of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Our official languages commissioner, Graham Fraser, has been a driving force behind this legislative move. It’s worth noting that Fraser — with a master’s degree in history — appears intellectually unable to grasp the inevitable consequences of such an action.
In fairness, the fact that a majority of MPs supported the motion simply adds evidence to my oft-repeated assertion that the collective IQ of the Canadian Parliament rarely, if ever, rises above room temperature.
By the numbers, this is a stupid law. Measured against current common place, this is a stupid law. And measured against history, this is a stupid law.
Right around eight per cent of Canadians speak only French. That means 92 per cent of Canadians can understand English, which is the language of our legal system. Some 80 per cent of Canadians are English speaking.
Despite years of pushing and prodding, they have neither the need nor the inclination to speak French. In spite of the assertions of stupid people, this does not make them lesser citizens.
If we declare that only bilingual judges will be considered for the Supreme Court, we have declared that the vast majority of Canadians are unfit from birth for one of the most important jobs in our government and legal system.
For the vast majority of Canadians, learning French is neither useful nor important, and thus they don’t bother with it.
Our nation is filled with profoundly skilled lawyers, doctors, and engineers for whom the learning of a second language might even have been a hindrance in their study of their chosen profession.
Many of these citizens are at the very apex of their professions and wouldn’t be, had they applied their skills to learning another language instead.
We have movements, largely government supported, trying to get more women involved in politics. It’s seen as a form of discrimination that considerably less than half of our legislators are women. Yet, those who support initiatives to get more women involved in politics are the very people supporting a law that will actively discriminate against the vast majority of the lawyers in the country, solely based on language and place of birth.
Should we note that the same legal pool sits in the parts of the country that are least supportive of bilingualism and equalization, yet are paying the full tab of both programs?
History tells us that this law will evolve. Within a decade, all federal judges would be required to be bilingual. The need for our judges to be the best legal minds of the nation will be superseded by the need for us to find good legal minds within an ever-shrinking pool.
Language skills will override legal insight and understanding, and what understanding is brought to the bench will likely be profoundly different than that of the legal and cultural history of most Canadians.
In spite of the best lies Ottawa tells us, we aren’t a bilingual nation. We’re a nation with a few isolated bilingual regions. It’s an act of national suicide to further apply the bilingual lie to Canadian law.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you were getting brain surgery. . . .
Bill Greenwood is a local freelance columnist.