26 April 2010
Update (7 May 2010): the bill passed the Canadian House of Commons and is likely to become law. Language Log has more.
Original post:
I’m always amazed at the differences between Canada and the US (and in coming months I suspect I’ll be discovering more of them). The two countries and cultures, so alike in many ways, can also be starkly different.
Take the case of bilingualism as a political issue. In the US, the (utterly unfounded) fear is that the country will be ripped asunder if we dare to teach schoolchildren in their own language or if voice mail systems offer the option to hear instructions in Spanish. Yet, just north of the border, Canada is considering requiring its supreme court justices to be fluent in both English and French—and not just conversationally, but in the arcane legalese of the two languages as well. The Canadian idea sounds reasonable on its face, but as the Edmonton Journal points out, it is just as bad an idea as its US counterpart:
In practical terms, the bill will restrict appointment to a very small number of bilingual legal scholars and lower-court judges. It will make it difficult for Canadians outside a narrow strip from Ottawa, through Montreal and Quebec City, and into Moncton, to ever be appointed to the court that has the final say over how the Charter will be interpreted and what rights we may have.
It will make it difficult for Englishspeaking [sic] Canadians to sit on the Supreme Court and almost impossible for Western Canadians.
It’s comforting to know, however, that bad political ideas are not restricted to one’s own country.
(Hat tip: The Lousy Linguist)
