Are federal Conservatives and New Democrats partners in the erosion of Canadian Bilingualism?

In last year's federal election, Mr. Layton spoke openly during the campaign of applying elements of Bill 101 – the backbone of Quebec’s controversial language charter – to federally regulated industries. More recently, the NDP has re-affirmed its support for modifying federal laws to favour the use of French in Quebec in those industries--mostly in transportation, communications and the federal public sector--in Quebec.

This week, the Conservative government appointed a highly competent accountant from New Brunswick to succeed Sheila Fraser as Canada's next auditor-general--and ignored the fact that he wasn't bilingual.  (While nobody doubts his qualifications, there are many highly qualified accountants in Canada who are bilingual.  In addition, this appointment comes after two unilingual Supreme Court judges were appointed.)

To my knowledge, nobody has linked these two events. One person who would have was the late Rt. Hon. Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who always warned that pandering to unilingualism in one part of the country would weaken support for bilingualism in the rest of the country, with possibly grave long-term implications for national unity. At his worst, Trudeau was overly dogmatic in opposing any form of special status or recognition of "distinct society".  But surely he was right to warn of a possible slippery slope in the protection of minority language rights.  

Now that we have a Conservative government that can  get an electoral majority without winning Quebec, the conditions are right for a decline in the support for, and declining effectiveness of, official bilingualism in our national institutions.  Relaxing the enforcement of rights for anglophones working in federally-regulated workplaces in Quebec and overlooking the auditor-general's lack of competence in French are both evidence that this slide is already happening.

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Back in May 2010, I analysed both the economic problem and the political problem with the government's HST proposal, arguing that Gordon Campbell's 12% HST coincident with the Great Recession was a huge mistake--while at the same time recognizing the basic theoretical merits of an integrated expenditure tax that covered more goods and services but at a lower rate.

Back in November 2010 and December 2010 , I warned that Adrian Dix was not being honest about his intentions, and was likely going to be the ultimate beneficiary of Carole James's overthrow and become NDP leader.  In January 2011, I predicted that Adrian Dix would be the next NDP premier of BC--and explained why that is probably a bad thing.

I have also drawn upon my extensive studies and work experience  to offer novel resolutions to thorny debates about electoral reform, taxation, politicians' pay, and student debt.

Although I have sometimes wondered whether continuing with a blog that usually only gets about 100-150 hits per week, I regularly get calls from the media to comment on these issues, so I can reasonably infer that my blog punches above its weight.

I hope that you find it useful, and that it fills  some of the gaps  in the mainstream media.