Beware of Second Languages

Canada is a great country to live in, make no mistake. But that said, just like every other country, it has a lot of stupid things going on. And one of the stupidest things we have done, in my opinion, is become an officially bilingual nation. We have two official languages English and French and have gone to some stupid lengths to enforce this policy.

Why am I telling you this? So that you can learn from our mistake, and try to make certain that you don’t let YOUR country be legislated bilingual or multilingual like Canada has done.

Here are some things to consider. Roughly 95 per cent of Canada’s French-speaking population lives in the province of Quebec which , it should be noted, is the one province that is NOT legally bilingual. It’s official language is French. Don’t even ASK why.

Despite the relative lack of French speakers across the country, bilingualism is still considered essential in roughly forty per cent of all government positions. So, if you grew up in one of the majority of regions where French is rarely if ever spoken, your ability to get any sort of governmental work is seriously impeded.

Next, all packaging in this country has to be in BOTH languages. Cereal boxes, coffee cans, jars of peanut butter… So to accommodate both languages, ingredients, nutritional values, and best-before dates have to be so small you need a magnifying glass to read it. Unless you’re in one of the country’s Chinatowns or other ethnic enclaves, where products don’t seem to have to be labeled in English OR French. Don’t ASK me why.

And how’s this for crazy? Recently, a small community grocery store in Vancouver was raided by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Inspectors spent hours removing over 100 items, worth over twenty thousand dollars, from her store, while documenting labels and taking notes. She was then given a list of seven pages of infractions, all of them for not having French on product labels. The best part? This little store sells only food grown locally to her area, where less than TWO percent of the population is French speaking.

So, let this be a warning. There is a movement afoot to recognize Spanish as the second official language in the United States. Don’t do it, guys. Having a second official language MAY pacify some people, but in the long run, it’s not good for nation building. It inhibits assimilation by new immigrants, and divides instead of unifies. And it causes ridiculous situations where businesses are forced to spend money on pointless exercises in labeling, for the benefit of a small number of people. In today’s economy, if a business WANTS to cater to another language group, they can choose to. But FORCING them to, nationwide, is an unnecessary intrusion and expense. This is government interference at its most ridiculous.

Of course the official language decision likely won’t be made by average Americans, but by politicians who want to garner the Latino vote. All I can say is 'Bienvenue au Canada'mangid0 . Don’t ask me why.