Saint John — Despite official bilingualism being New Brunswick’s main claim to fame, a Facebook page started by a Saint John man against bilingualism has quickly garnered overwhelming support from the province’s most stubbornly narrow-minded.
Dubbed a local hero, James McBird saw a problem, and decided to attack it head-on. “I applied for a job that required the candidate to be bilingual,” he said, “and I was turned down just because I don’t speak French. That got me thinking about the employment situation in this province. How are we proud English people supposed to get any jobs at all? Next thing you know I won’t be able to get work as a surgeon just because I didn’t go to some fancy ‘medical school’ or whatever. It’s tyranny.”
The Facebook group, “New Brunswick Referendum on Official Bilingualism 2014,” started by McBird already has more than 5,000 members who are prepared to fight tirelessly against New Brunswick being the only officially bilingual province, even though that will mean the only things left we’ve got going for us are snowbanks and the Hopewell Rocks.
The brave McBird and his legions of English-only advocates claim that the bilingualism program has failed to gain a firm foothold in the province, and should therefore be abandoned entirely. One group member, Sharon Hicks, defended their mandate, saying: “We’re NOT anti-French, we’re all about equality — you can read that right on the Facebook page. We want equality for all the people in this province who refuse to learn a new language or who just don’t want to deal with the French population.”
“That’s right,” exclaimed McBird. “We’re not against French or anything — we’re just against STUPID POLICIES AND LANGUAGE LAWS that don’t allow us to get the jobs we want with little effort or qualification. There should be fairness in New Brunswick for all the proud citizens of this province who aren’t bilingual and who take a stand against it out of fear and ignorance.”
Some bilingual New Brunswickers — as well as pretty well everyone who has read into the issue at all — have called the Facebook group a thinly veiled excuse for racism. According to the dictionary, racism is: a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
“How is this racism??” asked a clearly offended Todd Philips, a member of the group. “We’re merely trying to form a safe space where English people can openly discuss how our differences are inherent and make us superior … I mean … equal. Yeah, equal. We just want to have equal access to jobs we’re not necessarily qualified for based on the fact that we didn’t bother to learn French. The French have been taking jobs from hard-working English people for too long.”
McBird is aiming to overturn those “stupid” policies and laws that make New Brunswick bilingual and distinct among the rest of Canada. “If you’re looking to enact change in legislation, you have to go right to the source — Facebook,” he valiantly explained. “Soon, those lawmakers will see the support and endless comments from other people like me who don’t know — and don’t care to know — why bilingualism is so important in New Brunswick.”
Luckily for McBird, new legislation will be launched in March, dictating that politicians must constantly check Facebook on their computers or phones to see what their constituents are talking about.
“We’re constantly checking our phones and creeping on Facebook, we might as well make it officially something we do as our jobs,” said Premier Brian Gallant at the Legislature on Friday morning, without looking up from his BlackBerry Z10.
http://themanatee.net/?s=Chiac+
What the crap is this….I never said that stuff!! Well…hopefully some may not take this seriously as it sure seems someone likes to post stuff in my name and others by the looks of it.
I’m so sick of stupid people who think the manatee writes anything legit. It’s a fake site with lies..get a grip people! Because of all the lies in this write up this man is having his life threatened. I hope that if some moron tries something he sues the manatees ass off for this!!!!
The group is about equality not anti french!! Grow up NB
I am from Saint John. I had to leave more than once. Once I had a contract job at city hall and when the job ended, I was told that they were not hiring any english people for 5 years, as they did not have enough french people. It was the only job I could find in Saint John, so I had to leave Saint John.
Another time, I had to leave Saint John because a private employer cut the hours back of local women to 10 a week from 35, and hired girls from hong kong who are just here to improve their english and do not need the money. The employer gets probably a couple thousand dollars for each one he hires. I also had to leave Saint John that time. In toronto, when I worked at Toronto Refugee Backlog, all the english people were laid off and all the french people were transferred into other government departments.
I have been in Ottawa and in the past 3 years. I cannot find a stitch of work because I do not speak and write in french. The last position I had here was one english job that had 700 applicants and the other 3 positions were bilingual. I have applied to jobs that state english, then they are made bilingual after the fact (two just recently- the ottawa hospital pharmacy and carleton university).
I just called to book my taxes. Its a community clinic in my area. When I called, the receptionist answered completely in french, so I thought I had the wrong number. I asked her is this Lowertown, she said yes. I asked to be transferred to the tax clinic number. After she transferred me, the woman I was calling was not there, and it went to voicemail. I left a message, and after this the prompts were only in french and I could not understand what it was saying, so I could not leave the message. I again called the main line to complain. I asked are you bilingual, she said yes. I said then why don’t you answer in french and english, she said’ we were told its to our discretion”. So I called the office of official languages to put in a complaint. The lady investigated and it is indeed a bilingual organization, not french. Pathetic! Lowertown is majority Irish/English.
The problem is that bigoted people are able to point out some things that are truly wrong, but because they do it for bigoted reasons, they make it difficult for unbigoted people to make the same points. Duality, in the way it is often accomplished in NB, is too often wasteful. But the “English-only” folks should remember that the fair solution, true bilingualism, isn’t going to help their cause. The Society of Acadian, while starting out as a group looking for equality, does have lots of bigots in its executive, it seems to me. There ARE times when francophones with very poor English skills are hired for bilingual positions… but usually because HR is too lazy to do its job or because the “bilingual” anglophones are even worse. I speak three languages well enough to work in them, another language of my heritage (poor because of lack of practice), and a fifth language well enough to negotiate at the market. Learning languages isn’t easy, and for some people it is really difficult, but so is math for some people, and we don’t let them become engineers or scientists unless they overcome their deficiencies.
we are not English we are every language but French who seem to think they are special
wow, slow day at the satirical office? Couldn’t think of new content, so let’s just edit an old post.
I think an article loses zest when the reporter doesn’t even take the time to get the names correct…maybe that’s just me
No different for french speaking people who have to learn English…the majority of people in this province respect each other, it’s great we share this land. French or English we are unique…there are so many real world issues , so let’s look at both sides of the coin.
I am not against the French or the English speaking people,but I am against our New Brunswick government and the way they try to force people to accept their will. I lived in a French/English community and went to school there and we all played together and got along great. Now our government says it’s all wrong! we are suppose to be kept apart and not accept each other as our friends. Someone must step in here and put this government down before it’s to late for all of N.B. What is wrong with French and English students on the same buses? You mean that all these years we have been doing it wrong? I know what I think of these government people and I’m ashamed of them;sad part is I voted o put them in power. I refuse to stand by and see them make our province into a divided society and that’s where it’s going. schools for French and separate ones for English! Next it will restraunts for French and separate ones for English. How about motels for French and separate ones for English speaking. why not go all out and have separate malls for both languages? This must stop before the government has the French people fighting the English the same as America have the whites fighting the black in the south. is this what N.B. really wants?
Thank you Manatee for the free publicity but keep in mind that its not just Jasons group out there that are rallying to take a stand. There are droves of us plastering all of NB.. Discrimination is discrimination no matter which side of the fence you are on and the only way to stop that crap is to make every one abide by the same principals and rules with out biased towards one language or another. We are all New Brunswick people who need to communicate point blank.. And language is not Heritage. I for one would have loved to understand my uncle who was Acadien from North Shore. I tried but failed miserably. The resources were simply not there but my desire to learn is still there and still want to gain the ability to speak with my cousins in both languages …
IT has nothing to do with the fact that English people are against French it has to do with the fact that we are denied jobs because we are not French speaking if the government of New Brunswick wants to have a bilingual province then they should provide free courses for anybody who wants to learn English or French as somebody who took French immersion from grade 6 to grade 12 and graduated certified bilingual two years after I graduated I am NOT certified bilingual anymore unless I pay to go take a test. should we be apart have a bilingual province? yes we should.. is the government making that possible?… no they are not. not only that but whenever I try to speak French to French people they immediately switch over to English which makes it very difficult for me to practice my French. I was taught Parisian French in school and the communities around here speak ShIac or Acadian French. what people fail to see is that the Facebook group was not against French people, they’re standing up for English peoples rights, and the right to have the same opportunity for a position as somebody who speaks French and English.
The blog person is an asshole
When it boils down to taking care of your family it shouldn’t be a language issue it should be the best person suited for the job.