Ignatieff gets started with his culture war

[Dust Devil]

I don't recall people being outspoken anywhere that Supreme Court Judges don't all speak french fluently. So where did Iggy dig this one up? Perhaps he is taking advice from the CBC to create a culture war between the west and east. Sorry but Iggy claims he is trying to keep the country together but you don't do that by inventing divisive issues like this.

http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blog ... e-war.aspx

Considering the only place you can get french immersion education here is in the Catholic school system I guess Iggy also only wants Roman Catholics in the Supreme Court. What impact would that have on the Liberal abortion agenda?

[bmc]

Since when is Canada bilingual?

Is Quebec bilingual?

Does Canada still have to bend over to make one province happy?

Just asking.

[ScudRunner]

I would be curious to know how many justices in Canada are fully bi lingual in French and English, although they are all highly educated I would suspect the vast majority speak English and not French. Iggy wants to limit the pool of suitable candidate and water down the supreme court which should be open to the best no matter what language they speak or do not speak.

Most Canadians are not aware that the justice system in Quebec is different from the rest of Canada, to that I would agree that a Justice familiar with the Quebec Civil Law and the Common Law practiced in the rest of the country would make a perspective candidate more suited for the highest court in the land. However, I have no doubt that all suitable candidates would be knowledgeable to the different rulings and practices. Whether a Justice spoke only French or English should not be considered because in the end that person will interpret and rule on the law from their knowledge and experience in their native tongue which may be neither official language.

[Dust Devil]

Whether a Justice spoke only French or English should not be considered because in the end that person will interpret and rule on the law from their knowledge and experience in their native tongue.

Exactly! The ability to interpret the law should be the primary qualification to be be a Supreme Court Justice. I don't care if they speak English French Chinese or Pig Latin.

This sort of divisiveness is disgusting.

[Quick Disconnect]

bmc
You are so correct.KBEC is definately not byling.It cost a small fortune in this country to apease one province.
I would not mind the byling crap if the province that pushed it would adhere to the crap the rest of as have to pay for.English and French on every thing form tic tac boxes to boxes of kraft diner is a complete waste of money.And note i work in La Belle province.

[bmc]

bmc
And note i work in La Belle province.

I'm a former maudit anglais from YUL. I work and live in a French environment and proudly speak it every day. Mostly because it has no political baggage over here.

[Siddley Hawker]

Never mind the Supreme Court. Here's something really important!

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/? ... ExYzczODg=

[erics2b]

I figure this is kinda, sorta relevant here, and I got a good laugh out of it, so what the hell:

From http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Canada :

"Just because 10% of the population of Canada is French, doesn't mean that I'm going to learn the language. Ten percent of the population is gay also, but I'm not going to learn how to suck a cock."
—Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canædia (When asked why he doesn't speak French

[Hedley]

I can't believe he really said that ...

[trey kule]

Why not Hedley? You callin' our PM gay?

. wrote:

Joined: Tue Jun 08, 2004 7:58 pm
Posts: 2616 I would be curious to know how many justices in Canada are fully bi lingual in French and English, although they are all highly educated I would suspect the vast majority speak English and not French

Take a few moments then and google them....I think most are bilingual....and the majority are native French Speakers.....Why would you suspect (to use your word) that the vast majority speak English? Let me help you out..Because you have bought into the poor Quebec and its disappearing French language...you know...the one that requires French to be bigger than English on any packaging. That only allows French signs in Quebec (no bilingualism here), and who has ambassadores travelling everywhere wailing how they are descriminated against. Your comment just shows what a great job they have done.
It is to the great credit of many French speaking military personnel that when the vote to separate was being taken and they were asked to become traitors to their country (Canada) they refused. I would expect many of them paid the price in their career for that decision.. you know..the decision to not be a traitor.

[ScudRunner]

Well since I cannot read what specifically you are quoting ill take a shot in the Dark.

Regarding current Supreme Court Judges, obviously it does not say whether they speak French/ English only or are bi lingual or speak a hundred other dialects. However we can assume some things about Judges (not on the supreme court) and their native tongue in which to my earlier point most people revert back to when contemplating a decision. Just as my old boss would do complicated math in french (French as in France) then translating that back to English before I could even find a calculator. Before I go further keep in mind that my point was who cares what language they speak, when selecting a justice for the highest court in the land they should be judged by their qualifications/ previous rulings and interpretation of the law whether they speak English French Polish Italian or whatever should have no bearing on their suitability to hold such a post as long as they can put it out in English or French Canada's two official languages.

Why would I assume the vast majority speak English as their native tongue you ask? Well to answer that most of the current justices sitting in the lower courts in every province and territory where raised in primarily English speaking regions eg: not Quebec. Obviously judges in Quebec would speak the working language of that province where French is the only working language, judges in the rest of the country would do the business of the court in English. Much like Quebec is ruled by Civil Law and the rest of the country ruled by the Common law. The candidates for Supreme court Judges come from these lower courts, further to that in a country of 33 Million people of wich 7.5 million live in Quebec and as laid out below only 6.6 million speak French (at home) with 20 million who speak English.

So 6.6 speak french and another 1 million live in Quebec who do no speak French (at home), so we take that 7.6 million away from the population of Canada 33 million minus the 7.6 = 25.4 million Canadians who would fall into the "English part of Canada". Obviously this is simplifying it because people in Quebec speak English at home and French is spoken in many homes outside of Quebec but statistically the majority of Canadians speak English. So in a country where the majority of the populous speaks a certain language and conducts the business of the court in a certain language I can comfortably say that the majority of the justices in Canada speak English as their native language as they come from Canada.

More to the point though if the make of the countries highest court is to reflect the country accurately one could argue that the next justice should speak Mandarin Chinese and English or French to correctly reflect the population. So should a candidate be ruled out automatically because he or she does not speak French absolutely not, but nor should a Candidate be ruled out for only speaking French. Why on earth in such a vast country like Canada would we want to limit the talent pool in any way for such an important position?



Language composition by home language

The following are the top twenty languages spoken as a home language in Canada.

1. English 20,584,775 (67.1%)
2. French 6,608,125 (21.5%)
3. Chinese[5] 790,035 (2.6%)
4. Punjabi 278,500 (0.8%)
5. Spanish 209,955 (0.7%)
6. Italian 170,330 (0.6%)
7. Arabic 144,745 (0.5%)
8. German 128,350 (0.4%)
9. Tagalog 119,345 (0.4%)
10. Vietnamese 111,440 (0.4%)
11. Portuguese 103,875 (0.3%)
12. Urdu 102,805 (0.3%)
13. Polish 101,575 (0.3%)
14. Korean 101,500 (0.3%)
15. Persian 97,220 (0.3%)
16. Russian 93,805 (0.3%)
17. Tamil 92,680 (0.3%)
18. Greek 55,100 (0.2%)
19. Gujarati 52,715 (0.2%)
20. Romanian 51,060 (0.2%)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Canada

To sum up the Majority not the Vast Majority (ill concede that word) People In Canada Speak English not French as their Native tongue.

English 20,840,743 (66.7%) French 6,691,928 (21.4%) Other 3,710,529 (11.9% )

[trey kule]

Well, scudster, its like this. I am cranky. It is a beautiful day out and I should be flying a plane and not a desk. As there are no puppies, small children, or new hires I can see around to kick, I am going to respond to your post.

The original post was about the supreme court. Not sure exactly what all your stats have to do with the composition of the supreme court justices. Let me help. There are a total of 9. 1 Chief justice and 8 others.
Of the 8 others 4 (that is 50%) are native Quebecers.
The chief justice, while she is from BC, was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 2007.
And the justice from Ontario practiced in Ottawa
To the best of my knowledge there is only one supreme court justice who is not fluently bilingual. The issue is that the court, like much of the federal government is now operated in French...which is what happens when approximately 25% of the population can convince the other 75% that they are being discriminated against if they do not have more than 50%. Now if an English speaker complains about this....well time to get rid of them and put in more Quebecers...Did I mention that 4 of them were already from Quebec...get rid of anyone who wants any English and you have....a French country.
Just before I leave this, while it is obvious to most that the supreme court is subject to gender and political appointments, all the people there are the best we could hope for. The language issue, in my opinion, is brought about by outsiders who would like a little more control on challanges to language laws and the like.
This is, like so much of the French propoganda , one of those places where they scream discrimination to enable them to get more than their fair share...They need people to spout off about vast majorities of English speakers and the like. Kind of like the recent olympics in Vancouver where eveything was first announced in French...and then there was complaints that the French language was being discrimated against.
Feel free to check my facts.

And BTW, Criminal laws are the same throughout Canada. Civil law (which you seem to be a bit confused about), is based on the Nepolianic Code in Quebec and English Common law elsewhere.

[ScudRunner]

Well if you have read your previous post which is what I was responding to :

Take a few moments then and google them....I think most are bilingual....and the majority are native French Speakers....

Are you seriously trying to claim that all the judges in Canada are mostly bilingual and the majority are native French Speakers.
The reason for all the stats are to back up my previous post where I stated that :

I would be curious to know how many justices in Canada are fully bi lingual in French and English, although they are all highly educated I would suspect the vast majority speak English and not French. Iggy wants to limit the pool of suitable candidate and water down the supreme court which should be open to the best no matter what language they speak or do not speak.

So ill reiterate my point the majority of judges in all of Canada, to which the supreme court judges are selected from speak English as their native tongue.


Oh and BTW I am familiar with the differences in Civil Vs Common law.

[trey kule]

.....to quote you

Much like Quebec is ruled by Civil Law and the rest of the country ruled by the Common law.

Glad to know you consider that familiarity. love the word ruled! And your inference that civil law does not exist in the rest of the country. Maybe want to rethink that one.

The original thread, and I reiterate, was about the supreme court judges only,,,as that is what the debate right now is all about (in the news). I made no such claim as to all judges..Only the ones that were relevant to the topic. Thought I was pretty clear about that

The fact is, unilingual English judges are simply not chosen..As, I suspect, unilingual French judges are also not.
Bilingualism is a de facto requirment.

the debate, which was referred to originally, was exactly that the supreme court wants to exclude unilingual english speaking judges from the supreme court...NDP private member bill.

[Siddley Hawker]

Boiled down to the bare bones, the bill is a piece of left-wing feel-good crap that assumes competent judges cannot be found in the unilingual English or French community. That's it, that's all.

[Expat]

Boiled down to the bare bones, the bill is a piece of left-wing feel-good crap that assumes competent judges cannot be found in the unilingual English or French community. That's it, that's all.

...But they may be smarter if they speak more than one language...as I found out learning russian...three is even better