MPs back Dieppe sign fight
Published Saturday June 27th, 2009
Law student pushing Dieppe city council for bilingualism bylaw for business signs
Efforts to force Dieppe businesses to include French and English on all their interior and exterior signage, by way of a municipal bylaw, won the support of two federal politicians yesterday.
Brian Murphy, Liberal MP for Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe, and Yvon Godin, New Democrat MP for Acadie-Bathurst, have both endorsed Martin LeBlanc-Rioux, a McGill University law student from Dieppe, in his continuing bid to get city council to adopt a city language bylaw.
LeBlanc-Rioux started the process last fall and in January presented a petition to council with 4,016 names supporting a bylaw. At the time, city council was non-committal on what to do with the petition but said they'd study the proposal.
LeBlanc-Rioux said he's trying to make sure French is kept prominent in Dieppe -- a city which tags itself as the Acadian capital of the world.
Dieppe businesses with interior French or bilingual signage were recorded at 39 per cent in 2005, growing to 73 per cent in 2007. With exterior signs, the number went from 45 per cent in 2005 to 72 per cent in 2007.
LeBlanc-Rioux said a language bylaw would force national chain stores, which might not respect or recognize Dieppe's demographics, to abide by rules.
Murphy and Godin said they hoped their added voices would encourage councillors to speed up the process of making a decision.
"Dieppe could be the example for the province," said Godin, suggesting the city could serve as an example to other cities and towns in the New Brunswick -- Canada's only officially bilingual province.
Moncton -- Canada's only officially bilingual city -- has 80 per cent of its business signs in English only, with two per cent in French only and 18 per cent in both official languages, according to the findings of the New Brunswick Council on French Language Planning.
Murphy, a former mayor of Moncton, said Dieppe could be an example to the city next door.
"Maybe it's something that the City of Moncton will think in its wisdom is a very positive thing," he said.
Murphy said New Brunswick's French-speaking community has waited long enough to see language equality exhibited in the front windows of businesses, and not just on the written papers of laws, bills and motions.
"It leaves open whether there should be a renewal of provincial policies with respect to official bilingualism," said Murphy.
Both Murphy and Godin brushed off suggestions the provincial or federal governments would intervene in forcing a language bylaw on municipalities.
However, they're still calling on Dieppe to lead the way.
Calls made to Dieppe city hall yesterday were not returned.
LeBlanc-Rioux said he was confident the city was taking his proposal seriously, but hoped for an answer sooner rather than later.
"I didn't want a doctor's thesis," he said. "I wanted a bylaw."
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I have more French Acadian friends than I do Anglophones.
It's the extremist groups that I have a problem with.
Most of them are sent to New Brunswick by Quebec to stir up one situation after another and their sole purpose is to create disharmony between English and French.
By the way I am having a really hard time posting this comment as the Times Transcript won't allow it to get through.
One more thing on laws like these, if you force someone to do something they don't want to do, the more reluctant they are to do it and if they are forced to do so, it drives a bigger stake between our cultures and differences but if we are free to make our own choices on how we run our lives and business' the more likely we are to accept and respect our differences.
She told me these officers who of course were both French knew she was English and yet spoke to each other in French and she had NO idea what they were saying.
Now we all know that had this been a Francophone this would have went all the way to The Supreme Court of Canada.
"Justice delayed is justice denied" and if English speaking people just sit on their butts and do nothing then we will continue to lose all of our rights!
And if we are blind enough to allow that to happen then maybe we deserve it.
Please don't put all Acadians in with the politicians who are doing this. This Acadian DEFINETELY DOES NOT AGREE with the signage rule and I am sure I am not the only one.
This book openly attacks Anglophones with direct, false, misleading and hate filled statements and revisionist history. The book is penned in such a manner that the reader is to interpret its slanderous falsities as facts.
It is a clear attempt by the author to spread hatred toward the Anglophone minority of Quebec-and Anglophones around the world.
This book clearly violates Canadian law-The Criminal Code of Canada, Sections 319(2) and 319(7) which clearly state:
C.C. section 319(2) makes it a crime to communicate, except in private conversation, statements that wilfully promote hatred against an identifiable group. Section 319(7) defines “communicating” to include communicating by telephone, broadcasting or other audible or visible means. “Public place” is defined to include any place to which the public has access as of right or by invitation, express or implied. “Statements” include words spoken or written or recorded electronically, electromagnetically or otherwise and also include gestures, signs or other representations.”
Source; D.A.A.Q.
The NB French language lobby needs a champion that holds political office in order to make this happen. They need a Pierre. Without one, they must rely on democratic norms to realize their goal and apparently democratic norms don’t favour it. So who are the 4016 people on the petition list? Stats Can put the population of Dieppe at 18,585 (2006), 15175 over the age of 15, though voting age is 18 so that’s what matters here. Is it any wonder then, that Dieppe law makers are resistant to this idea? Less than 1/3 of the population of Dieppe supports it!