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."
Disabled
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (60)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.
Obviously the Liberals know how to play politics. Too bad they don't know how to to run a province.
'Stupidity' on MP's Godin & Brian Murphy part to wade into this matter especially Murphy!! Thousands of weekly visitors flock to Moncton many of these just might go elsewhere if this escalates. Murphy's actions could hurt him at the polls. Combining Kelly Lamrock's massacre of the French Immersion fiasco, I can see a language backlash brewing.
Ask any true blood Acadian, most have no squabble with the way it is today. These same Acadians will more than likely point a finger to Quebecers as the nemisis. My wife worked at a call centre dealing with Quebec clients; she detests Quebecers as most rude & obnoxious. Dealing in 'french' with them, they would switch to English because they hated Acadian French.
I've tried learning French with no success. Trudeau screwed Canada forcing french rather than to fund full language in schools. Today, Canada would have bilingualism.
If you access that information on the web you will find that for every ten or more employees with a French surname there is only one Anglophone.
Why were the doors closed for English speaking people in government jobs in the first place? Why the ever pressing need for all these positions to be filled by only French people?
People can still be served in the language of their choice. For example if a unilingual answers the phone and it's an irate Acadian wanting to speak to a Francophone worker then the person is told,Please wait while I tranfer you. Or if an angryphone called in and wanted to speak with an Anglophone the Francophone worker would do likewise.
Simple solution, Everyone wins
BILINGUAL TODAY, FRENCH TOMORROW pursues the implementation of Canada's Official Languages Act to its logical conclusion-The colonization of Canada's nine English-speaking provinces, and of the national capital, by French-speaking Canadians.
"The primary and sole objective since Mr.Trudeau came to power has been to convert Canada to a French-speaking nation.That objective will remain until every city,town and village in Canada has become French-controlled."
"Strategy is based on one fact:many,many French-Canadians can speak English, but very few English-speaking Canadians can speak French."
"The way is obvious. Simply make each and every government job available only to those who can speak both languages."
"The way is obvious. Simply make each and every government job available only to those who can speak both languages."
"Since Mr. Trudeau came to power, the Federal Government has been sending agitators,paid by the Secretary of State's department,into every Canadian community outside Quebec in which there are any French-Canadians at all,regardless of how few. The purpose is to have the French-Canadian element demand that every service which is provided by the provincial, county and municipal governments be provided in the French language.They are told to demand that all policeman,bus drivers, telephone operators, hospital workers,provincial and municipal government workers be French-speaking. They are organized into pressure groups to demand that stores, banks, and business owners hire only French-speaking clerks,personnel managers and managers."
"One at a time,the provinces are crumbling."