Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!ead
From: ead@tmsoft.uucp (Elizabeth Doucette)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Canada: Minority rights
Message-ID: <1989Aug9.015826.3921@tmsoft.uucp>
Date: 9 Aug 89 01:58:26 GMT
References: <632@philmtl.philips.ca> <6723@cognos.UUCP> <1989Aug5.143527.22467@tmsoft.uucp> <640@philmtl.philips.ca>
Reply-To: ead@tmsoft.UUCP (Elizabeth Doucette)
Followup-To: can.general
Distribution: can
Organization: EAD MoneyHealth Inc, Toronto, Canada
Lines: 42

In article <640@philmtl.philips.ca> tremblay@philmtl.philips.ca (Michel
J. Tremblay) writes: 
 
>In article <1989Aug5.143527.22467@tmsoft.uucp> ead@tmsoft.UUCP
(Elizabeth Doucette) writes: 

>>As Michel J. Tremblay has explained in a follow-up article, immigrants
>>can choose where they will live but their children must attend French
>>school (unless one of the immigrants had attended English elementary
>>school in Quebec).
>           ======
>
>school in Canada. In some cases foreign English schools are acceptable.
>          ======

Just to make this very clear, Michel's comment of "In some cases
foreign English schools are acceptable" is the exception and not the
rule.  Quebec has no official policy that exempts anyone.  However,
Quebec has been giving the U.S. exemptions (in an earlier posting I
mentioned the preferred treatment given to the U.S. regarding the film
distribution industry) over other countries, including other provinces
in Canada.  If in the above comment he means that parents educated in
English in Canada can send their children to English schools in
Quebec, this is NOT true.  I was educated in New Brunswick and I could
not send my children to an English school in Quebec.

I think that it is a privilege to be bilingual, trilingual, etc.  I
think it is a wonderful opportunity for children to be exposed to more
than one language.  I listen to French radio in Toronto but it is not
as good as French radio in Quebec, because there isn't as much choice.
Many of my relatives and friends in Quebec, N.B., P.E.I. and Ontario
are educating their children in French.  They don't want their
children to not get a job, in the future, because they are not
bilingual.  But they are also doing this because once a child knows
two languages, it is much easier to learn a third and a fourth.
It is nice to visit another country and be able to speak their
language.  The son of one of my friends (in Montreal) spoke french,
english and spanish by age 8.  But, I don't like government
legislation making it a crime to use whatever language a person or
business chooses.

Elizabeth