I keep thinking about moving there, actually - I checked out their immigration requirements a few years ago (I suppose I should re-check in case they changed a lot) and all I needed was some savings and a job lined up. I qualified on all the other bits. Only problem is that I can't take all my loved ones with me, and they don't want to come :-(
Actually one needs to speak English or French. There is a fairly small points bonus for being bilingual. In reality Canada isn't bilingual at all. One province even makes English illegal in certain contexts. To the best of my knowledge, no province has banned the use of French.
Seriously, the Federal government and the governments of New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba are required to offer services in both languages. That's as far as it goes. Speaking French in Vancouver is about as useful as speaking Swedish in Milan.
And lest you blame this more or less bilingual immigrant I would point out that both my children were educated in French immersion programmes. However the experience of an educated middle class immigrant in a major urban area is just not typical at all.
This isn't quite the whole story for academics; a few universities (I know UofOttawa, and I think also Concordia, maybe) require faculty to be able to teach in French and in English. It's one of the reasons I'd not want a job at UofO, even though I kind of like Ottawa.
Sure, there are jobs where one needs to be bilingual (most any customer facing job in Montreal for example) and a couple of bilingual institutions like U of Zero but in general I'd say Canada is much, much less bilingual than a lot of people overseas imagine.
Yes, that's certainly true. I kind of feel like I should learn French, but that's mostly because I would vaguely like to imagine going on vacation in the one part of this country that has artisanal cheeses and being a little more able to communicate. But even then, I'd probably be ok with a smile and my English.
These days, it requires a fair amount of effort on your part: it's harder than in the past, as George W. Bush is our most useful recruiting person. Lots of US academics are trying to move here...
You heard the one from a week or so ago where the passengers on a plane didn't like the colour of the skin of a couple of fellows who got on, so they all walked off and the flight was cancelled and the two were taken in and asked if they were planning to blow the plane up, yes?
One of the choice quotes from a scared passenger on that one was that it was all very civilised, no one yelled names or anything, they all just got off. Right. Because it's only racist if you're rude about it.
I had heard that because they were talking Urdu (ie a language that the other passengers couldn't understand), they thought they might be terrorists.
Although I think that being made to remove an "offensive" t-shirt is worse, since it was undertaken by people in authority. I kind of expect people-in-the-street to be ignorant, but I would hope that security guards at an airport had some kind of better behaviour.
rparvaaz has pointed out this article about some Indian citizens who were arrested on a flight from Amsterdam (http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=313649&rel_no=1&back_url=).
matgb pointed me to theweaselkingHERE (http://theweaselking.livejournal.com/1886421.html) which has a link to the original story - in the terrorist's t-shirt wearer's own words (http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2006/08/back-from-mideast.html).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:14 pm (UTC)*nudges Anglo Canadians around her*
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:25 pm (UTC)Seriously, the Federal government and the governments of New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba are required to offer services in both languages. That's as far as it goes. Speaking French in Vancouver is about as useful as speaking Swedish in Milan.
And lest you blame this more or less bilingual immigrant I would point out that both my children were educated in French immersion programmes. However the experience of an educated middle class immigrant in a major urban area is just not typical at all.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:52 pm (UTC)And you do need Swedish in Milan when you're showing the J. Lindeberg autumn collection...
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 02:13 am (UTC)And it looks like you need near-perfect Swedish. Not just any Swedish will do.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 03:52 pm (UTC)One of the choice quotes from a scared passenger on that one was that it was all very civilised, no one yelled names or anything, they all just got off. Right. Because it's only racist if you're rude about it.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 04:03 pm (UTC)I had heard that because they were talking Urdu (ie a language that the other passengers couldn't understand), they thought they might be terrorists.
Although I think that being made to remove an "offensive" t-shirt is worse, since it was undertaken by people in authority. I kind of expect people-in-the-street to be ignorant, but I would hope that security guards at an airport had some kind of better behaviour.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 04:54 pm (UTC)terrorist'st-shirt wearer's own words (http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2006/08/back-from-mideast.html).no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 06:23 pm (UTC)people here in the US don't understand these things about constitutional rights
... which probably makes it easier to take those rights away.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-30 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 03:29 am (UTC)If anyone is interested in a T-shirt like the one that Raed Jarrar was made to remove, it's available here on a pay-what-you-can basis:
http://www.aawnyc.org/