Quote:
Originally Posted by lrt's friend
You do not know the reality of the 1970s. I knew two people in my own family who 'left' their public service careers at that time because they were not bilingual.
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Again, this is based on the fallacy that being unilingual is an unchangeable status like the colour of one's skin.
So these people willingly left government jobs instead of taking a stab at learning French?
Hard to believe that, or at least to be sympathetic.
I was only a kid in the 70s but what I do know of federal bilingualism is that was an imperfect beast for quite some time. Unilingual people were grandfathered into their positions which often led to gaps or breakdowns in bilingual service delivery to the public (for example).
The approach was to "ease in" bilingualism, as opposed to saying "as of Monday, everything has to be bilingual, and if you don't speak French, you're out!"
There is also a semi-infamous test that public servants could (maybe still can) pass in order to get a semi-scientific confirmation that they are cognitively unable to learn a second language. Quite a few unilingual people have passed this test in order to get grandfathered into bilingual positions even though they do not meet the language profile of their job. I know a few people in my wider entourage who had this status as recently as five years ago.