Without "Merit" where will we land up ?

[George Wallace]

I can see the days of "Nation Building" are fairly well lost forever.  Several Liberal policies in our past have come home to roust.  We no longer hire people on merit, but insist instead on them being bilingual.

Here is just one of the more recent examples:

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

Bilingualism blamed for Ottawa's recruiting woes

LINK

20/10/2009 4:56:00 PM


The City of Ottawa is having trouble finding a new fire chief and filling other top jobs because of a requirement that candidates speak both French and English, a city councillor alleges.


"What's happened is it's limiting the job pool. And there's no question about it," said Jan Harder, councillor for Barrhaven, Tuesday. "People are being very honest in telling me that."

Harder alleged that few candidates are applying and those who do are "less than desirable."

In the meantime, she said, the city has been without a fire chief since Bruce Montone retired four months ago and one of the city's directors has been doing two jobs while the parks and recreation director position remains unfilled.

The City of Ottawa's language policy requires people hired for certain jobs - especially senior positions and front-line service positions - to be bilingual.

However, Diane Deans, chair of the committee in charge of hiring a new fire chief, insists the city isn't limiting its pool of candidates based on the language requirement.

"We have not excluded anyone from either of our executive searches due to language," she said, adding that the city is taking its time looking for the perfect candidate and will soon be starting interviews.

She suggested it may be more difficult to find qualified people at the moment because people are afraid to leave a secure job for a new post when the economy is flagging or because the population is aging and older people may be less keen to switch jobs and cities.

Exemption possible

The city does have a policy that allows managers to ask city council for an exemption to the language requirement if they can't find a qualified candidate who is bilingual.

"And maybe we will," Deans said.

However, the city's francophone councillors don't like that idea.

"It's only used in exceptional circumstances," said Michel Bellemare, councillor for Beacon Hill-Cyrville. "And hopefully they're becoming fewer and fewer."

He added that the entire public and City of Ottawa benefit when the language requirement is enforced.

"Because we have at the end of the day administrators who are able to communicate in both official languages."

Clive Doucet, councillor for Capital ward, said one of Ottawa's greatest advantages is that it's a bilingual city and Harder's allegations are "a bit insulting."

Jacques Legendre, councillor for Rideau-Rockcliffe, said he finds it hard to believe that the language requirement is a barrier to finding successful candidates.

"I think it's a matter of searching properly."

 

[AC 011]

The City of Ottawa's language policy requires people hired for certain jobs - especially senior positions and front-line service positions - to be bilingual.

Why is bilingualism a "must" requirement for applicants?  IMO, this should be a desirable attribute.  If the ideal candidate doesn't have both languages, make mandatory language training part of the package.  If it comes down to two equally qualified, except that one is bilingual, then that would be the tiebreaker.

Not that I'll be applying.  I only know enough French to get myself slapped in a bar.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

I think I agree with George.  We've gone from "best man person for the job" to "best politically correct person who may or may not have the skills and experience to do the job" in some cases.

Personally, I am tired of calling federal government departments like CRA only to have my call answered by someone who doesn't speak either of our official languages effectively.  I only speak English.  Clear, concise English (well, PEI English atleast).  I thought that was one of our Official Languages but...apparantly not at CRA. 

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Merit as a qualifying factor for a government job?  When are they planning to start this?  Interesting as a concept but probably unworkable in practice.

 

[George Wallace]

Merit as a qualifying factor for a government job?  When are they planning to start this?  Interesting as a concept but probably unworkable in practice.

Why not?  Why do we have to hire on a "Quota" system?  Why do we need to hire a certain number of minorities (Race, Language, Religion, whatever) to reflect the demographics of the national population?  Why would X % of the Civil Servants hired in ........ say Yellowknife, have to be a same percentage as African descendants found in our national population?  Why would Civil Servants hired in Victoria have to be bilingual (English and French, as a person in Canada who may be multilingual, but not able to speak one or the other of the "Official Languages of Canada" is not considered "Bilingual")?

Get real Dennis.  Merit is not a qualifying factor in Canada anymore because of people like you who think that we have to mollycoddle minorities.  That is not how our forefathers built this country.  It, however, is how we are managing to destroy it.  Our problem is this "Political Correctness" that does not recognize merit over a Quota System.  It does nothing but breed more and more incompetence.

 

[Monsoon]

I think you may have swallowed the bait, George. He was either kidding or trolling.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

I think you may have swallowed the bait, George. He was either kidding or trolling.

Just a comment on the system.  Sorry - next time a smiley.  I am a believer in merit.  It seems that govennment isn't.

 

[Jungle]

How can somebody be "better qualified" for a job if that person does not meet some of the position's requirements ?

These rules have been around long enough that people should know; if you plan on applying for a govt job, learn the other language... it's not that hard if you make the effort. There is "merit" in being bilingual.

Sounds like some people are whining because the rules are not adapted to them...  :

 

[mariomike]

Incidentally, this job pays better than the Mayor's.
Which reminds me of an anecdote about Babe Ruth when asked how he could justify holding out for a higher salary than the President of the United States at the height of The Great Depression. "I had a better year than he did!", the Babe replied. 

 

[a_majoor]

Of course the quots system is mercilessly abused as well; recently Instapundit reported on a case in the United States where Asian students with SAT's of 1600 were denied admission to university while people of  other racial groups were being admitted with lower SAT's.

In Canada, this also produces weird and growing anomalies; Mandarin Chinese is now spoken by more people than French; why isn't it a requirment for government officials to speak any Chinese dialect? How about Hindi or Dravidian languages?

Frankly, in the Americas, the linguistic needs are English, Spanish, Portugese and then French, in that order. As noted, the place of French is becoming debatable as it is displaced by other linguistic groups.

So long as we remain comitted to systems that advocate arbitrary "group" rights over clearly defined individual rights, we will continue to see rulings like this and suffer the falloout as well.

 

[Monsoon]

In Canada, this also produces weird and growing anomalies; Mandarin Chinese is now spoken by more people than French;

Yeeaaah - I'm going to have to go ahead and ask for your references on that one. There are 5.5 million francophone Quebecers. The last time I checked, the relevant statistic said that there were more "asians" (of all extraction and language) than caucasians in Vancouver. You're probably looking at less than a half million Mandarin speakers.

 

[mariomike]

You're probably looking at less than a half million Mandarin speakers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoken_languages_of_Canada#Language_composition_by_Home_language

 

[Monsoon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoken_languages_of_Canada#Language_composition_by_Home_language

And going to the footnote (because "Chinese" isn't a language):

This includes 300,590 persons listed as speaking Cantonese, 143,385 listed as speaking Mandarin, 4,580 listed as speaking Taiwanese, and 341,480 speaking other dialects, or else simply filling out the relevant question on their census forms by noting “Chinese” without indicating a dialect. See Statistics Canada, 2006 Census Profile of Federal Electoral Districts (2003 Representation Order): Language, Mobility and Migration and Immigration and Citizenship. Ottawa, 2007, p. 8 and note no. 1 on p. 503.

 

[mariomike]

I was curious to know if our National Capital had yet hired or promoted a new Fire Chief. There's not much on their website, so I gave it a Google. I think the position is still vacant. I did come across the City of Ottawa Bilingualism Policy. I think it applies to all departments, not just Fire. FYI, if interested:
http://ottawa.ca/city_hall/policies/bilingualism_policy/index_en.html

 

[mariomike]

Update:
"New fire chief ‘best person for the job’: Hiring faced some criticism as deHooge not bilingual:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/fire+chief+best+person/2322944/story.html

 

[a_majoor]

Thanks for the number of Chinese speakers update. I finally found my reference in a crib note I took at a conference on recruiting trends, so obviously the speaker must have been extrapolating to some point in the future. Given our current demographic trends, this may actually start somewhere in the mid future (2020 and beyond).

There was a related story re finding qualified people in one of the newspapers in the last two days where a qualified woman has been constantly denied promotion to postmaster in a village near Ottawa despite being the only applicant five times, once again because she is unilingual. If no one else is qualified or wants the job, why deny the one qualified applicant?

 

[mariomike]

There was a related story re finding qualified people in one of the newspapers in the last two days where a qualified woman has been constantly denied promotion to postmaster in a village near Ottawa despite being the only applicant five times, once again because she is unilingual. If no one else is qualified or wants the job, why deny the one qualified applicant?

Is this the story you are referring to?:
"Postmaster loses job to language rules":
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/woman-becomes-the-postal-child-for-language-war-in-small-town/article1399154/
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Postmistress+knows+French+loses+English+Pakenham/2314279/story.html

 

[PPCLI Guy]

So long as we remain comitted to systems that advocate arbitrary "group" rights over clearly defined individual rights, we will continue to see rulings like this and suffer the falloout as well.

It may well be arbitrary, but it is also enshrined in the Constitution....

 

[Greymatters]

The problem is that although every job usually has ten or more points of skills/qualifications/experience that must be met in order to be hired, an applicant doesnt need to meet all ten points in order to be hired for the job.  He could be lacking a specific education level, have the wrong BSc, not enough experience in a specific industry, or any of a dozen other things.  However, language, specifically the 'bilingual' catgory is often treated as a deal-breaker, quite uneccesarily in my opinion, as a language can be learned after being hired just like any other skill or qualification. 


 

 

[George Wallace]

These people are worse than the fruitcakes at PETA.

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act. 

Ottawa accused of ignoring bilingual policy

20/12/2009 5:00:54 PM


The city of Ottawa is neglecting its francophone community and ignoring its bilingualism policy, says a francophone advocacy group.


Claudette Boyer, head of the Ottawa chapter of L'Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario (ACFO), told CBC News the city isn't following its 2001 policy that gives francophones the same rights and privileges as anglophones.

She said her group is furious that Mayor Larry O'Brien didn't attend the recent funeral of Jean Robert Gauthier, a local politician and advocate for francophone rights.

"We always have to fight for what we want. It makes me frustrated and disappointed that we always have to remind [people that] - oh, francophones are here," she told CBC News in a recent interview.

She pointed to other instances in which she believed the city was ignoring its own policy.

Earlier this month the city hired John deHooge as the city's new fire chief, even though he doesn't speak French. Under Ottawa's bilingualism policy, people hired for many jobs - especially senior positions and frontline service positions - are expected to be bilingual.

She also alleged OC Transpo was originally prepared to install a system that announces bus stops in English only, and only later opted to make it bilingual.

Olympic ceremony a sore point

Boyer said the final straw was a reception for the Olympic torch at city hall event on Dec. 12 - conducted entirely in English.

At the time, O'Brien acknowledged that the ceremony probably should have been bilingual and apologized to Ottawa's francophones.

Under the city's bilingualism policy the city must endeavour to offer services in both official languages.

"So please, read your policy again and stop giving us reasons why you changed it along the way. It's action we want," Boyer said.

Coun. Marianne Wilkinson said she regrets recent events, but added the city must be practical in how it applies its policy.

"There is a limit to how much we can do economically," said Wilkinson.

"The francophone population here is relatively small and we've made a huge effort to ensure that we have good services for them, but I don't think that means that every single thing we do has to be bilingual."

About 135,000 of Ottawa's 850,000 900,000 residents are francophones.

LINK





These are very closed minded poorly educated "pur Laine" who have never been taught the real history of Canada, nor have they travelled outside of their little racist corner of the world to experience life elsewhere.  I have met many francophones who have travelled the world, and/or not having been educated in Quebec, who really see no problems with our nation other than nut jobs who demonstrate because they claim to be oppressed.  :

These people give all canadiennes a bad name.