Watch your language.

A5

Hanne Armstrong

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There are some places where government, at any level, has no business. The signage you or I may choose for a privately-owned, privately-run business, is one of these places.

But the municipal governments of Dieppe and Moncton are gleefully and righteously planning to stick their by-law-engorged noses into private business, making it illegal to post new or changed signs which are not either bilingual or French.

To me this isn't about English versus French, or equality. But while I'm on the topic, let me ask how it is that as Dieppe's by-law currently stands, it's okay to post a unilingual French sign, but not a unilingual English one? That's not equality. That's discrimination.

For over 400 years, Acadiens have thrived and survived in New Brunswick, even under the cruel and vindictive heel of the dispersal of the mid and late 1700s. Today French language and culture enrich the social fabric of the province, adding creativity, panache and perspective that a unilingual English society just doesn't have on its own. The cross-cultural acceptance and interaction between Moncton's and Dieppe's French and English populations makes this part of the province a dynamic and exciting place to live.

Why risk destroying that with legislation?

Because once you legislate something like the language of signs, you start an albeit unintentional ride down the slippery slope of acrimony and conflict.

Already, as I pointed out above, Dieppe's by-law is, in its effort to gain equality for the French language, discriminatory against English. See? Slippery already.

Then, at some point somebody's going to say, hey, the French is too small on that sign, or somebody else might say, look there's German on that sign, then English, and then French; let's make the law require French first. And gradually, because the language I speak is part of my gut and soul, my sense of who I am and where I come from, and because language laws of any kind call into question the legitimacy of those very personal things, I begin to feel slighted, threatened. In my own community, I begin to feel unwelcome, or at least less welcome, because my language isn't allowed to stand glorious and alone on a sign any more. And it's just a matter of time before the shit hits the fan.

Nor do language laws of the type proposed just violate emotionally. They violate on the level of human rights as well.

Let's look at a couple of scenarios. Let's say, for example, that I'm opening a door knob store, and for some inexplicable reason of my own, I only want to solicit English-speaking customers. I should have the right to post my signage accordingly, in English only. Same holds true if I want to attract only Greek customers, or Spanish-speaking ones. I should have the right to select my own branding style and language based on my own business desires and targets.

The United Nations agrees with me. In 1988 in Quebec, Bill 178 decreed that all signs outside a business be in French only, while those inside could be in English as well. In 1993, a CBC backgrounder on Quebec's language laws says, "the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that the law broke an international covenant on civil and political rights. A State may choose one or more official languages, the committee wrote, but it may not exclude outside the spheres of public life, the freedom to express oneself in a certain language.

If the UN thinks that as private citizen I have the right to post a sign in Swahili, then who are the councils of Dieppe and Moncton to gainsay this?

I think that promoting the public use of French is a great idea. In fact, when I first moved to New Brunswick some years ago I was taken aback by how few French signs I saw posted in and around Moncton. How odd, I thought to myself, that in this Francophone area I see almost no French signs. Still, the language throve, because I heard it and hear it still wherever I go. I'm even starting to sort out some of the accents and dialects, so different from the French I'm used to.

I'm not against French, or multiculturalism. Hell, I'm all for it. Like I said, it enriches a community. Nor am I some xenophobic Anglo; English isn't even my mother tongue. But what's at stake here, with this proposed language legislation, is the right of each and every person in the community to choose for him or herself what goes on the sign outside their business. And frankly, the councils of Dieppe and Moncton have no damned right telling me that I can or cannot include or exclude any language I want on my own property. It should be up to me. To you.

Watch your language.