Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, January 16, 2012

Bilingual spending costs $2.4 billion per year

OTTAWA — The requirement for bilingualism at the federal and provincial level costs governments $2.4 billion per year, according to a new report from the Fraser Institute.

Of that, the federal government is spending $1.5 billion, while the provinces spend $900 million — $623 million of that is in Ontario, the highest spending province.

"The issue we examine in this study is not whether bilingualism is good or bad policy, but the costs above and beyond that of providing education and other services in the majority language," Universite de Montreal economics professor Francois Vaillancourt said in a statement.

The study, titled Official Language Policies of the Canadian Provinces: Costs and Benefits, breaks down the costs associated with providing services in the minority language in each province — French through most of the country and English in Quebec.

According to the study's authors, the annual cost for providing bilingual services is centred around French-language training.

While Ontario spends the most of bilingual services, New Brunswick, Canada's only officially bilingual province, spends the second most annually at $85 million.

Quebec rounds out the top three with an annual bilingual cost of $50 million.

The study concludes that provinces with large francophone populations could reduce spending on services by contracting them out and instituting a user pay system.

Original Article
Source: Canada.com 

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