Lawyer and chartered accountant Jason Stephan is the United Conservative Party MLA for Red Deer South(This is part two of a multi-part series focused on increasing freedom and prosperity for Albertans.) Read part one here.My duty is to seek freedom and prosperity for Alberta families and individuals, their businesses, and workers. That means speaking the truth even if some do not like it.Canada’s Constitution is outdated, ineffective, and sometimes rigged against Alberta. It is broken and that is not good. A constitution is for a country what a foundation is for a house.But there are some who benefit from a broken constitution and will make personal attacks, and even lie to protect the status quo.Recently, I spoke of kings in our constitution – Albertans do not need to be ruled by a figurehead king or a de facto king in a foreign land, whether from a castle in England or Ottawa.Albertans need to rule ourselves.And protecting our freedom and prosperity compels us to confront other aspects of our constitution that cost more than benefit: Alberta does not need French..Constitutional mandate is outdatedEnglish is the language of Alberta, and that is good. English is the dominant language of international business, diplomacy, science, and technology. English is the closest we have to a universal language. And while it is always good to seek learning, including in Alberta, additional languages other than English, including French, those should be individual choices and preferences without government mandates.But under the rule of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Constitution was amended to mandate French as equal to English for the federal government and its institutions for ALL of Canada. This mandate constitutionally entrenched his Official Languages Act, prescribing how these mandates apply.Yet, outside of Quebec, fewer than 5% of Canadians speak only French and not English. The mandate was a bribe to Quebec — but Quebec refused to sign the Constitution, so why is it here?And in Alberta, fewer than 1% of individuals living in Alberta speak French and not English. In fact, French is not close to the most common first language other than English — Tagalog, Punjabi, Spanish, Hindi, and Mandarin are all more common.Thus, in Alberta, this constitutional French mandate is artificial and, like many government edicts, divorced from reality..Constitutional mandate is ineffectiveRecently, I read an article about how our Canadian Judicial Council was advocating that Canadian federal judges, making $415,000 a year, plus a pension equal to two-thirds of their salary at retirement, should get a $60,000 raise to attract “outstanding” lawyers. That is divorced from reality.But the article did not identify the biggest cause of this shortage, if it exists, and that is this: to be a judge in the Supreme Court of Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal, the Federal Court, and the Tax Court of Canada, he or she is required to be bilingual. Outside of Quebec, this French bilingual mandate is dumb. If we want more outstanding candidates, remove the bilingual mandate and the pool of qualified applicants will grow exponentially. There are many competent and moral lawyers, the more important qualifications, who speak only English and would be great judges, better than some of the current ones, but denied this chance to serve because this artificial French bilingualism mandate, with little relevance outside of Quebec, shuts them out.Thus, the shortage.But there are some in this club who like this barrier and will seek to keep it that way, even if it is contrary to the public interest..Constitutional mandate is rigged against AlbertaEvery year the federal government takes Albertans’ tax dollars and spends billions to artificially sustain this mandate through government programs, including minority-language education, second-language instruction, and subsidies for official language minority communities, bilingualism bonuses. All the costs for administering such programs, as well as costs for related policies, such as language training, evaluations, and the maintenance of bilingual services even where they are never, or almost never, needed.And who did Mark Carney appoint as Minister in charge of official languages? Steven Guilbeault. He is no friend of Alberta. And there is another subtle, yet more serious aspect to this mandate – the entire federal civil service is over-represented by Quebec, a perpetual taker in Confederation, and Alberta, the perpetual producer in Confederation, is under-represented in the entrenched federal bureaucracy in Ottawa.This is no surprise. Not only is the National Capital Region (Ottawa, Gatineau, and surrounding areas) along with other parts of Ontario and Quebec, where most of these jobs are situated, thousands of kilometers away from Alberta, but with Quebec having about 50% of its population as bilingual in French and English, and with Alberta only about 6%, the bilingual mandate produces a structural, systematic preference for disproportionately hiring more Quebecers and less Albertans.Is that by design? Did not Trudeau senior’s child, Justin Trudeau, say “Canada belongs to us [Quebec]”? He was right. .And under Justin Trudeau’s rule, the federal bureaucracy grew by over 40%. And with this entrenched workforce composition, with a natural tendency to hire one’s own, this underrepresentation of Alberta will persist as this constitutional mandate also persists.And while the federal government bureaucracy is supposed to be non-partisan, the CBC / Central Canada myopic federal government bureaucracy is not a neutral machine. It has its own culture, priorities, and biases which are often counter to Alberta’s values of freedom and prosperity. In matters of government policy, the devil is so often in the details, and it is in the details where the bureaucracy has power that can be abused.The federal government bureaucracy is unelected, unaccountable, and entrenched – and with many of these bureaucrats having values, attitudes seeking their own interests and powers – should we be surprised to see a pattern of indifference, and even arrogance and hostility, towards Alberta, its families, and businesses?Government mandated bilingualism has become less about communication and more about control.Alberta does not need French.Lawyer and chartered accountant Jason Stephan is the United Conservative Party MLA for Red Deer South
