Over 80% Back Proposal Tying Citizenship to Fluency in English or French
Last week Immigration Minister Jason Kenney caused a stir when he made the entirely sensible proposal that before an immigrant can gain citizenship, he
should demonstrate considerable fluency in either English for French. Indeed, how can the citizen wannabe participate and contribute if he can't
speak one or both of our official languages. I'd go as step further, we should not even be accepting immigrants who have thought so little of us as
to not have qualified themselves by learning OUR language.
"Immigrants should be able to speak either English or French before seeking Canadian citizenship, Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says.
His call for stricter language requirements comes as the federal government is looking for ways to improve their programs. "Someone who has been here 15 years and can't speak English or French is basically locking themselves out of the vast majority of jobs and is isolating themselves socially. That's a tragedy," Kenney said after speaking Friday at an immigration conference in
'I think we should look at ways where we can increase the requirements for linguistic competencies for immigrants and citizens.'
There are too many cases of people becoming Canadian citizens who can't speak either French or English, despite rules in place requiring competence in either official language, Kenney said. (
Anyway, a readers' poll in the Calgary Sun (March 22, 2009) shows that a better than four in five majority (81.22%) support requiring would be
citizens show proficiency in English or French.
Do you think immigrants should be denied citizenship if they don’t speak English or French well enough?
Yes:
(81.22%)
No:
(18.78%)
