frank theriault wrote: > On 8/7/07, Daniel J. Matyola <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > <snip>> >> I have also noticed that most of Canada has bilingual road signs and >> other public signs. In Quebec, however, almost all the signs are in >> French only. >> > > Here, we run into an issue of Federal/Provincial jurisdiction. > > On a Federal level, Canada is officially bilingual. > > On a Provincial level, only New Brunswick is officially bilingual. > Quebec is officially French, and all other provinces are officially > English. > > ~Most~ roads are a Provincial responsibility, so the Province can > choose the language of signs. In Quebec, it's almost all French > (although in a very few tourist areas there may be some English). In > New Brunswick, all road signs will be bilingual. In the rest of > Canada, there may be some French on road signs, at least in > francophone areas, but English will predominate. > > I don't know what part of "most of Canada" you've been in, but here in > Toronto (Canada's largest city) there ain't speck of French to be > found on road signs; the same can be said of Southern Ontario, except > perhaps around Ottawa and near the Quebec border. > > Okay, I said ~most~ roads are provincial, however, some larger > highways (ie: the Trans Canada Highway) are of significant national > importance that they're a federal responsibility, and hence signage > will bilingual. > > Beyond roads, basically any Federal installation will be bilingual > (gov't buildings, monuments, some museums, etc). Here in Ontario, > many such institutions will be bilingual, for instance, the Royal > Ontario Museum has bilingual signage, but I'm pretty certain that's > not so much a provincial mandate as it is a courtesy to a significant > population. > > Private institutions can be any language they want, except in Quebec, > where it's actually illegal to have English signage (due to the > infamous Bill 101 - Quebec's "Charter of French Language Rights" > instituted by a Separatist government in the 70's - subsequent > federalist governments have not revoked the Bill, so as not to stir up > separatist sentiment). > > cheers, > frank > > >
Actually Toronto's slowly getting bilingual signage, at least for any conditional restrictions, after a fairly ridiculous traffic court decision a few years ago (A francophone got out of a 'no left turn' ticket because he noted the restricted times were only posted in English. Great lawyer, silly judge). Not much is up yet, but you occasionally see them. Ontario government institutions have bilingual signage due to the Province's french minority (especially up north, where the French population is around 30% of the total). Quebec doesn't actually ban other languages on private signs, but the lettering can only be half the size of the French lettering. -Adam -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
