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Because Canada has, for over two centuries, contained both English- and French-speakers, the question of the language used in the administration of public affairs has always been a sensitive issue. Among the aspect of this issue that have excited public attention from time to time are: *the perception of fairness or unfairness in hiring and promoting speakers of one official language over speakers of the other; *the choice of one language over the other for meetings, documents, and internal memoranda (which are sometimes collectively characterized as the work “environment”); *the promotion of bilingual job candidates over people who only speak only one or the other of the two official languages; *the availability (or lack of availability) of language training for public servants, who cannot advance without the ability to speak both languages; *the costs associated with language-based hiring and promotion practices, including the practice of paying a “bilingual bonus” to public servants capable of speaking both official languages; *the need to provide government services to some Canadians in English, and to others in French. ==Ratio of native English-speakers to native French-speakers== The issue of proportional hiring and promotion of speakers of both official languages has been an issue in Canadian politics since before Confederation. Members of each linguistic group have, at different times in the country’s history, complained of injustice when their group have been represented, in public service hiring and promotion, in numbers less than would be justified by their proportion of the national population. For the greater part of Canada’s history, French-speakers were underrepresented, and English-speakers were overrepresented in the ranks of the public service. This disproportion became more pronounced in the more senior ranks of the Public Service. However, this trend has reversed itself in recent decades. Today, French is the first official language of 23% of Canada's population,〔Statistics Canada Census 2011 data. "http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-314-x/2011003/tbl/tbl3_1-1-eng.cfm"〕 with 29.2% of Public Service of Canada employees identifying French as their first official language,〔Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat Annual Report on Official Languages 2010-2011. "http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/res/stats/demo11-eng.asp#toc01.2.c"〕 including 32% of management-level jobs.〔Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat Annual Report on Official Languages 2010-2011. "http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/reports-rapports/ol-lo/10-11/arol-ralo/arol-ralo06-eng.asp#toc5.0"〕 The first high-profile complaint of preferential hiring took place in 1834. One of the Ninety-Two Resolutions of the Lower Canadian House of Assembly drew attention to the fact that French Canadians, who at the time were 88% of the colony's population, held only 30% of the posts in the 157-member colonial civil service. Moreover, the resolution stated, French Canadians were, "for the most part, appointed to the inferior and less lucrative offices, and most frequently only obtaining even them, by becoming the dependent of those (immigrants ) who hold the higher and the more lucrative offices...."〔Resolution 75. ''Resolved, That the number of the Inhabitants of the country being about 600,000, those of French origin are about 525,000, and those of British or other origin 75,000; and that the establishment of the civil government of Lower Canada, for the year 1832, accordingly to the yearly returns made by the Provincial Administration, for the information of the British Parliament, contained the names of 157 officers and others receiving salaries, who are apparently of British or foreign origin and the names of 47 who are, apparently, natives of the country, of French origin; that this statement does not exhibit the whole disproportion which exists in the distribution of the public money and power, the latter class being, for the most part, appointed to the inferior and less lucrative offices, and most frequently only obtaining even them, by becoming the dependent of those who hold the higher and the more lucrative offices; that the accumulation of many of the best paid and most influential, and at the same time incompatible, offices in the same person, which is forbidden by the laws and by sound policy, exists especially for the benefit of the former class; and that two-thirds of the persons included in the last commission of the peace issued in the province, are apparently of British or foreign origin, and one-third only of French origin.''〕 With the advent of responsible government in the 1840s, the power to make civil service appointments was transferred to elected politicians, who had a strong incentive to ensure that French Canadian voters did not feel that they were being frozen out of hiring and promotions. Although no formal reform of the hiring and promotion process was ever undertaken, the patronage-driven hiring process seems to have produced a more equitable representation of the two language groups. In 1863, the public service of the united Province of Canada (which included both of the former colonies of Lower Canada and Upper Canada) had grown to include 450 officials at its administrative headquarters. Of these, 161 persons, or about 36%, were French Canadians. However, French-speaking civil servants accounted for only 20% of the total payroll, suggesting that they were mainly confined to the lower ranks of the colonial administration.〔J.E. Hodgetts ''Pioneer Public Service: An Administrative History of the United Canadas, 1841-1867.'' Toronto: Canadian Government Series, no. 7, 1955, p. 57.〕 In the period between 1867 and the turn of the Twentieth Century, French-Canadians made up about one-third of the Canadian population, and seem also to have represented about one-third of civil service appointments at junior levels, although they had only about half that much representation at most senior level.〔Eugene Forsey writes: “In the Dominion Civil Service, Côté’s ''Political Appointments'', 1867-1895, shows that, over that period, eliminating duplications, the French Canadians had rather over a third of the official of the House and of the two Dominion Courts; rather less than a third of other officials of the rank of Deputy Minister and, of the officials from Chief Clerk up to Deputy Minister rather less than one-seventh.” Source—Eugene Forsey, ''Freedom and Order: Collected Essays.'' Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1974, p. 243.〕 In general, it seems to have been the case that throughout the entire period between Confederation and the introduction of merit-based hiring and promotion in 1919, the percentage of French-speakers in the civil service relatively closely matched their percentage of the Canadian population because French-Canadians occupied a more-or-less proportionate share of cabinet posts, and they appointed public servants who were personally loyal to them. This so-called "spoils system" ensured a rough equity between members of the two language groups. A quarter-century after this system had been abolished, it was summarized as follows in a submission to the 1946 Royal Commission on Administrative Classifications in the Civil Service: In 1918, just before the reforms began, the percentage of francophones in the federal civil service stood at just under 22%. The drop in the percentage of French-speakers was in part due to the fact that the proportion of Canadians who were French-speaking was gradually declining; in the 1921 census, persons of French origin were down to 27.9% of the population.〔See Richard Joy, ''Canada's Official Languages: The Progress of Bilingualism''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992, p. 121 (Table 20).〕 As well, the Unionist government then in power had almost no representation in Quebec, which meant that for several years there were no French-Canadian ministers appointing and promoting their fellow French-speakers. The percentage of French-speakers would, however, drop much further as a result of the replacement of a patronage-based appointment system with a merit-based system that was largely based upon the ability to perform efficiently in English. By 1946, according to figures presented in the House of Commons, native speakers of French had declined to only 13% of public service posts.〔Canada, House of Commons Debates, 1946, 2nd Session, IV, 3520.〕 At the time, French-speakers represented slightly under 30% of the Canadian population.〔In the 1941 census, French was the mother tongue of 29.2% of Canada's population. See Richard Joy, ''Canada's Official Languages: The Progress of Bilingualism''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992, p. 120 (Table 19).〕 This seems to have represented the low point, in terms of inequitably low representation for Francophones within the Public Service; by 1964, French-speakers had risen to 21.5% of the Public Service (which itself had grown to 137,000 officials, meaning that 29,500 French-speakers were employed by the federal government).〔Canada, ''Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism’', vol. III, ''The Work World'' (Ottawa, 1969), Table 49, p. 210.〕 Although this represented a substantial improvement, French-speakers at this time represented about 28% of Canada’s population, and therefore continued to be underrepresented. Moreover, French-Canadians continued to be grouped at the bottom of the seniority scale: They represented 23.7% of junior employees earning less than $4,000 per year, but only 10.4% of senior officials with earnings in the highest category (over $15,000).〔Canada, ''Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism'', vol. III, ''The Work World'' (Ottawa, 1969), Figure 9, p. 212.〕 By the early 1960s, the issue of Canada’s seemingly perpetual inability to create an equitable distribution of jobs in the country’s rapidly expanding public service was becoming a key grievance underlying Quebec nationalism. In 1961, a Royal Commission studying the structure of the federal bureaucracy organized a special committee to study the issue of bilingualism within the Public Service. The Commission’s 1962 report included recommendations that the federal government “adopt active measures to develop bilingual capacities among its employees on a selective basis,” and that it more actively recruit qualified French Canadians who would have the potential to advance to the senior ranks of the federal administration.〔Canada, ''Report of the Royal Commission on Government Organization'', vol. I (Ottawa, 1962), p. 267.〕 In part on the basis of this recommendation, the government of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson established a Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which made language reform within the public service one of its highest priorities. Book III of the Royal Commission’s multi-volume report, published in 1969, recommended a radical redesign of the Public Service of Canada, in order to establish full equality between the two official languages in the federal administration, and a permanently equitable distribution of jobs, at all levels of seniority, between French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians.〔Canada, ''Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism'', vol. III, ''The Work World'' (Ottawa, 1969).〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Official bilingualism in the public service of Canada」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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