[LINK] "Moncton pressured for bilingual sign bylaw"

[rfmcdonald]

Good.. It's about time that the Canadian province of New Brunswick start looking bilingual, especially in the places where it has a bilingual population--and no, in case you're curious, of that province's two language communities the Francophones certainly aren't the ones content to ignore the other language community wherever possible. Getting bilingual commercial signage is the very least that a bilingual community needs, and it says a lot about prevalent attitudes towards language use (on the part of both communities) that French hasn't had a much more prominent role in one of the largest Francophone commnunities in Canada outside of Québec. I've blogged earlier about Dieppe, Moncton's Francophone-majority sister city; it's about time this happen in Moncton itself.

Dieppe passed a bylaw in May that all commercial signs must be in French and English. Now the group that lobbied Dieppe to impose the sign bylaw is pushing Moncton to follow suit.

Martin Leblanc-Rioux, who started the Dieppe sign bylaw push with a 4,000-person petition in January 2009, said Moncton declared itself officially bilingual in 2002 and now it has to do something about the fact that 80 per cent of all commercial signs are only in English.

A bilingual sign bylaw, Leblanc-Rioux said, would show to people outside of the city how the two language groups can coexist.

"We believe it is a strategic opportunity for Moncton," Leblanc-Rioux said.

"Bilingual signage would distinguish Moncton as an inclusive and diverse community, reinforcing Moncton's image as the perfect example that Canadian bilingualism is not only a dream, it is possible, alive and doing well."

[. . .]

New Brunswick is officially bilingual, but the province's language law does not cover the private sector. So any bylaw covering the language on commercial signs in municipalities must come from a local government.