English Only?

 

The idea that illegal immigrants don't pay taxes is flawed. True, they don't pay income tax, although from my own experience of working among marginalised communities in London the majority would be happy to pay the same taxes as the rest of us if they could have legal status. However, governments have plenty of ways of raising revenue, and income tax is just the tip of the iceberg. Purchase tax is paid on most commercial transactions (VAT is 17.5% in the UK, I don't know about the USA) and illegal immigrants still need to pay fares on public transport, put gasoline in their cars and pay road tolls etc. In fact, illegal immigrants, in common with all of the poorer members of society, pay a far higher proportion of their income in indirect taxation than the more affluent. And of course, that brilliant con trick called supply side economics favours cuts in direct taxation for the already rich.

 

And as for public services; if your city, state or whatever has contracted these out to private enterprise you can bet your boots that at least some illegal immigrants are doing the lowest paid jobs. This is certainly the case in the UK, where even entry level employees in the immigration service have been found to be here illegally. That's right, the rubbish collection, street lighting and hospital cleaning that taxpayers get may well be done by non taxpayers.

 

And why do employers use illegal labour? It's cheap, non-unionised and pretty much infinitely replenishable. Agriculture is a great employer of off the books, casual labour - clamp down on that and watch prices shoot up, and then who'll shout the loudest? Those who blame everything on illegal immigrants.

 

 

On the main topic of this thread, though, I have a certain amount of sympathy with the restaurant owner. I have spent several years working with groups of immigrants to improve their language skills, and one of the biggest barriers to integration and legitimat employment is linguistic. The students who make the best progress are those who use their English outside the classroom, so encouraging this is not such a bad thing from that point of view. I'm not so comfortable with the way he puts his views across, but it's quite likely that the media are reporting this according to their own agenda.

 

I live in a part of the United States where illegal immigration is rampant.  While I can sympathize with the plight of many of the people that are illegals what is less understood is the plight they place on the states and the citizens of those states that bear the brunt of their presence.  Not many illegals working here pay taxes but yet are provided services that citizens who are paying taxes get as well. Their kids get public educations, their trash gets picked up, their cars are operated on the same roads, they receive street light service, subsidized public transportation  and on and on that taxpayers get. There is also the cost of printing bilingual signs and pamphlets, labels on bottles etc.  Budgets are put in place regarding the number of people living in a State and the amount of money they can collect for them. Most of the money illegals earn is sent out of the country to relatives in their homelands. This places the government of the states in debt where they now borrow money and pay interest on that debt to be paid for by the future taxpayers that reside there.

 

I don't blame the illegals for this at all but I do blame the employers who keep hiring these people at illegal wages with no health insurance to cut corners on their products to make a few extra bucks. 

 

If you think the guy is harsh driving through neighborhoods that hire illegals admonishing them to stop doing that you are wrong. All he is really doing is telling them to obey the law and quit exploiting these people.

 

I agree with him.

 

After the Iraq war started, I saw a restaurant put up a sign saying "No Americans". I didn't agree with the war but it wasn't right to discriminate against all Americans like this. The restaurant closed shortly afterwards.

 

First off what needs to be said is that as a private business owner he can refuse service to whoever he wants and if you don't like it, tough. He's well within his rights here, but is he being reasonable? Yes.

 

If I were to walk up to the window speaking in a language I made up, that nobody could possibly understand, should I expect him to serve me. No, it'd be impossible for him to because he simply can not understand what I'm communicating. He asks a simply request that residents of this country, speak the language of this country. He is doing these immigrants a favor as they can never assimilate if they don't learn the language. He reserves the right to refuse service, but that doesn't mean he always does. On the contrary he works with people trying to teach them how to work in English, but when its a busy time, and his organazation is based on speed(if you've never been there I can't explain how speedy the machine of Geno's runs) he can't be spending time deciphering what someone is trying to say.

 

To all those who have offered anecdotal evidence (aka worthless) of an American who traveled to another country and didn't attempt to learn the language, one rotten apple doesn't spoil the bunch. Some American refuse to speak in a foreign language while in other countries, therefore no American can expect a foreign person to speak in English when he comes to America? That logic besides being falty doesn't apply to the point here, the sign is directed at American citizens who refuse to learn the language.

 

His demand isn't all to hard to fufill. The ordering process at Geno's goes like this, the word cheesesteak is never said. You go up to the counter and say if you want onions or not, and what kind of cheese. Ex: to order a cheesesteak with American cheese and onions you say "American With" or to order a cheesesteak with Wiz and without onions you go up to the counter and say "Wiz Without". Two words, not especially hard for anyone to learn.

 

 

 

Ottawa is fully bilingual because across the river is Quebec

 

Northern Ontario is roughly 50% francophone and the Southern part (where the majority of the population is)has good minorities , but get not much respect. >> this is due to the separatism and a strong feeling "WE WOn The War , 200 yearts ago"

 

Manitoba is a real angular piece of antagonism in Canada's history: it was first french (and they lived common lives with Indians) but the worst exactions happened against those communities . Louis Riel (the french leader gone a little nuts about religion) is the trial is the darkest piece of history of the country

 

weakest french population is in Saskatchewan, >> Alberta and its oil boom attracts a lot of french speaking, but Albertans arte the most anti-french of all province >> redneck country

 

BC is surprisingmy with a strong French minority since the ultra liberal laws appeals to french speakers (growing the weed also)

 

 

 

out east, New Brunswick is 45% french (Acadians), while the other three provinces are less than 10%

 

BC is a cool place, I lived there for a few months.  I didn't encounter too many French though.  Perhaps if I had lived there longer and if I was older, I would have had a more conclusive experience.  I'd like to take advantage of the ultra liberal laws that this age. 

 

Yeah Alberta is full of rednecks.

 

I thought Ottawa/Kanata has a large percentage of French and English speaking citizens.  It's rarer out west like Manitoba, Alberta, and B.C. (especially in B.C.), but even though they aren't fluent, they can communicate on a minimal level in both languages. 

 

In B.C. you'll probably come across the fewest bi-lingual Canadians. 

 

Ottawa is fully bilingual because across the river is Quebec with over a quarter of the country's population.

 

 

Northern Ontario is roughly 50% francophone and the Southern part (where the majority of the population is) has good minorities , but get not much respect. >> this is due to the separatism and a strong feeling "WE Wnn The War , 200 yearts ago"  BS... and they expect peace...

 

Manitoba is a real angular piece of antagonism in Canada's history: it was first french (and they lived common lives with Indians) but the worst exactions happened against those communities . Louis Riel's (the french leader gone a little nuts about religion) trial is the darkest piece of history of the country.

 

The weakest french population is in Saskatchewan, >> Alberta and its oil boom attracts a lot of french speaking, but Albertans arte the most anti-french of all province >> redneck country

 

BC is surprisingly with a stronger French minority (as opposed to the Saskatchewan or Alberta) since the ultra liberal laws appeals to french speakers (growing the weed also)

 

 

 

out east, New Brunswick is 45% french (Acadians), while the other three provinces are less than 10%

 

 

 

 

 

I thought Ottawa/Kanata has a large percentage of French and English speaking citizens.  It's rarer out west like Manitoba, Alberta, and B.C. (especially in B.C.), but even though they aren't fluent, they can communicate on a minimal level in both languages. 

 

In B.C. you'll probably come across the fewest bi-lingual Canadians. 

 

I would like to write here just some words, not my words but I really think that peolple around the world doesn't needs guys like Joseph Vento.

 

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religon too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
In a brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say i'm a dreamer
But i'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

 

 Do you really live in Canada, or you want to make a good press of this country to the rest of the world?! Let's tell the truth to everyone who does not live here : There's about no English canadian who actually know french, and most of them don't give a f**k learning it, they even avoid it! I don't want ot generalise, I know there is a few exception (a few), and I don't want to apear racist, but that was a flagrant lie. Don't wait to the day Canada will respect french... uh...

 

 Something I hate here is a lot of english-speaker who comes to live here won't learn a single word of french. I'm not much aware of the spanish population in California, but the American/Canadian in Québec who refse to learn french is also problematic. Here we have laws to protect french (Québec's official language), but not all of them respect it. It's easy to complain off spanish communuity not learning english (although I believe a great ammount of them does). Here, when an American comes here, we got to serve him in english everywhere. If I went to the USA, I would have to do everything in english.

 

 If you want other nations to speak your language when they live in your country, start by learning other people language when you live in their.

 

 By the way, most Québécois speak english, probably over a half of the population speaks it fluently, even if a lot won't quit Québec.