Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada

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The Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada (APEC; German "Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada") was an association in Canada that opposed the Canadian government's policy of official bilingualism .

It was founded in 1977 by the state employee Irene Hilchie, who feared being discriminated against in her job because of her poor knowledge of French . The most famous member, however, was Jock Andrew, whose pamphlet Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow (something like "Today two-, tomorrow French-speaking") claimed that bilingualism was a government conspiracy to completely Frenchize Canada.

The group reached their greatest influence in the late 1980s when they contributed to the faulting of the Meech Lake Accord . The association also took part in a campaign recommending that Ontario communities declare themselves English monolingual in response to the French Language Services Act to protect the significant francophone population in the province. Although the Act did not affect the community at all, the APEC instrumentalized it as a dam-break argument for the alleged need for a one-sided anglophony of the communities.

The best-known example was such a resolution by the municipality of Sault Ste. Marie on January 29, 1990. In Québec this, along with other xenophobic incidents, was interpreted as a general attitude of Anglo-Canada towards the province of Québec, and the incidents contributed to the renewed awakening of the independence movement and thus to the Québec referendum in 1995 .

APEC also worked with the right-wing Confederation of Regions and the Conservative Reform Party of Canada , both of which shared similar views on bilingualism and the role of Québec in the Canadian Confederation .

APEC pretended not to be anti-French but believed that promoting official bilingualism would waste taxpayers money.

In February 2000, the headquarters of the organization moved to Toronto and changed the name to Canadians Against Bilingualism Injustice (CABI; German for "Canadians against bilingualism"). In 2001, the name changed again, this time to Canadian Network for Language Awareness ("Canadian Network for Language Awareness ").

In the 2000 general election , CABI spent over Canadian $ 150,000 as a registered third party. Most of it was used for advertising in the provincial newspapers. In the subsequent elections, no more activities were perceptible.

For years, APEC / CABI owned the address www.bilingualism.org, but the registration expired sometime between 2000 and 2010.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada: Change of name and relocation of head office . Canada Gazette . February 26, 2000. Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
  2. ↑ Supplementary letters patent (name change) (PDF) Canada Gazette Part I, p. 3872. October 6, 2001. Archived from the original on March 21, 2012. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
  3. ^ Third Party Election Advertising Report . Elections Canada. February 26, 2001  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.elections.ca