CBC, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, April 28, 2009
Lieutenant Governor Barbara Hagerman, Edmond Richard St. Thomas Aquinas Society and PEI Premier Robert Ghiz
A French cultural group on P.E.I. is disappointed the Confederation Centre Library is falling short when it comes to offering assistance to francophones, but the province doesn’t see the problem.
‘We certainly have received no complaints or concerns at the Confederation public library.’
— Harry Holman, Department of Culture
The provincial library recently added Chinese materials and hired a temporary staff member who speaks both Mandarin and Japanese in reaction to an influx of immigrants from China, but no one on staff is considered fluent in French.
Edmond Richard, president of the St. Thomas Aquinas Society, said not being able to cater to francophones in the province’s largest library just isn’t right.
“As a francophone I’m a little disappointed, because there’s francophones from all over the Island and all over Canada that do pass there, so I think that it is a problem,” said Richard.
Harry Holman, director of culture, heritage and libraries with the province, said while there are some staff who can speak French at the library, he doesn’t feel it’s necessary to have anyone who’s officially bilingual. He noted all the province’s French library materials were moved to the Carrefour in Charlottetown and the other two provincial French libraries at the request of the French community.
“We certainly have received no complaints or concerns at the Confederation public library, because of the quality of services that we have been able to offer at the Carrefour,” he said.
As for the Confederation Centre, Holman said the province can’t afford to hire bilingual staff, and even if it could, bilingual librarians are hard to find.
tongue in cheek
since when is it that much more expensive to hire bilingual staff?Is it cheaper to hire staff who are bilingual in the sense that they can speak english and mandarin or japanese? What a crock of shit that is Mr. Holman!!!!!
NJN Editor
I told Ghiz they shouldn’t keep Holman. He was a creep for the Tories. Now he’s a creep for the Liberals.
Harry Holman was the one who did all of Elmer’s dirty work. Pat Binns and Elmer were so mad about the “Where did the Money go” with the Mars Hill music that they threatened not to pay them at the Halifax ECMA’s.
Mars Hill had no gas money to get back to Montreal so they caved in and said they didn’t agree to the song use. I’m going to dig that story up and re-print it.
There’s going to be a lot of do-do flying around over the ill-gotten gains at Music PEI. Can’t wait.