By Qalina Tileli
GATINEAU – Maybe that’s why it thinks it’s popular.
Sun News in general, and Brian Lilley in particular, is never afraid to denounce bilingualism as social engineering.
Even though speaking more than one language is generally a valuable skill which helps sharpen other senses, the Sun News pundits just can’t stand it. He makes it clear in this whiny tirade “Trudeaupian bilingualism gone too far”.
Which is too bad, since studies show that successfully mastering multiple tongues is positively correlated with success in other fields. Learning French might help Sun News pundits improve their math.
” St John’s, Newfoundland, population 179 000, French population according to Stats Canada, 535, that’s just, 0.2 percent of a percentage point. Put another way one twentieth of a percentage point. One twentieth of one percentage point of the population is francophone.” (around 03:43)
Well, actually, the math shows that 0.3 percent of the population is francophone, but that’s not the real mathematical blunder in this rant.
0.2 percent is not equal to one twentieth of a percentage point. It is actually one fifth of a percentage point. One twentieth of a percentage point would be 0.05 percent.
I don’t know how school worked when Lilley was a kid, but I started learning fractions in the fourth grade.
So, does Brian Lilley know less about math than a good deal of elementary school children? Or does he just read off a teleprompter that scrolls the words of a mathematically inept writer?
Or is Sun News well aware that this is an error that wouldn’t pass on a math pop quiz, but thinks its audience is so stupid they won’t bother to do the math themselves?
Either way, it’s insulting. A man like Lilley, who apparently doesn’t understand basic arithmetic, can score a gig on Prime Time television while thousands of citizens are out of a job.
Welcome to Stephen Harper’s Canada!
eclipsenews 