I apolgise. I must have a issue with your posts either missing the point or misinterpreting the subtext.

Be nice to each other

My fault for saying the Moncton is very French, I should have added a follow on that said "in comparison to Fredericton or Saint John"

now, now can't we have a decent conversation and discuss serious points without name calling.

An example of rudeness by the French.

Hubbie, PhD in Micro Electronics, goes to the University to hand in his resume to enquire about applying for a position. The girl at the reception is on the phone and is talking English - this call lasts a good 10 minutes. Hubbie then explains why he is there and hands over the resume - now are you sitting down - the girl then says to him in broken English, I do not speak English after having spent 10 minutes on the phone speaking very good English. She then goes to get another member of staff who also tells hubbie he can't speak English - yeah right.

I had a similar problem in Ottawa. I was handing in my resume to an agency and the girl asked if I was bilingual, when I said no, she actually twirled her chair round and turned her back on me.

To get a real decent paying job in Moncton, they give preference to the French, who hate to speak English, yet they got the job on the pretence of being bilingual.

We had friends who were both English and French, and they even admitted the favoritism given to the French and how many of the true French were very ignorant, and yes, there are ignorant English, but not so many.

This is only a point of view but supported by original Moncton residents.

Once you move away from Moncton you realise how French it actually is.

You find ignorant people like that everywhere, whether it's in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and even in New Brunswick!! Personally if they are going to be like that I wouldn't want to know them, let alone work for them. There is just no need for it, and ultimately life is to short, IMHO.

We're almost sure we want to move to Fredericton with two of our children, the third has already started a degree in UK. Just a bit concerned about work, although we're not that bothered about doing what we do now. I manage a social work team and my OH is a senior waste and recycling officer( as well as an army cadet instructor, which he would like to continue .
Any advice about getting into work would be appreciated.
We have been told by Canada House to expect our passports be be asked for in Dec/Jan. We would like to moved in the Spring.

Not sure about the army cadets, but you certainly can't get into the army unless you are a citizen or you have a special skill of which my hubbie has countless due to the regiment he served with. Guess what the special skill was - to speak Somali, yeah you read right. We even went as far as the Defence Minister to ask why they would not accept him, he wanted to serve his new country.

Have you had a look at the social work pages - we dealt with the ones in Moncton as we applied to foster, we would not give them a good feedback report. As far as I am aware you had to speak French there.

This may be true in terms of employment particularly with the better paying end and one obviously can't ignore that.

But in other aspects of life here English dominates, be it in population (65%), media (token French newspaper/radio), education (22 english schools - 9 French), health services(400 hospital beds to 273 at the French hospital), shopping, entertainment (1 French movie out of 15 currently showing, almost all presentations at the main theatre are Englsh language) etc etc

Even the Francais pages on kijiji the ads are in English except for a handful when it's specifically Dieppe related.

That's more accurate. But it's still only around a third and that third is likely perfectly capable of speaking English.

My total lack of French hasn't been of the slightest hindrance to me - not even in the "French" hospital or the Dieppe office of Service New Brunswick.

Since a third of the population speaks French and the province is officially bilingual it hardly seems surprising that a social workers would speak French. Conversational Somali hardly seems a viable substitute.

The Somali language was a requirement for the forces, not to live in NB.
Th one thing I regretted having planned to live in Moncton was putting my daughter in French Immersion. The Scottish school system is way more advanced than Canadian and when she arrived although she was in reality age wise grade 1 her education was evaluated at 3, but to ensure she caught up up in French she remained in 1. We eventually had to speak to the school as we felt her education was falling as they worked more on the French than the academics and even then not very good French - more learning words than putting it together. The teacher admitted they let the academics fall by the way as students could catch up on this area.

I must say though many of the Canadian mothers felt the same re the French - they admitted they had made a mistake selecting this option.

Thankfully though I believe they have now done away with this and children in the English speaking schools will take French later - although I can be corrected on this.