Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Two Montreals

Charter of Ville de Montréal

CHAPTER I
CONSTITUTION OF THE MUNICIPALITY
1. A city is hereby constituted under the name “Ville de Montréal”.
Montréal is a French-speaking city.

Montréal is the metropolis of Québec and one of its key actors as regards to economic development.

There it is, written for all to see, the declaration by the city itself that Montreal is French, a declaration which was untrue when it was written and which remains an outlandish lie today.

The uncomfortable reality for those who propagate this myth is that Montreal was conceived and built by the Scots and the English, with the Irish contributing most of the heavy lifting. Strolling down Ste. Catherine Street, it's no accident that almost all the cross streets honour those Anglos who built our metropolis.
Bishop, Crescent, Mountain, Drummond, Stanley, Peel, Metcalfe, Mansfield, McGill, University, Union, Phillips, Aylmer and City Councillors.
Fourteen streets in a row, representing the heart and soul of downtown Montreal and every one of them named for our historical Montreal Anglophone community. How come?

The great lie that Montreal is a French city rests on faulty statistics and decidedly wishful thinking, propagated by language fantasists living in unreality.

Pumped up artificially by coercive language laws meant to hide Montreal's true English face, separatists cannot stomach that the English language and its culture endures and thrives.
As these language militants they themselves admit (when they have the crying towel out), Montreal is made up by about 50% of its citizens whose mother tongue is French, with the balance split almost perfectly between English native speakers and ethnics speaking a variety of languages.
As for cultural assimilation, the 'ethnics' split their loyalty (much to the chagrin of French language militants) about 50/50 between the English community and the French community. The real language demographic has the city about ⅔ French and about ⅓ English.
This is the reality of modern Montreal.

But consider this;
Montreal is really two cities living side by side. There isn't a Berlin wall bisecting the two, but the division is as real as can be.

Running north/south is the boundary street of St Lawrence Boulevard, splitting the city rather neatly into two  halves. On the east side, you'd be hard pressed to find an anglophone. It's a part of the city that few tourists visit, because quite frankly, there isn't much to see or do over there. As I said, the population is almost completely francophone (except for the Italians in St. Leonard and Anjou.) Here francophones live with those ethnics who have assimilated into the francophone side of the language equation, the Arabs from the Mahgreb, the creole speaking Haitians and various French African immigrants, as well as a small peppering of South Americans who seem as a community to have chosen French.

Olympic Stadium-A mediocre symbol defining its neighbourhood
I won't spend time running down the east, suffice to say it is the denizen of the Mario Beaulieus and Louis  Prefontaines. It is the Plateau Mont-Royal and Amir Khadir. It's one recognizable symbol, the monstrous Olympic stadium, is a testament to hubris and incompetence and everything else that's bad about Montreal.

The western part of the Island is a completely different story. It's the Montreal that owns the downtown core, great universities and colleges, Mont Royal Park and quite frankly, anything of value that is Montreal.
It is as different from East Montreal as one can imagine.

Here the Anglos exist in numbers equal to the French speakers and it's where the ethnics are aligned with the English. The Indians, Tamils,  Pakistanis, the Jamaicans and others from the islands. From the downtown core out to the western tip of the island, its a whole other ballgame.
This is the Montreal that the world sees and understands, a cosmopolitan, bilingual and exciting urban scene that is by any standard, world class.

Our Montreal - the west
This Montreal is unaffected by dimwit language purists, it is a place of innovation and experimenters, both English French and ethnic. It is vibrant and exciting and most Canadians will admit that its the most exciting place in the country.

One Saturday night as the hockey game, at the then Molson Centre let out, the crowds surged out of the building onto the surrounding streets as per usual.
At the corner of Ste. Catherine and Metcalfe a left-turning cab cut me off as I was crossing the street and immediately got snared in a jam. As the cab sat in the middle of the intersection, the back window rolled down to reveal two fans bedecked in Maple Leafs jerseys, obviously in town for the hockey game. The one sitting by the open window looked out and sheepishly apologized for the driver's rudeness.
It bowled me over.
"Wha??..." I retorted, "Listen, friend. This is Montreal. You don't apologize!"

This Montreal has its very own rules. Pedestrians jaywalk and cars run through red lights. Crosswalks exist, but like the batters box in major league baseball which are duly painted before each game, only to be erased by the umpires, don't count on anyone respecting them. Montreal must be the only place on Earth that has signs under the traffic lights, reminding drivers to wait for the 'green.'

There's an edginess to this Montreal that is hard to describe. This Montreal, contrary to what we are told, may be the most bilingual place on earth, where locals flick between French and English depending on whom they are addressing. It isn't only a place where people can speak two languages, it is a city that actually operates in two languages. Bar conversations are bilingual, even among friends. The intermarriage (or shacking up) rate is high.
No Anglo would ever use the word 'corner store' when 'depanner' is so much easier and it's where francophones describe those whom they dislike as 'loosers' (notice the anglicized and francized spellings of both words.)

If you want perfection, go to Toronto, a city described to me once, quite appropriately by a Montreal expat as the "Kraft Dinner City" (for its originality.)
Almost everything great in Canada originated in Montreal. No doubt Toronto can do it bigger and better and I'm sure that one day they'll have a BIXI system that will outstrip ours. By then we'll be on to something else. We are the innovators.
Before you detractors out there say it, I'll admit, we can't run a hospital decently and have a dysfunctional government to boot.
Montreal isn't easy.
Detractors will remind us about  potholes, riots, the disorganization and the tension.
But the Chinese have a saying- 'In danger there is opportunity'. In Montreal, we can say that "In chaos there is creativity."
Montreal endures as the greatest place in Canada for creativity and innovation and in two languages to boot. Hip and cutting edge.

This is the Montreal that is Arcade Fire.

When French language militants say the the music group isn't representative of Montreal, they are talking about the Montreal on the other side of St. Lawrence Boulevard. In that respect I agree with them.

But Arcade Fire is exactly what our Montreal is.

When language hardliners cross the border from the East into downtown, they are outraged. While forced artificially to adopt a French face because of Bill 101, the reality that English dominates becomes self-evident rather quickly. For French language hardliners its a hard pill to swallow.

The hotels, the restaurants, the hospitals, the schools, the bars, the stores, the airport.
English, English, English ......Too bad for French language fantasists...

Next time you hear a language militant complain that Arcade Fire doesn't represent the true face of Montreal, point them to the East, kick'em in the arse and tell them to get out of our Montreal...

55 comments:

  1. The east end is an unknown part. Undefined one. No man's land. Nothing to do with Canada. A foreign rotting part in a healthy multilingual body. To heal the body we have to remove the bad part of it.
    Mario MALlieu and Louis DANSLESfontaines? Are they typical east end dishes? Double-headed east end creatures unknown to researchers? Mah...

    WESTALLOPHONE++

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  2. What a pathetic, self-absorbed, biased, ignorant and thoroughly racist rant. How in the world are we supposed to take you seriously when you post drivel like that. You are 10x worse than anybody on the "other side" you so frequently like to bash.

    English=good, French=bad... ugh... good luck with you crusade.

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  3. LOL @ Anonymous 8:59am! The truth hurts!

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  4. Not at all, Anonymous... Not a rant at all... I'm not Mario Beaulieu and Louis Prefontaine or you. You know: you rant because your life sucks; I never rant because because my life is bright.
    Never said what you wrote "English=good, French=bad"... A bit paranoid, eh?
    Nothing to do with language at all or money, but with mentality.
    West=productivity and positivity, East=on aime être pauvres et se sentir persecutés par le monde...
    That's the only difference...

    WESTALLOPHONE++

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  5. "Next time you hear a language militant complain that Arcade Fire doesn't represent the true face of Montreal, point them to the East, kick'em in the arse and tell them to get out of our Montreal..."

    hahaha i love that line, it should be standard policy!

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  6. Detractors - You are all facing east. Now march.

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  7. Very funny post.

    Should we just get rid of the francos! I don't like them, the have a culture, history and are different. They don't want to be just like us: speaking only one language.

    Comon guys, travel a little bit. It's a very good point that there is a french territory. Indian should have their own country to! That is the future.

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  8. Also of note, this charter was written by a PQ government, not by the city itself. What do u expect from a PQ led gov, mind you Charest would do the same, he is so lame.

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  9. Editor: This is one of your best articles ever! It describes the bilingual nature of Montreal very accurately. A+

    @ Anonymous : you obviously didn't read carefully.

    French = good ; Idiotic French militants = bad

    "English=good, French=bad... ugh... good luck with you crusade."

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  10. "This isn't an opinion piece moron. It mainly just states the way things are."

    Faux.

    La réalité est que Montréal a le statut officiel de ville Francophone et plus le nombre d'anglos augmentera plus la loi 101 prendra de la vigueur.C'est la vie...Faudra apprendre a lire en Français mes amis.HA!

    Petit lexique 101 pour les anglos:

    Arrêt = Stop
    Beigne = Donut
    SAQ = Liquor store
    Bière = Beer
    Anglais = Square head
    Restaurant = Restaurant
    Poulet = Chicken
    Policier = Policeman (or cop)
    Tasse = Cup
    Deuxième tasse = Second cup




    Arr

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  11. I an agree with a lot of this post, I hear you, but there are exceptions. Great parks like Lafontaine and Maisonneuve. Rosemont is a nice place to live.
    But most importantly, I lived in the Plateau for about ten years, it is voted the best neighborhood many times over because it is has a great deal of character, wonderful restos, etc. so do not write off the E of the island please.

    But the City's charter (draughted by the franco-supremacist élite that got sucked in with the power-vacuum from the Exodus) is definitely a lie. Marion Scott, an award winning Journalist, has pointed this out recently that Montreal is bilingual according to 80% of survey respondants.
    http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Montreal+bilingual+poll+finds/4208476/story.html
    Another think I would like to point out, as written on the Quebec Office of the English Language - is that even if you are an anglo who gets hired by the City (and put in a corner for isolation, as has been reported to me by many municipal workers there), the chances of getting a position in the first place, are piratically null since the Job Posting are only on the French side of the City's site. Institutionalised discrimination in its purest form.
    Hmmm...wonder why there is a dis-proportionally low number of [isolated] Anglophones working for the City of Montreal (yet 54% of the City is English speaking!]. When you click on Jobs (site fully bilingual) you get only offers posted in French. Another confirmation that the Nationalists/Separatists control who gets hired here - see for yourself: discrimination basé sur langue, pas icite, non...
    http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=7257,73605573&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
    (click on EN and see page not there, no job postings in EN! AT ALL, so...we are made to feel as if we do not even exist-invisible, even if in Montreal proper the number of Anglos is less than in Montreal West, we still live here).
    Language discrimination exists in Quebec, and as part of the French charter it IS AGAINST the law when applying for jobs.
    --here is a copy-paste of the Montreal is ours attitude: la population anglophone réside dans des municipalités dans l'ouest de l'île et non dans Montréal lui même. (err, that is only thanks to de-fusion, which was Septard Harel's attempt to act like Montreal 'one-island, one-city' is 'theirs' only) Boris M. states in FR that the EN speaking side, in other words, is not Montreal...so even if on the same island, we are 'autres'.
    ...a bit more from that page:
    Newspapers have stated for years that despite all the forced francisation of the workplace in Montreal, the they still remain close to 50% of both languages - so no, this is not Lausanne, you still do not get it - look at the flag of the City of Montreal (it is not all four corners a fleur de lys).
    There are certain environments which will be majority of either language, so yes, you'll have an advantage as a francophone - but this is not supposed to happen in the govt, that's why I repetitively demand quotas (as the Feds have at 40% bilingual) within the offices in QC for both levels of Govt - and this is about the City of Montreal. I pay taxes too, very dearly, to this city that turns around and discriminates against me openly - and I am supposed to bend-over and not complain, especially with the level of corruption and the non-competititve environments I have seen that are ethno-centric, we deserve better from our govt.
    Discrimination based on language is why I am in a case now: http://7tymzw.blu.livefilestore.com/y1puAIziIr_GQD5gJ_UGcGWg7wT5Rg3EicXGM1H_xbabnoin0XymCTmDFqm95IATBrWtUQcywGjf_v9Cq4wN3Xpd0QpOPJLS7ds/CommissionDesDroitsDeLaPersonne.jpg

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  12. "Anglais = Square head"

    French = fr*g

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  13. When French language militants and their PQ overlords keep harping that Montreal is becoming "anglicized" (whatever that means?), I always wonder what their point of reference is? I'd like to know when has Montreal ever been an exclusively "French" city? Are they referring to the time the French colonized the island while battling the native Iroquois and Mohawk population? Surely they can't be talking about the city's golden age in the 50's and 60's when it was poised to grow exponentially and attracted the world's best and brightest. Look at map of the city from 100 years ago, most of the street names are english (remember St James, Dorchester, Mountain, Pine, Craig St...). I suspect when the PQ drafted the Megacity law declaring in it's opening paragraph that the city was a French (White, Catholic) city they saw the writing on the wall. Demographics, immigration, globalization and a lack of innovation would spell the end of French dominance in the city within a few generations. The way I see it, they are already on the way out the door and are scrambling to salvage what they can. The nationalists had a 40 year run steering this city and have been an abject failure in attracting new investment and creating new wealth. The last privately funded skyscraper to be built in the city was in the early 1990's. The attempted renaming of Park Avenue was a watershed moment in my opinion. It was roundly defeated much to their dismay. The nationalists are losing their grip on the city. I like to think of Montreal as a bilingual Lion. Trying to put a leash on her and dress her up in a French poodle outfit does not bode well for anyone. Either Quebec's attitude towards the city changes (i.e. make the city a true bilingual zone, sans Bill 101) or the city will force Quebec to change (city state anyone?). I like to argue if we ever level the playing field and make the city officially bilingual, no city in North America can compete against us. Watch out TO. And to the nationalists hell bent on saving the Quebecois culture, wealth creation is what leads to higher birth rates not Government incentives.

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  14. ""Anglais = Square head"

    French = fr*g"

    Completely unnecessary dude. Don't lower yourself to their level. Take someone down a peg based on their intelligence and/or stupid claims (which is easy with these people), but never someone's nationality. When you embark in his little game of racial slurs it makes you look as bad as him.

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  15. @Hugo Shebbeare

    Vos posts sont particulièrement répétitifs et ennuyants.Croyez-vous réellement que le Québec fera demi-tour face aux demandes des anglouilles et retournera a vos belles années de domination.
    Vous devriez consulter un médecin pour troubles reliés a la démence.

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  16. @DrunkGuyReneLevesqueKilled said...

    Your assesement of the situation is fairly accurate.

    So goes Montreal, So goes Quebec, at the end of the day and definately not the other way around which the PQ and Nationalists have been trying for the last 40 years with the detrimental consequences to both the city and province as a whole. If Montreal is to be turned around it will require a whole new way of thinking.

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  17. I guess we need a civil war in Montreal to settle this...

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  18. Stephen Harpon (don't worry, I want Harper out too): Je m'en calisse de ce que vous pensez. I will keep preaching the truth as long as I like, until these Chumps (false prophet) that embrace ethno-nationalism, exclusion of minorities, will no longer have the influence they enjoy, while using the shield/scapegoat of protecting a language that has been here 400 years and will not die by letting des maudit anglos live and work in 'their' own city and province too.
    So suck it up, we are using all media/FB groups/blogs/etc. we can to counter the ethnic cleansing by YOUR LOSERships' use of repetitive psychological harassment (illegal since 2004 btw):
    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/hugo/archive/2009/03/15/weeding-out-racism-in-the-workplace-a-letter-to-government-institutions-in-quebec.aspx
    First steps are affirmative action with respect to access to the Civil Service and the abolition of B101, discrimination based on language (Human rights, i.e. the rule of law) and forced segregation.

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  19. Good piece. People need to understand that the Montreal region is unlike any other in Quebec. It would be irresponsible to let such a diverse city fall into the hands of the racist and deluded seppies.

    Despite the seppies’ terror tactics of fear, intimidation, and misinformation, Montreal continues to mature and evolve moving further and further away from the relatively stagnant, ideologically indoctrinated hinterlands of Quebec. There is nothing the seppies can do to stop this natural progression, unless the Quebecois elects Reine Marois and she passes more laws and policies to ramp up the discrimination, and reinvigorate the Quebec style ethnic cleansing.

    The seppies could resort to desperate measures, as they pernicious influence diminishes.

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  20. "Arrêt = Stop"

    Wrong! Stop = Stop. Only you moronic and retarded Quebecois change what is the correct French verb for stop, into an incorrect noun. This is IMPROPER FRENCH, and yet you are changing it all in the name of "protecting" the French language.Perhaps because Joual is the equivalent of Ebonics? Yeah, that's it.

    Secondly, about this whole article of the two Montreals. West = good. East = Bad? Perhaps, but when you look at the whole of Montreal, it is just one big steaming pile of shit to me. It's like diving up a garbage dump into a good and bad side, but all I see is a festering pit of garbage and filth. The roads are crumbling on both sides, businesses going under on both sides, infrastructure failing apart on both sides. Did that woman who was killed by the falling concrete block on Peel street not die on the so-called "good" side?

    Yes, the west is good. But it's much, much further west than you think. Keep going west until you get into Toronto. THAT, my friends, is the west side that is good.

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  21. "Je m'en calisse de ce que vous pensez.
    I will keep preaching the truth (sic)
    (yessss reverend) as long as I like, until..."

    ...Someone break my nose.

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  22. "Only you moronic and retarded Quebecois change what is the correct French verb for stop, into an incorrect noun..."

    Nous appelons cela de l'innovation et de la créativité.Le thème de la propreté semble récurant dans votre vocabulaire.Seriez-vous aux prises avec de graves problèmes parasitaires?

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  23. I live on the Plateau and could write a piece that is exactly the opposite of that one. I did not move here to live in Canada, not to live in Quebec, not to live in Pointe-Claire, I moved back to live on the Plateau ... by far the most vibrant neighbourhood in the city.

    For me the West Island is a waste-land. There is nothing there but an airport and an Ikea store. No reason to go there, it is a bed-room, a dormitory of bleak suburbia dressed in grid-lock. There is not even an archetectural point of interest like the Olympic Stadium there to break the monotony. Not a single interesting bar to drink at, not an ounce of live music, not a good restaurant worth driving to. There is nothing there.

    Contrast this to the Plateau. Wave upon wave of immigrants ran down St-Laurent and Parc over the generations ... Jewish deli's, Portuguese chicken joints, Spanish language bookstores, Polish butchers, Greek grocers. Then there are all the bars and music ... basement jazz joints, dive bars above Slovenian delis, Montreal musicians coming together to do bluegrass, it is alive, man, and alive every night. Arcade Fire are Plateau, not Beaconsfield!

    In the summer you can sit on the terraces on St-Denis and watch the beautiful gils strut down the street in their summer dresses and high heels with their groomed pooldes on a leash and noses in the air. People sun-bathing in Parc Lafontaine. Buskers playing music in Carre St-Louis, lovers holding hands and walking down Prince Arthur.

    Where is the West Island so alive? If you want to say "what neighbourhood is most similar to the Plateau?", it is all east. It is like Rosemont, Petite Patrie around the Jean Talon market, HoMa (Hochelaga-Maisonneuve) is coming up and quickly gentrifying, and the Gay village is what it is (viabrant and alive).

    I don't accept your claiming downtown or the mountain as west. I live east of St-Laurent, and it is a 15 minute walk to the Eaton Centre for me ... that is my neigbourhood, how far is it for you to walk there? The mountain along Avenue du Parc with its Sunday Tam-tam is definitely Plateau, definitely young francophones and not at all Westmount.

    Your article has it arse-backwards in my opinion.

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  24. I would have to agree with my Aussie mate here (lived in Melbourne by the say, and I recommend everyone live around St. Kilda if they get a chance) - Aside from the legislative lie, of course, which is the main point of the post really. The Editor is hammering back hard at the hawks to play the game of disgrace in the same way we have to ensure. perhaps counter-propaganda is not a solution...

    The Plateau and Mile-End are the liveliest parts of the Island because they are where there is the best mix of both sides of the Island.

    Segregation is bad thing, and leads to little of the bubbly stuff we love - that is why the Civil Service sux, the door is shut basically to us, and this means no competition and one-side only solutions. Segregated workplaces are not the answer.

    But the West is not a waste-land either, you'd be surprised to know that Monkland village, and Westmount+ad along Sherbrooke are very bilingual too and have great places to spend time.

    Soooo much to say, so little time.

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  25. "...and forced segregation."

    Vous devriez lire l'histoire de notre Nation Shebbeare avant de cracher votre venin.
    Soit vous êtes en plein délire psychotique,soit vous êtes un attardé avec un grave problème d'adaptation.Beaucoup de peuples ont été victimes de ségrégation dans le monde mais jamais les anglais et je vous laisse deviner la raison.

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  26. Hey Ozzy,
    The plateau was a crappy neighbourhood not long ago. It was gentrified in the 1990s. My family owned a store on the Main in the 70s & 80s and my older cousins had to make deliveries all over the Plateau. It wasn't the hipster cool hood you know today. I suggest you hop on a bike and explore some of the neighbourhoods west of St Lawrence St like Verdun, NDG, St Anne de Bellevue or Lachine. Much more to them than an airport or an Ikea store as you claim.

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  27. À l'Éditeur: ''I won't spend time running down the east'' Vous démontrez votre ignorance car puis-je vous rappeler que la plus grande majorité de la ville de Montréal habite bien l'est et non l'ouest, comme vous le dites ? La densité n'est pas du tout la même. Vous oubliez également que l'ouest, c'est Saint-Henri, Pte Saint-Charles, Verdun, Lasalle, Ville-Émard,etc. Sans compter le West Island qui est une banlieue à côté de la ville de Montréal. Également, le Stade n'est pas utilisé comme il le pourrait par contre, son architecture est reconnaissable et franchement originale, en tout cas, sûrement plus que les insipides grattes-ciel du centre-ville et les bungalows de Baie-d'Urfé...

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  28. Chénier dit: N'oubliez pas que le centre-ville tel qu'on le connaît aujourd'hui date des années 1960. Le Vieux-Mtl était le centre des affaires. Vous dites aimer Montréal, l'anglophone, le TMR avec sa clôture empêchant les paumés de Parc extension de passer l'Halloween (http://www.cyberpresse.ca/place-publique/opinions/200909/29/01-906675-notre-mur-de-la-honte.php). Et bien, j'ai le regret que votre ouverture d'esprit est bien sélective et semble mépriser une bonne partie de vos concitoyens. Que dire de Crise le l'Université George Williams (aujourd'hui Concordia) avec ses étudiants noirs ? http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/actualites-en-societe/317403/le-racisme-au-quebec-un-certain-deni) J'aime beaucoup mieux une ville française tolérante avec les minorités qu'une minorité (anglo) qui terrorise et dirige comme elle le faisait jadis.

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  29. Editor,

    You missed one anglophone street crossing Ste-Catherine. Before Bishop there is Mackay. But of course, that part of town is what is known as "Golden Square Mile", the historical anglo-saxon center of the city.

    If you go West further, in Westmount Ste-Catherine is again crossed by at least 15 English-named streets.

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  30. Chenier, TMR is 60% francophone btw, and the gates close at 11pm for security, last I looked - La Presse est un journal ...don't always believe what you read in the newspapers.

    From my experience in TMR this past Halloween, we had SIXTY people come to our door, and you know what, approx half of them were driving up in Cars!? I went for a walk with my daughter to let her knock on a few doors...and tons of vans keep driving up and dumping kids out onto the streets to collect Candy, so maybe there's been a little abuse of people's generosity going on too. I find it a bit sad, but with the densification process, and Condos bbeing favored more than anything else seems like it will only get worse for those in houses.

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  31. >Beaucoup de peuples ont été victimes de ségrégation dans le monde mais jamais les anglais>
    Ah, that must be the Connard himself.
    Even if this were true, which it most certainly isn't, how is this give you a passe-droit to mistreat anyone?
    ....oh, right you're the self-entitlement jerk who believes he's Master, and everyone else a slave.
    And this has gotten the Maitre-chez-nous types a whole long way, hasn't it...?
    Rien n'est plus difficile á refuter que ce qui est entiërement faux. Vous pensez que les anglais n'ont jamais vecu de la ségrégation? There are examples in history, but it is too late for me to dig that up now.
    It is less common than racism, but remains a similar constant non-the-less.

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  32. "There are examples in history, but it is too late for me to dig that up now."

    Aucun problème,je vous laisse le temps de faire votre petite recherche.Vous pouvez aussi mettre quelques amis "trudoĩstes" sur ce dossier.

    tic tac tic tac tic tac....

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  33. The history of Montreal is easily captured from Mont Royal. In fact if you read the architectural reviews and history of Montreal,(bibliotheèque municipale) you will discover a lot about the French settlement 400 years ago. (Contrary to your enierement faux de Shebbeare le fou qui se fait congédier par la grandeur de sa gueule).

    Le Musée de Callière has the first wooden chapel of Eglise Notre Dame, a lot of Catholic churches are telling the story of the provenance and the care of the colonists. It was called VIlle Marie, yes like the building Ville Marie. (Place Ville Marie the cross shape building, build in 1962; the time of scandals and corruption, also the American influence, where the urban development moved the downtown from Old Montreal to Place Ville Marie, next to Victoria an unfriendly box/building shape).



    All around the architecture will tell its story. For those few ones on the site who denies Jacques Cartier discovered the land and put a cross in Gaspe in the 1500's, it is more than ludicrous. Facts or facts, the French fought and continue their discoveries, before the conquest,and after it, despite the facts you want to hide them under your English Separatist blanket.

    The mayors of Montreal who decided to name the street after the dead English General are not a sign of "taking over Montreal", but a sign of "reconnaissance."

    When the English Separatist hits too hard, then we remove them. Look at what happened to Dorchester boulevard : "it is a main east-west thoroughfare passing through the downtown core in the borough of Ville-Marie. The street begins on the west at Atwater Street and continues until it merges with Notre Dame Street East just east of Parthenais Street. This boulevard is named after former sovereigntist Quebec Premier René Lévesque."

    I predict there will be more changes after the English Separatist will get older.... we are at home, it is our land and home. A lot of Anglophones left already, more will leave. At least we don't burn you in your churches, we don't rape your wifes, we don't tie you in boats which will upset, we don't hang you hainously, (like you did to the patriotes)etc... so calm down, your little opinion is not so great to us.

    Before you critizice my English, or the description of Boulevard René Levesque in English (from WIkipedia) instead of stupidly put a source bluntly like a 12 year old.), take an aspirin, and wash your mouth in a bilingual mouthwash please, before you vomit your too many insults at us.

    I thank myself for my efforts in English, I thank myself for my knowledge, I thank myself to be patient with the arrogance of the English Separatist, yes les Séparatistes anglais. It is them who are complaining, who are pushing away.... thank you reader to notice how arrogant they are.

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  34. Ano 8:22 am

    Um... what are you talking about? You just wrote 8 paragraphs of mish mashed mumble jumble that doesn't follow and quite frankly doesn't make sense.

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  35. To Anon @ February 24, 2011 8:22 AM

    ‘All around the architecture will tell its story. For those few ones on the site who denies Jacques Cartier discovered the land and put a cross in Gaspe in the 1500's, it is more than ludicrous. Facts or facts, the French fought and continue their discoveries, before the conquest,and after it, despite the facts you want to hide them under your English Separatist blanket.’

    Holy crap! WTF are you talking about you prevaricating fool? Has Etoile been feeding you lard?

    Who the hell denies the common history of Quebec you refer to? We all know the details. It changes nothing. All it does is reinforce the notion that the Quebecois are perpetually bitter about history, think little of anyone but themselves, and care nothing for Aboriginal and English history? You act like your ancestors were the first humans to inhabit North America. Canadian history does not begin and end with JC.

    Anyone reading between your lines can see a thwarted and frustrated Franco-supremacist. We know what your imperialist plans were for North America and Canada in particular. We know what the seppies’ true ambitions are today, and that is the complete control of Canada. For you and your kind the loss on the Plains of Abraham was merely a temporary setback, you are belligerent as ever and still warring for complete dominance across Canada (just like in Quebec, the front line, where you continue your deliberate racist discrimination.)

    Your historical knowledge sucks, I wouldn’t be too proud of that. As a seppie Quebec is not your land, its Canadian land (can never say that enough). Your veiled threats of ‘more to come’ make you sound vindictive and disturbing. Your arrogant and condescending statement that the opinions/complaints of the English speaking community do not concern you is obvious and common knowledge. You discriminate and then take offense when your victims dare to challenge you. Remind you of anyone?

    BTW, what the hell is an English separatist? Separate from what, Quebec? Not a bad idea in many people’s minds. You really do have a distinctly deluded view of the world. I’m not fooled by your lame ass sleight of hand. With your obsolete attitude, I think your days are numbered. Enjoy your delusions of grandeur while they last, petite Napoleon.

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  36. Your lack of historical knowledge is sucking everyone in French Quebec, in France, in Belgium, in Swizterland,Luxembourg etc...

    The "petitesse d'esprit " of the English separatists are the biggest mistake of English Canada, who is wallowing of ignorance, stagnating in their similitude.

    Your ballroom days are over, you will not changed the French world. Gargle in your own vomit, like someone else said, stop spitting on the French and let them be. You are definitely not a child from the 60's symbolizing freedom.

    You are full of self-pride glued in your ignorant statistics; With a pen and big mouth desirous to impregnate your lack of culture to the French of Canada.


    We have enough of "Dieu et mon droit", lording over the French with a mean looking lion showing its tongue at French Canada.

    Vive "Liberty, equality and fraternity" among us the French as our English brothers are full of hatred.

    Liberté, égalité and franternité could very well be the typical example of a tripartite motto for French Quebec, if not all the French in the actual country.

    Liberté, égalité and franternité finds its origins in the French Revolution, it was then only one motto among others and was not really institutionalized until the Third Republic at the end of the 19th century.

    Remember that for us WE are the children of France, NOT England. It is a question of blood, not statistics.

    Go have another drink and play hockey until your heart fails from joy of "conquering and separating", a lesson which is observed outside the English world.

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  37. Most Quebecois are actually descendants of a mixture of First Nations and European ancestry, Métis if you will. Calling themselves "the children of France" is a bit of a stretch.

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  38. Well, well – ‘le fou qui se fait congédier par la grandeur de sa gueule’ - okay buddy, sure thing mon cher, open mouth, insert foot. I’ve only been forced out by franco-supremacists who enjoy playing territorial dictators within QC workplaces - in 2001 this happened and within two weeks the loser GM was out himself, and a few months later, I was rehired (and stayed for another five years after that). At the CDP, the two Premier Vice Presidents were thrown out, one in April 2009, the other in Feb 2010 finally when he was forced to show up at the first public hearing with the Commission des relations du travail.
    The constitution states that freedom of expression (EVEN AT WORK) is a constitutional right, something the Calisse de défauts swept aside to hide its Internal Controls Project failure. But no, I’m just a loud-mouthed Logger boy from BC who should go back to Vancouver, right? Well, QC retirees association knows very well about how the government covers up their faults (as did Charest and Forget after I informed them of the issues): http://www.aqrp.qc.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=354&Itemid=46 (About Hiding the Reports from both McKinsey & PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2008)Still no mention of my report due to the unconstitutional publication ban…
    I shall leave you a quote from my ancestor; affectionately known as Dr John, in a translation of his many oeuvres: `c'est sur celui qui a fait un mauvais choix que doit en retomber tout le blâme, et non sur celui qui en est l'objet.'
    http://www.canlii.org/fr/qc/qccrt/doc/2010/2010qccrt419/2010qccrt419.html
    See the connection? Do you see this Judge stating that I shouldn't have created a document, meaning that I should not do my job? That I should not have expressed how bad the internal controls (re: outta control) really were at the CDPQ before everyone else found out about their $47BN losses a good 7-9 months later?
    As is the reasoning behind this blog post, returning to the subject at hand… The current Charter of Montreal is quite incorrect and sweeps aside respect for the English speaking communities that built this city together with their French counterparts.
    Should the Editor 'fermer son grande guelle' as you express above, despite the truth being otherwise? Why does he have to do this blog by hiding his identity? Because he knows what really happens when you do the opposite (my case) QC's bureaucratic gouvernemama machine will come at you with the intent of showing it's belligerent anti-constitutional mindset. This has gone on for so long, Harpo had learned to do the same...and it is ruining the Canada and its democracy little by little.

    BTW, this is very arch-typical to hear the reverse-false propaganda..RE: English Separatists. England is across the pond, let us be clear here, the City State Concept is to detach our multi-cultural CANADIAN city from QCs separatist-illusionist bankrupt modèle QCois only attitude continually projected on Montreal.

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  39. "a lesson which is observed outside the English world."

    For 2010, Canada was the country with the 7th best quality of life in the world. Yeah, I'm sure activist groups all over the world are clammering to save the "oppressed" Quebecois. See most of the world outside of Quebec likes to live in this little thing called the present and not in this little thing called 1759.

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  40. Interesting enough. Are you becoming a vampire nurse ? Looking at all the blood through a magnified glass ? As long as your next comment doesn't want me to believe you are the last drop of venin from Queen Victoria!

    You think the English didn't mix at all with the Iroquois who burned the French priests, obligated them to eat their ears, their tongue before they were burn alive !

    A very small pourcentage of people from Nouvelle-France were married to natives at one time. In fact the link to the Hurons were for political reasons, more than for "love" as it was noticed from the British much later on. People had to survive in this cruel country.

    The same with the French in the French Islands, and all the other islands, the visitor sailors were using the lovely woman as their wifes.

    One thing you shouldn't forget:
    the mother tongue continues with the wife, not with the man. MOTHER TONGUE is protected by what the mother passes on, like milk .....

    Of course, a lot of people, like Jacques Cartier "rented the services" of the sons of Donnacona, the Natives (Amérindiens) as interpreters, and paid them well with goods. Not everyone was registered in a "course au mariage" like your malicious irony led us to believe.

    We are talking of the French under François 1er, a well liked King (Le bon roi).

    This is what happened as well when the Vikings Norwegians in the VIIIth century came to Labrador, Groenland and Terre Neuve. Leif L'Heureux was in charge of a big expedition in 1001.Traces of the language are among us.

    The work "Viking" means someone who is an invader, who represents the North. They colonized areas of France etc.. where people came directly to Quebec.

    Some English and French words come from the Norwegian : bidon d’où bidonner, bitte d’amarrage, bordage et abordage, cingler (au sens de faire voile), crique, écoute, estran, étambot, étambrai, étrave, flot, flotter, flotteur, flotte et flottille, girouette, gréer et gréement, guindeau d’où guindé, harnais et harnacher, harpon et harponner, hauban et haubanner, hune et hunier, mât (avec démâter et démâtage), quille et quillard, raz-de-marée (raz signifiant courant d’eau), ris et risée, scorbut, sonde et sonder (d’où sondage, sondeur et insondable), tanguer et tangage, taud, tillac, vague, varangue, varech etc....

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  41. @Anonymous 4;01

    Très intéressant.Il est a noter que plusieurs expressions provenants du monde marin sont demeurées dans le langage courant (pas de jeu de mots ici) des Québécois : Embarquer dans un bus ou traverser l'autre bord de la rue ne sont qu'utilisés ici.La liste d'expressions maritimes est longue mais celle des anglicismes l'est davantage.

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  42. La Normandie est la porteuse de ces expressions norvégiennes, au nombre de 11% vers le Québec.

    En ce qui a trait aux anglicismes et aux barbarismes, il s'agit du contact avec la langue anglophone, alors comme vous le voyez, c'est de cette façon qu'une langue s'érode. Et c'est pour cette raison qu'un peuple sent lui-même le besoin de se protéger, afin de conserver sa langue. Actuellement les Européen français ou de langue latine ont une grande influence sur le peuple Québécois. Il s'agit de positivisme. Il pourrait s'accélérer davantage avec le Lycée à Montréal et une branche de la Sorbonne ou de Science Politique de Paris.

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  43. A monsieur Stephen Harpon:

    J'aimerais vous faire plaisir en vous offrant quelques mots qui proviennent du norvégien et du danois et ont influencé la langue anglaise. Ces notions sont approuvées par la source de l'Académie française.


    En anglais, il y a le mot désignant l’enfer issu de la déesse Hel ainsi que les jours consacrés aux dieux de la guerre Odin (Wednesday), du tonnerre Thor (Thursday) et de la fertilité Freyja (Friday). Les métaux vanadium, du nom de la divinité Vanadis, et thorium extrait du minerai appelé thorite.

    Un quartier mal famé, «c’est le Bronx ! » a curieusement une étymologie danoise puisque M. Bronk, colon danois de son état, avait acheté quelques arpents d’une terre encore peu habitée à l’époque, à une tribu indienne, à proximité de la Nouvelle-Amsterdam future New York. La cité anglaise de York fut d’ailleurs une importante place commerçante viking.


    De même, tag (d’où taguer et tagueur) ou trash nous viennent – via l’anglais – de l’ancien scandinave, tout comme clown et clownerie, cosy, gang, gangster et antigang, happening, hit (d’où hit-parade), kidnapper, loft, scraper, skipper et stock.


    Pour les sports, il faut citer rugby, d’où rugbyman. Il y a aussi club (pour le golf, klubba signifiant « bâton » en ancien scandinave), crawl, rafting et score.


    Rayon alimentation, c’est le steak, dont dérivent rumsteak et bifteck, les oeufs de lump, les corn-flakes (du moins flakes) et le cake.

    Ce sont plusieurs centaines de mots anglais qui se trouvent proches du norois et par conséquent des langues scandinaves modernes, du fait de racines germaniques communes. Ainsi de book (bouquin en français), day, farewell, forbidden, honey, house, ice, morning, rope, sell, steer, time, tongue, tree, white, wing, and so on.

    De l’ancien scandinave, je ne citerai que les plus courants du lexique établi par le chercheur britannique John Geipel : bag et baggage, bat (d’où Batman) , to bang (verbe issu du norois banga qui signifiait « marteau »), big (ce qui a par conséquent donné big-bang), crazy, dawn, dirty, fast (au sens d’abstinence) dont dérive logiquement breakfast.
    .../2

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  44. 2/2 (suite) A monsieur Harpon/

    Quoi encore ? Fellow, fog et foggy, gift, gun. A propos de ce dernier mot gun, on rapporte qu’en 1330 le prénom de la Suédoise Gunnehilde fut donné à une baliste, machine à lancer des projectiles. Cette pratique de « baptiser » une arme se retrouvera bien plus tard, plus au Sud, avec la « Grosse Bertha ». Autre étymologie surprenante, le terme norois clump qui décrit un groupe d’arbres isolés a donné le nom de l’institution typiquement anglaise club.


    Happen vient d’un mot norois signifiant « chance », dont découlent par association d’idées les termes happy et happiness. Passons à to guess, harbour, husband, ill et illness, kid qui a donné to kidnap, knife.


    Les mots law et outlaw, également d’origine noroise, sont à rapprocher de Danelaw (littéralement « loi danoise »), la partie de l’actuelle Grande-Bretagne qui était dominée par les Vikings venus de cette partie-ci de la Scandinavie.

    La liste des termes issus en droite ligne du norois : leg, to link et linkage, to loose et looser, mistake, nasty, odd, to raise, reef, rid, rift, root, rotten, sale, to scare, to scream, shirt (d’où tee-shirt), skill, skirt. Ensuite : sky, to slaughter (proche du mot danois qui signifie boucherie), to stagger, ugly et ugliness, weak et weakness.


    Le triptyque they-them-their est incontestablement d’origine identique. Le sont également des verbes aussi courants que to get, to forget, to take et to want.
    Je terminerai par window, qui se décompose littéralement en « oeil du vent », cet orifice des habitations vikings ouvert à tous les vents et destiné à l’échappement des fumées du foyer. Les fenêtres danoises Vélux ont ainsi d’illustres ancêtres !


    Il y a tout de même, en sens inverse, des emprunts scandinaves aux langues anglaise et française. Les compatriotes des Normands d’aujourd’hui ont ainsi, par exemple, des droits d’auteur incontestables sur butik, buket ou sur frisør, le coiffeur sachant friser ! Quant au terme français boulevard, qui est d’origine germanique, il a littéralement été réimplanté ici.


    La langue d’Homère, elle aussi, se retrouve largement dans les pays nordiques comme ailleurs, ne serait-ce qu’avec l’enseigne IKEA (acronyme de son fondateur et de son lieu de résidence) qui pourrait également procéder de oikos, soit « maison » en grec.

    Cordialement,
    Étoile

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  45. To the Editor:

    Under your lovely picture written "our Montreal" the west, even if a lot of anglophones have left their mark, it belongs to the French, in the middle of Ville Marie, where the famous Cathedral Marie-Reine-du-Monde is the replica of Saint-Pierre de Rome, made at a human scale. (10 times smaller). Place Ville Marie is also the only building with the shape of a cross.

    If you consult "who's who" you will realize a lot of those buildings are owned by foreigners who invested a lot of capital in Montreal. Check your sources. Montreal belongs to the French, north, south, east and west !!!

    -----------------------------------------------

    Remarks to the editor:

    "dépanneur": a lovely word, which comes from dépanner. Une "panne" is someone in trouble, who needs something.

    Dépanneur in France is someone who repairs a broken car. In Quebec it is a grocery store which will accomodate someone without food or groceries, or wine ! (the needs are different).

    You should have more respect for some words, neologism, etc... perhaps you should have the professional recommendation of a linguist...

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  46. OMG the page has been hi-jacked by the revisionist history twits. Guy Nantel was totally correct...seems that QCois history teachers are just there to get their eqchey and not do their job.
    RE – your comments: ‘The work "Viking" means someone who is an invader, who represents the North. They colonized areas of France etc..where people came directly to Quebec.’
    It was not the Norwegians that invaded Normandy, it was Rollo, a DANE from Fakse, just south of Copenhagen. Rollo was the son of a Danish King. They invaded that area north of Paris to counter Charlemagne’s arrogance of stealing much of Southern Jutland for his Holy Roman Empire. They stopped at Ivry la Bataille (southernmost point, and a Castle structure that was later used as an example for the great Tower of London, post conquest) instead of trying to take over Paris and the whole country. Charlemagne settled with the Normans by the marriage of Anne Perceval to his grandson (as was done with most alliances of the time).

    The Norman knights and their leadership, all were fed up with poor Northern France after almost a couple of hundred years, saw a great opportunity to invade the primarily Anglo-Saxon Isle once they had the blessing of the Pope and a valid reason to contest the crown with the Bastard Guillaume.

    Their descendants that married into the local population are numerous, but let’s be clear, they were fed up with francosupremacists back then (as we are now in QC) and wanted a profitable place to call home, such are the origins of Grande Bretagne as we know it today (notice Bretagne in the name, since they were aggrandising their territory to England, and eventually the Normans took over all of the Isles). This is one of the reasons they kept fighting back France to maintain Brittany and Normandy as territories (His Majesty’s title, Charles, is Duke of Normandy to this day…), but alas the centuries wore on, and the Channel most certainly didn’t help.

    If you want some history related to the Vikings and their descendants, please read primary source material from one of my ancestors, because I simply do not have that much time to fix what Governemama phracked up : http://books.google.com/books?id=RyoAAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=house+of+yvery&hl=en&ei=GsdnTaEnhfuXB_i7uf8B&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=rollo&f=false
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollo -- the one who started Normandy
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking

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  47. To Jason:
    Go back to bed, and start your life again, my boy.

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  48. I love the incredibly long and irrelevant discussion going between Harpon and Etoile about where some English words come from. Maybe you should stick to the issue the editor is talking about, because quite frankly not to many Anglos care that our language is a mish mesh of other languages because we don't worship our language like it's some holy deity.

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  49. "I lived in the Plateau for about ten years, it is voted the best neighborhood many times over because it is has a great deal of character, wonderful restos, etc. so do not write off the E of the island please."

    Everything, or almost everything that makes the Plateau an interesting area, restaurants, pubs, cafes etc, are owned and operated by ethnic minorities and anglophones. Even most of the real estate in the area belongs to the same group.
    The Francophone part comes in when they move to Montreal from rural areas and they all pile in to rent an over priced apartment to be in what they consider the coolest part of town. They then call the OLF on places like Schwartzes because it dawn on them that everything they thought cool and special about Montreal is really Anglophone.

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  50. "Etoile said...
    To Jason:
    Go back to bed, and start your life again, my boy."

    Well look at that. An empty insult to counter a factual argument. How very un-typical of a seperatist.

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  51. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  52. I can't catch on to why we remain on having this anglo-franco battles. It is possible to be fully bilingual, mes amis! So, francophones, please, learn English. And vice-versa to you, anglophones. Don't blame the government! Just go to the library and do it! So many language methods available there and you're here losing your time (as I am now!). Also, leave your kids learn both languages, and a third one, too. Get over this neo-nazi-ethnocentric crap and think of how proud we should feel of having 2 languages spoken amongst nearly 3 million people in metropolitan Montreal. OK, should Bill 101 be reviewed? Agreed. So should french language be promoted all over the country. After all, we live theoretically in a bilingual country. And these 2 languages are a patrimony we should be proud of.

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  53. "I can't catch on to why we remain on having this anglo-franco battles."

    The freedom to speak one of the official languages free of threat or fine is pretty important, don't you think? Bill 101 doesn't need to be reviewed. It needs to be printed on untold rolls of toilet paper and the legislation has to be flushed.
    It's also a matter of political representation. If you're not French in Quebec, then you have absolutely no political voice, period. Every political party in this province panders to one group at the expense of every other. It's an incestuous cycle of cultural nepotism that leads to the over representation of Francophones in every facet of the public sector, including employment opportunities. It's as close to apartheid as you will get in this country.

    There's also the little matter of ethnocide - the concentrated effort by Francophones in this province to not only erase the presence of the anglophone community in Quebec through an enforced educational system, but also its attempt to erase the historical presence of all the cultures that have made Montreal what it is.

    Close to a million allophones and anglophones have left the province since the seventies. It's the largest migration of people in Canada in the past century and it was accomplished under threat, violence and the removal of all safety guards for an equitable society.

    We don't need to visit the library, we need a fucking revolution.

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  54. this narrow mindedness of the 'quebecois nation and et. al'is destroying for the who knows how many times ,the economy.they are isolating themselves in their fracophonie.international and national trade takes place in many languages.to say they want to preserve the language is b. s.french is spoken from coast to coast and never has quebec and their separatist idealogy tried to create links and networks with the rest of french speaking canada. i.e, until very recently the french canadians of mallardville were still speaking french and in some cases even unilingual only in french.and yet because quebec s belly button watching,they ve never reached out to these people.i think what quebec wants is a communist state .actually ,i think we are already there.but with the exception of the people queen, queen marois!the last 45 years,quebec has been built on nothing but squabbling, how can the province ever go anywhere,new comers get involved without even knowing what it s all about.bilingualism for all canadians.

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  55. please forgive the misprints.was in a hurry!

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