Fear of 'English jobs' leads to decline in English vocational funding.
“....Someone who is very highly placed in the world of Quebec
education told me at the Quebec Federation of Home and School
Associations annual meeting last fall in Beaconsfield that English
school boards are having a terrible time getting Quebec to approve new
student spaces in English vocational education.
“The problem,” the
person told me, “is that the ministry has started to say to us, ‘You’re
trying to get us to create English jobs,’ but we’re not. Vocational
training is part of the education system, but the government has started
to decouple the two.” Read the rest of the story
Furious demand shrinks access to English cegep.
“...The
other day I was talking to a colleague who told me she's been hearing
anglophone parents of high-school students expressing hope that Bill 101
is toughened to keep francophones and immigrants out of
English-language CEGEPs.
Normally, language crackdowns aren't
something anglophones like to see in Quebec. But competition for limited
spots in English CEGEPs, which are not bound by Bill 101, has become
more intense as applications have risen through the ongoing economic
sluggishness.
The access quandary is politically amplified by the
fact that old attitudes toward English in Quebec are breaking down.
Bright, ambitious young francophones and children of immigrants
increasingly see English CEGEPs as stepping stones out into the wider
world. Read the rest of the story
Don Cherry complains about lack of "Ontario" players on Maple Leafs
It remains my position that a NHL hockey team is a business and as such, must serve its clients as best it can.
Listening to what customers want and delivering a product in tune with those desires, is what makes businesses SUCCE$$FUL.
There remains those who believe that language or national origin should have no place in any decision to hire one player over the other.......Fair enough, we've each got a right to our opinion.
But those who complain that it's only Quebecers who complain about such issues are wrong. I bet most teams would love to have local talent.
Here's the proof that Quebec is not alone in this desire.
By the way, I had lunch this week with a former coach of the Canadiens, (I won't drop his name because it was a private conversation.) He told me, as we were discussing the French/English issue, that French players do try harder when wearing a Habs jersey. He said some players who had a bad game were too scared to go out and face the public. Oh Boy!
No need to motivate them!!!
Gilles Duceppe wins Waste award
"Former Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe received a lifetime
achievement accolades in the 14th annual Teddy Waste Award ceremony, put
on by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to highlight what it deems to
be wasteful government spending.
At 2:50 Montreal is skewered for it snowplows plowing bare sidewalks
At 9:10 Gilles Duceppe receives a lifetime achievement award
Read the storyAt 9:10 Gilles Duceppe receives a lifetime achievement award
Small Quebec town to challenge Bill 101
"The city of Huntingdon is vowing to keep serving
its citizens in the “two official languages” after the Office québécois
de la langue française asked it to transmit its communications to
residents in French only.
In an email to the municipality in January, the OQLF noted it had received a complaint against the city.
It
was a written, bilingual publication from the city that sparked the
complaint, although Huntingdon Mayor Stéphane Gendron said that’s all
they know. The city’s communication with citizens is always bilingual,
Gendron said.
By transmitting bilingual
communications to its residents, the city of Huntingdon gives the
impression of being a bilingual city and, as a result, “doesn’t fully
play the exemplary role expected of a public administration body” in
terms of the French-language Charter, the OQLF’s email said. It also
noted a publication can be transmitted in another language afterward to
people who make the request.
“I don’t understand. Does it hurt someone to receive a bilingual publication,” Gendron asked? LinkRemaining adamant, the mayor, Stéphane Gendron hasn't backed down in the face of a furious backlash. He has however said he's going to step down early as mayor to concentrate on a media career.
Protest over Bilingual Hospital continues
St. Lawrence College nursing student Colleen Rudowski came to voice her opinion even though she says a lot of students are afraid to speak up. "I find a lot of students or people in general are just apprehensive to speak up about it for the fear of not getting hired at the hospital in Cornwall, not finding employment or somebody holding a grudge against them. I'm already planning on leaving because I can't speak French fluently," she says. " Read the rest of the story
Quebecer asks Queen to 'fire' Harper
“.. Somebody wrote to the Queen asking her to fire Stephen Harper as Prime Minister Link{Fr}
Quebec versus Alberta
"Three years after global energy prices tanked, Alberta’s oilsands are booming once again.
But
industry players say they’re already bracing for what they fear lies
ahead: chronic labour shortages and soaring cost pressures, two factors
that caused so much havoc during the last boom.
As 2012 began, the
number of workers employed in the province was already five per cent
above its pre-recession high, the Conference Board of Canada says,
handily outstripping the national growth rate.
Over the next two
years, the board predicts Alberta will create 132,900 net new jobs — or
about 40,000 more people than the entire population of Red Deer —
cutting the province’s unemployment rate to 4.5 per cent by 2013. That’s
just one per cent above the pre-recession lows of 2007." LinkSounds like good news?
Not if you are Françoise David, co-president of socialist Quebec Solidaire.
In an interview she showed concern that Quebec's 'Plan Nord will be too successful and thus depopulate areas south of the St. Lawrence river, its workers tempted by high wages in the North.
"Young people might be tempted to leave school to go north. What will they eventually become without formal training?" Ms. David wonders.
Madame David also expressed concern for families who will be separated because of the far-away jobs. Link{Fr}
By the way, Quebec's unemployment rate..... 8.4%
Here's another interesting comparison, this time between Quebec and North Dakota over at antagonist.net
It is comprised of two videos, one showing the benefits of shale gas production in North Dakota followed by a video by Quebec 'zartistes' demanding a moratorium on any development.
SEE IT HERE
Radio-Canada now working for the OQLF?
It
seems that the French CBC has undertaken an investigative report
concerning the existence of stores that allegedly contravene Bill 101's
provision that an English store name must have a French modifier.Horror of horrors, 26% of the stores were found delinquent.
The funniest part of the story was when the interviewer asked a passerby what he thought of the situation. The man replied that he was from Paris and all the store names there were in English!!!!
The report was so anti-English, you'd think Mario Beaulieu was the editor.
Your federal tax dollars at work! LINK{Fr} Watch the news report{Fr}
Montreal film director camps it up in 'GOON.'
Montrealer Jay Baruchel, co-writer, producer and star of Goon, had his tongue firmly in cheek when offered this scene of a hockey arena in Quebec.
The scene flashed by, almost unnoticed, but not to this eagle-eye.
"I swear I'm not making this up!
Just when you thought government waste couldn't get any sillier, here is a story that will have you shaking your head in disbelief.The Journal de Montreal ran a story last week detailing the wasteful spending habits of Quebec's school commissions charged with running the provinces education system up until the end of high school.
Detailing a litany of dubious spending practices where expense reimbursement is out of control, including golf tournaments galore, or hiring a separate service to water plants in offices, the horrors go on and on.
But one last item caught my eye.
The Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys pays employees 44¢ per kilometer when they use their vehicle to attend meetings outside the office.
Now here's the kicker...
If at the same time, they give a lift to another employee, THAT EMPLOYEE receives10¢ per kilometer as a gesture of good will for ride-sharing! LINK{Fr}
The school commissioners who are elected, have a pretty good gig controlling a $9 billion budget.
By the way the turnout in recent school elections of 2007 was 7.9% and 67% of Commissioners (879 of 1305) were elected by acclamation.
In Monday's Wednesday's post we continue our discussion of Partition;
'Does Partition Make Sense for Sovereigntists?'
Monday's Post-
'Huntingdon Mayor Humiliates Gutless Anglos'
Further reading:
This article is a perfect example and reason why we must praise the previous article and get
ReplyDeleteNotre LA PROVINCE CANADIENNE DE MONTREAL!!
HEC now offers bilingual and English only degrees. Why can't some Montreal area French CEGEPs take a cue from HEC and do the same. Seems to me the market has spoken and Quebecers want English language post secondary education in increasing numbers.
ReplyDeleteIf the english post-secondary education are in high demand, then I don't see what the problem should be in giving them access to this golden opportunity they seek to obtain. If they wish to pursue the education in Shakespeare's tongue, it is in their very own right to do so and and no one,in any case, should put it out of their reach, seeking to thump their savage and fascist will down their throat, like they always do.
DeleteAnd, of course, our horrible Canadian Supreme Court saw fit to sanction the procedure of segregation in Quebec schools until CEGEP so that francophone parents can't choose to send their kids to English publicly funded schools until then.
DeleteAll due to section 23 of the so-called Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which is anything but. Do you realize that it was Jean Chretien who took the very worst part (the language of education provisions) of the very worst law in Canada (Bill 101) and entrenched it in section 23? At least Bill 101 can be amended or repealed with a simple 50% plus one vote in the National Assembly. Changing the constitution is another matter entirely and it is, in effect, written in stone.
Thanks, Jean Chretien...for nothing!
Tony: This is what happens when a Quebec-led leader and cabinet plot their evil magic in Parliament. One more reason to extricate debt-ridden Quebec from what can be a richer, more progressive, more productive Canada.
DeleteThe Constitution was made by men and can be changed by men, and without Quebec, the stone can be smashed to pebbles.
As for what the editor stated in his first go-round on partition, the xenophobes have had the guillotines at the ready for the last 40 years. Maybe now they can re-lubricate the tracks for the blades to drop easily.
Tony : The true is same in english Canada, people aren't allowed to send their kids to french school there unless they've had education in french or have french as a first language.
DeleteAt least immigrants from French speaking countries can send their kids to French schools in the rest of Canada. Immigrants to Quebec from English speaking countries do not have the same rights.
DeleteAnonymous writes:
DeleteTony : The true is same in english Canada, people aren't allowed to send their kids to french school there unless they've had education in french or have french as a first language.
But not in practise.
Although it is true that section 23 of the Canadian Charter applies to francophones outside Quebec, anglophones who want access to French schools are not denied it. I'm not as familiar with this as I'd like to be but I believe the Official Languages Commissioner has reported on this. So there is, in effect in all provinces outside of Quebec, freedom of choice.
And, of course, as the next Anonymous writes above, "immigrants from French speaking countries can send their kids to French schools in the rest of Canada. Immigrants to Quebec from English speaking countries do not have the same rights."
See: Will HuffPo Quebec Help End Language Apartheid?
Your wonderful "federalist" Liberal Party of Quebec loves you anglos so much that they don't even put section 23.1.a into effect in Quebec. But, of course, you'll all continue to vote for the Liberals in massive numbers...and praise them as another Anonymous does in a post below.
The Parti Quebecois also wanted to ban Anglophone children from other provinces from attending English schools if they moved to Quebec. At least the Supreme Court of Canada stepped in and voided this aspect of Bill 101.
Delete"Tony : The true is same in english Canada, people aren't allowed to send their kids to french school there unless they've had education in french or have french as a first language"
DeleteThere is also the issue of how many immigrants to the ROC would like their kids to study in French? None.
How many immigrants to QC want their kids to study in English? Many.
So the laws, although the same, have no coercive feel in the RoC, while they do have a huge coercive feel in QC.
QC's legal system forces people to do what they don't want to do. ROC's system adapts to the people. At least in terms of language of instruction.
It seems to me we should be going for at least basic functionality in both languages as a baseline... and aiming far above it in practice.
DeleteApparatchik, multilingualism is good. I just have reservations about it being an institutional measure and a policy, especially when it's expensive and seems to have been rejected by the population at large as unnecessary.
DeleteAdd to it the insidious language politics that lie behind it all, like for example the "reconquer Canada" philosophy of some Quebec federalists like Andre Pratte and Marc Garneau...
So there is something fundamental that's missing in all this - that being what people want. In all the talk of bilingual Canada from coast to coast, the establishment forgot one thing - to ask the people what they think about it.
Are you sure it's bilingualism that was rejected by the population as large and unnecessary and not the obtuse way in which we've been going about (implementing) it? Similarly, I'm all in favor of keeping French from disappearing (at least in principle), but I think our "Charte" is more about waging war on English than as accepting it as a necessary part of what Quebec must be.
DeletePeople like me who already had something of a head start but still need(ed) to work toward this ideal know that it isn't something you achieve following some 30-day program or by taking a pill.
This is the part where lifelong goals, motivations, aspirations and ideals are approximated with election cycle-oriented conceptions of implementing things -- to often devastating effect.
Yes, I think the passed-from-above En-Fr bilingualism has pretty much been rejected by the RoC population. Bilingualism is common in the RoC, but it's Punjabi-English, Mandarin-English, Ukrainian-English type of bilingualism, in addition to some French-English one of course. Mississauga is full of people who are fluent in Polish on top of English for example. All of that bilingualism is "naturally occurring", is widely accepted by the population, it doesn't faze anybody, and the beautiful part is that it has nothing to do with official decisions. On the other hand, the artificial, decided-above-for-all-of-Canadians Fr-En bilingualism that our federal government has been trying to implement has pretty much failed due to popular rejection.
DeleteAnd it makes sense, really. Imagine someone residing in AB, BC or NFLD, surrounded by a language spoken by all and agreed on by all. In comes an official who says: listen, learn this other language, nobody around here speaks it, but it's for the sake of national unity...What would an outcome be in most situations?
Imagine Mexico, as a result of some agreement with India, tried to impose Spanish-Punjabi bilingualism on its population. What would be the outcome? Would it succeed on the principle that "the more languages, the better"? On the principle of "knowing another language can't hurt"? On the principle of "knowing other languages brings us closer together"? All these principles are correct, but what about the main one - the principle of practicality. Who needs Punjabi in Mexico? Conversely, who needs Spanish in India? I think these examples illustrate the absurdity of language transplantation through official decrees.
Take this example and add a condition where the Indian government has ordered all the Spanish to be removed from the public space in India, then changed it to the half size requirement but only after pressure from the UN.
DeleteIt makes things even more fun, doesn't it?
I just read the editorial in the Montreal Gazette about the Huntington situation. You would think that the Gazette editorial staff was also working against the anglophone community. Here is a guy standing up to the language nazis, and the Gazette can't even write something to back him up.
ReplyDeleteParce que contrairement à vous,l'équipe éditoriale de "la gazette" semble avoir compris que Gendron n'est qu'un clown à la recherche de visibilité médiatique.
DeleteMethinks someone is projecting...
Deletewow, for someone who is calling someone a clown, you surely are good at acting like one!tell me, have you ever considered joining a circus before???seems to me, you would be a right fit for that profile since we always describe you as ridiculous,irrational and moronic...
DeleteAnon who started this part of the thread: The Gazette is a Quisling, and it has been since Conrad Black sold it. The late Izzy Asper bought it and turned it into the Quisling it is today because he sold out the readers for the sake of the ad revenues and wanted Francophone businesses to contribute to those revenues big-time.
DeleteThe best contributors to the Gazette are very old, like Red Fisher, and the rest are dead, like Nick Auf de Maur and Mordechai Richler. It's now a rag, always has been, but is now a shadow if its former self, i.e., a rag's rag!
Mr. Sauga writes:
DeleteThe Gazette is a Quisling, and it has been since Conrad Black sold it.
It wasn't that much less a Quisling under Black either.
Yes, Black wrote some great editorials on partition and other such things but he did not, sadly, influence or attempt to influence the Joan Fraser/Gretta Chambers School of Separatist Appeasement that ruled the roost before Hollinger bought it...and, it turned out, during Hollinger's ownership, or since.
And it's not like many of us didn't at first rejoice upon hearing the news that Black was the new owner. But repeated attempts to get him to drop the Quisling agenda were met with disappointing responses of "we do not interfere with the editorial content of the papers we own."
Hey, what's the point of owning a paper if you can't influence its editorial content? At least that's the way I see it.
Why can't they close the that CEGEP in the west Island I think the name was pierre Godin and transfer it to either Vanier or John Abbott. They've had plenty of English schools to close. I also can't fathom that some anglos want restrictions on English CEGEP access so that their children can enter. At least there are English CEGEPs at the moment to go. Once they restrict access we'd be lucky if there was 1 or 2 english CEGEPs in all of Quebec.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you will see any English CEGEP closing in your lifetime since there is a great number of people that are seeking and willing to attend them in their post-secondary education. As for restricting access to them, if that Bitch of Marois dares to impose her selfish corrosive will, then I am afraid she will have to come across the unpleasant circumstance of uprising protests that would discourage her from taking any further step in her execution, thus forcing her to throw in the towel..
DeleteAnonymous,
Delete"if that Bitch of Marois"
Ouch. Vous avez passé une belle journée internationale de la femme hier?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Delete@Anonymous Mar 9, 2012 08:09 AM
Deletedon't worry about he 'bitch' appellative. I am a woman and have used worse names when referring to what's-her-face.
In regards to the uprisings mentioned by you. I honestly hope they would happen in the event of restricting access to English CEGEPs, however I am staring to lose faith in that.
"don't worry about he 'bitch' appellative. I am a woman and have used worse names when referring to what's-her-face."
DeleteQue pensez-vous d'un peu plus de solidarité féminine?Je crois que vous n'êtes pas en position de vous rabaisser d'avantage socialement.Non?
Yeah... don't start me on the women's solidarity. And I don't see how and why I should show solidarity with someone that through his/her policies would adversely affect me?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteIt is called CEGEP Gerald Godin, named after the late PQ Minister who was an apologist for terrorism against the English community. Indeed, he observed that bombs were the ideal communication process to show the English that the French were after something important.
DeleteIronic, isn't it, that the government of Quebec saw fit to name a school after this supporter of terrorism which is located in the heart of the very community which was the target of the bombs he approved of (the CEGEP is located in the West Island).
See: Godin loved bombs
Lookit Tony, heros in Quebec include an anti-Semitic, nationalist racist like Lionel Groulx, a murderer like Paul Rose who is and has been free as a bird for decades and a separatist leader named René Lévesque who killed a man while drunk behind the wheel of his car and was not wearing his glasses as his license required him to do (can you say cover-up?). Oh, and even Karla Homolka is living in Quebec no problem, a luxury she never would have had in Ontario or most other places. Gérald Godin was just another face in that crowd.
DeleteMême Karla ne veut pas vivre en ontario?...Ça va mal!En passant,que veut dire Fiat?...Fixe it again Tony...Hahahahahahaha!
DeleteNot the Homolka thing again...
DeleteSo some criminal from Ontario is sent to a jail here (did we the people of Quebec decide this?) and after years in prison decides to start a new life here because she is not as known as in English Canada.
Of course the media on the other side of the linguistic divide talked about her more for obvious reasons.
You think we like her or people like her or something?
Do most English Canadians know about the infamous Guy Turcotte (murderer that is very hated here but I won't explain the case because that's not the point)? Certainly not. He even said he might go live in English Canada for the same reason Homolka stayed here.
So if that happens I'll just say:
Guy Turcotte is living in Ontario/Alberta/whatever no problem, a luxury he never would have had in Quebec.
I mean, you write of heroes and then you mention Homolka.
DeleteBack when Lionel Groulx was more known people in Toronto rioted against the Jews. You can't expect most people to protest against a station being named after him when they don't even know who he was. And it's not like he killed anyone but then you mention murderers.
Paul Rose a Quebec hero? Back in the FLQ days, polls showed the great majority of people were against the FLQ's violence.
Stop trying to make us look like a society of pro-homicide sick fucks. We have a much lower homicide rate than English Canada according to Statistics Canada and murderers are hated by the public here too.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThe FLQ has simply been replaced by the rabidly nationalist, fascist, xenophobic Parti Quebecois. The only difference is that the PQ isn't killing anyone (at least not directly).
DeleteAcadieman dit: Non, le FLQ ne comportait que quelques membres non-élus alors que le Parti Québécois a été porté au pouvoir par une majorité de Québécois à plusieurs reprises ! Respirez, l'oxygène vous manque au cerveau ! :)
DeleteRappelons que Pierre Vallières a été felquiste et péquiste.
DeleteAnonymous writes:
DeleteStop trying to make us look like a society of pro-homicide sick fucks.
Pointing out a fondness and soft heart for terrorists is a far cry from making the Glorious Nation of Quebec out to be "sick fucks".
The Cossette-Trudelles -- the husband and wife terrorist team -- kept James Cross prisoner for 59 days when they forcibly kidnapped him. And, according to Cross, he wasn't treated that well, particularly by the Missus.
What did the Cossette-Trudelles get as punishment? Two years less a day in prison...and, of course, actually spent much less time behind bars: eight months.
That works out to about 240 days of imprisonment. Hmmm. My math tells me that's about four days in jail for every one day that they took away the freedom of the person they kidnapped.
Do you call that justice?
No, I wouldn't label Quebec society as "pro-homicide sick fucks."
But "pro-terrorist enabling xenophobes"? Well, if the shoe fits...
@ Anon. at 12:11 AM,
Delete"Back when Lionel Groulx was more known people in Toronto rioted against the Jews."
But no metro/subway stations in Toronto were named after those anti-semites.
They also didn't name any major boulevards and other landmarks after a politician who committed vehicular homicide while drunk, as was the case with Rene Levesque in Quebec.
@ Tony,
Delete"But "pro-terrorist enabling xenophobes"? Well, if the shoe fits..."
The shoe does fit. In the 2009 commemoration of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Quebec nationalists read out the FLQ manifesto to the audience like it was a magnificent document rather than the ranting of a cabal of murderers.
Ach mon, Tony, ya bested me! Unfortunately I had to work all day until this moment and would have liked to report to Mr. Sick F**ks, but I can't improve on your response, but I wanted to at least acknowledge good one!
DeleteAll you forgot to mention was Lévesque, very often in a drunken state, got away with that one back in Feb 1977. Well, his judgment day has come and gone so I guess we'll never know what the final verdict was.
Time you all realized one thing.. Quebec Nationalists do not want you here.... best take the 401.. if you choose to stay, then make a serious attempt at fighting back... Stop voting Liberal.., if no non-Racists candidate exists, then spoil your ballot.. Start a new political party,, if not then Arm yourselves... because at this rate , pretty soon Quebec Storm troopers will be rounding up non de-souche and shooting them on the spot.. think I'm exaggerating ..... the Fear mongering promulgated by the Francophone establishment is through the roof... take 5 minutes if you can stomach it and tune in to Dutrizac.... and the other talking heads....
ReplyDelete"Start a new political party..."
DeleteImpossible,pas un anglo n'a la courage de s'aventurer dans une telle aventure.Comment on dit en globish déjà?Coward?Hâte de voir combien ils seront à la prochaine manif anti Loi 101.
Anonymous Seppie makes a point, almost despite himself.
DeleteThe recent spate of separatist mud-slinging points to the undeniable fact that the separatists are more on the defensive now than they've ever been (or had to be).
Anglos have traditionally been notoriously reluctant to take the separatists on in the same forums and spaces, and looking back I think this has probably been the single worst move that the English-speaking community could have ever historically made in Quebec. Lack of language skills did not and does not justify a community's reticence to stand up for what it thinks is right. This is true for francophones just as much as for anglophones, despite my overriding argument that bilingualism is the ideal that all sides should tend toward.
So as the SSJB/RRQ-inspired fear-mongering, spin, and hateful incitement keeps getting churned out, the best thing to do is not take the 401 or any such silliness but instead counter that legitimacy in any debate is not the exclusive monopoly of one side.
Cowardice is effectively the tactic embodied in the hardcore separatists' continued push to strip away the rights and freedoms (either legal or customary) enjoyed by all those who don't share their narrow vision of utopia.
Cowardice is also the tactic of doing nothing when a radicalized mob dares to chip away at the legitimacy of your own day-to-day existence all within the context of a supposedly civilized society.
Anonymous writes in response to the suggestion that anglos start a new political party:
DeleteImpossible,pas un anglo n'a la courage de s'aventurer dans une telle aventure.Comment on dit en globish déjà?Coward?Hâte de voir combien ils seront à la prochaine manif anti Loi 101.
When he's right, he's right.
The intelligence -- and courage, for that matter -- of the Quebec anglophone community went down the 401 a long, long time ago.
Apparatchik writes:
Delete...bilingualism is the ideal that all sides should tend toward.
I disagree.
There is this notion that knowing the language of the ethnic group with which you share territory and have conflict with will decrease or eliminate the friction between the two groups...and, in our case, will be better for Canadian unity. Koombayah, tolerance, and all.
Well, nothing could be further from the truth. And, indeed, the evidence points to the exact opposite conclusion. To wit:
1) the two ethnic groups in Europse over the past 60 years with the most conflict, the most deaths and killings between them (over 100,000?) are the Serbs and Croats. And they both speak the same common language: Serbo-Croatian.
2) If you were to draw on a graph a line charting the number of people -- both French and English -- in Canada who have become bilingual and chart it next to a line showing the support for separatism in Quebec, I suggest that the two lines would rise in tandem.
Bilingualism is a failure...both the official and individual versions of it.
If anything, what learning the other official language of Canada does for Quebecers and Canadians is that it results in each group getting to know the other group enough to know that we are so different in outlook as to how a country should be run that we end up realizing that we should live apart.
> There is this notion that knowing the language [...] will decrease or eliminate the friction [...] and, in our case, will be better for Canadian unity. [...] the two ethnic groups in Europse over the past 60 years with the most conflict [...] are the Serbs and Croats. And they both speak the same common language: Serbo-Croatian.
DeleteIsn't it kind of disingenuous to put the cart before the horse and use the conclusion (conflict in and breakup of Yugoslavia) to justify one highly distilled cherry-picked fact (bilingualism doesn't promote mutual understanding)?
The long conflict opposing Serbs and Croatians didn't happen as a result of speaking the same language, but rather was a cumulative failure of multiple factors, to wit:
- a hopelessly ill-suited and unbalanced constitution and power-sharing structure that yielded too easily to domestic crises, conferring ad-hoc privileges and recognitions to various groups in some cases but not in others
- two separate but highly related peoples, but each allied with (and at least ideological proxies of) far more powerful power players. I mean this in as much a religious/classical sense (Catholic vs. Orthodox) as I do in terms of (post-)Cold War politics (Capitalist West vs. Soviet communists):
-- the impending collapse of a largely Serb-controlled communist state with an apparatus completely unprepared to meet the challenges ahead
-- a bloated government and business class that encouraged low productivity and fostered ballooning debt and unemployment
- increasing petty nationalist sentiment among both groups, stemming as much from megalomaniacal narcissism as it did resentment toward arbitrary demands (and grabs) for power
> If you were to draw on a graph a line charting the number of people [...] in Canada who have become bilingual and chart it next to a line showing the support for separatism in Quebec, I suggest that the two lines would rise in tandem.
Support for separatism hovers around 40% today just as it did over a generation ago. I acknowledge upward variations in the early-mid 1990s and attribute that to a correlation between the artificial effects resulting from emotional political manipulation of impressionable French-Canadians by separatist politicians.
The trend in terms of bilingual Canadians and supposedly rising separatism doesn't seem to support your hypothesis either. Sorry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Canada#The_two_official_languages
> Bilingualism is a failure...both the official and individual versions of it.
Convince me as to why I should feel like a failure for being bilingual. Then go tell the other five million or so other Canadians.
After that, come (back) to Montreal especially and talk to anybody below the age of, say, 35, who isn't a member of some extreme linguistic-political organization and lecture them on why de facto or de jure bilingualism is in any way a failure. If they don't laugh at you for being a caricature or an anachronism, let me know why.
Bilingualism is as Canadian as the Rocky Mountains, the tar/oil sands, the Calgary Stampede, wheat fields, maple syrup, poutine, and cod fishing. It isn't because you happen not to identify with it that it ought to be derided.
> If anything, what learning the other official language of Canada does for Quebecers and Canadians is that it results in each group getting to know the other group enough to know that we are so different in outlook as to how a country should be run that we end up realizing that we should live apart.
DeleteWith all due respect, that smells like a rather self-serving conclusion.
Most Canadians are Red Tories. We largely supported withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, and believe that the government should play an important role in managing the economy and alleviating income inequality. Less than half of us think we need a strong military.
We like to keep our personal business personal, but aren't completely put off by state intervention. Both French- and English-Canadians have historically seen themselves as precariously small populations next to a much larger (and more powerful) behemoth -- whoever they defined the behemoth to be. Both French- and English-Canadians historically depended on large economic powers to harness our resources while advocating communal organizations (Caisse Populaire, trade unions, prairie farmer co-ops) as to counteract such large powers.
All told, our media might be complicit in pushing for Quebec/RoC cultural and at times even institutional cleavage, but in deeper and more meaningful ways we are actually more integrated and interdependent than we ever have been. And unlike the Yugoslavian framework that unfortunately drove the Serbs and Croats to recent bloody conflict, I believe our current constitutional framework more effectively (albeit imperfectly) balances our needs for power-sharing, regional representation, wealth distribution, and independent decision-making than theirs ever did or could.
A century ago, the rift between English and French was supposedly about language, but also power, religion, wealth, prejudice, discrimination, and the perception that the opportunity was largely one-sided (a young Jacques Parizeau reportedly started looking the other way when he realized he would never make it in Canada's English-dominated 1960's business circles).
The only major thing that still separates the descendents of "French-Canadians" from those of "English-Canadians" is language, and in truth even this would be seen as a comparatively minor difference if the emphasis were placed on empowering unilinguals to become bilingual rather than variously using genteel or crass power to force "assimilation" or, worse yet, to fear its specter when it isn't justified at all.
Apparatchik responds to me:
DeleteThe long conflict opposing Serbs and Croatians didn't happen as a result of speaking the same language, but rather was a cumulative failure of multiple factors
Precisely...and knowing the language of your opponent had zero -- zippo, nada, rien -- effect on ameliorating the situation. And this, of course, was precisely my point.
Apparatchik further responds to me:
Convince me as to why I should feel like a failure for being bilingual. Then go tell the other five million or so other Canadians.
My statement that individual bilingualism -- in addition to Official Bilingualism (two completely and opposite concepts) -- is a failure was made within the context of whether knowing the language of another ethnic group on a territory you share with them promotes unity. I thought that obvious. It goes without saying, of course, that knowledge of two languages (or more!) is a great thing for any individual.
Apparatchik writes:
DeleteSupport for separatism hovers around 40% today just as it did over a generation ago. I acknowledge upward variations in the early-mid 1990s and attribute that to a correlation between the artificial effects resulting from emotional political manipulation of impressionable French-Canadians by separatist politicians.
Certainly, support for separation as measured by public opinion polls experiences "variations" over time, as you point out. It goes up and down in waves on a graph.
But if you were to look at these "waves" over time from, say, 1970 until now, despite their up and down nature, the overall direction is markedly in the "up" direction.
And I wouldn't refer to what happened in the "early-mid" '90s, as you say, as mere "upward variations". Good God, man! Are you not aware that in 1995 the country came within a whisker of ending??? That's no mere "upward variation" but that 49.42% "yes" vote was a rock solid 60% from the francophone side.
When Trudeau left office in the mid '80s, support for separation was almost down to single digits.
No, I stick by what I said: there is no evidence whatsoever that bilingualism of either the individual or official kind does anything for Canadian Unity and indeed does the opposite.
You provided a link to a Wikipedia page about official languages...what specifically is there at that link that has relevance to this specific discussion about the connection between bilingualism and diminishing the separation threat? Could you please be more precise, perhaps by directing me to a specific location on that link?
Apparatchik writes:
DeleteAfter that, come (back) to Montreal especially and talk to anybody below the age of, say, 35, who isn't a member of some extreme linguistic-political organization and lecture them on why de facto or de jure bilingualism is in any way a failure. If they don't laugh at you for being a caricature or an anachronism, let me know why.
Anyone under 35 who is bilingual would, of course, tell you that being so is a good thing. I dare say that anyone over 35 would tell you the same...as well as anyone who isn't bilingual.
So I am not sure what your point is. Being bilingual means you have more knowledge at your disposal and, like having an advanced degree, is advantageous in one's life not only for doing things like, say, getting a better job but, of course, enriching your life in countless ways.
If your point is that being bilingual makes you happier about the repressive language regime of Quebec or that a bilingual anglophone is more at home in Quebec, I must sadly inform you that the opposite is true. I cite a study in my book from about a dozen or so years ago in which, like virtually every poll ever taken on Quebec anglos, there is overwhelming opposition to Bill 101.
But guess what? The age group that overwhelmingly cited Bill 101 as "the most important problem" facing them in Quebec was the most bilingual age group of all, the 18-24 age group. Reference: see page 6 at Young anglos hate Bill 101 most of all
Apparatchik, you insinuate that I am a "caricature" or an "anacronism." You have attempted to misdirect the debate by suggesting I am anti-bilingualism when I am no such thing. It is quite obvious -- and always has been -- that I believe being individually bilingual is a great thing.
DeleteMy point was that official and individual bilingualism not only don't promote Canadian Unity but has the exact opposite effect. And I cited facts and figures -- not anecdotes as you do -- to back up my claim.
A caricature or anachronism is best represented by those that insist upon sticking with old, tired ideas that have, time and again, proven not to work and that are counterproductive. Holding on to the notion that bilingualism promotes Canadian Unity -- started over 40 years ago -- is one such idea. Blindly voting for the Liberal Party of Quebec and for any of the four pro-Bill 101 parties represented in the House of Commons is another.
Am I incorrect in holding that you are a supporter of both of these old, tired ideas? If not, tell me why not?
If so, who then is the caricature or anachronism?
nice try seppie for passing off as an anglo, but you fail to fooling us into your intimidation attempt...
ReplyDeleteVous vous méprenez encore petit parano,je n'écris jamais en globish.
DeleteWe know: you only write gibberish!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteREADERS:
ReplyDeleteHow about some meaningful content?
Editor, how about the whole "descriptive" issue. You analyzed bill clown-oh-one in one of your posts and discovered that there are 2 provisions in regards to the descriptive, one generic provision that loosely implies there should be a descriptive, and one specific provision that clearly indicates that registered trademarks, like Future Shop, Best Buy, etc..., NEED NO DESCRIPTIVE. And you correctly pointed out that specific provisions always override the general ones. In the court of law, all Future Shop would have to do is point to the specific section. Case closed.
DeleteSo first of all, this is probably why the OQLF does not act more aggressively by imposing fines, but rather softly with "encouragement" campaigns. Second of all, I think the govt may be using the media to pressure the stores (which seem in compliance with clown-oh-one) to go above and beyond and "show respect" to the perpetually "disrespected" franco population by adding the descriptive. The pressure is via infamy lists shown on tv every day. It's not unlike the McCarthy lists, except here the names are of businesses, not people. It's an old trick btw. When law doesn't go far enough, extrajudicial measures are used for smear. Lastly, it's interesting that the media goes on a witch hunt on an issue that is legalistically ambiguous and tilting towards to business and away from the govt (again, the chains do not appear to break the law) with such zeal and certainty.
In regards to "respect", here is a good topic for a piece. How there is a thin line between really not getting respect and simply being oversensitive and feeling disrespected at every turn, like when even indifference to the "French fact" is viewed as hostility. It might be worth it to put this population on the couch and analyze their neuroses from a psychological perspective, instead of the political and sociological one. Doing the latter will always get us hitting the same dead ends (respecting the majority, protecting the language, promoting the culture) etc... Doing the former may be more revealing.
How about some moderation?
Delete"like when even indifference to the "French fact" is viewed as hostility."
DeleteL'hostilité ne provient pas de votre indifférence ou manque d'intérêts ou de curiosité pour la culture dominante mais bien de votre entêtement à vouloir imposer l'anglais à la majorité francophone.Nous ne voulons pas d'affichage en anglais dans notre ville,est-ce assez clair?
Editor said:
Delete"How about some meaningful content?"
That will happen when the Editor blocks the garbage posts from the idiot posting as Seppie, OQLF, et al.
Anon, 1:18PM, I think most Quebeckers would prefer affichage in French, but the question is: what are they ready to do when affichage comes out in English? I think most of them would be willing to tolerate it, despite all of the "sensitizing" campaigns carried out by militant organizations and the media spin.
DeleteSecond, why isn't the charter of charters, the guardian of the language, not amended as to force Future Shop's and Best Buy's to comply? Why not give the OLF full powers, instead of leaving them with the useless option of soft persuasion? Because your governments are afraid to go after large and powerful corporate structures. They simply don't pack a punch.
Third, I have no intention of imposing any language on the francophone majority. Keep in mind that no francophone is obliged to interact with me ever. So my speaking English on most days doesn't affect your ability to interact in French with whomever you want. And since your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose, you can't go around lamenting that me not letting you punch me is somehow a violation of your freedom to swing your arms. Think about it.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Delete"...because without us"...Nous aurions une des plus belle ville au monde avec un cachet encore plus unique.
Deleteyeah a backwater cachet
Delete> I think most Quebeckers would prefer affichage in French, but the question is: what are they ready to do when affichage comes out in English?
DeleteI think the important elephant in the room (I'm surprised none of you picked up on this) surrounds the psychological trigger surrounding the word "affichage".
In its simplest interpretation, "affichage" means "display", as in displaying marketing or promotional signage. "Afficher en français" certainly has to do with displaying such signage in French, and traditionally, the battles have been about those businesses who didn't (or wouldn't).
The part I deplore is that with the battle over signage effectively over, the militants need a raison d'être and have settled on the next fabricated crisis whereby strings of text such as The UPS Store, Dunkin' Donuts, Second Cup, and Starbucks are what's going to keep my grandkids from speaking French (newsflash: they'll speak French because I'll have made sure my own kids pass it on).
The part I find particularly insidious is that when headlines deliberately phrased as "this percentage of businesses doesn't display in French", many people (who are too busy/lazy/indifferent) will default to thinking "wow no French displayed IN those stores", rather than what's really the case (i.e. McDonald's and Future Shop have French menus/merchandise tags and are English-controlled chains). It would have been a lot more honest to have simply reported "x % of businesses have English names and that both spoils and undermines the fantasy we're trying to create". But let's get real, that won't happen in a month full of Sundays...
It's got everything to do with grappling at straws to motivate the hapless uninformed out of fear, which is the most potent currency the priests right down to language supremacists have ever operated on. Mixing fact with fiction, as revoltingly illustrated in the recent Caisse de dépôt witchunt and always fashionable Jean-François/Marc Termotte-inspired partisan-infused pseudoscience only shows how hungry for a proverbial ratings "bitch-fight" our bottom-feeding media are. Howl "cultural genocide" at a unilingual Habs coach appointment, and string together dozens of other such "insults" and weave a huge quilt into which you hope to wrap (if not strangle) an eternally besieged population.
"Radio-Canada now working for the OQLF?"
ReplyDeleteRadio - Canada and their counterparts in anglo canada are a bunch of left wingers who are totally out of touch with reality. There are a lot of left leaning seppies working downtown at 1400 Renee Levesque Blvd. All getting subsidized by the taxpayeer of this country. As to them working for the OQLf,,,would this surprise anybody who has had any exposure to Guy Lepage (isn't that some form of glue) on TLMEP on Sunday nights. His obvious dislike and vitriol for the anglo culture is clearly evident..."what you dont speak JOUAL, you must be an idiot".
On this note I see Hubert LacroiXXX has suspended the made in France porn series they were promoting. You heard me right...Radio Canada running smut at our expense. Look, I am not a prude and have watched the occassional porn ...but to fund this with taxpayers money to the tune of 1.1 Billion per year is ridiculous. Sun TV made quite an issue out of this....James Moore had asked them to cease this program and LacroiXXX came back a few months ago and indicated that no, they wouldnt take if off, in the spirit of the artistic endeavor of Radio Canada. I guess that as they are getting close to budget time, Hubert decided to heed the warning from Moore to save his ass.
Hilarious really.
I used to like Radio Canada. Reading this, I think I have changed my mind. This isn't something I would like my hard earned $$ going to. Radio Canada should be shut down.
Delete-Anon55
"Lepage (isn't that some form of glue) on TLMEP on Sunday nights. His obvious dislike and vitriol for the anglo culture is clearly evident"
DeleteAnd your obvious dislike and vitriol for French names is clearly evident. It was a surname before being a brand of glue. I personally never make fun of people's names.
The irony is that what you said is also an insult for anglos who bear the surname Lepage and I'm not just talking about descendents of assimilated French-Canadians (not just in other provinces but many of those can be found in the west island) but the name has been present in England for a very long time and some English Lepages even settled in English Canada and the US according to this:
http://www.houseofnames.com/lepage-family-crest/English
Prince Edward Island even had a lieutenant governor named after some form of glue:
Deletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_William_LePage
Guy Lepage is an a*&hole, so why not make fun of his name?
DeleteBecause why attack style when you can attack substance?
DeleteFacts never seem to matter when it comes to language and Radio-Canada.
ReplyDeleteIf you had a chance to view the Radio-Canada story, you might have noticed a certain anomaly. First the reporter talks about stores being non-compliant with Bill 101 in regards to signs and then slips in that the stores were violating the 'spirit' of the law.
It a dead give away that when the 'spirit' of the law is invoked, the letter of the law doesn't satisfy.
The OQLF is talking about a persuasion campaign probably because its position cannot be defended in court.
BUT NOBODY in the mainstream press is willing to challenge the OQLF on its own law.
Just watched the Radio Canada video. They've hit a new bottom with this. The report is a political hackjob aiming to stir up trouble and bait the crazies.
DeleteThe PQ MP N.Girard says that no penalties are issued to downtown establishments because the OQLF "lacks resources"...
L.Marchand of the OQLF says the OLF prefers "soft measures" because they are "more effective"...
As if the OLF "lacks resources", or prefers to shun harsh measures when it doesn't have to...
The Office does go soft because it has no choice. Because you can't fine someone for violating a "spirit" of the law. Period.
Re: Complaint against Alberta by F. David
ReplyDeleteIt seems that she thinks it's ok for Alberta to make all that money and then hand it over to Quebec in equilization payments....no need for Quebeckers to dirty their hands with *actual* work, and all the while whining about homesickness as the "real reason" not to go work....
NEWS FLASH: there are already thousands of French migrant workers in the orchards and vineyards of B.C., leaving PQ for even LOWER wages...the equivalent of the Mexican workers in southern California. This has been going on since I can remember....
Anon55
What's this delusion amongst albertans that living on top of gigantic reserves of oil magically makes one have a good work ethic?
DeleteNewfoundland was the poorest, less educated, most downbeat province in Canada ever since its inclusion. Now it's a have province only because oil production began. Do they suddenly have good work ethic too?
As seppie would say, MDR.
Who said anything about "work ethic"? Unemployment rate is the lowest in Alberta. That means FEWER PEOPLE NOT WORKING than any other province in Canada.Definitely Alberta contributes more to Quebec in equilization payments.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteEditor,
DeleteYou're gonna let this one pass?
Reading these posts today, I was reminded of why the BQ got nearly wiped out on May 2nd, 2011. Since then, a lot of things have changed, save the hateful position of Pauline Antoinette Marois. In reading the May 2, 2011 post below, you may recall how she was pushing her oppressive will on the Quebec population concerning higher education and of course, staying in line with her mentors of more than half a century ago, the daycares.
ReplyDeleteRemember? “We don’t nee you, we have your children!”
If there is a cause for Premiere Charest, it should be this overzealous hate of the separatists who’ve so run out of support for their divisive ways, that they need to lower the voting age so they can blackmail children to vote against their parents, and against their country!
See post written minutes after the May 2, 2011 Canadian Election:
Greed, Hate, and Hope.
Greed:
The Liberals’ problems stem from the planning of a coup on Jean Chrétien.
-Jean Chrétien, the man who in 1970 pushed Trudeau to stop the FLQ terrorism. Jean was ask a few years ago by some flaky far left wing “reporter” if he regretted doing that, and he said; “No! I would do it again”.
-Jean Chrétien, the man who always separated the separatists from the French Canadians. When the BQ said in parliament “We represent Quebec” He asked his Quebec MPs to stand and told the hateful separatists; “They represent Quebec. You represent the Separatists!”
-Jean Chrétien, the man who gave the Liberals three consecutive majorities and who was leading when the party, out of greed, pushed him out.
You may hate Jean Chrétien because he was not your cup of tea, or because you’re Separatists, but you can’t deny that he never pondered between separatism and Canada.
And you can’t deny that he loves OurCountry.
I mentioned in another post that the separatists hate Jean Chrétien, Pierre Trudeau,
Jean Charest and Stéphane Dion because these men stood in the way of the partitioning
of OurCountry.
Now that the liberals have fewer seats nationally than Chrétien had in Quebec alone, was it
so terrible that Stéphane Dion who was also sabotaged by his party, got them 77 seats?
Hate:
A few weeks before the election, at a time when most of the country wanted nothing to do
with electoral rhetoric, PQ Separatist Pauline Marois had a convention in Montreal where she spewed her hate for Canada and promised, among other things, to add new powers to the dredged Language Segregation Bill 101. French Canadians who have not the right to choose multilingual schooling from elementary to high school would also lose the right of choosing to attend English colleges. The French Canadians saw this as more than they could take and immediately began to tell pollsters that they would not vote BQ. Although Jack Layton and Uncle Tom support Bill 101, they were there to pick up the pieces. The rest of the country saw that as a way to punish the Hateful Treasonous BQ and the Greedy Liberals and jumped on
the bandwagon.
Thankfully Ontario realized that a Prime Minister Layton would bankrupt Canada and gave The Conservatives the chance to conserve OurCountry.
Hope:
Lets hope Prime minister Harper doesn’t kowtow to the separatists. Giving Quebec nationhood to the separatists, who are clearly a minority, amounted in five less Quebec seats for him. Appeasement doesn’t work!
Lets hope Prime minister Harper remembers that the majority of French Canadians living in the PROVINCE of Quebec are ready to lay down their lives to defend Canada and separating them from the separatists is not costly and good for NationalUnity.
Lets hope that the NDP keeps Uncle Tom Mulcair from reviving the special interest group’s hateful separatist machine.
Lets hope that Premiere Jean Charest wins the next PROVINCIAL election to keep Canada on the positive track that will have us remain the envy of the world…
Congratulations Prime Minister Harper for your Majority.
"appeasement doesen't work"
DeleteAs if francos would trust anything dished out by Harper...
Well said, Anonymous 4:36
DeleteChretien，Trudeau，Charest，and Dion were and are no friends of the anglo community of Quebec。To varying degrees they pandered to Quebec language supremists and in Charest's case to Quebec nationalism。
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing for us to celebrate there。
More on this later。
As usual Tony, you’re performing well in your self appointed role as the referee of this post. The problem is that you’re brand of eternal separatism is not working. You bringing up the past errors of politicians like Jean Chrétien, Pierre Trudeau,
DeleteJean Charest and Stéphane Dion still does not negate the fact that the separatists hate them because those men stood in the way of separation so far.
You strike me as an idealist of sorts, who expects good people who in their quest to serve, remain pure as the driven snow once they’ve been thrown into the political vat of deception, opportunism, and greed.
Your job seams to be about discouraging those who attempt to distance themselves from the divisive racist rhetoric. You act like you want to be part of the Montreal side of the Quebec divide, yet you negate the fact that Chrétien, Trudeau, Charest and Dion stopping the seps by pinpointing that they are no friends of the anglo community.
You are either deliberately missing the point, or you are having a hard time deciphering who the teams are in the game you’re riffing. I with to remind you that as long as you use the lexicon the separatists and all their allies in the press have provided us, you will continue to marginalize those of us who are, and want to remain Canadian.
Stop diminishing English people as the anglo community! They are The Victorious Nation of Canada’s Founding Nations!
It is true that you put forth many good comments, but you often sound as though you have given up on Canada. We who refuse the racial tagging have not!
Why are you so often playing into the separatists’ hands? Do you wish your book on the end of Canada to be a self-fulfilling prophecy?
> As usual Tony, you’re performing well in your self appointed role as the referee of this post.
DeleteI must say I was not aware of this Tony Kondaks fellow before he began posting here recently. I'm not entirely done reading your site, Tony, and although I don't agree with quite a few of your conclusions, I'm sure our ongoing discussion here will be of some value.
> You bringing up the past errors of politicians [...] still does not negate the fact that the separatists hate them because those men stood in the way of separation so far.
True enough. And one might argue that list has done more to steer us toward relative constitutional peace than any of their counterparts or contemporaries. Few federalists and even separatists alike ever properly (in my view) vilify Mulroney for his role in the challenges both sides endured throughout the 90's. When the going was good, it was because he was the guy from Baie-Comeau. When things were bad, he was a maudit anglais...
> Your job seams to be about discouraging those who attempt to distance themselves from the divisive racist rhetoric [...] you put forth many good comments, but you often sound as though you have given up on Canada. We who refuse the racial tagging have not!
I strongly identify with this statement. If there's anything we need right now it's support for the one side (irrespective of language/politics) calling out for a moment of sanity. Blowing on embers doesn't really help anybody right about now...
> Stop diminishing English people as the anglo community! They are The Victorious Nation of Canada’s Founding Nations!
Oh lord... this is the part where my eyes start to roll... right up there with the polemical triumphalism of old celebrating "la race canadienne-française" and of today pushing this whole "peuple Québécois" crap every chance they can.
Apparatchik,
DeleteI agree with all your points above, including the one about Tony, but I think you misunderstood my Victorious nation comment. It’s a demonstration of where the conversation can go when you minimize a major contributor of a country as a mere community in order to justify racism!
If the Separatists are a ruling nation, they what are the Englis?
If Separatists don’t want polemical triumphalism, they should stop being at war with the Canadian population.
My apologies then. I must have misread your sarcasm as a serious conclusion. I suppose written comments devoid of vocal intonation are partly to blame.
Delete> If the Separatists are a ruling nation, they what are the Englis?
I don't happen to think the separatists are a ruling nation. At no point does an emotional and mercurial political movement that is only able to garner majority support by exploiting emotional passion for political gain speak for me. And I say that as the descendent of French-Canadians, much more than that of British-Canadians or even allos.
> If Separatists don’t want polemical triumphalism, they should stop being at war with the Canadian population.
I think the separatists are both at war with all of Canada and with Quebec federalists, and perhaps even more so with the latter. Much as the neoconservatives in America always need to be at war against something (abortion, Mexicans, Muslims, ....), our own equivalent neocons need to be at war against a perpetual (but shifting) enemy.
I often read the words of disaffected RoC'ers advocating the let's-cut-Quebec-off idea as some kind of solution to all these ills. But that panacea naively leaves out the fact that it is indeed federalist Quebecers who need to bear the daily brunt of a vocal, powerful, and militant minority constantly "affirming" the various "rights" to "self-determination" that our "nation" claims it must achieve through "sovereignty".
I have to shake my head, both at the emptiness of all these buzzwords, as well as the various charming McCarthyist epithets ("traitors", "sellouts", "contemptuous", "minimalizing", "colonized", "Gratton") flung our way daily for not supporting the orthodox dogma of the new monsignors. It's kind of surreal to be considered a fifth column when more people (in Quebec, no less!) agree with me than with them.
Anonynous responds to me:
DeleteYou bringing up the past errors of politicians like Jean Chrétien, Pierre Trudeau,
Jean Charest and Stéphane Dion still does not negate the fact that the separatists hate them because those men stood in the way of separation so far.
Chretien, Trudeau, Charest, Dion = Good cops
PQ, Bloc, separatists = Bad cops
Anonymous further writes:
I wish to remind you that as long as you use the lexicon the separatists and all their allies in the press have provided us, you will continue to marginalize those of us who are, and want to remain Canadian.
...and I, on the other hand, want to do everything I can to wake up those who want to remain Canadian that to continue to support the policies of the aforementioned gentlemen that this will surely result in a further diminution of your rights...and continue to threaten the very continued existence of the country.
Continued to Anonymous:
DeleteAs well, I want to ask all of you who, as you do, claim to "want to remain Canadian" what it is exactly that you like and are proud of about being Canadian.
Is it the incredibly good economic situation we're in? That one's a no-brainer. Sure, we all like that and, indeed, we're probably the envy of the world today and that is something to be both proud of and want to maintain.
But a country has to be more than just "economics" and financial security. For me, a country first and foremost has to stand for individual rights and freedoms. This is something that has, for the last 40 years, been sacrificed for the so-called good of Canadian Unity and has devastated the anglo community...a community, I've pointed out ad infinitum here on this forum, that has singularly saved Canada's ass in two referendums on separation.
Canada's a great concept. But there are other concepts that are more important and take priority over the concept of Canada. And one of those concepts is that I, as an individual, have an inalienable right to my full rights and freedoms. This concept takes precedence not only over the concept of Canada but over the concept of the "collective".
Anonymous, I made the big mistake about 20 years ago of reading the Confederation Debates. In it, I read with shock and amazement that the Fathers of Confederation had actually foreseen the possibility of laws such as Bills 22 and 101 and had not only put provisions in the BNA Act to protect against such eventualities but made the solemn promise that if provincial legislatures ever used the tyranny of the majority to violate individual or minority rights that the federal government would step in and veto said provincial legislation.
In the entire history of Canada this has never been done. Not for us, the anglos of Quebec, nor for the francophone or Catholic minorities of other provinces.
Trudeau in 1974 was presented with a petition of 600,000 signatures demanding that he disallow Bill 22. He didn't. Had he, I suggest to you that the 500,000 anglos (out of a population of about 1 million at the time) wouldn't have left. It also would have killed separatism and repressive language legislation in its tracks.
The problem is Canada and the kind of people you cite as so wonderful. My purpose in bringing these things to your attention is that, hopefully, you and others will stop repeating the same, tired old strategies you have in the past that not only don't work but make things worse for the community and the country.
If you want to save Canada, you have to be ready to sacrifice Canada. The first step on this road is to realize that you hold the power to make or break Canada and instead of giving away that power so easily at the ballot box of general elections and, especially, separation referendums, that you put Canada on notice that you will sell that incredible power to the highest bidder.
Like Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz" who spent the entire time in Oz trying to find her way back to Kansas but always had the ability to do so by just clicking her heels three times, the non-francophones and federalists of Quebec had and still have the ability to not only get all of their rights and freedoms back but the power to save Canada.
Use it or lose it.
Anonymous asks me:
DeleteWhy are you so often playing into the separatists’ hands? Do you wish your book on the end of Canada to be a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Yes.
Apparatchik writes:
DeleteAnd one might argue that list has done more to steer us toward relative constitutional peace than any of their counterparts or contemporaries.
Really? Constitutional peace? Even "relative" constitutional peace?
Are you serious? Such a comment, Apparatchik, almost begs a non-response because by doing so would dignify it.
Tell me how peaceful it is living under the hand of Bill 101.
Continual blackmail by Quebec.
A Liberal Government run by Jean Charest who won't even give the anglos section 23.1.a. let alone amend any of Bill 101 (uh, I mean amend it in our favour as opposed to amending it in the separatists' favor which he continually does).
500,000 who have left.
Segregation.
A populace -- francophone Quebec -- that hates the very hand (Canada) that, figuratively feeds it.
Sorry, if that's constitutional peace -- relative or not -- I want none of it.
> Really? Constitutional peace? Even "relative" constitutional peace?
DeleteYeah. Really. How much serious bitching have you heard about reopening the constitution since the 1995 referendum? Nothing like the Meech/Charlottetown era. That's what I call "relative" constitutional peace.
> Tell me how peaceful it is living under the hand of Bill 101.
In practice, I'm not really that affected by it, frankly, since I've been bilingual all my life. My issue with Quebec's language legislation (far more than Ottawa's) is far more theoretical in that I find it isn't even-handed and doesn't encourage the very multilingualism that I am a (very content) walking advertisement for. It's also got to do with my deep historical dislike of a largely Francophone-controlled institution (our provincial government) literally mind-controlling huge numbers of francophones just as the Church (that other largely Francophone-controlled institution) once did -- with little to no opposition by the masses. My point is that our institutions have historically shown themselves adept at maintaining a way of life, but not help us evolve and aspire to genuine integration with the dominant and powerful majority around us. And as a francophone myself, I guess I sort of resent the fact that history keeps repeating itself.
> A Liberal Government run by Jean Charest who won't even give the anglos section 23.1.a [...]
Just today, Christine St-Pierre reiterated the government's position against using the notwithstanding clause.
> [...] let alone amend any of Bill 101 [...]
Quebecers are laxer about this today than they've been at any time since that language legislation was initially brought in. I credit that "relative constitutional peace", aided by a decade of provincial Liberal government (however much I disagree with them), and the overall socioeconomic improvement of most French-Canadians in the last few decades. Part of me wants our current French-language legislation abolished yesterday, and part of me looks at our Vigile-inspired fanatics who demand a tightening and wonders whether that's the supernova preceding the overall death of the movement that began in the early-mid 70s.
By the way, Gendron isn't the first to openly criticize the legislation. Bernier did not long ago as well. Many francophones are coming out to denounce out loud the limitations that 101 has placed on them -- something they wouldn't have dared do even a decade or two ago. It's the beginning of a trend.
> 500,000 who have left.
DeleteDeplorable, but what's your point in the wider scheme of things? They should have stayed their ground, but instead they ran off and left the rest of us holding the bag. The separatists have the nerve to say "101 or 401" or other crap like "Canadians go home". I say federalists (including part-French-Canadian federalists like myself) are allowed to be here just as much as the torch-wielding extremists at the RRQ and SSJB, and that, as I once saw on corrected graffiti, "Canadians are home".
> [...] Segregation [...]
Segregation is as segregation does. It's accepted about as insidiously as it is imposed.
I maintain the rabid language militants are just as guilty of self-segregating themselves from mainstream North American culture as the proverbial "Rhodesians" were (and to some extent are) from francophone Quebec culture.
Jumping in head first and integrating doesn't have to mean assimilating and forgetting who (or what) you are. I know this because I'm living proof of it and I just can't understand why some people aren't willing to make the effort. When it comes down to it, it's a lot easier learning a language than it is spending a lifetime hating it.
> A populace -- francophone Quebec -- that hates the very hand (Canada) that, figuratively feeds it.
Beware of overgeneralizations. Not all of francophone Quebec hates Canada as you suggest. Much of francophone Quebec is, however, worried about its slow decline and eventual disappearance (I frankly don't stay up nights worrying that my great grandkids might speak only Swahili, but others do). I genuinely believe that when you objectively compare and contrast the two, it becomes clear that our current nationalist discourse has centered around defensively hunkering down rather than promoting beneficial two-way integration. That's where I think the work ought to be going in the next few decades.
> Sorry, if that's constitutional peace -- relative or not -- I want none of it.
I dunno, Tony. I might be a mercenary-pragmatist, but I'd rather an imperfect Quebec in an imperfect Canada than an extremist ethnolinguistic francophone supremacist state surrounded by an exclusively WASP-controlled haven edging ever closer toward a U.S. neoconservative's wet dream.
Tony,
DeleteSince Apparatchik has more than adequately replied to your replies to the both of us, I’d like to just mention that I find it’s all good to have studied up on Canada and that possibly you do love our country, however the fact that you answer “Yes” to wanting your book on the end of Canada to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, puts you in another category of citizen. I pray I am wrong.
No, you are not wrong.
DeleteAs I've said countless times -- and I draw my inspiration from William Johnson -- I would rather live in an independent Quebec than a Quebec within Canada that violated human rights.
You and Apparatchik both obviously disagree with me. Fine. I have my threshold and you guys have yours.
But what exactly is the other "category of citizen" that you are putting me into? I am not familiar with this concept.
Apparatchik writes:
DeleteHow much serious bitching have you heard about reopening the constitution since the 1995 referendum? Nothing like the Meech/Charlottetown era. That's what I call "relative" constitutional peace.
Not talking about something isn't synonymous with peace, constitutional or otherwise.
All parties represented in the National Assembly of Quebec not recognizing the Canadian constitution is not "constitutional peace".
A surging PQ and polls showing as much as 35-40% support for independence is not constitutional peace.
Apparatchik further writes:
My issue with Quebec's language legislation (far more than Ottawa's) is ...my deep historical dislike of a largely Francophone-controlled institution (our provincial government) literally mind-controlling huge numbers of francophones
On this we can agree and if for that reason alone (because, as you say above, Bill 101 really doesn't affect you personally) I hope you continue to oppose it and oppose it vociferously.
Apparatchik further writes in response to my anger with the Charest Government not instituting section 23.1.a in Quebec:
Just today, Christine St-Pierre reiterated the government's position against using the notwithstanding clause.
The notwithstanding clause has nothing to do with section 23.1.a.
Apparatchik writes:
Apparatchik writes:
DeleteI'd rather an imperfect Quebec in an imperfect Canada than an extremist ethnolinguistic francophone supremacist state surrounded by an exclusively WASP-controlled haven edging ever closer toward a U.S. neoconservative's wet dream.
This statement of yours confuses me, Apparatchik, because in the very same post in the previous paragraph you write:
Beware of overgeneralizations. Not all of francophone Quebec hates Canada as you suggest.
Overgeneralizations? What do you call it when someone claims an independent Quebec will be an "extremist ethnolinguistic francophone supremacist state"?
I suggested that francophone Quebec hates Canada. Overgeneralization? Well, I look at their representatives in the National Assembly and, including Jean Charest and his party, their policies, and the times they actually stand up in that body and declare their love and respect for Canada. And, yes, I believe I am on very safe ground concluding that francophone Quebec hates Canada.
In 1995, 60% of francophones voted for an independent Quebec, one that would become, in your words, an "extremist ethnolinguistic francophone supremacist state." Today, according to your own figures, 40% support independence. Because that 40% is virtually 100% francophone, that's mathematically 50% of francophones who support independence...and its' about 75% of the way to Quebec to unilaterally declare independence according to the publicly stated policies of the PQ, LPQ, and the federal NDP. This is representing, virtually, 100% of Quebecers on the provincial side and about 44% on the federalist side (the percentage of Quebec that voted NDP).
So it is you, Apparatchik, who not only make a generalization but you make one that is horrible in its implications: that those 60% of your fellow francophone citizens would actually create a supremacist state which will be extremist and ethnolinguistic in character. I don't think there is anyone who would disagree with me when I say that you have, in effect, described a modern-day Nazi-like state.
I, on the other hand, am on record as believing that Quebecers in an independent Quebec would quickly abandon Bill 101 and embrace English.
One of us is a fear-monger, Apparatchik, and it's not me.
Yes, both of us may be engaging in overgeneralizations but only one of us does it by assuming the absolute, very worst of human nature and makes incredibly extreme statements to describe this horrible state.
You are crossing a line when you engage in such rhetoric. If you continue to do so, may I respectfully suggest that you use your real name instead of an alias.
Another category of citizen to me, means that you would betray your country. Therefore, as much as I admire many of the things you say on this blog, I am forced to believe that to you this is but an exercise in wit.
DeleteHoping that I am wrong may well be wishful thinking on my part.
Perhaps you know the story of the scorpion and the frog?
Youppi!
ReplyDeleteQue la chasse commence!
http://tinyurl.com/7xx7hpq
You probably bear a very close resemblance to the mascot Youppi, LOL.
DeleteITs election year. I hope charest wins four more years by then the demographic changes in southwest quebec including montreal island will be interesting. IF only charest had changed riding boundaries while he had the chance.
Delete@Editor: remind us again why he backed down? He had everything to gain.
Delete"And your obvious dislike and vitriol for French names"
ReplyDeleteActually have a French surname myself and really don't give it much thought. On the glue...well I guess you have no sense of humor.
Guy Lepage an a$$$##hole? Vous avez bon raison avec ca, mon ami.
Acadieman dit: La Fédération canadienne des contribuables qui donne un prix citron à Gilles Duceppe. Faut quand même avoir du culot !!! Qu'est-ce qu'ils ne comprennent pas ? Il a été ÉLU par les électeurs de sa circonscription québécoise ! Tant que le Québec ne sera pas indépendant, le système mis en place pour les parlementaires de la fédération canadienne sert également les parlementaires québécois ÉLUS par la population québécoise ! Le site Internet de la ''Canadian taxpayers federation'' non-disponible en français !
ReplyDelete> Le site Internet de la ''Canadian taxpayers federation'' non-disponible en français !
DeleteEncouragez la démocratie: suggérez-donc une traduction.
> Tant que le Québec ne sera pas indépendant
Vous dites ça comme si c'était inévitable. Et si le Québec ne devenait jamais un pays séparé du Canada?
> Acadieman dit:
En passant, pourquoi "Acadieman dit:" ou "Haïti chérie dit:" plutôt que d'insérer votre nom dans l'espace consacré à cette fin? Ça n'ajoute rien de tangible à la protection du français et à force de le faire même sous plusieurs pseudonymes, ça mine la crédibilité de votre propre utilisation du blogue.
"Le site Internet de la ''Canadian taxpayers federation'' non-disponible en français !"
ReplyDeleteTry google translate!!! I doubt the CTF really gives a damn about Quebec who have one of the most fiscally irresponible governments (wheter PQ. Lib or otherwise) in Canada. Duceppe was a fraud and unfortunatley we have to continue to fund this clowns pension, at the expense of the very country he tried to destroy. The man has absolutely no conscience or shame at all. Of course, this is a common trait among Quebecois, n'est pas?
> Of course, this is a common trait among Quebecois, n'est pas?
DeleteTalk about a blanket overgeneralization.
You must see the entire world in either black or white. My condolences.
In reality Apparatchik...there really is only black and white...no or yes, right or wrong.
DeleteWould that reality happen to be the one in which I'm either with you or against you?
DeleteOr perhaps the one in which I can only choose to stand with you or with the child pornographers?
"Or perhaps the one in which I can only choose to stand with you or with the child pornographers?"
DeleteAnd which one would that be...the former or the latter?
The fence is rather thin, and becomes uncomfortable if you sit too long.
Don't piss on my feet and tell me it's raining.
DeleteWhittling everything down to just a single zero or one means doing away with all the necessary context you need to properly understand the situation. Avoiding seeing the broader picture only means creating different complications down the line. That makes you a poor analyst, not to mention crass and boorish.
You might be ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I'm not.
"not to mention crass and boorish."
DeleteOh my ....personal insults. I thought you better than that! The intellectual you so fancy yourself. Well, as they say, sticks and stones.... Moving on, there really is only right and wrong, fairness and unfairness etc etc.
Oh BTW, the baby will be saved... Might be missing a finger or two...but that will make him a stronger person in the "broader" sense.
You want to analyze my online activity to check for terror plotting/kiddie porn/fraud? Fine. Convince a judge and get a warrant. Otherwise keep your nose out of my business and quit the scare tactics. I'm a grown adult and don't need other adults to insult my intelligence by treating both my civil liberties and myself like a child.
DeleteWe certainly live in a shared societal framework and must each govern our actions accordingly. But unless I can't take care of myself, I draw the line at granting unnamed functionaries anonymous oversight about the books I read, the laptops I buy, and the mouthwash I use. I have nothing to hide, per se (I'm probably quite boring), but I do believe in due process. And this is a slippery slope toward stripping me of the rights and protections afforded to me through centuries of Western Civilization's evolution.
That's all.
Looks like for many of our computers the 'P' is for Partition..post of Wed, March 7, 2012 is full. This is the last visible exchange:
ReplyDeleteAnonymous of
Mar 8, 2012 09:16 PM said:
Looks like Editor was right to dedicate this page to The Eleventh Province. I’ve not seen this much participation on a subject in a long time.
The interesting thing is that for the first time I’ve noticed most of the seppies worried. Turns out they may have seen things a little differently and found that most of the legal groundwork for the 11th province is in place and the rest is will!
Separation is difficult and messy, but redrawing the border of a country is nothing more than gerrymandering. That scares the separatists and finally, for some of them who’ve participated in this discussion, there may be some will to be pro French rather than Anti English.
Things are changing all over. There may be proportional representation in parliament, meaning that Quebec won’t have 75 seats. We have created a third Canadian territory from two. And Toronto is poised to beat us at becoming the 11th province, but we being 12th ain’t too bad.
and
Anonymous ;D
of Mar 9, 2012 08:37 PM
Replied
There will never be a new province made out of parts of Quebec unless the National Assembly (which has very few anglophone members) or legislative assembly as it used to be called agrees.
It's in the Canadian constitution:
(a) any alteration to boundaries between provinces, and
(b) any amendment to any provision that relates to the use of the English or the French language within a province,
may be made by proclamation issued by the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada only where so authorized by resolutions of the Senate and House of Commons and of the legislative assembly of each province to which the amendment applies.
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/FullText.html
So you can't have it before independence and as for after independence, well I don't know but there needs to be independence in the first place and many of you guys keep saying that won't happen.
You should vote for the PQ and vote Yes next time then :D
So Anonymous
Replied
to Anonymous :D
Nice try :D,
We know you are having a hard time with the 11th province because you know that it is not about English. It is about getting your hate out of our face!
The majority of us who will form the Eleventh or Twelfth Canadian Province are French.
In the same manner as you Separatists have been using an UNJUST set of rules to justify your vengeful ways, so are we now using JUST laws to prove to OurCountrymen in the RoC that we do not share in your hate for our English Brothers.
We are not Separatist Québécois.
Nous sommes Montréalais!!
Salut à toi le Canada!!
VIVE LA PROVINCE CANADIENNE DE MONTREAL!!
Qui sera le premier ministre de cette nouvelle province ?Un tamoul? :D
DeleteJe n'avais jamais pensé à ça... mais à bien y penser, ce serait É-COEUR-ANT...
DeleteBiryani for everybody!
Notre PM tamoul parlera certainement 5 langues couramment, dont le français et l'anglais. Vous pouvez bien garder Pauline qui semble se contenter à en connaitre une seule.
M, Anonymous de
DeleteMar 10, 2012 05:59 PM
is all you can say as the ground shifting under your hate cult is about to knock you off your Pauline Antoinette pedestal, since creating the 11th or 12th Canadian Province is as realizable as gerrymandering?
Wow! I do feel sorry for you. You have been bred in those Separatist Factories you call Schools that stole from you the ability to understand that being French does not automatically make you a racist traitor.
In 40+ years of government hate propaganda you have not been able to convince more than 30% of Quebec French People to join your cult. Of those who have, almost 99% speak only French. (See formula/recipe bellow)
(separatist factory + separatist QC French language media = lobster pot)
The reason you have failed is that you miscalculate how good a People French Canadians are and what Country really means. So put all the sticks in the countless many wheels of
LA PROVINCE CANADIENNE DE MONTREAL Movement
that you want. We won’t hate you, because we know that you have been cheated out of your Country Canada by a self serving special interest minority thats want to be the big fish in a smaller pond.
And to answer your simple minded question, the premiere of
LA PROVINCE CANADIENNE DE MONTREAL
will not be a racist!!
VIVE LA PROVINCE CANADIENNE DE MONTREAL!!
Si vous aimez tant vos "French canadian brothers",faites donc l'effort de communiquer avec eux dans leur langue.Ce serait un bon début et un atoût indéniable afin qu'ils demeurent "Vos frères".Qu'en pensez-vous?
Delete"Notre PM tamoul parlera certainement 5 langues..."
DeleteMais s'affichera en globish...
Un PM qui se promène avec une pancarte commerciale sur le dos?
DeleteVas-y mollo avec ta lecture de vigile.net... tu commences vraiment à faire des cauchemars paranos. Tes "compatriotes" séparatistes ont bien réussi à te complexer.
Sors-donc prendre un peu d'air. Ça te fera du bien.
Has Quebec contributed anything positive to the ROC? Other than Quebecois politicians who continue to bleed the ROC for their own agendas...(Trudeau, Chretein, Mulrony and others)
ReplyDeleteNothing but the continued language debate, FLQ, continued threats of separation with the destablizing effects to the economy as a whole and other issues to numerous to mention. No, Quebec has contribued nothing positive to the ROC. As a matter of fact, they have only contributed negative influences to the country as a whole. This includes all that live in Quebec who are juxtaposed against the ROC. Editor and Appratchik included, as in fact, you are part of the problem as you are well aware.
> Has Quebec contributed anything positive to the ROC? Other than Quebecois politicians who continue to bleed the ROC for their own agendas...
DeleteI don't know what part I find more laughable... the part where you think of Quebec as purely a haven for language terrorism and militancy or the part where you say that staunch Quebec federalists are part of the problem.
- From our very beginnings as squatters of this Native territory, the English-French divide was actually in no small part the driving force behind taking Canada from a British colonial backwater to a modern multicultural Western democracy with a socialist safety net.
- All the symbols associated with "Canada" -- our anthem, our emblems -- all defined by French-Canadians long before the rest of you thought "hey, why not"...
- Our own cultural revolution helping modernize the entire country's divorce laws? You're welcome.
- Indeed, the very idea of calling into question our blind participation in an empire's wars -- conscientious objection before the term even existed.
- Do you like the idea of a territorially contiguous country? Don't mention it. We love nothing more than going to work, paying high taxes, and getting treated like mentally colonized traitors by the one and like hateful parasites to the other. (Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right, yet here we are...)
- World-class cultural, educational, and research institutions? We ain't got none of those. /sarcasm
- A largely bilingual metropolis with a highly educated workforce able to communicate in the world's two most studied foreign languages? De rien!
> This includes all that live in Quebec who are juxtaposed against the ROC.
Wha?! English please?! "Juxtaposed against"?
I live in Quebec, which simultaneously happens to be in Canada. It's very complicated science, but if you listen carefully and concentrate really hard, you can hear us flashing from one dimension into the other and back a few hundred times a second.
> Editor and Appratchik included, as in fact, you are part of the problem as you are well aware.
Well this is news to me. I'm used to separatists hating on me for making it impossible for them to "achieve sovereignty", but kindly tell Editor, me, and about sixty percent of this province's electorate precisely how we are "part of the problem".
Seriously man, what the hell kind of crack are you on?
Apparatchik,
DeleteThanks for saving me the time I would have never got back by answering that separatist from the other side.
You see, ignorance and hate is very democratic, inclusive and evenly distributed throughout OurHomeAndNativeLand. It is against that kind of stupidity that we labor in our very realizable quest for OurEleventhCanadianProvince...
Salut à toi, mon Canadien!
;-)
Delete"the part where you think of Quebec as purely a haven for language terrorism and militancy or the part where you say that staunch Quebec federalists are part of the problem."
ReplyDeleteIn fact both are the problem. One is no worse than the other. The separatists who blackmail or the federalists who reward the exthortion (eg. OLA, fiscal imblance, agricultural subsidies etc etc etc, remember Mulroney and the Canadai F18 maintenance contracts...)
"Canada from a British colonial backwater to a modern multicultural Western democracy with a socialist safety net."
So progressive that we have a province that you live in that have laws which are repressive to a minority. And whom, drafted these laws?
" - All the symbols associated with "Canada""
And what would these be? The symbols you hold so dear to your heart.
"- Our own cultural revolution helping modernize the entire country's divorce laws? You're welcome."
Well, now that you mention it. Quebec has the highest divorce rate in Canada. Little wonder they modernized the divorce laws. Hell, even the women don't change their surnames, when married, to ease the paperwork. Also, the highest rate of single mothers and highest rate of teen suicide in Canada. Thanks for what!!!
( The FLQ, BQ, and associated other little issues) Is there a moral decay?
"- Do you like the idea of a territorially contiguous country? Don't mention it. We love nothing more than going to work,"
Actually Quebecois work less hours and years before retirment than people in the ROC. Little wonder when you are handed 8 plus Billion per year from those that actually go to work.
" - A largely bilingual metropolis with a highly educated workforce able to communicate in the world's two most studied foreign languages? De rien!"
This being the case...Why is the unemployment rate so high. 8.5% by latest stats. Surely such a utoptian multicultaral metropolis you suggest would not have this problem. comme vous dit "de rien" . Why is the organize crime so prevalent in your utopian metroplis..(you know, the construction industry) Why are there laws restricting "affichage" on the street. Pour Quoi? BTW you also have the OQLF...such a nice bunch of bigots sanctioned by your own government. How progressive!!
"you can hear us flashing from one dimension into the other and back a few hundred times a second"
And you speak to me about narcotics!! What f'ing planet are you on. Maybe you are suffering from flashbacks at 100 times per second. Could be you are watching too many reruns of Star Trek (heh, wasn't Shatner from Quebec)
"I live in Quebec, which simultaneously happens to be in Canada."
An unfortunate circumstance, as they say. Bottom line, Quebec has the utmost animosity for the ROC as clearly evidenced by their past behavoir and the policitians that you and the editor elected to office.
"but kindly tell Editor, me, and about sixty percent of this province's electorate precisely how we are "part of the problem"."
Are you Quebecois...Y or N.
If Y you are IN FACT PART OF THE PROBLEM.
Why:
Such a thriving province such as you suggest that continually demands ( and receives) welfare from the ROC.
A GDP/debt ratio of 94%. (and worsening) But, according to you, Quebec is a thriving province. Give your head a shake..
Programs such as the OLA (a huge waste of money with no positive results) brought on to maintain national unity with Quebec at the expense of reverse discrimination against the majority of Canadians.
The FLQ crisis, two referendums, the BQ...
Do I need go further on the negative influences that Quebec has brought to Canada.
Let them separate and you can decide which side of the fence your interests are best served ...or perhaps you might fall off, as the ridge is truly is getting a bit more narrow these days :)
Tu as un bonne journee.
When you are blessed enough to live in a country as amazing as Canada, you will have to deal with deceptive elements as yourself.
DeleteMy belief is that you are as much part of the problem as the separatists that in your bigotry, you refuse to separate from your countrymen. Or you are an agent provocateur desperately trying to help the Separatist Québécois racists. What ever your reason for your ignorant sounding posts, one thing is certain, your wide brush has no empathy and is designed to divide Canadians.
If you truly are from the RoC and not sitting in a PQ cubical, you need to know that most probably, there are more French Canadians living in Quebec who are prepared to defend our Country than the propaganda you’ve soaked your heart in, leads you to believe! I dare say to you that those French Canadians may even outnumber the entire population of your region, territory or province.
Pointing out a few terrible crimes that we Canadians of Quebec also are disgusted with does not negate this enormous part of our Country.
If you really are in the RoC, shame on you for disregarding your countrymen. And if you’re a Québécois Separatist well, we’ve lived with your hate for too long and that is why we will form TheEleventhCanadianProvince soon enough.
Salut à toi..
"When you are blessed enough"
DeleteI totally agree with you on that....lets try and keep it that way!!!
"your wide brush has no empathy and is designed to divide Canadians."
News flash..the country is already divided between the two solitudes. The very nature and comments on this blog attest to this fact. Each Fridays post.... "French vs English"? Have a look at vigile.net to witness some real bigots in action. (on a positive note, it helps me practice my french reading comprehension skills).
http://fr.canoe.ca/infos/quebeccanada/politiquefederale/archives/2012/03/20120311-040418.html
The two don't seem to be even close to aligned.
"shame on you for disregarding your countrymen"
Yep, a member of the ROC and I am certainly not denigrating any of my country men. What I present as issues are facts which you may wish to deny. That is your option. You can put any shade of lipstick on a pig if you wish but it simply does not change the fact.
"TheEleventhCanadianProvince soon enough."
Good luck with that but I am very skeptical given the current political situation in Quebec (recent polls suggest the PQ is on the rise) and the realities existing in and around Montreal.
Have a good evening.
> News flash..the country is already divided between the two solitudes.
DeleteThe country is also divided between urban and rural, coastal and middle, as well as richer and poorer. Yet you make nothing out of that and pretend the English-French thing is the be-all and end-all of Canada.
> [...] The very nature and comments on this blog attest to this fact. Each Fridays post.... "French vs English"?
Don't let your opinions be skewed at all by the fact that the effects of the English-French dynamic is actually the subject of this blog...
> Have a look at vigile.net to witness some real bigots in action.
There's that quote about freedom of speech about my not having to agree with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it. It neatly sums up how I feel about what is said as well as the language in which you choose to say it.
Incidentally, I don't have to agree with what the bigots on Vigile say, which is why they need to live with my day-to-day actions (which include my participation on this blog).
> [...] on a positive note, it helps me practice my french reading comprehension skills [...]
Wow... what a way not to learn a language (through polemical writing about the speakers of another). I strongly suggest you complement your practice by reading the works of actual Enlightenment authors and thinkers if your goal is to improve your French.
> The two don't seem to be even close to aligned.
Perception is often deceiving; you shouldn't take appearances seriously. And very often, you should take the methodology even less seriously.
The same people who voted for Lévesque voted (simultaneously) for Trudeau. The same people who voted against Duceppe voted for Layton. Pauline Marois got a 93% approval rating from her members and less than 3 months later found herself in a battle for her political skin.
We live in a strange world indeed.
"Yet you make nothing out of that and pretend the English-French thing is the be-all and end-all of Canada."
DeleteWell, it seems to take up a lot of print and media attention, doesn't it...Guess I am not alone in my understanding of the divide.
"There's that quote about freedom of speech"
Can't agree more with your feelings on this. Freedom of speech is a fundamental right in a democracy and should be protected at all costs. . So is freedom of expression such as the language you wish to put on a sign above the door of your "depanneur". Obviously, this is being infringed upon by "politically correct" people in office (Quebec 101, Dieppe,NB, Russel/Emburm, ON etc.) Lets not get started on this as it is a "wrong". There is simply no rationlization for this type of legislation.
"actual Enlightenment authors and thinkers if your goal is to improve your French."
Are there any good humorists who write in French you could recommend? Vigile is after all, quite entertaining at times.
Strange times, you betcha, and getting stranger by the day.
> it seems to take up a lot of print and media attention, doesn't it...Guess I am not alone in my understanding of the divide.
DeleteBeware the impressionable moths to a flame (or flies to shit).
> Are there any good humorists who write in French you could recommend? Vigile is after all, quite entertaining at times.
I'm not sure that's the kind of humor you specifically would genuinely find funny.
Très bonne pub pour ce propriétaire dépanneur de Verdun...Un lecteur de no dogs?
ReplyDeleteGROS ÉPÂ!
(extrait FM 98.5)
http://www.cliqueduplateau.com/
O Q L F?
DeleteF L Q O!
'nough said.
@OQLF
ReplyDeleteJe prévois la perte de qques clients pour cette tête de cochon.Hoho!Baisse de revenus en vue?
@Apparatchik
ReplyDeleteApparamment ce tamoul ne parle pas cinq langues.Pour Apu le tamoul et le globish semblemt suffire.