Pauline Papadopolous and the Politics of Appeasement

First of all, apologies to my Greek friends for any offense triggered by the headline, it wasn't meant to embarrass or humiliate, but rather to make the point that Pauline Marois is as cruelly selfish and short sighted as those politicians that led Greece blindly into a financial sinkhole, all because they sought personal political power ahead of the interests of the country.

Today Greek society has been ripped asunder by a humiliating national bankruptcy, brought on by a ruling class unable or unwilling to tell citizens that there was no money to pay for the bloated state budget that voters had come to expect and this, for decades.

Right up until the end when the Europeans pulled the plug, nothing really changed in Greece, the people and the government were unwilling or unable to comprehend or react to the mess they had gotten themselves into.
Like a deadbeat who runs up the credit card with no intention of repaying a dime, when the spree is finally over, the shock that there is nothing left and nothing coming in, is hard to accept.

And so today the Greeks are shell-shocked at the reality that there is no more money and that the solutions before them, either default or repayment means a generation or two of poverty.

For the Greek youth of the country, it is a situation particularly difficult to swallow, the realization that their parents borrowed money on their name, money which they are now unable to pay, leaving the next generation the legacy of servicing a crippling debt, one that they did not bargain for, nor received the benefit from.

Sadly in all this is the attitude of the Greek baby-boomers, the generation that bled the state dry and borrowed staggering amounts of money to finance their caprice.
For them, taking responsibility is difficult, as if none of this is their fault and as the situation unravels and the cruel reality of going broke sets in, scapegoats are sought.
Who is to blame?
The Germans, the banks, the politicians, the European Union, the Nazis, the Americans etc.etc., anyone but themselves, so deep is the addiction of entitlement and the disconnect between consumption and wealth creation.

Sadly for Quebec, Pauline Papadopolous is following directly in the footsteps of those failed Greek politicians and her supporters are of the same ilk as that Greek generation that cared only about their own pockets without a concern over the public debt they were ringing up.

Like the Greek politicians, Pauline fails to heed the reality that Marget Thatcher described so succinctly;

"The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

A motivating factor for this post is the recent poll which showed that over 40% of Quebecers agree that tuition fees for university students shouldn't be raised, reflecting the same disconnect with reality as the Greeks, who failed to accept that somebody has to pay for what is consumed.

Is Quebec in the same situation as Greece?
 
Depending on one's political bent, the situation is described as completely dissimilar, or contrarily, very much the same.

One fact is indisputable, there's no doubt that Quebec is one of the heaviest indebted states in the world, whether a country or a province, and that it spends a lot more than it takes in.

I don't want to get into a discussion of whether Quebec is solvent or on the brink of disaster. Suffice to say that if Quebec doesn't change its over-spending ways, it will run into a Greek-style disaster, sooner or later.
Debating the time line is beside the point and deflects from the discussion.

To finance its orgy of entitlement Quebec has run up a monstrous debt and has used transfer payments from Ottawa to soften the impact of deficit spending.
As Quebec fast approaches its debt ceiling and Canadians review their willingness to ship eight billion dollars over to Quebec each year, something has to give.

As Pauline Papadopolous seeks political power she is descending into the politics of appeasement, the very same policy that has ruined Greece.
Say anything, promise anything and make common cause with those consuming elements of society that are looking for a backer to keep the spigot of entitlements wide open.

Her most recent promise to students to reverse fee increases proposed by the government is a grim reminder that she will sell out the province's future in order to get elected.

In a speech to the National assembly she said that in opposing the increased tuition fees, she is demonstrating solidarity with students and the middle class, unlike the Liberals and the CAQ, which she claims are demonstrating solidarity with Ottawa.  YouTube{Fr}
Huh?
She actually made the connection between increased student fees and support for Ottawa, a moronic connection, not dissimilar to the federal minister Vic Toews statement that Canadians who don't support the Conservatives online snooping bill were siding with the child pornographers.
That contention was roundly ridiculed for its foolishness and for blatantly taking Canadians for fools.
Too bad that the same reaction was absent in Quebec vis-a-vis Madame Papadopolous' contention that increased fees are somehow connected to support for Ottawa.

And how did she sidestep the fee issue and the problem of underfunded universities?
By promising a 'summit' to discuss the problem after the election of the PQ.... How convenient..

In all of Madame Papadopolous' pronouncements, I have yet to hear her admit that Quebec's entitlements are excessive or unsupportable, in fact she and her party actually talk up expanding the role of government in Quebec society.
While every other political party in North America, in opposition or in power, admits that government largess must be curtailed, She and the PQ remain 'distinct' in believing that huge deficits and crippling debt are not a problem and that current spending can be supported, irrespective of provincial revenue.

I'm not saying that Jean Charest and his Liberal party are paragons of fiscal restraint, but listening and watching Pauline Papadopolous troll for votes by promising a worker's paradise where entitlements would not only be maintained but expanded, supported by the concept that it could all be paid for by increased taxes on business and the rich, coupled with more money shaken down from Ottawa, makes me cringe in fear.

Madame Papadopolous has all the right jargon, she talks about investing in education, investing in infrastructure, investing in daycare, when in reality she means spending more money than the province takes in.

Looking at the untalented hacks that is the Parti Quebecois, I am struck by the fear that if they ever take power and the likes of Pierre Curzi, Bernard Drainville, Jean-François Lisée  and Louise Beaudoin actually get to implement their half-baked political nonsense, this province will sink rather quickly.

You'd think that in light of the recent debt crisis that has hit nation after nation, politicians would preach restraint to a public prepared to accept less and contribute more to defend the long-range financial viability of their society.

Not in Quebec, where Pauline advocates spending like it's 1990, because we're 'special,' a magical society immune to the financial rules of solvency.
According to her, there is no problem as long as one doesn't discuss or admit to one and until then, as they say in French, it's 'Bar Ouvert'

Looking at the political support Pauline is rounding up, it's clear in which direction she and the PQ are going.
Recruiting the likes of Claudette Carbonneau, the recently retired head of Quebec's most powerful and allegedly-corrupt union, the CSN, to sit on her sovereignty commission as well as new candidates such as Diane De Courcy, the head of the oft-maligned Commission scolaire de Montreal, it underscores the sad reality that she is gearing up to implement the failed Greek policy of political appeasement.

Every separatist nutbar, union demagogue, language militant and 'entitleists' ( a term I just made up to describe those who believe it is their right to soak the government for all it's worth) will find a place in a potential PQ government, which will ultimately be so self-destructive that it will make the Haitian government look professional.

It's a scary situation, because on one side you have a Liberal party that is preaching some sort of fiscal restraint, increased fees and reduced services in an effort to move towards fiscal sustainability.  It isn't enough, but at least it's a start.

On the other hand you have the PQ led by Madame Papadopolous telling the people the opposite, that money is no problem and entitlements will flow unabated with the election of her government.

Mr Charest is offering a plate of humble pie, Pauline Papadopolous a dish of ice cream.

And so the question remains, will Quebecers accept the necessity of restraint or follow the Greeks down the path of financial ruin?

The MYTH OF ANGLICIZATION- Part Three

Whenever I hear the argument that the French community in Quebec is in danger of assimilation, I always smile and ask the person who is making the statement that if that is true, what about the assimilation of Montreal's English community, who if you take a moment to consider it, are in the same boat, a people, completely surrounded by a 'hostile' culture and foreign language.

The Anglos of Montreal represent a community  ten times smaller than Franco-Quebecers and are subject to ferocious forces of assimilation, with their own government overtly hostile to their language and culture.
And yet the Anglo community endures. Why? 

In response, I've been told that my comparison isn't fair, because the English community is but an integral offshoot of the 'golden' English hegemony that more or else rules the world.

But if that were true, why is it that small communities, pockets of English located in the Townships, the Pontiac or the Gaspe are disappearing at an alarming rate, not dissimilar to what is happening to small francophone communities around the country?

The realty is that the dynamic forces of assimilation work the same way on English communities as they do on French ones and those that disappear or survive do so for the same reasons.

So let us examine why the English community of Montreal and the French community of the province of Quebec survive, while small English communities in rural Quebec fail as do the small pockets of French across Canada.

It has to do with 'Critical Mass'

"Critical mass is a sociodynamic term to describe the existence of a sufficient amount of adopters of an innovation in a social system such that the rate of adoption becomes self-sustaining and creates further growth. It is an aspect of the theory of Diffusion of Innovations, written extensively on by Everett Rogers in his book, "Diffusion of Innovations". Social factors influencing critical mass may involve the size, interrelatedness and level of communication in a society or one of its subcultures. Wikipedia

Simply put, it means that societies become self-sustaining when they attain critical mass, which in the case of Montreal's English community, means that it has the necessary social institutions to sustain itself, including English schooling from daycare to university, English health services, English media and entertainment, English job opportunities, English religious and recreational institutions and of course a population sufficiently large enough to provide for marriage within the community itself.

The Montreal English community maintains the above-mentioned elements and so survives in a 'hostile' environment' where outside its Montreal area borders it is surrounded by a sea of Francophones.

Even if Quebec's Francophone element grew ten times larger than it is now, the English community of Montreal would continue to survive.
Like a walled city which has all the critical elements for its survival within, whatever hordes remain outside are largely irrelevant.

Out in the Gaspe, the Pontiac and the Townships, the English communities that survive remain threatened because they have lost or are facing deteriorating elements of critical mass and so, are ultimately doomed to fail.
As schools close for lack of enrollment, as jobs disappear where English is spoken and where churches, theaters are no longer able to survive, so goes the community.
Slowly but surely the forces of assimilation bear down and like similar Francophone communities across Canada, the writing is clearly on the wall.

To compare Montreal's English community or Quebec's Francophone community to those small disappearing towns described above is fundamentally dishonest, and French language alarmists who make the connection with disappearing Francophone towns across Canada are playing a deceitful game.

As for Quebec's Francophone society, it is almost ten times larger than the successful English community I described above and if Montreal's English community has attained critical mass, the Francophone society has attained, for want of a better word, 'super-critical mass.'

Quebec Francophones may only represent 2% of the North American population, but they represent 87% of the population of Quebec and control a huge swath of North American territory, an area bigger than 90% of countries in the world.

The seven million people that make up the Quebec Francophone society represents a population that is greater than 40% of the independent nations of the world, certainly more than enough to be self-sustaining.

And so, assertions by French language militants/separtists that francophone society is in danger would be laughable would it not be so sad.
Like flimflam artists, they talk fast, spouting nonsense, making false and misleading statements and using the tried and true method of repeating the assimilation lie over and over again, with complicit media sympathisers affording them a tribune to brainwash Quebecers.

Readers, if Quebec hasn't assimilated over the last hundreds of years, it isn't going to assimilate now. Period.

Having personally borne witness to Quebec Francophone society during the1960s, where assimilation forces were infinitely more pressing, I view with utter astonishment the separatists effrontery to alarm Quebecers into sovereignty, no different than cowboys making loud noises to steer the herd in a desired direction.

Its like the British, having just defeated the Germans in the Battle of Britain, decisively ending the threat of invasion, being told by their leaders to watch it....because  they might be in deep trouble now.  Absurd!

The sad reality that militants don't want to admit is that Quebec's Francophone culture and language  remains triumphant within the Canadian framework.
To admit that, is to remove a cornerstone argument in the independence narrative.

In fact, I would argue that by remaining in Canada, Quebec's Francophone culture has been afforded an extraordinary protection, akin to having a big brother watching out for you in the schoolyard.

For those doing business in Canada, French is a requirement coast to coast, from corn flake boxes to documentation for products as complicated as cars.
All this is subsidized by English Canadians who pay for 75% of bilingualism, a benefit that serves francophone Canadians only.
An independent Quebec would have to pay for all this itself and who knows how many companies, relieved of French in the rest of Canada would just forgo Quebec?

One last point about language bilingualisn and critical mass.

Mario Beaulieu and other militants boast that Quebecers are the most bilingual of Canadians and so don't really need more intensive instruction in English. He and his cohorts are victims of believing their own bullshit propaganda, telling Quebecers that the more they learn English, the more they will abandon French.

But are Quebecers all that bilingual in the first place?

Because of the strength of French in Quebec, the hostility shown toward English, Quebecers remain, contrary to popular belief, sadly disfunctional in English.

Less than half of Quebecers are bilingiual and removing anglos and ethnics from the calculation (they  are much more bilingual than Francophones) we find that only 36% of Francophone Quebecers consider themselves bilingual.

64% of Quebecers are completely insulated from the English world, they couldn't tell you who Rick Mercer or Lloyd Robertson is.
The idea that these people are in danger on anglicizing is laughable.

And of the 34% who claim to be bilingual, how many can truly say they are fluent?
For most these people, bilingualism is the ability to order breakfast in English....after a couple of tries.

I don't think that there are more than 10% of Quebec Francophones who are fluent in English.

If one is to consider society's most socializing element, television, it is easy to conclude that French in Quebec is as secure as English the ROC.

Quebecers spend 1,500 hours a year in front of the boob tube, which is about 500 hours more than they spend in school. (Yup, do the math....180 annual school days x 5.5 hours)

The socializing element of television cannot be overemphasized, Quebec society like all others, is formed by it's influence. 
If Quebecers were to be attracted to English television, I might concede a problem. But they are not.

For whatever reason (and lack of proficiency in English is the number one reason,) Francophones watch French TV almost exclusively, and they watch locally produced content, not as in the old days, where American shows, dubbed into French were the staple fare.

So strong is the connection of Francophones with locally produced TV shows, that the numbers of viewers is simply astounding, with many top shows being watched by over two million people, something that no English entertainment show produced in Canada can match and this with almost four times the population. Link{Fr}

And so an honest examination of the facts can only conclude that the Francophone society in Quebec is secure, safe and successful, with its future assured.
All this within the  confines of a protective, indulgent and doting Canada.

Quebecers have the inalienable right to self-determination and if they wish to become an independant state, so be it.
But for boosters of independence to tell Quebec that they need to separate to assure its linguistic and cultural survival is utter tripe.

Unfortunately, too many Quebecers are eating it up with a spoon....

THE MYTH OF ANGLICIZATION- Part Two

Militants convince Quebecers that they are Dodos

On Monday I advanced the novel idea that the French language and Francophone culture in Quebec is actually thriving and those who propagate the myth that French is in danger do so for ulterior reasons, that is to frighten Quebecers in an attempt to make them more receptive of the sovereignty message.

It is a sad state of affairs that while the French language and francophone culture in Quebec is strong, vibrant and self-sustaining, Quebec militants are selling the fantasy that it is vulnerable and weak.
It is no different from an abusive husband berating his mate mercilessly, subjecting her to cruel psychological abuse, by telling her that she is stupid and worthless, just so he can control her.
Unfortunately this type of abuse, carried out on a long-term basis is usually successful and I am sad to see that Francophone Quebecers have been largely convinced that they are on the road of extinction, just like the Dodo bird.

 It's disgusting and shameful.

With this in mind, let us explore some of these myths and distortions that separatists bandy about to convince others (and themselves) that French is in mortal danger, a condition they maintain that can only be reversed through sovereignty.

Myth #1

Quebec is surrounded by a sea of English and with just 2% of the North American population, its francophone culture is in danger of assimilation.

We hear this argument over and over again, it is repeated nauseam and strangely nobody ever attacks the myth on the basis of its sheer stupidity.

There's no doubt that Quebec is physically surround by Anglophones, but what a school teacher in Anchorage, a car worker in Mexico, or an oil worker in Alberta has to do with anglicization is beyond me. None of these people are going to overrun the border to force the people of Quebec to become English.

English does bear down on Quebec, not because of any physical proximity, rather because the entire globe has adopted it as the lingua franca, a fact that not only affects Quebec, but the entire world.
Even as a metaphor the myth of the 2% is defective, because it purports that in facing the forces of anglicization, Quebec is somehow uniquely threatened, which is false.

Many successful countries, similarly sized to Quebec, face the same forces of anglicization.

Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Israel, Holland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are just a few examples of small countries (population) with a unique culture and a thinly-spoken national language.
The forces of Anglicization are no stronger or weaker than in Quebec, yet strangly there is no great outcry in these countries over the danger of English and in fact most embrace English as liberating and empowering.

Tiny Denmark is perhaps the very best example of a country that has embraced English without adversely affecting its Danish language or culture.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of all young Danes speak English, to the point that they are embarrassingly fluent, having had a significant portion of their education taught in English.
Despite the remarkably high rate of fluency in English, both the Danish language and culture flourish, the idea that Danish society is in imminent danger of collapse is laughable.

While countries similar in size and demographics to Quebec embrace English without negative consequences, the myth of the 2% is used to frighten Quebecers by propagating the lie that English barbarians and are set to overrun Quebec.
It is utter hogwash.

What language militants are doing is no different than my mother's warning to me as a lad, that there were wild dogs in the forest behind my house, a lie meant to keep me out of the woods.
Using fear-mongering as a weapon in the independence campaign is what the 2% myth is about, nothing else.

Myth #2
Both Louisana and Manitoba, once large French communities were completely assimilated and Quebec can suffer the same fate.

In French it's referred to as 'louisianisation', the myth that French communities in North America are all subject to assimilation.
Now I'm not going to debunk this myth with facts and figures showing why Quebec is not in the same boat, because readers, the myth is too stupid to debate. None of the elements that contributed to the Louisiana assimilation exists in modern Quebec

Suffice to say that if Quebec hasn't gone down the drain in two hundred years since the Louisiana assimilation, it isn't going to happen at all.

Pretending that Quebec society is fragile and vulnerable is beyond ludicrous considering that the population of Quebec is GREATER THAN HALF the countries in the world.

It's like being exposed to someone with the measles and putting oneself in quarantine for a year, just in case.......ain't gonna happen!!!

Myth #3
Immigration threatens the French language and Quebec culture.

There's no doubt that many Quebecers fear immigration, but sadly, most of this is racism, pure and simple.

To Quebecers who believe they can maintain their society as French, lily-white and Catholic, as it was in the 'good old days,' the sight of so many 'barbus' and 'voilées' is frustrating and unsettling and so it is to be expected that they are portrayed as a danger by those who fear them.

But an examination of the facts indicate that immigration isn't going to upset the language cart, even if we are told that it will, by the you-know-whos.

Each year Quebec nets about 40,000 new immigrants or about ½ of one percent of the population. Of these, half assimilate to the French community and half to the English. Over the last decade, the numbers have been moving upwards toward the French side of the language equation, but let us consider the situation as it is now.
In order to maintain today's  linguistic balance (87% French, 13% English) 35,000 out of the 40,000 immigrants need to assimilate to the French side of the language equation, but it doesn't happen.
As it is, a surplus of 14,000 'English' immigrants is created each year.
But this increased percentage of English speakers is almost completely cancelled out by the exodus of about 10,000 English speakers out of the province each year.

An increase of 4,000 English speakers a year isn't going to change the linguistic balance in a province of 8 million people. The only effect of this, is that the English community has finally stabilized, that's all.
Hmmm.....perhaps it is this fact that annoys militants.

Myth #4
Bill 104 and the right to 'bridging schools' is a danger to the French.

You'd think by the hysterical reaction by French language militants to the Supreme Courts decision to allow bridging schools as a path to an English education, the floodgates would open with Ethnics and Francophones exodusing the French educational system on a par with the Jewish slaves fleeing Egypt in the time of the Ten Commandments.
In fact only about 100-150 students a year 'sidestep' their way into English school through this apparent loophole.
Considering that 14,000 Anglo students eligible for English education under Bill 101, choose a French educational path, the loss of these 'cheaters'  isn't a big deal.
Again, much ado about nothing, another case of hysterical madness.

Myth #5
The 3 monkeys Syndrome-

Hear no English, See No English, Speak No English

In science, theories remain suppositions or educated guesses, unproven until they are validated or rejected through rigorous experimentation.

The theory proposed by French language militants today, is that any contact or public manifestation of English is dangerous and that English bosses, unilingual clerks, English music and English store names, etc. etc. are all dangerously dark forces of anglicization, even in the smallest of doses.
That's the theory.

Unfortunately for militants, the theory has already been disproved.
As I explained Monday, one only has to harken back to the sixties to see that small and large doses of English have proven ineffective tools of anglicization!

To argue that it is, despite the historical evidence to the contrary, is no different than defending the theory that the Earth is flat.

Myth #6
Francophone communities across Canada are disappearing, evidence that French in Quebec is also  under threat.
While it is true that French communities are dying a slow death across Canada, the same is true for English communities in rural Quebec.

The reasons for the demise of these communities is easily explained and that explanation and its logical corollary is the reason why French Quebec is in no imminent danger of collapse.
Surprisingly, it also explains why the Quebec English community will survive quite comfortably.

It's called 'Critical Mass' and it will be the subject of Friday's post...

I shall explain as best I can why French is set to expand, not contract.
I shall explain as best I can why the English in Quebec won't disappear.   

THE MYTH OF ANGLICIZATION - Part One

"Anglicization, or anglicisation (see -ise vs -ize), is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, in general, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character" - Wikipedia

The English bogeyman

I'm not really sure what French language militants mean when they say Quebec or Quebecers are in danger of becoming anglicized.

Do they mean that Quebecers will retain some of their language but incorporate and become dominated by English elements or culture, or do they mean that English is so threatening that Francophone Quebecers are in danger of turning into tea-swilling, English-speaking, monarchists, within a couple of generations?

Either way, the myth of the danger of Anglicization in Quebec is perhaps the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on Quebecers, by a dedicated cadre of separatist manipulators, a group that has invented, nurtured and fed the monstrous and unfortunately successful lie of the 'English Bogeyman' who imperils the very foundation of the French language and Francophone culture.

The hard core gloom and doomers in the 'French-is-in-danger' industry, the Pierre Curzis and Mario Beaulieus, pedal fear over supposed Anglicization in order to camouflage their hidden agenda, which is to frighten people into supporting their quest for Quebec sovereignty through subterfuge and sleight of hand.

The independence movement, born in the 1960s was based on the very real concern of the newly emancipated Francophone community (from the Church,) awakened to the fact that its continued domination by the Anglo minority that controlled the economic levers of power, perpetuated the situation whereby Francophones remained a poor and powerless underclass.

Back then, culture or language was not part of the independence debate, it was purely a question of class struggle. The FLQ manifesto, never mentioned anything about language, culture or assimilation. Read the manifesto

The quiet revolution, the fall of the Catholic Church, as well as the PQ's first term in office, forever changed the economic and social reality. Today, Quebec francophones and the state institutions that they created have rendered Quebecers masters of their domain, eliminating the English ruling class in the process.

Ironically, the very successful transformation of Quebec from a society dominated economically by the English and socially by the Church, led to the weakening of the sovereignty movement.
With most issues largely settled, coupled with the flight of a sizable portion of the English community out of the province, Quebec society lost a great deal of passion for sovereignty. 

Today, those who remain passionately in favour of sovereignty can no longer employ the 'colonialist enslavement' argument and have had to redefine the issue of sovereignty away from the issue of economic emancipation.
And so the bogeyman of 'assimilation' is invented and the narrative of a disappearing language and culture created, as if a group of market researchers, admen, and spin doctors sat down and developed an advertising campaign to repackage and sell sovereignty, like a tired old product that most people had grown bored and indifferent to.

To their credit, the sovereigntists did a good job. A slick and addictive message, playing on the  historical mistrust of the English by Francophones, reinvigorated the movement and like a Madonna makeover, the new and improved version is quite attractive.

And so the myth of Anglicization has been invented;

"Quebec stands on the precipice of its cultural and linguistic destruction.

Surrounded by the overbearing presence and influence of 350 million hostile Anglophones, Francophone society in Quebec is faced with the unrelenting pressure to Anglicize, as has happened in Louisiana and which is happening presently in small francophone communities across Canada.
Until an independent state of Quebec is created, wherein English can be officially eradicated, vigilance must be employed to fight off any English encroachment, no matter how small.

English, in its smallest manifestation is as dangerous as the dreaded flesh-eating disease, which if left untreated starts off as a tiny infection, only to spread rapidly, overpowering and consuming its unsuspecting and oblivious host. The only defense against the disease, is to cut out any and all traces of the infection, in its nascent stage."

It is a nice story that resounds with too many. Unfortunately is a monstrous lie.
We hear variations of this doctrine repeated ad nauseam, even in the comments section of this blog.

But it is in fact nonsense, and an honest analysis of all its elements demonstrates that the basic premises of the danger of Quebec Anglicization are in fact unsupportable.

Now I'll get into the issue of debunking the specific myths, one at a time, later this week, but let me address a question to those Francophone readers of this blog who prescribe to the idea that their language and culture are in danger.

If Francophones de souche like yourself are in mortal danger of becoming anglicized, why isn't there any evidence today that this is happening, even early indicators?

If  anglicization is real, shouldn't we already see at least a few of you manifesting signs that you are transforming yourselves in Anglos, like tadpoles evolving into frogs? (Yikes..., that was certainly a bad metaphor!)

Do you know ANYBODY.........a friend, a sister, a brother, a cousin or an acquaintance who has abandoned their Francophone roots and heritage and actually turned themselves into an Anglophone, or is in the process of doing so?
Now readers, I do admit that there is a group of francophones who do turn themselves into Anglophones and become assimilated to the English side of the language equation.
They are those Francophones who have married or partnered with an Anglophone and have decided to raise their family in the English culture.
It happens.
These people certainly do exist, especially in the Montreal area and because one of the parents is English, the family has the option to send their offspring to English schools. Those who do so, ultimately Anglicize the entire family and that of their descendants.
BUT, statistics published by the EMSB, show that in these French/English relationships, the couple choose French as the family language over two-thirds of the time.
It is in fact, the exception that proves the rule!!

In fact, anglophone parents choose to send their children to French school a hundred times more often then French parents who send their children to English school!
The EMSB calculates that there are over 14,000 anglophones, eligible for English enrollment who choose a French educational path!
But this fact is conveniently forgotten as language militants would rather rage about the horrible consequences of a hundred or so ethnic students sidestepping Bill 101 through a loophole to attend English school each year, evidence that purports to show French language education under attack.
It is these, deceptive and grossly misleading arguments, selectively chosen by militants that is the basis of the Anglicization argument.

There is absolutely no concrete evidence, nor even the slightest indication that those born into francophone homes are in danger of becoming English.

Now don't be confused with statistics about French losing ground in Montreal, that is only a function of more immigrants arriving, they actually have no anglicizing effect on francophones.

The idea that French is being put in danger because more and more people are speaking English in Montreal, as put forward by French language militants, is a theory refuted by the historical evidence.

Back in the sixties when I was growing up, Montreal had twice as many anglophones as it has today and the city was offially bilingual with English and French signage abounding, sometimes English alone.
Most of the businesses were owned by Anglos and francophones were forced to speak English in the workplace.
Everything in the downtown core was mostly English (with a smattering of French) and it certainly is true that English was the norm at Eaton's, with Francophones shopping at Dupuis Freres, far across the famous English/French dividing line, St. Lawrence Boulevard.
All the big theaters on Ste. Catherine street played English movies exclusively. When I was a kid, I hardly ever met or interacted with a Francophone, in my neighborhood or downtown!

There was no Bill 101 to protect the French language or impose restrictions on Anglos.
English was as pervasive and dominating as French is today, yet francophones weren't anglicized at all. They remained French!!!

If today's militants think that an English sign here and there, or being served by a unilingual English clerk once in a while, or working under a couple of unilingual English bosses in the National Bank is a danger to the French language, they should have lived in the sixties.

Back then, the forces described by militants today as anglicizing elements, were present in factors that dwarf what we see today.

The truth that militants hide, is the fact that Francophone society is quite resilient and has thrived for hundreds of years, even through the decades when Montreal was completely dominated by the English  and through linguistic conditions that were far, far worse than today.

Today, more people speak French in Quebec than ever in the history of the province.
Tomorrow more people will speak French in Quebec than today, the day after, even more.

The French language and Francophone culture has never been in a stronger position. Period.

Now readers, attacking a sacred cow is never easy and I know that I'll take a bit of heat for this unpopular position.
To those who disagree, please avoid personal or nasty remarks. Make your case using facts.

I promise that like bowling pins, I'll knock your arguments down, because the very premise that French is under threat is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on Quebecers......

Wednesday...Exploding on the myths, one at a time.

French versus English Volume 48

Bilingualism war in Ontario hospital

"CORNWALL, Ontario - A community in eastern Ontario has decided to withhold funding for the renovation of the Cornwall Community Hospital (CCH) to protest against the bilingual policy of the institution.
In January 2011, the hospital was designated to deliver services in French under the Act respecting French language services in Ontario. According to the Mayor of South Stormont, Bryan McGillis,  unilingual anglophone nurses cannot get a job in the facility.
"I have received several complaints last year from English-speaking nurses who say they have no chance for advancement in their careers (in hospital)," said Mr. McGillis.
The City Council has chosen this week to no longer pay the $ 30,000 yearly hospital fee. This sum is part of a total budget of $300,000 which is supposed to be paid by the municipality between 2006 and 2015 to cover part of the $120 million redevelopment project.

The former director of the board of the Cornwall Community Hospital, Dany Tombler, even suggested citizens refrain from giving gifts to the hospital.
Deputy Mayor of South Stormont, Tammy Hart, has already denounced French signage in the past.
"Language policy is a blatant injustice against the English-speaking citizens of the region," she said.

Mayor McGillis also argues that language rights should not prevent someone from finding work.
The Chair of the Board of Directors of HCC, Helene Periard, is concerned that the council resolution of South Stormont will interfere with the fundraising campaign of the hospital.
However, she defended the bilingualism policy because it gives the institution the ability to serve the Francophone community."  Read the original story by Greg Peerenboom in French 

Madeleine Meilleur, Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs writing in the Ottawa Sun, offered a spirited defense of the government's bilingual position;

"I happened to be a nurse before being a minister. I know the extent to which, for a Franco-Ontarian, receiving health care in French is a matter of quality care and not a linguistic quirk.

I observed the fragility of francophone patients who, although bilingual, were more comfortable speaking in French. French is also an integral part of the professional skills required to offer quality services to francophone patients." Read the rest of the story

Elite French B-School offers English degree

Quebec's top French business school the École des hautes études commerciales (HEC) of the Universite de Montreal has offered English to some degree for a number of years, but now in an effort to attract a more diverse student body, is offering a complete MBA degree to students who will no longer have to take any French courses at all.
Kathleen Grant the director of communications said;
 "These students will not completely escape French. They will go to the cafeteria to eat "pâté chinois" instead of "Chinese pie." (she meant to say "Sheperd's Pie.') They hear French every day and are immersed in a French environment," ...Ahem

As you can imagine Jean-Paul Perreault, president  of Impératif français is sorely disappointed. According to the French language militant,  the argument that English is the language of business is fallacious and should not motivate changes in course offerings of universities. Read the story in French 

The two faces of the Ndp..

"Is this collage a metaphor for duplicitous Ndp policy?

Docs describe dangerous French-Canadian disease

A while back, I linked to a story that indicated that francophone Quebecers had a shorter lifespan than Anglos.
Experts attributed this to lifestyle differences, but this story, recently posted, may offer a different reason;

"Some U.S. doctors are urging patients to get checked out for a potentially deadly genetic disease they say was passed down from French-Canadian forefathers.

The hereditary ailment causes dangerously high cholesterol levels and is particularly prevalent in certain parts of Quebec.

Maine cardiologist Dr. Robert Weiss said there is an unusually high number of cases of the disease in the region near the city of Lewiston, which welcomed waves of French-Canadian migrant workers in the late 1800s". Read the rest of the story

'The French are right to resist Global English'

By Christopher Caldwell  for the Financial Post

 "One of the odd stories to come out of the French-speaking province of Quebec last year was the announcement that intensive English courses would be offered to students in state schools. Odd, because in the past half-century, much of the Quebecois identity has been built on resisting English. Authorities throw the book at people for doing things that would be normal elsewhere in Canada. Last autumn, the Montreal newspaper La Presse revealed that two real estate executives had made presentations in English to a Montreal-based pension fund, violating the province’s language laws, which give workers the right to a French-speaking environment.

Now, school authorities in Quebec City are questioning whether the time is ripe for introducing those English classes after all. Their hesitation has left French-speaking parents angry. On one hand, those parents want their children to cherish their own community and its language. On the other hand, English is the international language of business, and their children will have a hard time climbing the social ladder without it.

Self-contradiction besets all governments as they try to work out a role for English in their national culture...."       Read the rest of the story..... Link Alternate Link

Pardon our French

"More than 45,000 Manitobans say the first language they learned as a child was French, yet more than 96% of them report speaking just as much, if not more, English on a daily basis.

So if that’s the case, is it really worth it for governments, cultural organizations and schools to promote the use of French?

Well, pardon our French, but you’d better believe it, say Manitoba francophones.

“It’s the fundamental principle of the Canadian federation: linguistic duality. We want Canada to be a country where there’s a strong and vibrant presence of French-speaking communities not just in Quebec, but across the country,” said Guy Jourdain, executive director of the provincial government’s Francophone Affairs Secretariat." Read the rest of the story

By the way, at that same link there's a funny video of English Winnipeggers trying to pronounce French street names.

Chasing conventions away

The international convention business is something every city tries desperately to attract, the economic spinoffs are so important that most cities invest heavily in facilities and even offer subsidies to attract them. A three to five day convention can easily dump up to ten million dollars into the host city's hotel and restaurant industry. More importantly, these dollars come from outside the community and represent an economic windfall. Like any other city, Quebec City does its best to attract such conventions and has recently landed a pretty big one in SportAccord International Convention which will take place in May.
Of course the usual language critics have come out of the woodwork to complain that the organization, which reunites the various sports federations related to the Olympic movement, operates in English only.
It seems that not only do language militants want to control language in Quebec, they want international organizations that choose Quebec as their destination for conventions to operate in French as well.
Commenting on the situation  Impératif français, Jean-Paul Perreault said that the situation was 'humiliating' and 'contemptuous;'

 "In the national capital, to see that a conference on an issue as important as sports,  will operate with a highly anglicized content, where  the website is not even available in French, where the place of French will be trivialized, that in itself is quite revolting. "  Link{Fr}

This isn't an isolated incident, last year our intrepid defender of the faith Louis Prefontaine complained to the OQLF about another convention held in English, The International Water Association. Link{Fr}

My favorite complaint about unilingual conventions comes from a militant website where a reader complained that a notice, stuck up on a door to a meeting room in the Universite de Montreal was in English only.
It seemed a little strange, so I did a little research and found out that a small, American knitting group, called the Pattern Review, had organized a weekend trip to Montreal and rented out accommodations at the university dorms (it was summer.)
Perhaps next time this intrepid group of sewers comes to Quebec to spend money, they make place on the bus for a translator, so that students won't be offended by an English sign!!

The pot calling the kettle black

I chuckled over this story written by Gilles Proulx, Quebec's most vocal defender of the French language.
After visiting Haiti he complained about the wide use of Creole on the island, a dialect of French that he finds distasteful.

"A disturbing phenomenon: There is widespread use of Creole, even among radio hosts, and this idiom is disjointing the French language. Signs are also often in Creole. The Haitian people risk cutting themselves off from the world by falling back on its Patois, says the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Haiti, Herve Denis, a graduate of Laval University, who married a Quebecois. Link{Fr}

(Thanks to SAMUEL for the story)

Smells like 'bullsheet!'

Our good friend Mario Beaulieu, president and chief bottle washer of a bunch of French language supremacist organizations has once again given us the benefit of his wonderful statistical analysis.

"In 2006 Statistics Canada reported that  86 % of young francophones rated their knowledge of English as passable to excellant.  Link{Fr}

Hmmm.... Considering that only about 50% of Francophone Quebecers can speak any English at all it's quite an interesting figure!!

War on religion continues to rage

In the raging war between religion and the Quebec education department, parents wishing to excuse their children from the generic 'all-religions-are-equal-and-good' study course, (mandatory for all students) lost their appeal in the Supreme Court.
Adding insult to injury, a Quebec teacher, with the backing of her principal, removed the last line from a famous Edith Piaf song because it mentioned God, much to the chagrin of just about everyone, including the minister of education.

 

No French please, we're Flemish!

Readers might recall a story about how a French school board in Montreal has banned any other language but French from its schoolyard. Here's an amusing story of the shoe being fitted to the other foot;

"Children are being punished with detention and language lessons if they are caught speaking French in the playground of Sint-Pieters college, a primary school in a Flemish-speaking suburb of Brussels. One father attacked the policy at Sint-Pieterscollege because it threatened to punish children, too young to choose their mother tongue, for a conflict being fought out between French- and Dutch-speaking adults tussling for political control of Belgium.

''This is linguistic wickedness,'' he told La Capitale newspaper. ''It is not fair and affects only French-speaking kids. The school's decision is dangerous.'' Link

OQLF reveals 'special' relationships

The Office québécois de la langue française, (OQLF) has revealed that it has entered into 'special' language agreements with over 60 companies, allowing them to operate partially outside the terms of Bill 101.
The companies are generally head offices that operate branch locations outside Quebec and/or companies doing research or very involved in very high tech enterprises, like Bombardier, which is asking the OQLF to allow 4,000 employees to work exclusively in English.
These waivers have been going on since 1981, but the numbers have slowly diminished.
For a list of the related companies see the list HERE.
(Credit for the story ...Lord Dorchester)

Sugar Sammy sells out bilingual concert

It's still nice to know that there are people out there who love and enjoy speaking English and French and are proud to embrace another culture. 

Fully one third of Quebec Anglophones make a life for themselves with a Francophone spouse and so there's not as much animosity out there as militants on both sides would have us believe.
Its even possible for federalists and sovereigntists to be friends, I know because I live this reality everyday.
The media doesn't talk about cooperation and even blogs like mine play up the differences because, unfortunately, harmony is not an interesting read. 

I regret that if my missives come off leaving the impression that I dislike francophones, NOTHING cold be further from the truth. 
I complain because I want things to get better.

Jut the same, things are pretty good. In Montreal where I live, there isn't the language tension that outsiders, those in the RoC or RoQ imagine.
We seem to get along fairly well.
Nobody talks about the good things, the cooperation, the camaraderie and friendships that cross ethnic and linguistic lines in Quebec, because it doesn't sell newspapers, as they say.


For thirty years, I played in a garage hockey league where everyone was welcome. The dressing room was a magical Tower of Babel, where everyone kidded each other in all sorts of languages.
I call this the "ALLEZ, shoot!' phenomenon.


Montreal comedian Sugar Sammy is a product of the Bill 101 generation, son of an immigrant family, he was forced into French school, but just the same adopted and embraced Anglophone culture.


Now many French language militants will find this offensive, but it is a Quebec reality.


Emerging as one of Canada's best comedians, he is doing something that I don't believe anyone has tried before, a bilingual comedy concert.

Now if you'd have asked me before, I'd have said that there's a market for something like that, albeit pretty small.
Well, Sugar Sammy has sold out the entire run of thirty concert dates. Impressive.


Concert goers better have a thick skin, whether you are English, French or Ethnic he is going to get you and his observations are not only humorous, but caustic and biting.

He is the quintessential Montrealer, bilingual, urbane, confident and successful. 
Catch a bit of his shtick here.

Watch Sugar Sammy do his thing in French WITH PAULINE MAROIS!!!   HERE