The Leger web online poll asked young anglophones what they thought of the language situation in Quebec and while the results probably surprised nobody in our community, francophones reacted with shock at the temerity of Anglos to complain.
For most francophone intellectuals, the notion that Anglos are treated badly in Quebec is an impossibility, repeating the oft-told fantasy that Anglos are treated with kid gloves.
While anglophones are indifferent or oblivious to the poll, the French media has gone apeshit over the results which sent editorialists into a frenzy. The Journal du Montreal is running story after story of anglo angst followed by savage and mean-spirited rebuttals by op-ed journalists.
Here are the questions, that the poll put to the anglophones;
Are current relations between Quebec francophones and anglophones harmonious or conflictual?
- 57 % Harmonious
- 33 % Conflictual (Under 35 years 49 %)
- 9 % Dunno
Have you considered living in another province?
- 60 % Yes
- 38 % No
- 2 % Dunno
Do Quebec francophones make an effort to understand the realities that anglophones face?
- 63 % No
- 20 % Yes
17 % Dunno
The comments section were largely closed for each and every article but in those articles that were open, readers vented in rage heaping down contempt on anglophones for daring to complain
In a nasty and sarcastic article written by Richard Martineau entitled 1-800-SAVE-AN-ANGLO, he sums up his opinion rather succinctly.
"I read the piece on the Anglos in the Journal and their ordeal broke my heart....Boo, hoo, hoo"
"We're smothering them, crushing them, strangling them! Call in the United Nations!
Quick stop the massacre!"Hmmm....
According to Denise Bombardier of the Journal de Montreal who in a nasty opinion piece dripping with venom claimed that anglophones don't get jobs because they aren't sufficiently adroit in written French.
I laughed out loud when I read this considering that prospective French-language teachers flunk their written French leaving exam at a rate of 50%. Passing this exam is required in order to obtain a teaching license and so because of the massive failure rate the government allows them to take the test over and over again until they pass. If this is the case for prospective French teachers, I can only imagine the proficiency of francophone students barely making it through high school.
A few years ago a Quebec Muslim received a $15,000 award from the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal because the government agency to which he applied for a job refused to even give him an interview. It seems that after having his C/V ignored repeatedly the complainant sent in identical C/Vs with only the name changed from Arabic sounding to Francophone sounding, the latter all of which were granted an interview!
So, Ms. Bombardier, I imagine it wasn't his written French that sunk his application. Ha! Ha!
And while hard to prove, how many applications with English sounding names are passed over by Quebec employers (including the government) in favour of applications submitted by francophones?
Her article goes on to complain that anglophones refer to her hero, the father of Bill 101 Dr. Camille Laurin as a Nazi and a fascist, when in fact in her opinion, he was just an eminent psychiatrist.
All I can say is Dr. Mengele was also a physician.
Dr. Camille Laurin was a rabid Anglophobe who deliberately and dishonestly loaded Bill 101 with all sorts of unconstitutional clauses meant to incite linguistic conflict. He sold the blatant manipulation to René Levesque as a necessary stratagem to raise linguistic conflict to the boiling point, a tactic he constructed to bolster the case of sovereignty.
When those clauses were ultimately rejected by the supreme court, he portrayed it as a gross humiliation and used it to incite hatred of Canada and Anglophones. Dr. Laurin wanted Bill 101 to be as punitive as possible, not only to protect the French language and eliminate English in Quebec but more importantly to chase Anglos out of the province. Some hero.
Nope, the real reason anglophones hate Bill 101 so much is because it is tinged with contempt and hatred.
For example, for a city or town to be recognized as officially bilingual, the English minority must number 50% plus one. Yup, in order to be recognized as a minority, the anglos have to be in the majority, an idea that is fodder for a Monty Python sketch. Even if the town council votes unanimously to communicate in English with members of their town, the province refuses to allow it.
This clause is unadulterated hatred.
To think that in Canada, a country where 77% of its citizens are English, a province may ban the language with the tacit consent of the federal government is outrageous.
Richard Martineau also went on to remind the ungrateful Anglo bastards that;
"Permit me to remain impervious to the crocodile tears shed by Quebec anglophones. Your community is the most pampered minority in the world."Alas, Mr. Martineau, you are wrong.
Anglos are not the most pampered minority in the world, not even in Canada.
That would be of course francophone Quebecers, who with just 22% of the population are guaranteed one-third of the Supreme Court judges and where English Canadians in the ROC shovel about ten billion dollars of 'foreign aid' to Quebec each year. Where Radio Canada receives double the allotment it deserves demographically and where English Canadians subside bilingualism to the tune of 75%. The law provides that on a flight from Vancouver to Victoria, francophones (which make up 2% of BC's population, ) are entitled to order a seven-up in French while on a bus ride through Pointe-Claire, Quebec where perhaps 75% of riders are Anglo, the driver is not required and indeed encouraged not to offer English instructions.
When militants complain about the poor language options for minority French communities outside Quebec it would be useful to compare their situation to those of Anglophones in rural Quebec.
But the biggest concession to pampered Quebec minority is the tacit permission to terrorize English citizens from speaking their native language and living their native English culture in a country that is 77% English.
Attention Mr;. Martineau. While we may live in Quebec and we may speak French, we in no way are required to embrace French Quebec culture, no more so than francophones must embrace Canadian English culture by virtue of living in a province outside Quebec.
And no.... I don't want to listen to second-rate artists like Marie-Mai and watch lame French TV, usually poor copies of American English TV anyways.
When we are reminded to embrace the culture of the majority, I always ask....which majority is that?
All these blowhards make arguments as if Quebec is a defacto country where everyone within its borders must embrace the Quebec francophone reality, forgetting deliberately that Canada and English is the majority in Canada. I will remind these idiots of the fact that Quebec athletes wear the Maple Leaf at the Olympics and that the Quebec flag is banned at the Olympics.
Francophones outside Quebec can listen to Marie-Mai or watch the dreadful Julie Snyder or watch the insipid Tout le Monde en Parle, no anglophone will tell them to assimilate into the majority culture of the province they live in.
To those who tell anglos that if they don't like the situation in Quebec, then they should get out, I remind them, we are not tenants, we are owners. What we do not like, we work to change.
If you do not like having anglos as co-owners, vote for sovereignty and kick us out.
I dare you.
Til then understand that our rights as Canadians are equal to yours.
While these commentators demand that anglophone Quebecers respect the French majority in Quebec, they bridle at the notion that francophones owe the English majority in Canada the same.
So, Mr. Martineau, I shed no tears for you and your cry-baby cohorts who tell us how great and strong Quebec is while demanding special political treatment, asymmetric advantages and massive financial transfers from English Canada.
Of course, many Quebec commentators argue that it just isn't so, throwing out misleading statistics to muddy the reality of the advantages Quebec receives by remaining in Canada.
To illustrate my point to those who bear Quebec's entrenched sense of entitlement, I always put this simple question....
In Quebec Hollywood movies are required by law to be dubbed into French, failing which the English version cannot be played. The cost of the dubbing may run up to $100,000 and so the question I put is... who should pay for it?
Should a surcharge be placed on each ticket shown in theatres showing the French version or should Canadians across the country all pay a slightly higher price to subsidize the dubbing.
I have heard all sorts of answers, some hemming and some hawing, but I have never heard a francophone say that those who watch the dubbed version should pay.
Let the English pay....
While slagging and denigrating those nasty Canayans for time immemorial, Quebec has never stopped grabbing the money like a disaffected wife who stays with her husband because the money is good.
Say what you will, the naked contempt and aggression demonstrated by these commentators underscore the reality that was laid bare by the Bonjour/ Hi controversy, that is that there remains in Quebec a latent pathological enmity towards anglophones that even the progressive francophones bear.
In Quebec Hollywood movies are required by law to be dubbed into French, failing which the English version cannot be played. The cost of the dubbing may run up to $100,000 and so the question I put is... who should pay for it?
Should a surcharge be placed on each ticket shown in theatres showing the French version or should Canadians across the country all pay a slightly higher price to subsidize the dubbing.
I have heard all sorts of answers, some hemming and some hawing, but I have never heard a francophone say that those who watch the dubbed version should pay.
Let the English pay....
While slagging and denigrating those nasty Canayans for time immemorial, Quebec has never stopped grabbing the money like a disaffected wife who stays with her husband because the money is good.
Say what you will, the naked contempt and aggression demonstrated by these commentators underscore the reality that was laid bare by the Bonjour/ Hi controversy, that is that there remains in Quebec a latent pathological enmity towards anglophones that even the progressive francophones bear.
