Sunday, May 23, 2021

Myths & Lies of Quebec's French Language Debate Part One- Mother Tongue Nonsense

 It's no secret that statistics are easily manipulated and often misused to promote an opinion or political position when a fair evaluation of the data would show otherwise.

I'll start with a blatant example of this type of misuse of statistics in a Journal du Montreal article penned by blowhard Normand Lester whose disdain for anglophones, Canada, the USA and particularly Israel is legendary.
As for background, Mr. Lester was fired from Radio-Canada for his extreme anti-Canadian opinions which he shared while employed by Canadian taxpayers. He was at the center of a contrived controversy in 1996 when he accused the Jewish General Hospital of language heresy when a  nurse supposedly refused to address him in French, even though he had previously been speaking with her in English.
The incident sparked a heated demonstration by amped-up nationalists in front of the institution that was later cleared of any language wrongdoing. I only refer to this incident in light of the ironic fact that Mr. Lester's life was saved in the very same hospital's emergency room seventeen years later after suffering a heart attack.
I always laugh when sovereigntists and language militants attack English hospitals for being English entities and then whine that French service is not up to snuff, THUS recognizing by their complaint that these hospitals are indeed bilingual. 
It is the hallmark of these language whingers to argue the opposite points of view when convenient as we shall see below.

At any rate, Mr. Lester is not one to mince words or keep his dishonest and racist views to himself. 

"Normand Lester was somehow allowed to publish a column comparing the Mohawk Warriors to terrorists and the Proud Boys, both factually untrue and dangerous, not to mention (again) racist. After public outcry, the Journal de Montréal quietly removed the column from their website, without even the courtesy of an apology or explanation." Link 

This is who the Journal du Montreal publishes as some sort of expert.
I was surprised by his recent sadly amusing article in the Journal du Montreal claiming that the decidedly anglo town of Côte-Saint-Luc didn't deserve bilingual status because only 40% of its citizens are anglophones. Bill 101 requires rather convolutedly that a majority of townsfolk must be English to maintain official recognition as a minority.
In other words, in Quebec, a minority must be a majority to be recognized as a minority,,, yup.

 So Côte-Saint-Luc is not English? I looked up the numbers to understand how Mr. Lester arrived at his cockamamie conclusion that only 40% of CSL townsfolk are anglophones..

It appears that Mr. Lester dishonestly conflates mother tongue with the primary language spoken in the home as the defining criterion of what is an anglophone. 
As far as I can follow Mr. Lester's logic, despite acting like an anglophone, talking like an anglophone, and living like an anglophone, you are still not an anglophone unless born to parents who are anglophones. This is the utter baloney contrived by language militants who have coined the thoroughly racist term "historical anglophones" (those born to anglophone parents) to deny that many choose to join the English community by choice.
Statscan, reports that in CSL, more than twice as many families speak English at home as do those families that speak French (20,000 versus 8,000.)
In other words, 60% of the town's population speak English at home.

Mr. Lester's basis of argument must be that because only 40% of residents were born into an English-speaking home, they cannot be considered anglophones. In other words, you cannot become an Anglophone by choice. Now, this argument is the opposite one made by language militants who claim that francophones going to English Cegep are in too many cases turned into raging anglophones.
In fact, Mr. Lester makes that exact CEGEP  claim in that very same article. 
His dishonest use of this statistic fails to mention that even when the original mother tongue is compared, twice as many have English compared to French as a mother tongue in CSL.
In fact, only 20% of Cote Saint Luc residents have French as a mother tongue, yet on this basis, he demands that French be the only recognized language in the town.
Mr. Lester is another language fraudster, typically spouting the nonsense of those who know better but deliberately attempt to confuse with sleight of hand, outright lies and selectively deceptive statistics.
Shame on him, because he's very bright and he knows he is deceiving.

Now let us examine the stupidest and lamest misuse of statistics, the cornerstone argument of the "French is in danger" mantra, one that puts Chicken Little to shame.

"Montreal, is where the vast majority of new Quebecers settle and so Montrealers whose mother tongue is French, which accounted for 48% of the population in 2011, will approach the critical threshold of 40% in 2036" Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, leader of the PQ Link{fr}

And so immigration is to blame for the so-called decline in French because these immigrants don't speak French at home, even though their children are sent to French schools and almost all work in French.
So in this case, it is convenient to talk about the first language spoken in the home as a defining language criterion, unlike Mr. Lester who argues that it isn't.

This is the defining statistic of the "French is declining" argument, the fact that French spoken as the first language in the home is on the decline.
It is a deception repeated ad nauseam, an argument that is specious at best and racist at worst.

Whining about French declining as the language spoken at home makes as much sense as the person who goes to the depanneur each week and loads up on bags of potato chips, only to complain to everybody who will listen that the potato chips are at fault for making him fat.
It is patently absurd.

As long as Quebec brings in immigrants, the percentage of those with another language spoken at home will rise and French, as well as English, will decline as the first language spoken at home.
It's that simple.

So if you don't want more immigrants that speak another language at home, don't bring them in. Complaining about it as if it's someone else's fault is as dishonest as stupid. 

But reducing immigration as language militants suggest presents another problem. A declining birthrate means the population of Quebec will decline without new blood via these dastardly immigrants  

While not exactly a "Sophie's Choice," for language militants, the immigration dilemma is real.
But that dear reader, we will leave for a future post.

In the meantime, language militants should understand that if they don't want French as the first language spoken at home to decline, they need to stop buying so many potato chips. 

Next up... Part Two- Forced Store Descriptors are petty and racist.

8 comments:

  1. "The ‘politics of recognition’ thus has morphed into a metastasising pseudo-polity of ever accelerating, narcissistic self-aggrandisement behind the screen of an overstimulated moral fervour for righting all the world’s wrongs, while identifying for the sake of ‘punishment’ and exclusion an ever more proliferating menagerie of virtual malefactors. If there is a way out of this epistemic and neuropathological cul-de-sac, it cannot simply be charted through heightened criticism. It must be traced through a radical revisioning of the way in which we look at the world and at others." - Carl Raschke, "Neoliberalism and Political Theology"

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  2. Actually, Philip, I'm going to jump a little ahead to what I anticipate you'll be referring to in the second part of your discussion.

    I have been going over Bill 96. On its own, it's practically impossible to follow, so I'm using Word to create a "work paper" to combine the two since this is what is necessary to decipher how Bill 96 fits into Bill 101. Too, I'm crossing out cancelled or modified words, sentences and sections.

    I'm not finished yet, will be soon. From what I can see, it's incredibly petty, and it's going to make the revised Bill 101+96 almost triple the length of the current Bill 101 (why don't the just call it Bill 197?)

    It's creating more of a bureaucracy, will cost millions to implement and a lot of the language therein is extremely, extremely petty. The word "employee" is changed to "worker".

    Here's an example using Article 57:

    The current: "57. Application forms for employment, order forms, invoices, receipts and quittances shall be drawn up in French."


    The proposed, new Article: 57. "Invoices, receipts, acquittances and other documents of the same nature must be drawn up in French. No person may send such a document in a language other than French if the French version is not available to the recipient on terms that are at least as favourable."

    Hah! I can just see the arguments some dumbass Sagueneen separatist unilingual Francophone customer making a big fuss over less-than-perfect French on an invoice that comes from B.C., the United States or England.

    Another section is revised where contracts made in Quebec to go to an enterprise outside Quebec have to include both the version in the other language (read: English) and the French version. All that is going to do is raise printing, courier and stationary costs as the recipient outside Quebec is just going to throw away the French blank copy, sign and send back the copy in the other language. Ridiculous, stupid and petty, petty, petty! ...and add to that, RETARDED!

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  3. Philip: You have piqued my curiosity! Could you please elaborate on how potato chips correlate to the decline of the French speaking population? I surmise you're insinuating at least one of the following three:

    1. They contribute to an early mortality rate (due to obesity);
    2. They lead to impotence (due to obesity);
    3. They somehow impede one somehow from learning or being able to properly communicate in French.

    Please verify.

    P.S.: I think poutine is even more detrimental that just potato chips!

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  4. "... if you don't want more immigrants that speak another language at home, don't bring them in."

    Interestingly, as time goes on, I'm meeting an ever increasing number of Francophones bypassing Quebec for real provinces (as opposed "the nation" and "the state" Quebec is ever increasingly proclaiming itself to be).

    I worked a couple of years ago with a fellow who was originally from France, emigrated to the Quebec jurisdiction, and then moved to the Greater Toronto Area. I had to ask him what motivated him to leave Quebec and his response was he wanted to experience our way of life outside the French milieu. I can't help but hypothesize he was sick of Quebec and Québécois!

    I've increasingly been meeting Africans from the Francophonie countries, a surprise since I thought they'd all go to Quebec, and many didn't use Quebec as the conduit (thanks to selecting their own immigrants, the only "Canadian jurisdiction") to do so. What does that tell you?

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    Replies
    1. "What does that tell you?"

      it tells me you're making stuff up, mate.

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  5. The National Assembly has an excellent procedure for individuals to submit opinions and feedback for bills under consideration, such as Bill 96 which is on its way to committee for study.

    I have made my own submission.

    One can submit up to five type written pages (I assume 5 pages of Microsoft Word pages). I have made a copy of my submission which you can read here:

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTeZr6OuhYTNiRep0DPI4lXEkNahtMMAQK-isBKV4CGO8BxJd26YfGtecNwakv3dJI5fukcMT_VPwkr/pub

    Here also is the link to the online submission form for Bill 96 at the National Assembly's website. I encourage anyone who wants to put their two cents in regarding Bill 96 to do so:

    https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/commentaire.html?type=ProjetLoi&id=20417&url=travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-96-42-1

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  6. Tony: I applaud your rebuttal, but I'm specifically referring to the following paragraph you wrote"

    "The certificate of eligibility required under Bill 101 to access English school is obtained directly through the parent/child connection. Its imprint is, like DNA, as immutable as skin colour and the designation remains for life and beyond: one’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren still maintain the classification ad infinitum."

    I've stated it before and I'll state it again. To me, this "Certificate of Eligibility" that parents need to obtain to put their children in English schools is tantamount to "papers" black slaves in the American south needed to carry around to prove their fortunate situations when they were liberated by their (ugh) owners. That whole process was extremely alienating, and between that "certificate" as were language tests imposed by Robert Bourassa and separatist examiners under its predecessor, Bill 22. Fascism, fascism, fascism...pure and simple.

    Most importantly, Bill 101 has been around going on 44 years, so what is the incentive for a pro-separatist government to retract all that when the ex so-called "federalist" premier with dual heritage, one John James "Goldilocks" Charest, was as cruel in his language stance as the rest of them. It was he who was premier when he imposed Bill 104 to close any possible loopholes enabling children to enroll in fully unsubsidized private English schools. It was he who was premier and didn't life a goddamn finger to help a child with a learning disability whose father was a Franco Québécois and mother an American. The child could not learn properly in French even though his siblings could, yet Captain Canada didn't help a single child who should have been protected by the Charter's own law as specified in the following paragraph.

    Section 81 of Bill 101 states consideration must be given to children with a severe learning disability and Section 85.1 discusses consideration from undue hardship on humanitarian grounds. Jean Charest, the so-called federalist, the so-called Captain Canada organizing Canadians flooding into Montreal for that federalist love-in from all over Canada on October 27, 1995, watched the whole incident of this child's family having to split while this child with problems had to go to Delaware to get his English education.

    If the so-called federalist couldn't lift a finger to avoid this enormous problem he easily could have easily settled, why are they going to change now.

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  7. I have now had a chance to not only comb through the proposed Bill 96, but actually take the time to follow its instructions and combined it with the current Charter of the French Language as a sort of workpaper, and analyze the whole proposal.

    Not only does it lengthen the current law by more than double, but it is far more petty, and as far as I'm concerned, it is a violation on civil liberties. Not that forcing children of immigrants coming into Quebec from outside countries to go to French school isn't already a violation of a country that already claims it enjoys civil liberties (i.e., Canada if not Quebec as well, "NOTWITHSTANDING" Quebec is still a province within Canada, like it or not) but I don't think there is another jurisdiction in the civilized world that dictates where post-secondary adults should go for college education.

    Unfortunately, we are too apologist a country not to allow Quebec to do whatever the hell it wants, so I'll stop my comment at this point. It speaks for itself.

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