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PostPosted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 7:16 pm
 


(Just so you know, this is a pretty long one...)

Like just about everyone else on these forums, I'm very happy to see Philippe Couillard guiding the Liberals to victory in yesterday's Quebec election. Couillard hit all the right buttons when he talked about how Quebec can do so much better than it has (and even with everything weighing it down, Quebec still produces some 20% of our economy and is the second- or third-biggest economy in Canada overall), and how there are more important things for Quebecers to worry about right now.

However, that doesn't mean that the issue of Quebec nationalism and separatism is finally laid to rest once and for all. There are still some big issues that remain and have yet to be resolved...

Forty years ago, Pierre Trudeau declared that separatism was dead...right before the Parti Quebecois under René Lévesque was elected. Thirty years ago, after the Constitution was patriated, people thought separatism was dead...when much of the PQ's defeat could be attributed to René Lévesque pissing off his own base by trying to get the province's budget problems under control, as well as being open to the "beau risque" posed by Meech Lake and Brian Mulroney. Ten years ago, Roger Gibbins and Loleen Berdahl commented on the danger of just "waiting for the separatists to die", since there wasn't much evidence that younger Quebecers were any more attached to Canada than their older counterparts.

Today, Jeffery Simpson writes about how many Quebecers are alienated from Canada, a claim substantiated by Frank Graves in an analysis he did just a few days ago.

However, that's not all there is to it. In his book Bastards And Boneheads, historian Will Ferguson cited a poll taken in 1994-95, right at the height of the referendum, wherein the majority of Quebecers were in fact very proud to be Canadian. Political scientist Victor Armony cited some more recent research that said that 62% of Quebecers felt a strong attachment to Canada. Even in 1980 and 1995, René Lévesque and Lucien Bouchard went for "sovereignty-association" because they didn't think full-blown separatism would work.

So if most Quebecers aren't ready to leave Canada, and many of them are still very much attached to the country, how do we explain the alienation so many of them feel?

What most people outside Quebec don't realize is that many Quebecers actually have a different way of viewing the country than the rest of us do. Guys like Léon Dion and Claude Ryan were very much federalists who did things like ditch the nationalist Société Saint-Jean Baptiste and warmly praise the content of the Charter of Rights, but they also called Quebec their homeland and Canada their country (in Léon's case) or Quebecois first, and Canadian too (in Ryan's case). Hell, as recently as 2006 Léon's son Stéphane, the guy who needed RCMP protection because of the Clarity Act, was writing about his pride in being part of "la nation québécoise", and in 2007 while leading the federal Liberals he was saying that if the Meech Lake Accord had passed, he would have never left academia. More generally, there are a lot of Quebecers who could be considered "soft nationalists."

Political scientist Alan Cairns noted that most Canadians consider the federal and national government as the one they most identify with. That's because most of the provinces have English-speaking majorities, with another English-majority country south of the border. Immigrants who come here do so with the expectation that they use English as the main language.

Compare this to how Quebec is made up primarily of a French-speaking majority, and have constantly had to juggle the challenge of maintaining itself as being distinctively francophone while also interacting with the larger Canadian society and accommodating its own minorities.

Writers like Claude Couture have mentioned how people in societies descended from Great Britain have often seen their culture as being the "universal" or "normal" way of doing things. While that's not always the case, it does raise the question of why so many people have expected that Quebec should accommodate its English-speaking minority, and insisting on English as the majority language in their own provinces. There's nothing wrong with those things by themselves-in fact, they're the right thing to do.

But why should Quebec's Anglophone minority be the only one that has any kind of considerations made for it (even as people decry bilingualism in the rest of the country), and why is it alright for most of the other provinces to insist that new arrivals to the province use the language of the majority, but it's somehow bad when Quebec does the same thing with its language laws? I'm sure we can all remember last year's thread about the person who expected to be served in Mandarin at a McDonald's in B.C. If it's all about freedom of choice, then surely there's no problem with Spanish immigrants in the United States using Spanish whenever and wherever they like?

People might reply that English should be the language we all use because it is the dominant one in Canada. That's right, and it's the reason so many Quebecers would be thrilled to see some sort of recognition of their distinctiveness in the Constitution. Bilingualism on a strictly individual basis isn't the best way to address the issue. There's some overlap here with the Aboriginal peoples, many of whom are alienated from the status quo because it doesn't recognize the distinct place that many of them feel too.

There is a lot of commonality between the issues Quebec has had to deal with and the ones we see cropping up increasingly in other parts of Canada and other countries. Just look at the concerns about demographics and integration in other parts of Canada and the United States Bart provides an example in the last post of this thread. They probably came to the fore sooner in Quebec because of its being a Francophone minority on an Anglophone majority continent, but we're seeing them more and more in other parts of Canada too.

Now is not the time to raise these issues, but at some point I think we will have to address them. In my view, the big issue Quebecers have with the Constitution is not what is in it, but what is *not* in it. From everything I've seen, in all my readings and conversations, acknowledging Quebec's unique situation in the Constitution will go a long way towards addressing Quebecers' sense of alienation from Canada. It wouldn't be a magic cure-all to everything we face, but too many people seem to assume that the problem is just with Quebecers themselves and their views of Canada. Perhaps we should also be asking ourselves if there's some sort of problem with the way our institutions are set up, a problem that wasn't addressed by Pierre Trudeau's way of doing things, for all the very real good it accomplished in other areas. Even as far back as 1867, it was the leaders of Lower Canada/Quebec that were the biggest supporters of a federal system, which helped accommodate their unique situation in North America.

If you ask me, the biggest reason the Quebec election turned out the way it did was because Quebecers were more concerned about the basics of their economy and infrastructure than they were about identity issues, and were unhappy with Pauline Marois' performance in general. Even Lucien Bouchard thinks that sovereignty is no longer possible for the time being, pointing out that the PQ was pandering to prejudicese and should focus more on 'bread and butter' issues-and who seriously thinks that he's had a miracle conversion to federalism? Similarly, from everything I've seen the main reason Marois got elected in the first place was because Quebecers had had enough of Jean Charest, and the reason they elected him was because they were fed up with the previous PQ government. In other words, Quebecers have been electing and defeating provincial governments on the same kinds of issues that could have cropped up in any part of Canada.

To close off my rant, I admit that maybe I'm completely off-base. But all the studying I've done, including trying to understand just why so many Quebecers supported separatism in the first place, gave me a lot to think about. It showed me just how much common ground and history we all share as a country, something which Quebec has been an important part of from the beginning and has contributed a lot to. It' a damn shame that more people both inside and outside Quebec don't know about guys like LaFontaine, Cartier, Laurier and Parent-they actively participated in the larger country, while still being staunch defenders of the French fact in Canada.

That, I think, is something we could all take pride in.

(Apologies for the number of edits-I clicked the submit button before I was finished writing.)


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 8:57 pm
 


So no Canadian Civil War? :(


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 10:04 pm
 


JaredMilne JaredMilne:

But why should Quebec's Anglophone minority be the only one that has any kind of considerations made for it (even as people decry bilingualism in the rest of the country), and why is it alright for most of the other provinces to insist that new arrivals to the province use the language of the majority, but it's somehow bad when Quebec does the same thing with its language laws?



Numbers.

Anglos in Quebec used to be a sizeable minority, and should be accorded some accommodation with respect to provincial and municipal affairs.

And most Anglos were never new arrivals, they have been in QC for generations.


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 4:22 pm
 


martin14 martin14:

Numbers.

Anglos in Quebec used to be a sizeable minority, and should be accorded some accommodation with respect to provincial and municipal affairs.

And most Anglos were never new arrivals, they have been in QC for generations.


You are, of course, quite right. This explains why the Anglo-Quebecois deserve consideration.

However, it is also true in all of the other provinces and their Francophone minorities. Their numbers were often sizable, and many of them have lived in their provinces for generations too. And yet, for whatever reason, Francophones in other parts of the country have had to go to court to try and get recognition of their rights, despite fierce opposition that continues today. As late as the 1980s, you could get censured for speaking in the Alberta Legislature. Even in New Brunswick, today our only official bilingual province, there was a hell of a lot of controversy. I can't imagine Louis Robichaud had it much better in the 1960s, either. We have instituted bilingual services and education across Canada, but many people only did so grudgingly and other think that we should scrap it...while still expecting Quebec to provide bilingual consideration.

I have no problem with Quebec accommodating its Anglo minority, as it should. What I don't get is why they should be the only ones with any sort of accommodation made for them. How does that fit into the "equal rights for all, special treatment for none" philosophy that's so often used to oppose distinct status for Quebec and bilingualism?

The concept of "freedom of choice" is often used to defend speaking English when and where people choose. Okay, but how then does that square with people both here and abroad getting annoyed with the likes of the Chinese residents of Richmond posting signs only in their language,, something even other Chinese immigrants are criticizing? Or how about that controversy that occurred on the CKA thread I linked to in the original post? Or what about the controversies we see in other countries, like Americans who are annoyed with immigrants who primarily use Spanish in communication?

We say that they should learn and use the common language, and I fully agree. But aren't these new immigrants simply using their own freedom of choice when they use their ancestral languages, and want to be served in them? We expect new arrivals to learn our common languages when they arrive, and I fully agree with the sentiment. I agree with the criticisms being made in the Richmond situation, and the negative reception we as CKAers gave to that lady who expected to be served in Mandarin at McDonalds. What I simply don't get is why it's somehow so bad when Quebec, whose majority is French, wants people to do the same thing?

What happens if the demographics shift to the point where Anglophones are no longer a majority in Canada? The concern-the exact same concern Francophone Quebecers are now talking about-is reflected in the Anglophone world too. Allow me to quote directly from Bart:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:
DanSC DanSC:
Isn't survival a trait of every nation currently in existence?


No. The US and Europe are aborting, birth controlling, and immigrating themselves to death and we're not imparting our traditional culture and values to the immigrants. Instead we're encouraging them to Balkanize within our borders. That makes these people into colonists and not immigrants and no country ever survived mass colonization.

Don't believe me? Ask a First Nations' native.


If it's all strictly about individual rights and freedom of choice, why are we demanding that English continue to be used and given priority over other languages? My belief is that we should continue to do because Anglophone/English Canada is one of our founding cultures, and the English language is a cornerstone of that. However, the same thing also applies to Francophone/French Canada and the French language. As I said before, demographics and the uneven strength of our official languages might seem to justify only supporting English, but it can also justify Quebec's language laws and distinctiveness. Aboriginal Canada is our third major community, of course.

These founding cultures are not limited to one group, nor are they frozen in time. As I mentioned elsewhere, immigration will continue to make these cultures grow and evolve with new quirks and ideas, even as people move between them. Like Unsound pointed out in the post following mine, many of the youth who grow up here adopt our language and cultures, even as they build on them with their own contributions. In my view, our three founding cultures are one of the essential traits that marks us as Canadians, and their disappearance would leave us all worse off in the long run.


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 10:44 pm
 


JaredMilne JaredMilne:

However, it is also true in all of the other provinces and their Francophone minorities. Even in New Brunswick, today our only official bilingual province, there was a hell of a lot of controversy. I can't imagine Louis Robichaud had it much better in the 1960s, either. We have instituted bilingual services and education across Canada, but many people only did so grudgingly and other think that we should scrap it...while still expecting Quebec to provide bilingual consideration.



But it is again a question of numbers.
Ontario had/has a sizeable number of French speakers, hence the Catholic school system.
In NB, a lot of people buy into the idea that official bilingualism (OB) is a very expensive proposition for a fairly poor province.
1/3 of New Brunswickers are French, so it certainly justifies having everything bilingual..

$1:
I have no problem with Quebec accommodating its Anglo minority, as it should. What I don't get is why they should be the only ones with any sort of accommodation made for them. How does that fit into the "equal rights for all, special treatment for none" philosophy that's so often used to oppose distinct status for Quebec and bilingualism?


I think the French minorities in NB and ON are treated well with respect to their relative populations.
The other provinces never had 'high' levels of French speakers, or they got out populated fairly quickly.
If anything, some provinces in the West should have had Ukrainian for second language services.


$1:
The concept of "freedom of choice" is often used to defend speaking English when and where people choose. Okay, but how then does that square with people both here and abroad getting annoyed with the likes of the Chinese residents of Richmond posting signs only in their language,, something even other Chinese immigrants are criticizing? Or how about that controversy that occurred on the CKA thread I linked to in the original post? Or what about the controversies we see in other countries, like Americans who are annoyed with immigrants who primarily use Spanish in communication?


But now you are moving from what was a long standing situation in Canada to the relatively new complete failure of our immigration system.

The two aren't really the same.

$1:
If it's all strictly about individual rights and freedom of choice, why are we demanding that English continue to be used and given priority over other languages? My belief is that we should continue to do because Anglophone/English Canada is one of our founding cultures, and the English language is a cornerstone of that. However, the same thing also applies to Francophone/French Canada and the French language. As I said before, demographics and the uneven strength of our official languages might seem to justify only supporting English, but it can also justify Quebec's language laws and distinctiveness. Aboriginal Canada is our third major community, of course.


To be fair, people complaining about this and that does not equate to government policy.
If the BC government ever introduced a sign/service law similar to QC, then we
could have the discussion about the goose and the gander.
Until then, it's just not on the same level.


$1:
These founding cultures are not limited to one group, nor are they frozen in time. As I mentioned elsewhere, immigration will continue to make these cultures grow and evolve with new quirks and ideas, even as people move between them. Like Unsound pointed out in the post following mine, many of the youth who grow up here adopt our language and cultures, even as they build on them with their own contributions. In my view, our three founding cultures are one of the essential traits that marks us as Canadians, and their disappearance would leave us all worse off in the long run.


Hopefully I'll be dead by the time it happens.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 4:28 pm
 


martin14 martin14:





But it is again a question of numbers.

Ontario had/has a sizeable number of French speakers, hence the Catholic school system.

In NB, a lot of people buy into the idea that official bilingualism (OB) is a very expensive proposition for a fairly poor province.

1/3 of New Brunswickers are French, so it certainly justifies having everything bilingual..




martin14 martin14:

I think the French minorities in NB and ON are treated well with respect to their relative populations.

The other provinces never had 'high' levels of French speakers, or they got out populated fairly quickly.

If anything, some provinces in the West should have had Ukrainian for second language services.


I already touched on these points in another thread, but for convenience's sake I'll repeat them again.

First, the numbers...

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

I know the official mantra is often "equal rights for all, special rights for none", but in this case, what is the justification for providing services, exceptions and exemptions for Anglophones in Quebec, but not any other minority population? In such a case, it risks coming across as special treatment for Quebec Anglophones and only Quebec Anglophones. The most generous estimates of the Anglo-Quebec population peg it at only about 13.5% of the provincial population, well below the 25-30% benchmark martin14 talked about for maintaining provincial services.



As for Ukrainian services...

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

Here's the thing about those language demographics, though...

$1:

But if Canada were to introduce official languages based on immigrant patterns, the situation would be in flux with every passing generation, said Graham Fraser, Canada’s commissioner for official languages. “If you look at the immigration patterns of this country, by and large immigrant languages do not survive the third generation,” he said.

In 1951, for example, 450,000 Canadians spoke Ukrainian at home, Mr. Fraser said, and bureaucrats toyed with the idea of recognizing Ukrainian as an official language in Western Canada. The problem was that in 1981, that 450,000 had become 45,000, he said.

“The third-generation immigrant tends to use English and French as their dominant language, and yet you’re not seeing that diminution on the part of the French-speaking community in Canada,” Mr. Fraser said. “There are more French speakers in Canada now than there ever have been.”





martin14 martin14:

But now you are moving from what was a long standing situation in Canada to the relatively new complete failure of our immigration system.

The two aren't really the same.



We can agree to disagree about that. However, if you really want to talk about a long standing situation in Canada, how about the fact that Francophone Canadian culture and numbers used to flourish outside of Quebec, up until they were repressed and suppressed in various ways?

Look at a map of Alberta, and see how many French town names there are: Riviere Qui Barre, Grande Prairie, Morinville, Beaumont, Villeneuve, and more. Francophone settlers played a major role in developing the Prairies before French was originally supposed to be accorded equal status with English on the Prairies, a promise Wilfrid Laurier ended up being between a rock and a hard place when he tried to fulfill it.

How about the fact that English has always had a point of place in the Quebec legislature, while as late as the 1980s you could get censured for speaking French in the Alberta legislature?

How about the fact that Francophone minorities have had to go to court to get their rights respected?

In my historical research, I've come across a surprising number of prominent St. Albert residents who were Francophones. When I worked in Morinville, I saw how many of their Mayors were Francophones as late as the 1960s. Could the fact that French language education was denied or circumscribed for so long, have had something to do with the fact that attrition took its toll on so many Francophone communities outside Quebec?

That, too, is a question of numbers…one that’s been going on for far longer than Bill 101.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 10:41 pm
 


JaredMilne JaredMilne:
martin14 martin14:





But it is again a question of numbers.

Ontario had/has a sizeable number of French speakers, hence the Catholic school system.

In NB, a lot of people buy into the idea that official bilingualism (OB) is a very expensive proposition for a fairly poor province.

1/3 of New Brunswickers are French, so it certainly justifies having everything bilingual..




martin14 martin14:

I think the French minorities in NB and ON are treated well with respect to their relative populations.

The other provinces never had 'high' levels of French speakers, or they got out populated fairly quickly.

If anything, some provinces in the West should have had Ukrainian for second language services.


I already touched on these points in another thread, but for convenience's sake I'll repeat them again.

First, the numbers...

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

I know the official mantra is often "equal rights for all, special rights for none", but in this case, what is the justification for providing services, exceptions and exemptions for Anglophones in Quebec, but not any other minority population? In such a case, it risks coming across as special treatment for Quebec Anglophones and only Quebec Anglophones. The most generous estimates of the Anglo-Quebec population peg it at only about 13.5% of the provincial population, well below the 25-30% benchmark martin14 talked about for maintaining provincial services.




I never benchmarked provincial services at 25-30%. That's the current pop split
for New Brunswick.

The international standard for governments providing for minorities seems to be around 10%, which QC fits into now, and I'm guessing the percentage of Anglos was higher in the past, like say before 1976 ? :)






$1:

As for Ukrainian services...

JaredMilne JaredMilne:

Here's the thing about those language demographics, though...

$1:

But if Canada were to introduce official languages based on immigrant patterns, the situation would be in flux with every passing generation, said Graham Fraser, Canada’s commissioner for official languages. “If you look at the immigration patterns of this country, by and large immigrant languages do not survive the third generation,” he said.

In 1951, for example, 450,000 Canadians spoke Ukrainian at home, Mr. Fraser said, and bureaucrats toyed with the idea of recognizing Ukrainian as an official language in Western Canada. The problem was that in 1981, that 450,000 had become 45,000, he said.

“The third-generation immigrant tends to use English and French as their dominant language, and yet you’re not seeing that diminution on the part of the French-speaking community in Canada,” Mr. Fraser said. “There are more French speakers in Canada now than there ever have been.”





martin14 martin14:

But now you are moving from what was a long standing situation in Canada to the relatively new complete failure of our immigration system.

The two aren't really the same.



We can agree to disagree about that. However, if you really want to talk about a long standing situation in Canada, how about the fact that Francophone Canadian culture and numbers used to flourish outside of Quebec, up until they were repressed and suppressed in various ways?

Look at a map of Alberta, and see how many French town names there are: Riviere Qui Barre, Grande Prairie, Morinville, Beaumont, Villeneuve, and more. Francophone settlers played a major role in developing the Prairies before French was originally supposed to be accorded equal status with English on the Prairies, a promise Wilfrid Laurier ended up being between a rock and a hard place when he tried to fulfill it.

How about the fact that English has always had a point of place in the Quebec legislature, while as late as the 1980s you could get censured for speaking French in the Alberta legislature?

How about the fact that Francophone minorities have had to go to court to get their rights respected?

In my historical research, I've come across a surprising number of prominent St. Albert residents who were Francophones. When I worked in Morinville, I saw how many of their Mayors were Francophones as late as the 1960s. Could the fact that French language education was denied or circumscribed for so long, have had something to do with the fact that attrition took its toll on so many Francophone communities outside Quebec?

That, too, is a question of numbers…one that’s been going on for far longer than Bill 101.


Regarding the West, your own numbers show the story.

Francophones may have started these communities, but the influx of immigrants fundamentally changed them, very quickly. There weren't 450,000 Frenchmen opening up the West.

Or, yes, I won't argue that the French have probably been discriminated against in the rush to develop Western Canada. I would say partially the rush of immigrants, partially a government that didn't help.
It may have been different if large numbers of French people emigrated west, but they didn't, and were usurped by the newcomers.
And I mean large numbers compared to the English, Ukrainians, and others that came.
Saying 40,000 French went West is irrelevant when 450,000 others came; and the immigrant communities made their choice pretty quick when it came to what local language to use. It was English.



In QC, however, it's a different story again.

We must remember the following:

The French lost the war in 1763.

Complete political control of QC rested with English people, just look at the list
of Governors. QC has been ruled by English a lot longer than French.
Economic control of QC was also English. They invested and controlled the businesses, and that didn't even start to change until the 1960's.

So the English have a long history of disproportionate power compared to percentages of population, which is why English has point of place in QC,
and people are more willing to complain about things like Bill 101.


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martin14 martin14:
Or, yes, I won't argue that the French have probably been discriminated against in the rush to develop Western Canada. I would say partially the rush of immigrants, partially a government that didn't help.
It may have been different if large numbers of French people emigrated west, but they didn't, and were usurped by the newcomers.
And I mean large numbers compared to the English, Ukrainians, and others that came.
Saying 40,000 French went West is irrelevant when 450,000 others came; and the immigrant communities made their choice pretty quick when it came to what local language to use. It was English.

In QC, however, it's a different story again.

We must remember the following:

The French lost the war in 1763.

Complete political control of QC rested with English people, just look at the list
of Governors. QC has been ruled by English a lot longer than French.
Economic control of QC was also English. They invested and controlled the businesses, and that didn't even start to change until the 1960's.

So the English have a long history of disproportionate power compared to percentages of population, which is why English has point of place in QC,
and people are more willing to complain about things like Bill 101.


But that's precisely the point-Francophone Canada is one of our founding cultures, but it's been repeatedly discriminated against, with active repression and violation of the educational rights, laws and promises that were meant to help their communities flourish. The English minority also had, as you note, disproportionate power and influence in Quebec itself, which accounts for things like Bill 101 and Quebec's wanting its distinctiveness recognized in Canada.

It comes back to the same fundamental point-why is it alright for special privileges and considerations to be extended to Anglophone Canadians, but not to their Francophone counterparts, when the Francophones played an equal part in founding the country, the Anglophones had a disproportionate amount of power in Quebec, and new immigrants tend to integrate into one of these cultural communities, or into the third founding Aboriginal one? Why was it alright for the rights of Francophones to be violated, while the rights of Anglophones are sacrosanct?


Last edited by JaredMilne on Thu May 22, 2014 7:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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The difference between francophones in Quebec and the ones outside Quebec is that those outside Quebec know that a knowledge of English is vital to their economic interest. They know full well that being bilingual is the economic ticket, aside from the fact that it's great to be able to think and converse in two languages.

The insularity that Quebec provides is NOT in the best interests of its francophone citizens.

BTW there's a pretty large English Catholic presence in Ontario. English Catholics actually have a separate school system from French Catholics (and both of them are separate from the public system).


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Jonny_C Jonny_C:
The difference between francophones in Quebec and the ones outside Quebec is that those outside Quebec know that a knowledge of English is vital to their economic interest. They know full well that being bilingual is the economic ticket, aside from the fact that it's great to be able to think and converse in two languages.

The insularity that Quebec provides is NOT in the best interests of its francophone citizens.

BTW there's a pretty large English Catholic presence in Ontario. English Catholics actually have a separate school system from French Catholics (and both of them are separate from the public system).


You are, of course, quite right. For the record, Pierre Trudeau was right too when he pointed out that Quebec couldn't expect to thrive if it stayed closed off and insular...but at the same time his reforms did not address the fundamental concerns Quebecers had about languages and cultures. How do local cultures integrate new arrivals without being swamped? To what extent should provisions be made for people who join the society?

Political scientist Samuel LaSelva was dead on when he suggested that Pierre Trudeau and Rene Levesque each understood what the other did not. By extension, they each failed to understand what the other did.

Quebec has had a lot of discussion on these subjects over the last few years, particularly with the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, the debate over reasonable accommodation and "interculturalism" as a substitute for multiculturalism. The rest of the country is dealing with the same issues too, although the large-scale debate has not yet happened outside of a few circles.

Finally, I would add the caveat that bilingualism is useful for us as Anglophones too, particularly learning French as our other official language. Understanding French has especially valuable to me because it's given me the opportunity to see how the other side thinks, and get their side of the story. If I'm able to talk a lot about the Franco-Quebecois perspective, it's because bilingualism has helped me understand them.


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 11:11 pm
 


JaredMilne JaredMilne:


It comes back to the same fundamental point-why is it alright for special privileges and considerations to be extended to Anglophone Canadians, but not to their Francophone counterparts, when the Francophones played an equal part in founding the country,


The French lost the war.
Until 1948 and Palestine, that used to mean something.

The Loyalists who came after the US revolution displaced a lot of French people
in the East, their current region of Northeast New Brunswick is not their traditional
'homeland', those people are all originally from Nova Scotia.

They lost the war, they got moved. Shit happens.



$1:
the Anglophones had a disproportionate amount of power in Quebec, and new immigrants tend to integrate into one of these cultural communities, or into the third founding Aboriginal one? Why was it alright for the rights of Francophones to be violated, while the rights of Anglophones are sacrosanct?


Money, power, and politics. Mostly money and power, because politics belonged
almost exclusively to the English anyway.




Y-you're a young guy, right ?
A course in greed, money, exploitation, manipulation, and not giving a shit about people who lost the war is recommended. :)


$1:
If I'm able to talk a lot about the Franco-Quebecois perspective, it's because bilingualism has helped me understand them.


The current separatist nonsense is a grab for more money and more power, nothing more.

There are zero advantages for Quebec to separate from Canada.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 4:09 am
 


the English have a long history of disproportionate power compared to percentages of population, which is why English has point of place in QC,

One of the main reasons for this power differential in the post-war Quebec that I grew up in was that Montreal was the city of the head office. Until, say, the 1960s, Montreal was the financial heart of Canada so all sorts of large Canadian corporations had their head offices there. American companies set up their big Canadian branch operations in Montreal. This drew Anglophones from all over the continent to Montreal. They were richer, better educated executive types for the large part and they and their families made up a population in the hundreds of thousands. I'm sure that it was galling for a Francophone Quebecois to drive through a prosperous West End neighbourhood full of Anglos and think " They've take all of this away from us real Quebecers". I know that the English were seen that way. The English, though, took nothing from the French (who were NOT encouraged by their church and culture to engage in things like financial services, back then). The English brought those jobs with them and when the PQ managed to drive off the head offices for good, the English took them away with them, too. Now Quebec is a much "purer", poorer place for it.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 8:33 am
 


JaredMilne JaredMilne:
You are, of course, quite right. For the record, Pierre Trudeau was right too when he pointed out that Quebec couldn't expect to thrive if it stayed closed off and insular...but at the same time his reforms did not address the fundamental concerns Quebecers had about languages and cultures. How do local cultures integrate new arrivals without being swamped? To what extent should provisions be made for people who join the society?

Quebec has had a lot of discussion on these subjects over the last few years, particularly with the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, the debate over reasonable accommodation and "interculturalism" as a substitute for multiculturalism. The rest of the country is dealing with the same issues too, although the large-scale debate has not yet happened outside of a few circles.


I think the interculturalism/multiculturalism debate in the rest of Canada is muted (and always has been) as compared to Quebec because assimilation into the English language and culture has been relatively smooth. Debate is stirred nowadays, though, because of the large numbers of non-European immigrants who can have a vastly different starting point culturally and spiritually, and therefore do not integrate as readily.

Quebec has always found itself on the defensive because new immigrants to the province had the option of learning English instead of French. I wonder whether the fear of that problem has abated with the effective assertion of "French First" over the past 40 years or so in Quebec.

Could the stunning defeat of a PQ pushing sovereignty in the 2014 election be an indication that the fear can no longer galvanize the citizenry? It may be temporary or it may be a genuine shift. Perhaps Quebeckers are starting to feel that they have achieved sufficient linguistic protection.

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Finally, I would add the caveat that bilingualism is useful for us as Anglophones too, particularly learning French as our other official language. Understanding French has especially valuable to me because it's given me the opportunity to see how the other side thinks, and get their side of the story. If I'm able to talk a lot about the Franco-Quebecois perspective, it's because bilingualism has helped me understand them.


I'm of an Austrian immigrant background. My parents taught me to speak German before I learned to speak English. Even after many years of dis-use I can still speak, read and write German fairly well, and I have no problem switching to thinking in German, so I know that of which you speak. I can also operate to some extent in French, though not nearly as well as I would like. My wife is French-Canadian, but from a family that rapidly assimilated into English after moving to Ontario from the Quebec side of the Ottawa Valley. My wife can think and speak in French but her younger siblings can't.

In our visits to Quebec (particularly Quebec City) my wife traced her family roots back to 1637 in the Quebec Archives. Her family's history in Canada begins on the Ile d' Orléans. In our visits there we found many people who genuinely could not speak English, and I conclude that they probably don't feel any need for it. That tends to show me that the French language is strong, maybe strong enough now for people to have little fear of being submerged.

Still it's a shame not to know another language, particularly one that is so important in communication between so many countries and cultures. Maybe there will come a time in Quebec when learning English is seen as more of a benefit than a threat.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 8:44 am
 


Yep. French immersion schools in BC can't accommodate all the demand. Parents spend nights in front of the school to be sure to get a place for their kids. I think we should begin teaching French in grade one, when kids will absorb and retain it best. Learning another language has been shown to do wonders for brain development.


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2014 8:51 am
 


It's not for everyone. My daughter started out in French school and she had difficulty with it. She ended up in a Waldorf (with German lessons given as well as the requisite French) and she did a lot better. You can derive the same benefit for brain development that comes from speaking another language by learning to play/sing music. Neurologically, it appears that the brain treats written music the same way it treats any other language.


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