md2000 is a very opinionated poster, which I’m not going to complain about since I am the same way, but he’s got an annoying tendency to bring his political frustrations out in the open in GQ, where we cannot respond to them in kind and where they only serve to hijack the discussion. The proximate cause of this pitting are his posts in the recently-revived thread about [thread=570274]Canadians and doughnuts[/thread], starting with [post=12974631]this one[/post], about his opposition to the Charter of the French language in Quebec, but he’s done it many times in the past as well. Take as example this (click on blue arrow to see post):
and his posts in [thread=557205]this thread[/thread]:
But more infuriating than his political potshots are when he posts blatantly incorrect information in GQ and we have to get in there after him to correct the facts. He’s done it in the thread about doughnuts:
(Corrected by mnemosyne in the next post.)
This thread from last March about whether the French spoken in Quebec is a separate language or a dialect of French I linked to earlier is very illustrative in this regard. There, md2000 insists that Quebec politicians speak “Parisian French”, except Brian Mulroney who talked like a yokel to ingratiate himself with voters. Now, the French spoken by Jean Charest and other Quebec politicians is emphatically not Parisian, but maybe what he meant is that they speak in a formal register. By calling it “Parisian”, he’s being insulting, but maybe we can forgive his ignorance. But then he started holding as proof that Mulroney’s French was an affectation of low class the fact that he pronounces the ‘s’ in métis, and my pointing out and bringing cites proving that this is the standard pronunciation of the word in French just could not change his mind. I’ve had my knowledge of my own first language challenged on this board before, but never in this way. It was truly an impressive show of willful ignorance. And while he may have denied it, I saw an undercurrent of bigotry in his comments. He eventually accepted that we were right but not before taking more political potshots, at Mulroney and other people.
So here’s the thing: md2000, do not bring your political grudges to GQ. This is not the place for them. And do not post falsehoods on the board, especially in GQ, just because they agree with your political preconceptions.
No we don’t, because GQ is not the place for it and because you’re not arguing honestly. If you really wanted to argue politics you’d post in the right place.
Google “Quiet revolution”, and put it in context of efforts to make French the dominant language in Quebec – not just the most commonly used per capita, but actually the dominant one of government, business, and education.
Politics in Canada is as nasty or nastier than the USA. We just pretend to be politer.
As for the whole thing about “Parisian French”, that was told to me by a teacher from Poitiers. He was not from Ile de France and he obviously was not offended by it. It seems from what he said, that it fell into the same category as Oxford English vs other English.
Mulroney was a lying dick who kept gnawing away at the guy who beat him until he got his chance to be prime minister. He won the biggest majority in history by being in the right place at the right time, then proceeded to fritter it away. His annoying accent in French is the most minor part of a guy who took his party from 200 seats to 2, destroyed the party and split the country over pandering to every whiny demanding element of politics, and also managed to create the separatist block in federal parliament. The fact that he sued the federal government for “persecuting” him for bribery, and then we find he was paid hundreds of thousand in cash in brown envelopes for unspecified services… well, I really don’t care if he couldn’t pronunce “schedule” properly in either official language. Chretien couldn’t either, but at least the man had gonads.
The French movement in Quebec is trying Canute-like to stem the tide of English. The problem is, it is not a Canada vs. Canada thing, it is a Quebec vs. history thing. English is spsoken around the world, the primary source of things cultural, musical, scientific, technical and news is likely to be found in English. The absurdity of the language law is not the detail - which language is bigger or on top or comes first - so much as its existence.
I don’t have a problem with French, I think the bilingual aspect of Canada is great; what I do have an issue with is the idea that the government should tell you what language to speak - particularly when in most Canadian cities, you will find several blocks where the stores, the signs, the people, and the language spoken may convince you you are in Italy, Portugal, Pakistan, or China or elsewhere. No laws are used to make then speak English.
In fact, the positive things the Canadian and Quebec governments did to promote French culture are great - the movies and songs of a generation ago were a refreshing change from Hollywood formula. Now, even the France cultural scene seems to be waning.
Besides, if I didn’t slip these asides into other discussions, who would know about the totalitarian aspects of Quebec right-think sign law, with the finer details helpfully filled in by a multitude of extras. When an English-language bookstore must post signs predominantly in French, then you have slipped into the world of Kafka.
Oh well, Canadian politics is like university faculty politics - it’s so nasty because the stakes are so small.
A short primer about the Charter of the French Language (also called “bill 101”), AClockworkMelon: until the 1960s and 1970s the population of Quebec was overwhelmingly French-speaking but the bourgeoisie was overwhelmingly English-speaking. French speakers were in a sense second-class citizens in what is considered (as per the constitutional arrangement of 1867, for example) to be their own province. So a movement of national liberation tied in with the idea of class struggle appeared and gained steam. In 1976 a new government, both nationalist and social democratic, was elected. This government sought to ensure that French speakers would stop being discriminated against in employment and would be able to work in their language, that new immigrants would learn French and be able to interact with the majority (instead of learning only English, until then the prestige language and the only one you needed to get work), and there was also a desire to change the visage especially of Montreal from a city where the majority of the population may be French-speaking, but which looks like any other large North American city, with commercial signs largely in English only, to one where the signage reflects the population. Basically, the goal of this government was to change Quebec from a society where the majority must know and live in a “foreign” language, and are discriminated against, to a “normal” society. (You’ll see this word often in Quebec nationalist literature of this period.)
The signage provisions of the Charter have to do with this third goal (the visage of Montreal). The education provisions, which are currently in the news because of recent decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, have to do with the second goal (integrating immigrants into the French-speaking majority instead of the English-speaking minority). The Charter also contains provisions regarding the language of work in Quebec.
French speakers are overwhelmingly in favour of the law, even though some may believe that the signage provisions could be liberalized. English speakers in Quebec tend to agree with the general idea of ensuring Quebec remains a French-speaking society, but maybe not with the idea of doing it through legislative means, and they often see the future existence of their community as dependent on an increased access of non-anglophones to English school. Speakers of other languages may not care all that much, or tend to agree with whatever community (French or English) they are integrated into. The opinions of people from the rest of Canada probably vary wildly, but for the most part they view Canada in a different way than Quebecers, one that does not really allow Quebec “acting alone”.
If you want a debate on the measures in the Charter of the French language, I would suggest doing so in another thread.
ETA: now I have to go, so I’ll answer md2000 later (hint: I disagree with Quebec is going “against history” by still speaking French), but I notice that he did not comment on why I started this thread in the first place, which is the fact that he inappropriately brings politics (and false information) in threads that don’t have anything to do about it.
Your teacher told you Quebec politicians (except Mulroney) speak Parisian French? Pardon me if I doubt this.
That reads like the description of a politician all right. Look, I don’t care that you don’t like Mulroney; he was in politics before I really became aware of it so I don’t really have an opinion of him one way or another. My point is that GQ is not the place to call him “Lyin’ Brian” or some other insulting name. Not only is it against the rules, but the guy had absolutely nothing to do with the discussion in that thread. I have no idea why you brought him up.
Mulroney is the man who against the opposition of many if not most Canadians managed to negociate the free-trade agreement with the US, which most would agree was needed, and who opened constitutional negotiations in the hope to get an arrangement that would satisfy all regional and national groups in the country. He failed at this last goal, perhaps because it just isn’t feasible, but it shows that he had courage. No other government has tried to do it since then.
English is the common language of international communication, yes. So? The whole point is that French is the national language of Quebec. So Quebecers should be able to expect to be served in French in stores. And we should expect people who move to Quebec to develop the ability to communicate in French. This does not preclude a good proportion of Quebec’s population knowing English (and other languages, if possible) in order to work in tourism, and services, and international relations, etc. The point is for Quebec to be a “normal” society as I said earlier.
And I should mention that plenty of culture happens in languages other than English. English speakers just don’t hear about it very much.
I’m sorry, but here I’ll have to ask you what exactly it is that you find so great about “the bilingual aspect of Canada”. I want to see if you know what you’re talking about and are not just spouting politically correct platitudes.
The government does not tell anybody what language to speak. It just says that to do business in this particular place (I assume you’re talking about the signage law, which is mostly about commercial signage, therefore “business”) you have to inform customers in the national language. You could oppose such a law on libertarian grounds (let the seller do business anyway he wants, and the buyer choose to do business if the seller’s conditions satisfy him; caveat emptor and all that) and I’d have some sympathy for your position but I know you’re not actually a libertarian. Do you oppose, for example, laws requiring product labels to show the information in certain languages? I believe Canada has such a law and so do many other countries.
Look, I know Canadians and especially Ontarians get all misty-eyed about their multiculturalism, but no, these places are nothing like Italy or Pakistan or wherever. For one, you would have no culture shock going there. You can just go talk to the shopkeeper in English, and even if she doesn’t speak it her 18-year-old granddaughter who’s also there speaks it just as well as you do and with the same accent. And if she has children some day, they might not even learn the language of the “old country”. She’d already feel totally out of place going there. I’ve said it before in another thread: multiculturalism is about celebrating dead cultures. There’s nothing that’s changing and developing over there, it’s just like a museum. And it will disappear through the process of assimilation, which is happening to most immigrant groups worldwide.
No laws are used because no laws are needed. (Although I believe that being naturalized as a Canadian citizen does require you to show a certain level of fluency in one of the official languages.) They do it on their own because they need it, given the society in which they’re living. This is how it happens in most societies. In Quebec, where English was the prestige, “majority” language despite being spoken by a minority of the population, these people would figure out a way to communicate with you in English but hardly in French. A few generations later their descendents would be typical anglophones and still speak very little if any French. It was felt that some legal dispositions might change that.
Once again, mention by name some of these things you’re talking about.
How so?
Is Quebec the only developed Western country you consider totalitarian, or do you apply this label to the other ones that legislate the use of their national language(s) in some way or another? Because you’ll find it’s actually quite common. Canada itself does it.
The primary movement was by Anglos with their feet.
Although there have been legal challenges to the various Quebec language laws, by far the most significant movement against the languages laws was the emigration of over a couple of hundred thousand Anglos out of Quebec. Most moved to the Toronto region, resulting in Toronto surpassing Montreal as the economic capital of Canada.
My family left Montreal (Beaconsfield) for Toronto (Oakville) in the early 60s, when it became clear that the economic core of the country was going to shift. By the mid 70s, my mother picked up a real estate licence because so many of her former acquaintances were moving out of Montreal. She called them Bill 401 families (a play on words on Quebec’s 1977 Bill 101 that sent an avalanche of Anglos leaving the province). The laws about signs and education made for a lot of press, but what drove a lot of major business out of Quebec was the requirement that mid-sized and larger businesses must operate internally in French. That drove out the major financial institutions, such as Sun Life, the Royal Bank of Canada, and the Bank of Montreal, for all political and cultural issues aside, no major financial institution is going to sack most of its head office employees when it can simply move down the road a little way. The Montreal Stock Exchange (which was bombed in 69), lost a tremendous amount of business to the Toronto Stock Exchange once trades had to be made in French, for English is the functional language of finance in Canada and much of the world. (I have to laugh about my cultural group fleeing Quebec for Toronto, only then to become the focus of Albertan distain. Nobody likes us. Everybody hates us. All we ever eat is worms.)
These days things have calmed down a lot. Since the minority Anglos no longer control Quebec’s business world, and therefore have much less (if any) clout politically, it has been possible for the Quebec government to be a little more sensitive to minority needs (but I say that cautiously, for many would argue that Quebec treats minorities poorly). For example, English as a second language is now taught throughout the public school system, so there is less fear that children will not be able to function in the dominant Canadian and international language. It also helps that aside from the language issue, Quebec is fairly well aligned with the typically politically liberal east of Canada, (e.g. secularization, gay marriage, young offenders, funding for arts and sports, and on and on).
Its been a rocky road, and there is a long way to go. Will Quebec separate? Possibly, but probably not. Will it continue to empower itself and continue to make real gains in self-determination? Certainly, and rightly so.Will opposition grow against the Quebec language laws? No, for the writing is on the wall. If you want to participate fully in Quebec society, you need to learn French, so either get over it and get on with life, or leave.
Something that never ceases to impress me is how Quebec and Canada have been able to, and continue to, work through their problems. I look around the world and see tremendous violence and civil war. As I was growing up, I looked at what was going on in Ireland, and was thankful that here in Quebec and Canada we did not let things get to that point. I hope we continue to stay on that path of working though our differences rather than turning to violence, so I can’t get too worked up about Quebec’s language laws, despite some aspects of the laws having been or being either distasteful or stupid in my opinion. First and foremost, I want to maintain peace and prosperity for all of us. Second, I want self-determination for all of us. If that means an exodus from Quebec as a result of language laws, then so be it. If the few remaining Anglophones in Quebec want to get rid of La charte de la langue française in its entirely, they will find very few supporters. Quebec has won its Révolution tranquille, and it would only cause great harm to try to set the clock back.
Another factor is that, as part of its attempts to maintain a distance from Ottawa, Quebec has always tried to maintain good relations with the United States. So while Quebecois may resent having to talk to you in English if you’re a Canadian, they’re usually happy to talk to you in English if you’re an American.
If you want people to know about it, open a thread in GD or the Pit. This kind of commentary is against GQ rules, so don’t do it. It’s even more serious now that you’ve made it clear you are doing this deliberately and in full knowledge of the rules.
In the late 1980s, I was working for a division of the Ontario government. Our receptionist was an Anglo who had left Montreal due to the language laws. Then the Ontario government decided it would be bilingual. So, the woman who left Quebec because of language laws favoring French, was forced to say “Good morning–Bonjour” every time she answered the phone. She hated it, and left shortly after.
We don’t. I’m pretty sure that most of us who couldn’t deal with living in a French-speaking province have already left. Those of us that are left – and those of us who continue to move to Quebec, a not inconsiderable quantity (my family moved here three months *before *the 1995 referendum!) – like living here and enjoy the French fact.
True story: whenever I leave town for a few weeks I get homesick for French, and it’s always a nice feeling when I’m in the airport and hearing people speak French again and seeing French signs.
That’s true. I used to be part of a large anglophone family in Montreal. There were 16 of us at one time. There’s only my 80 year old aunt left, and she’s just too old to move away now, although her children are in Toronto and New York.
But she’s one of the old guard. Never learned a single word of French in her life.