Well, I don’t really have a strong opinion on Quebec but it seems to me that she did make a political statement by waving that flag. I think it was justified though; didn’t Quebec pay for her training, not Canada as a whole?
Interesting. This applies to amateur sports in general? Or, at least, the training of athletes at the highest levels of amateur sports?
I hope this was also meant to be sarcastic. People don’t really refer to a Quebecois race, do they?
“Quebecois” is a race? I thought it was lingual-political designation. And yes, i have a hard time taking (whatever-they-are) seriously. And, no, I don’t consider national/ethnic divisions to be races, either. Do you consider “Scot” to be a race?
Substitute ethnicity or people, then. Hope you two enjoyed completely missing the point.
No, the point was not missed, it was just very poorly made. Why casually throw the word race into this discussion? Bizarre.
In Canada most athletes are self-funded, while facilities are built through a combination of self-fundraising, municipal contributions and provincial contributions.
Local and regional training and competition is usually self-funded.
For a few forutnate sports, provincial funding kicks in for training at the provincial team level, usually with the funding covering a provincial coach. Athletes at the provincial level are usually self-funded.
For a very few fortunate sports, federal funding kicks in for training at the national level level, usually with the funding covering a national coach, and occasionally covering a national training centre. If an athlete is in the top 16 in the world in one of the few sports that is federally funded, that athlete can receive federal funding that is approximately equivalent to the welfare rate, so for even the best of the best, self-funding is he norm.
http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/sc/prog/paa-aap/all-sup_e.cfm
With regard to sport funding in Quebec, I don’t have any figures handy. My recollection from when I was on the Canoe Ontario board (a non-governmental organization whose role was to obtain provincial funding and distribute it to the canoeing disciplines) was that Quebec provided one heck of a lot more to sports at the community and provincial levels, particularly in infrastructure and coaching, but also in athlete funding toward training camps and travel.
I also came across this when I was on the Telemark Division of the National Ski Team, where members from Quebec had a bit of provincial funding (and good for them!), whereas the rest of the national team had sweet bugger all, even for FIS World Cup races and the World Championships. I was quite happy to parade with the Canadian flag, but that was a personal choice rather than a sport body or funding imposed duty.
At the moment I’m fundraising to take my crew to the inargural Breast Cancer Survivor Dragon Boat Regatta in NZ. As you might guess, there is no provincial or federal funding available.
Given this general lack of support for sport, I find it silly for anyone to get up in a tizzy over what an athlete waves on a podium.
Politicians, preachers, movie stars, and CEOs all stand up in front of audiences and say their piece. I see no reason why athletes should be silenced.
Fromthe Cambridge Dictionary:
Race is sometimes used to mean a group of people who share the same language, history, characteristics, etc…
The British are an island race.
The French race is/are sometimes said to have a strong interest in food.
From the American Heritage Dictionary:
2. Race: A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution.
Matt was correct in his choice of words.
Thanks for the details, Muffin. And good luck getting to NZ!
Use of an antiquated/obscure definition of a word is hardly “correct” when other, more precise words are known. Especially for a linguist.
To then use the adjective “racist” in reference to someone who dislikes the Quebecois is offensive - disliking a group because of their socio-political positions hardly rises to the level of “racism”.
Thanks, mikan.
Hey, chill out. It’s not like heathen was making a real racist remark, like calling you “gay” or something.
I kid, I kid.
And what socio-political positions do all Quebecois hold that you can justify this kind of remark? Quebecois are not a unitary group. Imagine saying you dislike the Spanish or the Welsh because of their socio-political positions.
To assume that a Quebecois would believe that anglophone Quebecers are incapable of loving their province is as prejudiced as it is to assume that a Scot is drunk or that an Austrian is xenophobic. If you can come up with a better specific term for this type of prejudice than racism, feel free.
Don’t mind Happy. He’s a heathen, and you know what “they” are all like. 
You didn’t even use this word correctly.
You are a Quebecois. You’re an inhabitant of the province of Quebec. In most dictionaries, “an inhabitant of Quebec” is a perfectly acceptable definition of “Quebecois.” happyheathen was correct in stating that you’re a Quebecois. You are. You are also French-speaking, which fits the definition even better. You do speak French, right? Sure, maybe as a second language, but IIRC, you speak it well. By any definition of “Quebecois” in any dictionary i have handy, you are a Quebecois - a person who resides in Quebec and speaks French.
I realize a lot of pur laine maniacs will claim that anyone not directly descended from Jacques Cartier or Samuel de Champlain isn’t a Quebecois, and maybe that’s how the word “Quebecois” is used in your neck of the woods, and that is ONE acceptable definition in English. But so is “a resident of Quebec.” In the rest of the English-speaking world, Matt, “Quebecer” and “Quebecois” are to a large extent synonymous. So get over it. Maybe not everyone uses the words “Quebecois” and “race” the way they do in Quebec.
For goodness sakes, let the man self-identify.
I would not call myself “Québecois”. I believe that word has definite resonances that I do not fit.
Did you just say that? Am I allowed to define what, say, “Ontarian” means, now?
That’s almost as funny as claiming I’m Latin-American because I live in North America and speak a Latin language.
Damn, reduced to citing a friggin’ dictionary (m-w):
I would add “especially one who promotes or supports political independance for Quebec”, but that’s just me.
Congrats, Matt - you now have yet another label!
happyheathen, I really think you’re wrong. And your addition would be horribly wrong, too.
Whatever you like. I don’t know a single Quebecer who uses Quebecois (in English) to mean anything other than a French-Canadian from Quebec.
The Quebec French Language Office (the language police) defines Quebecois as a synonym for Quebecker.
http://www.granddictionnaire.com/_fs_global_01.htm
By that standard, since I hold a Quebec birth certificate I should be a Quebecois (and since Latin is my second language, I suppose that makes me a Latino Quebecois 
). Except, of course, that is rediculous, for I am an Anglo of British descent resident in Ontario, and no amount of sophistry will ever change my cultural background.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/7318/EXPRES.HTM
I’m with matt on this one. Speaking French and living in Quebec makes one a Quebecer, but does not necessarily make one a Quebecois, for since the quiet revolution the term has more and more become associated with French-Canadian culture in Quebec, and even with Quebecois Nationalism. Time for the dictionaries to catch up.
Here is a simple backgrounder for those who are interested in this sort of thing:
http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/pros_cons/quebec/quebec.html
I suppose matt could easily settle the issue by taking a survey on the street in Montreal asking if there is a difference between Quebec Anglos and Quebecois, but I’m afraid he would laughed at or smacked in the side of the head for asking such a dumb question.
When discussing the waving of a Quebec flag by an athlete, I think that it is important to recognize cultural subtleties, including recognizing the progressive usurpation of the term Quebecois by the pur laine, and of Quebec nationalism being an ethnic movement to a far greater degree than it is a civic movement.
Such contextualization is what put the athlete on the hot seat for simply waving her province’s flag, for some people automatically jumped to the conclusion that the flag represented Quebecois nationalism, despite many Quebecois and Anglo Quebecers and Quebed Inuit being proud of their province without being Quebecois nationalists.