Quebec's charter of secularism

[mnemosyne]

@Hypnagogic_Jerk

I am well-informed. (In some areas; I’ll admit my economic knowledge isn’t all that great.) Most people aren’t, be they francophones, anglophones, Quebecers, other Canadians, etc. And people have serious problems thinking clearly when we’re touching their national founding myths. Fact is, Canadians define themselves in opposition to Americans and francophone Quebecers. Do you disagree with my assessment of the Canadian nation?

Yes I do. You assume these mysterious monolithic English Canadians - who you deliberately paint with one name, as if to pretend that there is no such thing as a “Canadian” in Québec, which I find incredibly insulting - define themselves as being OPPOSED to you, when people have told you, multiple times, that that isn’t the case at all. You CHOOSE to only see opposition, when the vast majority of the time there are attempts at inclusion, attempts at sharing, attempts at participation or, otherwise, just flat out indifference.

Everyone does, so do you. You don’t think anglophones paint francophones with a broad brush? You don’t think Quebec is painted with a broad brush by the rest of Canada? I’m trying to understand the Canadian nation, and why Canadians think the way they think. I’m bound to generalize.
I would, but I don’t want to die of a heart attack before I reach 35. I’m not exactly the calm type, you know. See, I do read the anglophone media review in Le Devoir. I watch current affairs shows, they invite anglophones like Tasha Kheiriddin who tells us how much we suck. Heck I’ve even watched The Rick Mercer Report once in a while. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on what anglophones think. Not a perfect one, of course, but do anglophones peruse francophone media? Do they know what we think? Does that prevent them from assuming?

HAHAHAHA I’m sorry, but that’s the lamest "trying to understand how Canadians think"I’ve heard of. You read francophone reviews of English media, in LE DEVOIR of all places, and assume you are getting an unbiased and complete view of…fuck, ANYTHING? That’s patently ridiculous and if you don’t know it, there’s no point whatsoever in talking to you. Rick Mercer is SATIRE. Tasha Kheiriddin is from a right-wing think-tank…you actually think that’s how most people see you?

You don’t know a damn thing about how anglophones think, so whatever brushes we all paint with, yours is not only broad, it’s painting the wrong colour.

No, most unilingual anglophones don’t read francophone media, because unfortunately for them, they don’t speak French. That’s their loss. It’s no excuse whatsoever for you to go around acting like it’s perfectly OK to be willfully ignorant about “anglos” while insulting them. You should be better than that.

ETA: oh, and I sometimes check the Globe and Mail to see what they’re writing about a Quebec issue, if I feel that won’t cause me to rupture an aneurism.
We’re all biased.

Indeed. I love how you know exactly what response you will get out of each and every possible editorial, article and comment, thereby not requiring you to read at all. It’s a great way to validate your biases, but a shit way to challenge them. You have a choice: be the bitter person “outsiders” think you are (in your mind), or be the better person.

I’m in Sherbrooke now, as you know, and most people around me do speak pretty good English. Of course I’m in an academic environment, maybe the “deep Quebec” as some like to say doesn’t speak good English. But should they?

I grew up in Sherbrooke; I have francophone cousins and friends who can barely speak English (though they understand it a little) even after graduating from the CSDS, Cégep de Sherbrooke and UdeS. I have friends and family from Drummondville, Victoriaville, Saguenay, Charlevoix, Québec City… many of which wish they spoke better English. Should they? I recommend it, same as I recommend learning any language, because at minimum it’s good for the brain. Should they? In the world economy we live in, if we wish to make a footprint, then…yeah, if you want more clients, and they happen to speak English, you probably should. It’s fine to not speak English, I’ve got no problem with it, but don’t go about bitching that all the good jobs require bilingualism. It’s not Québec’s anglos insisting on this; it’s the reality we live with.

Face it: people don’t learn languages in school. You learn a language because you need to. If somebody wants to learn English because it’ll help them in their career, they will. Same thing for any other language. We can dream of exchange programs to send young Quebecers pick grapes in BC while Torontonians go, I don’t know, milk cows in Joliette, each learning the other’s language and exchanging culture, but people are only interested in learning a language because they have to.

We’ve hashed this out before in other threads. If that’s good enough for you, so be it. But then don’t complain when companies settle in English-speaking cities and provinces. Don’t complain when we drift further and further behind (you may not have said it, but I’ve heard it before). There are consequences to not speaking English in North America.

Hari Seldon said that. Why should I believe that learning English will make Quebecers yearn for other countries? I don’t. And I certainly support francophones learning English.

Sorry if I misattributed.

I think we’re a strong province. I’m really proud of how far Quebec went in the last 50 years. I work in a place where I’m surrounded by extremely intelligent and innovative people, doing great work. I’m impressed by what they do, some of them are leaps and bounds above me. They’re native Quebecers and immigrants, working in French and in English when needed. We’re not pathetic, we’re great. (Not perfect of course, and many things could still be improved, but who cannot say this?) If we had a third of the pride in ourselves that English Canadians have, we could go way further.

See, you’re making my point for me - these successful people are working in both languages. You are, too. What does that tell you? This is why francophones should want - and demand - access to better English schooling, either within a francophone curriculum or access to English schools. Pauline Marois is scared of the Ghost of the Unilingual Anglo Who Wants To Steal Her Words; a myth.

Honestly mnemosyne, I don’t know what your problem is with me. We may not have the same goals for Quebec society, but I don’t have anything against you personally. I know I’m not afraid of being antagonistic with anglophones when needed. I don’t think we have a duty to “make nice”. But there’s nothing wrong with that. We have to stand our ground. Do you think Hari Seldon’s OP was honest? Do you think I had no right to correct it?

My problem with you is that you are “antagonistic with anglophones when needed”- while simultaneously insulting me, my family, my friends, and many, many other people both in this province and outside it. You make assumptions that are unfounded, you attack while pretending to be better informed and it gets tiresome. Hari Seldon’s post was about as honest as your assessment of “Canadians”, actually perhaps slightly more so, because he commented on one person’s/party’s platform and not the entire province.

We’ve done all this before.

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

@MichaelEmouse

Note that my description of the PQ is not wholly negative. There’s nothing wrong with being a nonracist nationalist, a labourite (although they tend to be on the Luddite end) or certain kinds of social democrat.

OK, sure. But I disagree with your “whiny students” slam, which seems to come directly from a right-wing talking points manual. We may think tuition fees should be increased (and I do! to a certain extent) but students certainly aren’t whiny. They’re articulating a vision of society that may be different from yours.

@Ibanez

Hypnagogic Jerk. If it was up to you what you have inscribed in your passport as country of origin ?

Simple question.

I don’t know. Why the question? I’ve got no objection with it being “Canada”, but if it were “Quebec”, that’d be just as good. I’ve got no attachment to “Canada” or “being Canadian” other than the fact that I’m a Quebecer, and Quebec is part of Canada, so I’m Canadian, if that’s what you’re asking.

@RickJay

The primary English Canadian national myth is not being American. You, ironically, managed to mention that but somehow you got one of a dozen carts in front of your horse.

Well, that’s the whole point of this multiculturalism thingy. I didn’t see the point of going into a whole dissertation in Canadian Studies.

The silly non-difference between multiculuralism and a cultural mosiac is a part of that myth

Nitpick: silly non-difference between multiculturalism/cultural mosaic and melting pot.

Among other, less important ones that still factor in, like We Spell Words Somewhat Differently.

It’s zed, not zee, eh?

The word you used was “belligerence,” which is far, far beyond “having trouble with something.”

Consider it withdrawn then.

You are - and I’m sorry to point this out, but you’re in the habit of doing this - doing precisely what you accuse “Canadians,” to use your term, of doing; picking out the attitudes you particularly don’t like and claiming it to be representative of an entire ethnic group, without evidence that it is.

Yes, I am sort of aware that I tend to generalize about groups I don’t belong to. But I assure you that when I meet people in person, I evaluate them as people and not as avatars of their group. Like it or not, this medium is impersonal.

English Canadians are probably less interested in Quebec, and less worked up about its linguistic character, than at any previous time in the history of Canada. I’ve never seen such widespread apathy. That this story has any legs at all is mildly remarkable - only mildly, since its purpose is to BE a story and to start a fight - but it’s been a muted reaction, really.

Well that’s good, really. And I’ll admit that I’ve seen the recent survey saying that one quarter of Canadians outside Quebec didn’t care if Quebec was part of the country or not, or something like that. This seems to buttress your observation.

But the fact is, it is a story. It was reported in English-language media. Why? You say its purpose is “to start a fight”: who wanted to start a fight, and with whom? There’s this thread here. You yourself were interested enough to come here and call the charter of secularism “just about the vilest, most cynical thing a Canadian political party has put forth in the last fifty years.” You can’t really believe this, can you? Surely it means you’ve got some sort of emotional involvement in the story.

So maybe English Canadians are more apathetic about Quebec than they’ve ever been (and I’d tend to see this as a good thing, though I’m not sure why it happened in the last 20 years as you say) but obviously their interest is still there. And I’m still going to correct their ignorance and misconceptions.

In a way the current situation is scarier than it was in 1980 and 1995. The truth is, HJ, that more and more English Canadians simply don’t give a shit what’s going on in Quebec.

Why do you view it as scary exactly?

Stephen Harper’sgovernment’s formal recognition of Quebec as a “nation” was greeted as a mildly positive thing; the general consensus among people who noticed it, which wasn’t that many people, was that it was a nifty little outmaneuvring of those darned Bloc guys

Well, yeah, because that’s exactly what it was, as I said at the time. It was nothing earth-shattering, we barely even talk about it in Quebec today.

Indeed, I’d argue that part of the reason Pauline Marois is promising the stunts she is - the “Secularism” nonsense, promises of more language cops, and the like - is that the growing apathy towards Quebec isn’t good for her party or her cause.

I disagree. It’s got nothing to do with the rest of Canada. It’s about answering the question of what is Quebec identity, what are our values, what do we expect of our citizens and what do we offer them. It’s wholly Quebec-centered and probably more abstract than you may think. Marois doesn’t intend to start a Canada-Quebec fight, she just wants to govern Quebec. You’re attributing a plan to her that she just doesn’t have. She’d like Quebec to be independent, but that’s more of a philosophical preference than anything else, and she knows it probably won’t happen. Her position is “meh”, but she’s paying lip service to sovereignty so the true independentists won’t stay at home for the election.

And your choice of words (“more language cops”? What does that even mean?) tells me that you haven’t really understood most of these issues.

Like the monarchy, which we retain because nobody cares enough to get rid of it, the issue of Quebec’s identity is now regarded by almost everyone as simply a fait accompli, a fact of life that is of little consequence to anyone.

Well as I’ve said, that’s good. Listen, I know that the patterns of thought I’ve attributed to English Canadians here don’t apply to all of them. Most of them haven’t even thought about any of these issues and are just going about their day. What I was describing was the mindset of people who care enough to have an opinion.

Nope, not seeing that in Hari Seldon’s post. It’s just not there, and I challenge you to show me otherwise.

Well, there’s this:

@Hari_Seldon

This is a blatant appeal to her base, small town and rural French Canadians, many of whom are not actually religious, but are frightened of the “other” and do have that religious heritage.

As well as the assumption that if francophones learn English, they’ll want to leave Quebec. As if we were kind of North Korea or something; we only stay here because we don’t know any better. That’s part of how he stereotypes “French-Canadians”.

Now:

[QUOTE=RickJay]
With due respect, because you seem smart and informed, but it has to be said; with one exception, a poster who isn’t in this thread, no Canadian member of the SDMB who involves themselves in threads about Canadian politics is so quick to make sweeping, prejudiced (in the true sense of that term) generalizations about ethnic or linguistic groups when discussing Canadian affairs as you are.
[/quote]

I refute this claim. Listen, I’ll admit that I tend to generalize sometimes. But I try to understand Canadian society, culture and identity. I responded to this thread because most posters were totally unwilling to try to understand the purpose of the secularism charter. Hari Seldon didn’t even provide any link in his OP, but most everyone just accepted his account on face value, assuming it was motivated by xenophobia, because we know that’s how the Frenchies and especially separatists are, yes? I explained the issue, I provided links, quotes, and swampspruce thanked me for my efforts. I try to understand people, instead of just assuming that they’re motivated by ignorance, stupidity, hatred, and that I’m way better than them. And as I’ve said, I do treat people as individuals. But this here is an impersonal medium.

@mnemosyne

I’m reminded of an interaction with my father-in-law several years ago. He was bitching about something, and blamed it on the WASPs.

I waved and said “Hi!”

He was rather quick to correct himself and apologize, and, of course, said “oh, I don’t mean YOU.”

When pressed, he didn’t really know any other particular WASPs who were to blame for whatever he was bitching about (surely not my family, surely not my friends, surely not his doctor coworkers), but surely they must be out there, and surely they are to blame!

And surely you’re not saying I remind you of this interaction, yes?

[RickJay]

@Hypnagogic_Jerk

Well, that’s the whole point of this multiculturalism thingy.

That’s a truly amazing misrepresentation of two and a half centuries of Canadian history. Wow.

It doesn’t take a dissertation in Canadian Studies to see the rather glaring hole in your logic here, which is that Canada’s identity as a reaction against Americanism far predates multiculturalism. Canada’s identity as a reaction against the USA predates Confederation, for God’s sake. The idea of “I am Canadian because I am not American” is almost two hundred years older than the idea of Canada as a multicultural society.

You have your history completely reversed. Multiculturalism is, in historical terms, a new thing to Canada. It’s newer than our obsession with universal health care, newer than our “peacekeepers not peacemakers” identity. It’s the new kid on the block, identity-speaking. It’s one small slice of a really big pizza about how we Aren’t Americans.

Yes, I am sort of aware that I tend to generalize about groups I don’t belong to.

And I have two legs and can run, which doesn’t make me the same as Usain Bolt. There is always the matter of the degree to which you do something. People tend to generalize, but some are worse than others, and I have bad news for you; you are generalizing in this thread like it’s your job. Perhaps more importantly, you seem to assume everyone else does it to the same extent you do. I assure you… actually, I implore you to believe this… that you may be wrong. Not everyone in the other nine provinces who speaks English paints Quebecois with the huge, miles-wide roller you seem to think everyone wields against everyone else. It just isn’t that way.

But the fact is, it is a story. It was reported in English-language media. Why?

Because they have to print something. The fact that something gets printed in the National Post does not mean that it is of widespread interest to a lot of people - especially not in a period of extremely slow news. There is very little going on, especially in the domestic news section. Really, what the hell else is going on? The pipeline thing? Zzzzzz.

I don’t trust any one news source because not only do they not necessarily get it right, but they’re playing to their readers. I mean, to read the Toronto Star, you’d think Rob Ford was the most important, and evil, human being on the planet.

Anyway, to be honest I’ve no interest in discussing the detailed matter of today’s politics because I don’t think anything I ascribe to a *politician *won’t be taken by you as an attack on their constituents.

You read quite a bit like mnemosyne’s father-in-law.

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

@mnemosyne

Yes I do. You assume these mysterious monolithic English Canadians - who you deliberately paint with one name, as if to pretend that there is no such thing as a “Canadian” in Québec, which I find incredibly insulting

Yes, some people in Quebec define themselves as Canadian first and foremost. It’s not my case but it’s their right. I’m using “Canadian” here simply because English Canadians don’t call themselves English Canadians. RickJay once chided me for calling him an English Canadian. I guess that to an anglophone, an “English Canadian” is a Canadian of English ethnicity or recent extraction. That’s why I just went with “Canadian”; that’s how they call themselves.

define themselves as being OPPOSED to you, when people have told you, multiple times, that that isn’t the case at all.

“In Quebec they support the supremacy of French-Canadians with their racist language laws, while here in the rest of Canada we accept people of all ethnic backgrounds as equal Canadians.” Heard that? I call it defining one’s national identity as opposite to mine.

You CHOOSE to only see opposition, when the vast majority of the time there are attempts at inclusion, attempts at sharing, attempts at participation or, otherwise, just flat out indifference.

I’ll take flat out indifference, please.

HAHAHAHA I’m sorry, but that’s the lamest "trying to understand how Canadians think"I’ve heard of. You read francophone reviews of English media, in LE DEVOIR of all places, and assume you are getting an unbiased and complete view of…fuck, ANYTHING?

Le Devoir’s a great paper. It’s left-wing and nationalist, but I keep that in mind and I don’t agree with everything they say. Their press review concentrates on issues of interest to Quebec, of course. And their journalism is top-notch. I think you’re slamming them just because you don’t agree with their editorial line.

Rick Mercer is SATIRE.

So what? Don’t you think you can learn a lot about 1970s Quebec society from Yvon Deschamps’s famous monologues? Won’t Infoman keep you abreast of current Quebec political news? Some people get most of their political news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Tasha Kheiriddin is from a right-wing think-tank…you actually think that’s how most people see you?

Well, she’s there as a National Post columnist. I forget what the name of this show on RDI is, but they’ve got her, Michel David of Le Devoir, Liza Frulla, and Anne Lagacé-Dowson of the NDP as a Quebec anglophone but non-angryphone voice. I think it’s a nice cast of characters with a wide diversity of opinions, and with two anglophones out of four recurring guests I’m sure they give us some kind of anglo perspective. Kheiriddin’s even polite when on that show.

Do you think there are English-language current affairs programs with a half-francophone cast? And with some of them being dreaded nationalists? Didn’t think so.

No, most unilingual anglophones don’t read francophone media, because unfortunately for them, they don’t speak French. That’s their loss. It’s no excuse whatsoever for you to go around acting like it’s perfectly OK to be willfully ignorant about “anglos” while insulting them. You should be better than that.

Fact is, I know more about anglophone Canada than most anglos know about francophones. That’s just the matter of speaking their language. You lay all the responsibility at my feet, saying that I have a duty to learn more about them. Well what are they doing? “That’s their loss”? That’s all you’ve got to say to them? It’s a two-way street, and I’m already at least midway.

And do bilingual anglophones peruse francophone media? My understanding is that even anglophone Quebecers (who, remember, live among francophones), while more bilingual than ever, are still completely disconnected from modern Quebec French-language culture. So let’s not even mention anglophones from the rest of the country. (Most of them are unilingual anyway.)

Indeed. I love how you know exactly what response you will get out of each and every possible editorial, article and comment, thereby not requiring you to read at all.

Here’s a hint: if you call me a racist, I stop reading and thinking right there. You want to convince me of something, or at least get me to accept your argument even if I don’t agree with it? Get your facts straight, and don’t insult me with one of the worst insults one can throw about in this modern world.

See, you’re making my point for me - these successful people are working in both languages. You are, too. What does that tell you?

Of course it’s a good idea for me to know English in my job, what with conferences and articles and foreign colleagues and so on. But here’s the thing. My thesis advisor’s from Poland. He didn’t speak French when he moved to Quebec. Should we have accepted that French is hard to learn, and in this modern society we can get by in English? When he got a job in a French-language university, should we have decided that he could teach classes in English, out of a fear that he’d get fed up and move to Ontario? He learned French (finding a francophone girlfriend might have helped him), and today when we discuss work, it’s in French unless we’ve got a non-French-speaking foreign colleague with us. That’s how I think it should be in Quebec. Sure, English may be needed for relations with other countries, but when in Quebec, among Quebecers, we should be able to use French.

This is why francophones should want - and demand - access to better English schooling, either within a francophone curriculum or access to English schools.

You think Quebec francophones should learn better English. Okay, sure, I don’t even disagree with you. Even Marois probably doesn’t disagree with you. But why in this debate does it always get down to English-language schools? For somebody to learn English, you don’t need to put them in an English-only environment for their 13 or so years of schooling. We also need to teach good French, it’s not a dead skill you know. And as an anglophone you may not care about this, or you may even find it desirable, but when people go through the English system, they typically integrate into the anglophone community. Which means that their knowledge of French-language society may be quite low. (I’m not saying that’s your case, anyway you’re not exactly an anglophone, but I’m talking in general terms.) When we first held this debate, and up to this day, most Quebecers decided that Quebec would be a French-language society with an English minority. It just makes sense that we’d teach our culture in our schools.

Should we go with a bilingual public school system for francophones, anglophones and allophones? Actually I would totally go for that as a project for Quebec society. But I don’t think anglophones would, and they’re the ones who’ve got a guaranteed constitutional right to public schooling in their language.

@RickJay

It doesn’t take a dissertation in Canadian Studies to see the rather glaring hole in your logic here, which is that Canada’s identity as a reaction against Americanism far predates multiculturalism.

Of course it does. What I’m saying is that the importance of multiculturalism in Canadian identity comes from the fact that it’s used as an example of the (presumed) difference between Canadian and American cultures. Canadians must have needed to distinguish themselves from Americans before they hanged on to this newfangled idea.

Because they have to print something. The fact that something gets printed in the National Post does not mean that it is of widespread interest to a lot of people - especially not in a period of extremely slow news. There is very little going on, especially in the domestic news section. Really, what the hell else is going on? The pipeline thing? Zzzzzz.

OK, slow news days, I guess I can accept this. But do you still go with “just about the vilest, most cynical thing a Canadian political party has put forth in the last fifty years”? Because surely that’s something a paper would have reason to report on. I mean, that’s more controversial than the freaking War Measures Act.

Anyway, to be honest I’ve no interest in discussing the detailed matter of today’s politics because I don’t think anything I ascribe to a *politician *won’t be taken by you as an attack on their constituents.

I vote for politicians, and sometimes I like their proposals. If I read a proposal and think “I don’t agree with it entirely, it definitely needs improvement for it not to be applied unequally, but it touches an issue that did require clarification” and I hear you say “[it’s] just about the vilest, most cynical thing a Canadian political party has put forth in the last fifty years”, surely I’m bound to feel a little insulted.

You read quite a bit like mnemosyne’s father-in-law.

Sorry, but I haven’t blamed anything on WASPS.

[mnemosyne]

You dont actually read what we say, do you? You search for things to get riled about and rage against it, even though it isn’t there. I in no way, shape or form came close to calling you a racist, but somehow you took my comments about approaching media with bias as that. Where the hell is this coming from? You are projecting or imagining slights and insults that arent there.

Im on my phone so for now I’ll just say this…do your research. Most anglophone school boards offer more than the legally required minimums of French, up to and including fully bilingual and immersion programs. Anglophones are more integrated and more bilingual than ever. So your bullshit about them not wanting a bilingual Quebec is just that, pure and unadulterated.

You arent meeting anyone halfway to understanding anything. You are an angry, misinformed man who only wants to validate his ideas and not challenge them. You want anglos to want to better understand francos? Then STFU and stop insulting them. Stop insulting me. They call themselves Canadian…as do I. Stop building walls with bullshit arbitrary unfounded definitions.

[Nava]

@swampspruce

Seriously, you’re using reductio ad absurdem to respond? I’m merely endulging in a thought exercise. I believe that if the tenets of your religion require you to carry, say, a knife or wear specific head coverings like the Sikhs or certain Muslim sects and it has no safety implications ( being caught in machinery, using ppe, or working as a corrections officer would be examples off the top of my head) then get your freak on.

However, if you are a representative of a secular organization (I’m thinking primarily about government positions here), overtly displaying religious icons/garb/artifacts is inherently contradictory, is it not?

What’s contradictory is your two paragraphs. Anybody who works in a non-religious job is a representative of a secular organization while at work, not just those who work for the government.

I agree with the first paragraph but for any jobs, including government-linked ones.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@mnemosyne

You dont actually read what we say, do you? You search for things to get riled about and rage against it, even though it isn’t there. I in no way, shape or form came close to calling you a racist, but somehow you took my comments about approaching media with bias as that. Where the hell is this coming from? You are projecting or imagining slights and insults that arent there.

Im on my phone so for now I’ll just say this…do your research. Most anglophone school boards offer more than the legally required minimums of French, up to and including fully bilingual and immersion programs. Anglophones are more integrated and more bilingual than ever. So your bullshit about them not wanting a bilingual Quebec is just that, pure and unadulterated.

You arent meeting anyone halfway to understanding anything. You are an angry, misinformed man who only wants to validate his ideas and not challenge them. You want anglos to want to better understand francos? Then STFU and stop insulting them. Stop insulting me. They call themselves Canadian…as do I. Stop building walls with bullshit arbitrary unfounded definitions.

If we had ratings on the Dope, I’d be giving this post a thumbs up.

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

@mnemosyne

You dont actually read what we say, do you? You search for things to get riled about and rage against it, even though it isn’t there. I in no way, shape or form came close to calling you a racist, but somehow you took my comments about approaching media with bias as that. Where the hell is this coming from? You are projecting or imagining slights and insults that arent there.

You mean this?

@Hypnagogic_Jerk

Here’s a hint: if you call me a racist, I stop reading and thinking right there.

That’s the impersonal you. I wasn’t referring to you yourself, but to anglophone media. They seem to like to claim francophone Quebecers are racist (or lazy, entitled, whiny, etc.), probably as a means to establish a “us vs. them” mentality. (Note: I’m not claiming a conspiracy here. They just know what sells.) You’re telling me to peruse anglophone media if I want to understand what anglophones think. I’m saying that if I come across claims that most or even many francophone Quebecers are lazy, xenophobic, entitled, racist, whiny, etc., or that by supporting such or such policy (or even recognizing a value to such policy, without supporting it) I’m being one of those things, I’ll stop reading right there. Tell me why something is a good or bad idea. Don’t tell me that I’m a piece of shit for even considering it. (Again impersonal you.)

I didn’t claim you accused me of being racist. I didn’t even claim RickJay accused me of being racist, even though he did say I’m the second most prejudiced frequent poster in Canadian politics threads. (Who’s the first one? I’ve got three guesses.) That’s not calling me racist but it’s damn close. And the thing is that I’m pretty sure that if I called all péquistes racist, said that Quebec is the most corrupt province in Canada and probably because of its culture, and that all those Quebecers ought to look at the rest of Canada which is great and founded on values of equality and respect, I’d either fall under the radar or be congratulated for my lucidity and open-mindedness. Even though that’d make me at least as prejudiced (I say more).

Im on my phone so for now I’ll just say this…do your research. Most anglophone school boards offer more than the legally required minimums of French, up to and including fully bilingual and immersion programs. Anglophones are more integrated and more bilingual than ever. So your bullshit about them not wanting a bilingual Quebec is just that, pure and unadulterated.

No. That’s the thing. Anglophones want a bilingual Quebec. Specifically, they’re entirely okay with Montreal becoming an English-speaking city, while the rest of Quebec (you know, the deep parts) remain French-speaking. Recent surveys showed this. I don’t agree with this goal. That Montrealers know English isn’t a problem for me, but they also should know French and I should feel at home in Montreal as a francophone, and be able to live in French in Montreal if I want. And while anglophones are more bilingual than ever (I’m certainly not challenging this), I wouldn’t call them more integrated. The same surveys said that while they speak better French than ever, their knowledge of modern Quebec francophone culture is still very low. And as you see, anglophone and francophone Quebecers still see themselves as separate groups with opposite goals.

Listen, I feel you (and RickJay) just aren’t reading what I’m writing and instead responding to a stereotypical angry franco who’s blaming all his problems on anglos. You both said I remembered you of your father-in-law who blamed something on “WASPS”. (And you’re a WASP? I guess I’d assumed you were Catholic, at least culturally.) I don’t do this. I say that the fact that Quebec francophones and anglophones are still separate groups distrusting each other is deplorable. And I say that the anglophone media’s attitude toward Quebec francophones, francophones in general (sometimes), and Quebec nationalists is dismissive and insulting. But I even tried in this thread to explain why I think this is. Here you claim that I think Quebec anglophones don’t want a bilingual Quebec. I think the exact opposite! So you’re not reading me.

You arent meeting anyone halfway to understanding anything.

I am. Try understanding what I’m saying instead of responding to someone else.

[swampspruce]

@Nava

What’s contradictory is your two paragraphs. Anybody who works in a non-religious job is a representative of a secular organization while at work, not just those who work for the government.

I agree with the first paragraph but for any jobs, including government-linked ones.

Not true. If I was groundskeeper for a churchyard I am clearly in the employ of a religious organization while doing a non-religious job.

My apologies as I was unclear. Firstly I said, “I believe that if the tenets of your religion require you to carry, say, a knife or wear specific head coverings like the Sikhs or certain Muslim sects and it has no safety implications ( being caught in machinery, using ppe, or working as a corrections officer would be examples off the top of my head) then get your freak on.”
There’s a big difference between what I believe and what is looking at being legislated, specifically in the case of the Quebec elections. Since we’re dealing with something that has only been vaguely referred to and not specific, argueing on one side or the other is going to be, at best, a campaign of maybes and what-ifs.

I targetted government employ because its employers are the public. A privately owned corporation has latitude regarding how they set up a dress code or restrictions on what is considered appropriate. In gov’t jobs there is a formal mandate that those employees follow a code of conduct that limits expression. This is especially true for organizations like DND or RCMP where even the non-uniformed members have limited ability to wear what they want, when they want. What I am attempting to clarify is that what extent are we willing to minimize personal expression in order to present a unified set of appearance to avoid offending someone else’s sensibilities.

Dress codes are put in effect, limits are placed on personal scents, so why isn’t wearing religious imagery put on the same plane? Religion/atheism is a choice, granted one that comes with a lot of attendant baggage.

If what has been reported is correct, then Ms. Marois is being racist (I’m not sure there’s a better word at the moment), in as far as she is excluding a specific class of persons to the detriment of others. If you are going to say that religious garb is not allowed in the workplace, then it has to be all or nothing because using historical precedent is waffling. Just because it was done that way before doesn’t mean you do it now, or should we resurrect the Inquisition while we’re at it?

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

@swampspruce

If what has been reported is correct, then Ms. Marois is being racist (I’m not sure there’s a better word at the moment), in as far as she is excluding a specific class of persons to the detriment of others.

Well, no, as I pointed out in [post=15404333]this post[/post], where I actually went on the party’s website to point out the relevant part of their platform.

[RickJay]

Listen, I feel you (and RickJay) just aren’t reading what I’m writing and instead responding to a stereotypical angry franco who’s blaming all his problems on anglos.

Really, I didn’t know francophones were stereotypically angry; I thought the Black Man was the angry stereotype? Or maybe it was Italians. Definitely not the Irish, they’re stereotypically drunk. I thoght the stereotype of francophones was they all want to play goalie and eat pea soup. I really must remember to keep up on all these stereotypes I’m supposed to hold, because I’ve apparently forgotten so many of them.

[straight_man]

Really, there’s a difference between thinking Québecois are racist and thinking the PQ is racist. It’s not a subtle difference.

As for the Charter of Secularism, I think Québec Solidaire (fourth party) had the best quote about this: « C’est l’État qui est laïque, pas les individus. » (“It’s the state that is secular, not individuals.” ETA: quoted in Le Devoir.)

[straight_man]

(Also note, thinking the PQ as an organization is racist doesn’t mean thinking everyone who votes for it is racist, either.)

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

@RickJay

Really, I didn’t know francophones were stereotypically angry; I thought the Black Man was the angry stereotype? Or maybe it was Italians. Definitely not the Irish, they’re stereotypically drunk. I thoght the stereotype of francophones was they all want to play goalie and eat pea soup. I really must remember to keep up on all these stereotypes I’m supposed to hold, because I’ve apparently forgotten so many of them.

OK, RickJay, you made your point. I don’t think you judge people based on stereotype. Many people do, however, and sometimes without noticing it. And even if we do our best to avoid stereotyping people, it can still affect us.

I’m reminded of the Family Guy episode where Peter decides to homeschool the kids, and hires a math teacher and a driving instructor. A black guy and an Asian guy arrive, whereupon we learn that unlike what Peter thought, the black guy is the math teacher while the Asian is the driving instructor. Why is this funny RickJay? I’m sure you know.

@straight_man

Really, there’s a difference between thinking Québecois are racist and thinking the PQ is racist. It’s not a subtle difference.

Of course, but even if someone were to claim the PQ is racist (not some PQ voters, not even some PQ members or policy-makers, but the party itself) I think they’d need some pretty strong arguments. We’re talking about a party founded by one of the most prominent progressive politicians of 20th century Quebec, and that was in power for some 18 of the last 36 years. Here they are attacked as racist mostly for this policy (although it moved to a bunch of other unrelated stuff, as threads involving Quebec always do), policy for which I gave a perfectly good, progressive, non-racist explanation. One which I’m pretty sure is the correct one in this case. RickJay suggests that the PQ is proposing passing a law that they know will be struck down by the Supreme Court, making Quebecers angry and increasing support for sovereignty. That’d be a very cynical ploy which some people in the PQ might want to try, but I just don’t get that feeling in this case. Especially since I believe Marois would prefer just not having to talk about sovereignty.

As for the Charter of Secularism, I think Québec Solidaire (fourth party) had the best quote about this: « C’est l’État qui est laïque, pas les individus. » (“It’s the state that is secular, not individuals.” ETA: quoted in Le Devoir.)

Now, straight man, that actually is relevant to this thread and is a fairly good argument. Yes, we want to ensure that the state be secular, while permitting private religious expression. If there is an issue to be had with this proposed secularism charter, this is it: we don’t know what “ostentatious” means, and depending on interpretation we don’t know if it could end up forbidding personal expression.

My belief is that if the PQ is elected, all of this will be discussed as part of some sort of public consultation and we’ll end up with something fairly uncontroversial. Something which will forbid prayer before city council meetings (is someone opposed to this? Suppose the mayor and all councillors want to hold a prayer, should they be allowed?), but still allows individuals to passively express religious beliefs. (I can see the definition of “ostentatious” being refined by the “active” vs. “passive” distinction.)

[Spoons]

@Hypnagogic_Jerk

RickJay suggests that the PQ is proposing passing a law that they know will be struck down by the Supreme Court, making Quebecers angry and increasing support for sovereignty…

Why would Quebec do that, when it can invoke the Notwithstanding Clause (Charter s. 33) to override all the s. 2 rights in issue?

In other words, why pass a law that is going to be fought, at great time and expense, at the SCC level; when you can write a legally-and-constitutionally-valid Charter exemption into the law so it never needs to reach the SCC?

I don’t think Quebec is looking for an SCC fight on this one. It will just invoke the Notwithstanding Clause into the relevant legislation, and avoid the SCC totally. And it can renew the exemption after five years through a simple vote of the National Assembly. It’s not difficult and there need be no fight, in any respect.

[RickJay]

@Hypnagogic_Jerk

I’m reminded of the Family Guy episode where Peter decides to homeschool the kids, and hires a math teacher and a driving instructor. A black guy and an Asian guy arrive, whereupon we learn that unlike what Peter thought, the black guy is the math teacher while the Asian is the driving instructor. Why is this funny RickJay? I’m sure you know.

Because Peter Griffin is a fucking idiot.

[Spoons]

@RickJay

Because Peter Griffin is a fucking idiot.

I think all of us in this thread can agree on that!

[swampspruce]

That’s what makes him funny though!