The whole one thread for all things Canadian is not working for me.
It’s too big and cumbersome.
Time to start fresh, I say! Who’s with me?
The CanaDoper Café (2012 edition of The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread.)
You want to spring clean the thread? 
So… being bilingual makes me elite.
But speaking English means I’m not a real Québecoise.
But speaking French and living in Québec makes me disliked by many in the ROC (not really in this thread, but I’ve certainly seen/heard it before).
Where do I belong?
ETA: you have no idea how hurtful this topic can become, how painful some of the generalizations and insults can be, how frustrating some of the assumptions are, how lost I can feel when people in my country and in my province talk about how much I don’t belong and that they don’t want me. To anyone who would insult people from Québec simply because they are from Québec, Fuck you. To anyone who would insult me in Québec because I speak English, Fuck you too.
Sorry, I’m in a bitchy mood and I am sick and tired of this crap. All it is is bullshit, but there are people this shit is being flung towards and I’m tired of trying to clean it off.
There is no conflict between being Canadian and being Québecois(e). 
I’m open to suggestions; what do you have in mind? We could go month to month like the ‘Whatcha Reading?’ and ‘Botticelli’ threads, if folks think that would work better…
Like everyone else in this thread, you belong in a place of overlapping identities. To some people, these may seem to be contradictory - are you a thumb or a finger? Regardless of which you would call yourself, I don’t want you removed from my hand.
I’m sorry, I’ve been sick for a few days now - that’s the best I can do for the moment.
I’m sick of the French/English debate, too. Isn’t it basically settled at this point? Why is Iggy stirring this pot again?
The Canada - Québec relationship has come up a lot in the UK as the Scottish National Party has announced they will hold a referendum in the autumn of 2014. As per Spoons’ link above, Michael Ignatieff was asked by a Scottish interviewer to weigh in on the debate and the result has been a series of statements, clarifications, misclarifications, disambiguations and counter-statements, none of which would seem to have been particularly helpful and much of which has done little but stir up resentment.
That’s oddly sweet. Thanks.
The demonstrations and riots in Québec right now aren’t helping - you should see some of the bigoted crap people I know are posting on facebook, as if language has anything to do with the tuition increases. I try and stay out of it, but it’s still emotionally draining.
Years ago, I had someone tell me to “go back to Ontario” - when I told him to go back to France, he told me he wasn’t from France, he was from Québec! Uh, yeah buddy…me too. The statement is just as stupid either way.
Or my favourite - “Au Québec, on parle français!” Oh really? So myself, my family, many of my friends and coworkers are just some freaking anomaly? Or do you just mean “real” Québecois? Like my parents? My grandparents? Their parents before them? My mother’s family goes back hundreds of years in this province, and they are historically bilingual… is that not real enough for you? My father’s side has at least 4 generations, possibly more but we just don’t know the geneology.
I don’t think anyone has the right to tell anyone else who is and who isn’t a real Canadian, or a real Québecois, or a real [anything]. It’s bad enough when it’s English vs French, it just hurts so bad when I get it from both sides.
I think it’s a pendulum swing. They were right, 50 years ago, to demand more rights for francophones and to change the face of the province. They were right to take pride in their language and culture and to take steps to strengthen it an protect it. They - we - are still right to do so; I support a lot of those efforts, though I take issue with some of the details. The problem is that they’ve largely succeeded… a lot of things have been corrected/resolved/improved etc, but perhaps at the expense of other things (strong French-language schools, but a very weak English-language system due to immigration laws, etc).
I think the pendulum is just beginning to go too far on some aspects, sometimes into the absurd (like the St. Jean Baptiste Society moron who felt that no job in Québec should *ever *stipulate bilingualism as a requirement - he was protesting in front of a national call centre!).
The most stable, and the best, Québec - and Canada - is somewhere between where we once were and where we are headed, linguistically (or, at least, where the most militant people would want us to go). In a lot of ways, I like where we are now on “the language issue.”
Damn this is too complicated for a Friday afternoon, and gets so personal.
I’m really having a lousy day, and I need to go do something else to cheer myself up!
Oh Canada.
Here’s some stuff that should cheer anyone up! 
Game highlights from last week’s Calgary-Edmonton lacrosse game. If you can’t appreciate Nolan Heavenor’s goal at 1:57:22 of the highlight package, you very likely have no soul.
And, by request, fighting at an early season lacrosse game, including the coveted goalie fight (image #12). Oh the humanity!
Feel better, mnemosyne.
I do feel better today, thanks I don’t know why I snapped yesterday, but there are times when the whole subject just makes me so weary.
We went out to dinner at a pretty nice steakhouse, then went to see The Raven. It wasn’t too bad - well filmed and well acted, though the plot was fairly linear and simple. Basically a loose story tied around very well-done scenes depicting the various deaths in Poe’s stories. Not a cinematographic masterpiece, but definitely entertaining. Cheered me up well enough.
Today I’m off to a farewell party for friends who are moving overseas for a year (his work). Dinner and probably a couple of games of pool. Should be fun!
Oh, and unfortunately for Stephen Harper, I didn’t support the cause of fighting Hitler either, as I wasn’t born until 1981. I would, however, like to point out that neither did he. (This whole story is cracking me up so much!)
The Walrus has a great essay on the War of 1812 this month - “That Time We Beat the Americans”.
Apparently, the NDP didn’t want us to fight in that one, either… 
So apparently despite taking over the largest conference place in town the Comic Expo managed to over sell and damn near get shut down for fire code violations. I barely made it in today, I hope tomorrow is a little more sane…
Hey, we were in there today! We heard later that people were being turned away because it was too full - I can believe it. We spend more time trying to move in crowds and standing in line with a thousand of our closest friends…
Were you at the ST:TNG Exposed Star Trek reunion show tonight? We were there, and it was so much fun! It was great to see all those actors together again after 25 years. So hot, though.
Naw, I missed that. I wandered around (bought my pass ahead of time and Sweetie managed to get in after they stopped sales by dint of buying a pass from someone leaving). Caught some of Adam West spotlight, a couple panels. We’re back again today with Velociraptor who is at my feet looking at Pokemon cards as we wait for the Brony panel to open doors…
Fun, but why do I manage to go on the years it gets messed up? I went in 2010 and we were able to get in faster buying tix at the door than the pass holders because volunteers didn’t show up that year.
I should try to get to the Calgary Comic Expo next year. Note that I will not wear a costume (who would believe Superman with a beer gut, after all?).
Go on a Con Safari!
That was Sweetie’s plan today, he looked like a total tourist (hat, shorts, Dr Who shirt and camera). He likes to people watch and it was a good opportunity. Yesterday he was the guy from A Clockwork Orange, you know… White shirt, bowler? One of several.
Today I just wore cat ears, yesterday I went Jet Girl ish (as in I dressed kinda like her from the movie, one person recognized me!) Maybe I should plan better for next year, Velociraptor mentioned a couple times he wished he had a costume. The one that amused me the most was the Labyrinth costume, Jareth was walking around with a (real) baby. I didn’t get a picture though, wasn’t quick enough.
Come early though, and after this year probably buy tickets ahead of time. I think all advance ticket holders made it in today and not that many others.
I’d like to wear a costume some year, too - probably not for a whole day, but just to have the experience of it.
We got our Patrick Stewart picture! Stood in line from the time we got in (around 10:20 or so) until 2:00 to do so, but we got 'em!
Toronto Comic Art Festival is coming up this weekend. My 9 year old son is ready to camp out on Friday night so he can meet Bryan Lee O’Malley because Scott Pilgrim is the most awesome thing evah! I just smile and try to remember being that young myself…
Yeah, I was pretty disappointed with the queueing situation this weekend. Getting in the building was an ordeal, getting turned away from our first try at a Patrick Stewart picture after standing in line for an hour was very annoying, and so forth.
Last year, we only got one picture done (William Freaking Shatner), but the process to get there was tortuous. Having said that, we still managed to take in seven talks over the course of two days. This weekend, we were there all three days and only got to four talks, two of which were in the final two hours of the last day. Most of the rest of our time was spent lined up and waiting.
The good news is that our out-of-line experiences were excellent.
Grabbing an autograph from Gil Gerard (on the same Buck Rogers pic we got Erin Grey to sign a couple years ago) on Friday night was a pleasure – he seemed very genuine and gregarious, was talkative and engaged with us and expressed lots of mock outrage that Erin had already used up all the prime real estate on the photo (“I’m the star of the show! Can you believe that?!?”).
The TNG EXPOsed event on Saturday night was awesome. Getting to be one of the 7,000 or so people to see the original TNG cast reunited for the first time since the show wrapped up was a real privilege and the actors did a nice job up there.
We also got an autograph from Katee Sackhoff on Sunday, while waiting for our Patrick Stewart photo op. Katee also seemed very genuine, was chatty, and seemed quite happy and grateful to be there (also run off her feet, she told us that her handlers almost didn’t let her attend because of how tight her schedule has been, between shooting the Riddick sequel in Montreal and her new TV series, Longmire – apparently, she was doing her three straight hours of obligations at the Expo, then jumping on a plne back to the States to get back to the Longmire set, while memorizing her 15 pages of script on the flight).
Anyway, it was pretty sweet to see the big TNG event get set up and pulled off in a Canadian city. Props to the organizers for making that happen and for continuing to provide some high quality entertainment at the show. Hopefully next year thecan come up with some solutions so they don’t have to turn people away or have people spend their entire time in lineups and can instead enjoy more of the show itself.
P.S. The folks in full costumes were impressive as always. The best ones, for me, were one dude dressed up as Red Skull (awesome makeup), the Halo guy, and special props to whoever decided to show up as the TARDIS (I actually saw two of them). And all the ladies who continue to feel the urge to dress up as slutty Wonder Woman, slutty Supergirl, slutty chick from Fifth Element, slutty Green Lantern, or slutty whatever: please feel free to continue doing so. I’m sure it makes thousands of geeks very, very happy. 