They do make boxes that are strictly English already. They are only about a couple of hours drive south of where I live. They could be easily shipped north. The only reason there is another language on the package, in French, where I live is that somewhere two days drive away speaks French. That is the only reason. Read the link I’ve provided from the Federal Government. They may couch it in different terms, but that is the reason. They have effectively forced companies to view Canada as single market vs. what they may have otherwise done because of the market and only because of language. So, Quebec gets a better selection of product than they would normally have (hey, lets ship it to Quebec as we already have it in French!) had with uni-lingual packaging, while the rest of us get a lesser selection of products because some outside companies don’t want the hassle of making two packages (I’m not shipping to Canada because it isn’t worth it for me to make a bi-lingual package). You have to remember we didn’t always have bi-lingual packaging in Canada unless the manufacturer deemed it was worth his while to do so. Which is why some companies provide packaging in many languages.
This should be an argument against separation. If Quebec separates from Canada the market goes from 32M to 7M. There would be little reason to legislate bi-lingual packaging in the RoC, so it would probably be removed. That leaves companies having to decide if hitting the 7M market is worth making a package in French. Some who currently do bi-lingual packaging will, some won’t. Some will say, “Hey, we already have bi-lingual packaging, Spanish if kind of like French, right?”. Regardless, product selection would most likely go down and prices would most likely go up.
So, if I make a joke about picking up a box of Cornflakes and having to turn it around to read the English side, and someone from Quebec takes offense at the joke, maybe they should realize that the reason they can read their box of Cornflakes in French (having to turn it around from the English), or possibly have Cornflakes at all, is because we’ve acknowledged their desire to keep their language and done something that helps them to do so. BTW, the Sugar Smacks I had for breakfast this morning was packaged entirely in Arabic, so was the packaging for the yogurt I put on it. If there is a market someone will fill it. I’ve yet to see Cornflakes here in Yemen.
Yeah, I’m sorry Le Ministre de l’au-delà, I shouldn’t have singled you out based on your username like this. I knew when I posted it that it wasn’t all that wise. What I meant to say is that many people outside of Quebec (or even inside) seem to have a “folksy” view of us, so to speak. As an example, I’ve seen on this board a few posters originally from Quebec but now living elsewhere who seem, for lack of a better word, to be highly “ethnic”. They’ll often mention their French-Canadian ethnic identity and the little things it makes them do that’s different from the people around them. But as far as I’m concerned, I don’t see such a large difference between the people of Quebec and other North Americans, today at least. I don’t feel ethnic. People in Quebec should learn French because it’s what we use as a language, not for any historical reasons.
I thought I’d detected a bit of this attitude in you, but I was probably wrong. You probably do know quite a bit about modern Quebec. So I’m sorry.
I can’t really help you with Quebec artists, though, since most of my music is 1970s British rock.
Do you really think it’s trouble for a company to put packaging in an extra language? Gorsnak and Northern Piper already pointed out that some companies put packaging not only in many languages, but also include parts made in different standards to have a single packaging for many markets. So the cost really isn’t very large. Do you have evidence of companies not doing business in Canada because they consider complying with packaging rules to be too costly? Because I think you’re only trying to find a reason to be offended. (Unless you’re going at it from a theoretical libertarian philosophy and think every law about commercial packaging is illegitimate.)
There are a lot of English-only toys that are not sold in Quebec. Things like talking Toy Story dolls and the like come to mind. They are not available because they are unilingual, English only. Not that I’m complaining or anything, but shit if a three year old wants to pull Woody’s string and hear him say “There’s a snake in my boot!” in English only, is it really that fucking bad?"
Hey, if you won’t read the link I provided from the Federal Government of Canada saying that there is a cost to doing this, then I don’t know what to tell you that will convince you. Sorry. They say it is a sum of less than $100M. Peanuts maybe, but still there is a cost. The cost for some items is more than for others. It depends on whether a manufacturer decides if those costs are worth it.
If you read the link you will see that some companies complained about having problems putting both languages on their package. It follows that some won’t even bother, doesn’t it? Nor am I claiming that it is stopping a large amount of companies from doing business in Canada. It is probably more than zero, though.
I’m not offended. Detop was the one who was offended. I put all my cereal into Tupperware containers, so it isn’t really relevant anymore. I’ve just been saying that the only reason French is on the box is because of the, wait for it, the French. Duh! They’re getting bent out of shape when I make a joke about something that is only being done for their benefit. The response back is equivalent to, “Thanks for nothing, asshole.” So, I’m quite willing to argue for why we shouldn’t do it in the first place. Let them hope that someone will sell something in Quebec, a smaller market, in a language that they can read. It isn’t a big deal to me if they don’t, nor is this issue, in fact.
Only if Canada and the United States had unified product packaging laws in all other regards, which they do not, and you’ll find there’s even different products for sale anyway (you can’t buy Shreddies in the USA, so far as I know.)
Well, of course. But there’s the thing; they do have to account for the folks two hours away.
Only in this one limited regard do they have to regard Canada as a single market, and so far as I am aware this is true of most of the countries in the industrialized world. No matter where you go you’re going to have to live up to a national product packaging law for foodstuffs.
Oh, bullshit. Provide one example of you being denied a product because of bilingual packaging laws.
From what I remember, the law is that if there exists a French version of the product, you have to offer it when you offer version in other languages. If it doesn’t actually exist, no problem. So a video game that exists only in English can be sold in Quebec without restrictions, but if a version in French exists as well, you have to sell both (or only the French version). I may try to track the law later, but if I’m right, what this would imply is that these Toy Story dolls do exist in French, but somebody doesn’t think it’s worth importing them.
Not necessarily. Just check what Americans are getting that you’re not getting. Or track a cite from someone saying they didn’t enter the Canadian market specifically because the packaging regulations were too costly to comply with. (Note: this wouldn’t necessarily mean that they’re too costly to comply with because of the bilingual requirement, and they could be lying anyway.)
Hypnagogic Jerk: No need to apologize at all - you intended no offense and none was taken.
Do you mean Rock Progressif? That was all I listened to as a teenager. I had to laugh when I was first in Archambault in 95 and discovered two whole bins devoted to music that was almost impossible for me to get when I was growing up in Manitoba in the 70s. After all the years in high school of ‘Gentle Giant? Yes? Who listens to that crap?’, I just thought ‘Why didn’t my brother and I grow up here?’
Yes, I really do like progressive rock (among other things). And I’d like to use this opportunity to tell featherlou something I and someone else told her during the free-for-all weekend, and which she might have missed: you can’t judge early Genesis if you’ve only listened to From Genesis to Revelation. Try some of their later albums like Foxtrot or Selling England by the Pound.
That’s great! (Gentle Giant is a band I really like, in fact.) I do know these styles of music are relatively popular in Quebec, even among the younger generation (people like me) but if it was in Montreal that you saw this, I’d explain the experience by the large city effect. Manitoba has Winnipeg which is a large enough city (never been there, though), but Toronto and Montreal are another level of big, and it’s possible to find much more there.
From my personal experience, I have noted that US grocery stores have more selection than Canadian ones do. But that could be caused by any number of things.
In my link, iirc (I’m getting a ‘no route to host error’ so I can’t look it up myself), some businesses said they’d have difficulty complying with the legislation. Which leads me to believe that if they do comply then the cost will be passed along to consumer. And when price goes up, what happens to demand? Economics 101 question there, btw. Some business may stop selling marginal products because of the extra cost. Some companies may not even enter the Canadian market because of it. That doesn’t mean that many companies don’t. Some even provide more than two languages on their packaging. That isn’t my point. My point is that some non-zero amount of products are not provided in Canada because of labeling laws in place to placate a minority language group located in primarily one geographic location. The fact that it is a primarily geographic location would make it relatively easy for any company to ship and market to that locale while doing the same to the other parts of Canada.
Or, are you denying that is costs more to put dual language labels on products?
And are you also denying that companies make decisions on based upon costs?
So, it isn’t a leap to say that some non-Canadian companies will not market a product in Canada based upon complying with Canadian regulations.
Just over two weeks to go - is there truly nothing further to discuss?
On the environment - my opinion is that the conservative’s plan is simply not enough to address the problem. The conservative assertion is that the Liberal plan will have a negative effect on the economy.
Is the economy not resilient enough to respond to sudden changes? The environment is restricted to a slow rate of change - evolution measures cause to effect changes in generations. We are now seeing the effects (extinction) of environmental changes that took place years ago and are continuing to take place. To borrow an economic metaphor, we have an environmental deficit.
So, it’s a two fold question - 1) will the green shift plan be that bad for the economy? We need to manufacture things, whether they’re gas combustion automobiles or bicycles…
2) If it comes to an either/or choice, which is more urgent? The environmental deficit or the fiscal deficit?
Well, the death of the thread should tell you something.
Who’s promising anything interesting? I note the Toronto Star is trotting out their “The Conservative are all Bible-thumping radicals” stories and editorials, which is the point at which we all know the Conservatives will win. The Star on Thursday ran five editorials on the main page and every one, accused the Conservatives of being, n so many words, Nazis. The only issue at hand is how much they’ll win by. It’s a done deal.
The election campaign has been very disappointing. The basic message of all four parties (not counting the Bloc) is “We Will Spend Oodles Of Money.” All are ludicrously impossible to do while still balancing the budget. I’m pissed at the Tories but am inclined to vote for them for the sole and only reason that their spending promises are less absurd than the others, but beyond that I think a lot of their platform is really stupid.
Actually, it is, MY problem with the Liberal plan is that it will not help the environment. So it’ll cost us lots of money in return for, basically, a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Aside from the obvious weaknesses in it, like not taxing gasoline, I don’t quite understand why people are giving any credence at all to the idea the Green Shift will help the environment in absence of any sort of global consensus. The atmosphere does cover the entire planet, not just Canada. You ask two questions but you don’t ask the question as to whether the Green Shift will help the environment - and, to be perfectly frank, it won’t, at least not in a measurably significant way.
So, why are you voting, RickJay? Your vote will be one out of about a hundred thousand in your riding. You’re not under the impression that your vote will change the outcome in any measurably significant way, are you?
In Canada, it could. This riding is being contested between the last two holders of the office, and now and then a riding IS decided by a handful of votes.
Your comparison’s lame, anyway. A better comparison would be if, when the general election was called, everyone in Burlington who might decide to support my candidate of choice collectively said “Fuck it.” Then, no, I wouldn’t bother. It doesn’t matter if my candidate loses 25,000 to 0 or 25,000 to 1.
Election News: I note today Jack Layton has promised to “Eliminate poverty” by 2020. He is apparently not joking; there will be no poverty in Canada by 2020.
For me, I’ll be voting Conservative. Not just because they’re the closest fit to my natural inclinations (not very close, but closer than the others), but because they’ve been in power now for a while, and quite frankly I think they’ve done a better job than the Liberals did, especially on the issues that matter to me the most.
When I look at the state of the Liberal party, I can’t imagine them being in power. They’re a disorganized mess with a useless leader. I still can’t take the other parties seriously - they push too many crazy buttons. That leaves only one choice.
For others, I suspect the choice might come down to whether you want the Conservatives to have a minority government or a majority. I’d like to see them get a majority simply because I think the current lay of the land makes a minority government a bad idea - the last one was pretty dysfunctional, with Liberals refusing to represent their constituents for fear of triggering an election. So there was far too much gamesmanship going on. I’d rather see things a little more stable than that.
However, if I were more to the left, I could see the value in a minority government - especially since I think there’s a chance that the Liberals are going to get beat very badly in this election and you could wind up with them having to work very closely with the NDP and the Greens and the Bloc. Together, they might present more unified opposition to the Conservatives.
But ultimately, I’m hoping for a Conservative majority. For one thing, I want to see how they’d actually govern with a working majority. It will be an interesting test of where their hearts truly lay. Are we going to get the scary Christian right government? Or will they rule as social moderates and economic conservatives? Or wll they turn into another big spending party once they have a blank cheque? I feel comfortable enough with them that I don’t think they’ll be a train wreck, so I say give them the wheel and let them drive for a while.
While I think that is unquestionable true of the Liberals in the late Chretien and Martin years, you have to admit the first couple of Chretien governments did very good work in many areas.
I think sometimes you need to change the government. In 2006, we desperately needed to change the government. Really, REALLY needed to change it. In 2008, I don’t think we need to, and I don’t see a pressing reason why anyone else deserves to form a government.
Next time out, I might think differently. Every government goes sour eventually.
You know, you’d think the Liberals were headed for an absolute trouncing the way the numbers look, but the usually reliable www.electionprediction.org isn’t all that pessimistic; if you split up the too-close-to-call ridings the way they have the called ones, it’s not very much different. Some slight gains for the Tories; only a small loss for the Liberals. Losses for the Bloc.
That’s great! (Gentle Giant is a band I really like, in fact.) I do know these styles of music are relatively popular in Quebec, even among the younger generation (people like me) but if it was in Montreal that you saw this, I’d explain the experience by the large city effect. Manitoba has Winnipeg which is a large enough city (never been there, though), but Toronto and Montreal are another level of big, and it’s possible to find much more there.