You’re confusing the Canada of 1970 onwards with the Canada of 1910-1960. The “Canadian Mosaic” is an outgrowth of Canadian identity development from the introduction of the Bill of Rights and the Charter. It’s hardly a historic norm, though if we can keep it going for another 20 or 30 years we might be on to something.
It’s not really an issue in many places in Canada. Take Toronto. The majority of the population here is composed of immigrants. Why do you imagine they would be hostile to French, specifically? Mostly they don’t care.
It was also due in part to the Naval Bill and Bourassa’s opposition to the bill and to him. Bourassa did a lot to try to ruin Laurier’s political chances and ruin his reputation in Quebec.
A reasoned, and reasonable, response. But then, I know you’re a reasoned and reasonable poster in these kinds of discussions. 
I’ll definitely concede your second point. There’s no truth to the claim that Canada is bilingual while Quebec is only French. I’ve mentioned before and in this thread that services etc. are available in other provinces in French; and having examined a few government documents from Quebec for recent clients, I’ve seen the English on them. Both languages exist everywhere.
As for your first point, while I think it is valid, I’m unsure as to how “present” French is in other provinces. I’ve mentioned upthread about Alberta, but I will also admit that the Francophone community’s efforts had a lot to do with the recognition they have received in Alberta. It took a lot of grass-roots lobbying, in other words, to get what is available.
But I’d really be curious to hear from an Ontarian. I know that the Ontario government started making the provincial civil service bilingual in the mid-90s, which was about the time the French road signs started popping up too. One of my clients in the early 2000s was an Ontario government agency, and I well remember telephoning my contact and having to sit through her outgoing messages in both English and French before I could leave a message. (Just an anecdote, hardly data.) But still, this wasn’t happening in a bilingual enclave where linguistic conflict was happening–this was Toronto. If this was the kind of efforts that Ontario was making at the time, your first point might not be true for Ontario.
The constant hate crimes and lynchings of French Canadians in Canada is just an awful, awful thing. If only I could share some of these terrible events so we could discuss them. The thing is, I’ve searched all the newspaper sites and can’t seem to find any. It’s the darndest thing.
IF this thread has anything positive in it, it’s that Canadians both Francophone and Anglophone alike will whine about the most absurd things. When your big complaint about your place in the country is how someone made a reference eleven years ago to the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, or how provincial transfers work, you know you must live in a wonderful country to be concerned about such trivial matters.
Then shine on. 
Nitpick of a nitpick : 1974 is the correct date. It was Robert “Bob La Job” Bourassa Liberals that passed Bill 22 in the preamble of which it is mentioned that FDrench is the official language of Quebec. You’re probably thinking of the PQs Bill 1 (which later became Bill 101).
Cite (pdf)
Lynchings? Well, of course we are not talking about a dynamic comparable to the African American experience, so that is a ridiculous point. French and English in Canada have frequently inter-married. In Canada it is the minority that wants its own schools. The whole situation is different.
I agree that Canada is a great country. If not, I would not be a strong federalist and proud Canadian. BTW I was educated with English, not French, books on Canadian history.
Unfortunately, these books contain the myth of uninterrupted Anglo benevolence and generosity towards the French fact in Canada that everyone from the normally well-informed Tomndebb to the other posters on this thread seem to implicitly or explicitly subscribe to.
As I pointed out, the Quebec Act of 1774 makes no special provisions to preserve French outside of a couple of transitory administrative measures after the Conquest, much of which was common sense to avoid legal chaos. The British themselves fully expected that French would die off in Canada. There are multiple examples of articles, letters to the Montreal Gazette and speeches from subsequent decades asking why “this British colony is still so French”. I expect that if the Brits of 1759 were alive today, they would be as sorry as Captain Amazing that the Quebec Act helped French survive in America.
The rebellions against undemocratic government in 1837-38, which were 95% in Quebec, were brutally supressed.
A number of the Patriotes who fought for democratic government in 1837-38 were hanged, (as was Louis Riel in Regina decades later), but I guess those cannot count as lynchings since they were done by the British Authorities. Brits do not commit atrocities, as any British history text will tell you.
In fact, there were more people hanged, exiled or imprisoned for their parts in the rebellions in the little colony of Quebec in 1838-39 than people likewise punished for their part in the attempted secession by millions of people in the Confederate States of America some 25 years later. I got that statistic from an American author writing about the Civil War. The French-Canadian folk song “Un Canadien errant” which you can see and hear here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI_BOSPzEEM is a poignant reminder of all these exiles. The singer is not that great but he explains the historical context and the song is a very sad, haunting melody. Those arrested by the British were sent to places like Australia and Bermuda, which were not vacation destinations, I assure you.
You will note that the Québécois called themselves “Canadiens”. Anglo-Canadians did not consider themselves Canadians until well after World War II. They considered themselves British subjects, and their mission was to make Canada English.
Anglo-Canadian history books tell us that the Rebellions resulted in democratic government in the colonies. What they **do not **tell you is that an important purpose of the Union Act of 1845, clearly enunciated by Lord Durham in his report, was to combine (Ontario) and (Quebec) into one country in an undemocratic balance of voting rights favouring the English element, in the hopes that French could eventually be eliminated. However, the French-speaking MPs soon learned how to play the Parliamentary game to avoid this (missed your chance again, Captain Amazing).
I am not going to go into a whole history of Canada, but let us just say that we Francophones fought tooth and nail for every iota of our survival. For example, it took 60 years after Confederation to get the government to print money bilingually.
The idea that the English in Canada have always been mild, generous and accomodating to the existence of the French language, and have encouraged and fostered its growth, is an historical myth. And to ask us to celebrate our Conquest in 1759 is insensitive and thoughtless.
This is flatly preposterous, at least with regards to western Canada. Unless you are excluding all non-British European immigrants and their descendants (i.e., the majority of western Canadians). Until well after WWII, most western Canadians were 1st or 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants from continental Europe with no particular affinity towards English except insofar as it was the only common language.
You make it sound like we’re some sort of homogeneous block of United Empire Loyalists.
They considered themselves British subjects prior to 1947 because (and this should not be a surprise to anybody who has studied Canadian history in any language) they were British subjects. So, for that matter, were the Quebecois. Nobody, but nobody, was a Canadian citizen prior to the passage of the *Canadian Citizenship Act *1946, which became law on January 1, 1947. Prior to that date, everybody in Canada was legally a British subject. Wikipedia provides a concise summary:
Now, it may be very true that Quebecois colloquially called themselves Canadiens prior to that, but it’s probably equally true that other groups in Canada called themselves by colloquial terms also. Bluenosers (Nova Scotians) and Loyalists (a subgroup of Ontarians) are two examples. But Bluenoser, Loyalist, and prior to 1947, Canadien, are and were colloquialisms that carried no legal weight. “British Subject” did, and described the situation just as well.
Legally, all Canadian nationals were British subjects until January 1, 1947. Now, they are all legally Canadians; except in Quebec, where they are legally Canadiens. Regardless, trying to compare a Quebec colloquialism to the legal term by which all Canadian nationals were known seems somewhat disingenious.
Yes, there are francophone institutions in major Albertan cities, but there are also very few francophones in Alberta. They probably aren’t even the second largest language group there (looking around, they’re actually the fourth largest native language group). This, of course, could change if Alberta’s economy remains strong and a greater number of Quebecers move there; I know there’s already some number of Albertans who come from Quebec.
For this reason, Albertans may not be very sensitive to the idea of Canada being a multinational country. Also, Western Canadians, due to the distance (physical and metaphorical) separating them from the centres of political power in Canada, tend to be hostile to what they perceive as these centres (namely Ontario and Quebec).
So while Valteron’s experience of Albertans reacting to bilingual pamphlets with horror is (hopefully) a rare one, it is not untrue that some of them are relatively hostile, if not to French-speakers, at least to Quebec and to the idea of a French-language nation in Canada. This is unfortunate because Quebecers and Albertans have a lot of ideas in common about the direction Canada should take in the future and would benefit from speaking to each other.
Should, maybe, but the problem is that the native peoples don’t form a nation in the same sense as the two others. They are very disparate groups, some of them nearly assimilated among one of the other groups, some others still living a near-ancestral lifestyle. I know that in the case of the Inuit, there have been efforts to provide them with a homeland of their own: Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic and soon Nunavik in Northern Quebec. Unfortunately, I’ve heard that Nunavut still doesn’t have schools teaching in the Inuit language. As well, Manitoba can be argued to have been founded as a province for the Métis nation, but that’s not really true anymore.
Many other native populations, of course, currently have more pressing needs than being recognized as founding nations of Canada.
I guess I’ll have to look at this.
Possible, since these textbooks needed the approval of Church authorities. (Note: this is not the case today, and Quebec isn’t ruled by the Catholic Church today.)
But you haven’t answered my question in post 70.
That’s a leap of logic here. Just because someone from any of the two major nations can be elected prime minister doesn’t mean that Confederation “works”. In case you haven’t noticed, not everyone is happy about how Canada works, and not only cranks. There have been proposals to improve the constitution ever since we’ve had it.
Plus, people from these two nations did share power before the Confederation. Was it really a better constitution than the previous ones? Well, yes, because Canada under the Act of Union was unstable and before that it wasn’t really democratic. But it’s not perfect.
I’m thinking of today’s (English) Canadians. They view the country’s history through their current ideological lens. (We all do.)
But that’s really a bunch of stuff that looks good, while not necessarily meaning anything. Phone messages in both languages, anyone can do that, but who cares if the actual public servants can’t offer service in both languages? Note that I don’t necessarily claim that provincial or municipal public servants in Toronto should have to be able to offer service in French, maybe there aren’t enough francophones there.
An example: I’ve related before on another board (and on this one as well, I believe) that when I was studying at the University of Ottawa, a bilingual university that actually started as a French-language college, a course in my department that was supposed to be given in French was changed to a course in English because of a petition of anglophone students. But on this other board, anglophone students of the university still were whining about how the university administration is biased towards French, mostly because the university’s website and pamphlets have French before English and because workers there tend to be francophone. I actually note that the university’s website says, on the front page, “Study in English, in French, or in both languages: The choice is yours!” The U of O is working very hard to convince anglophone students that they will not have to learn French if they come there because this reputation of a “pro-French bias” (which includes the idea that their students have to learn French) is costing them students. And they have this reputation despite the actual facts.
It seems to me that English Canadians are extremely sensitive to symbolic gestures but tend to be blind to how things actually work. Which is why many of them think Quebec is “French only” and the rest of Canada is “bilingual” and francophone Quebecers are jerks for this, despite the fact that the reality is completely different. If our government made English a co-official language of Quebec while not changing any actual law, we’d probably be congratulated for months in the English-language press for finally “growing up” and “reaching the 21st century”.
Oh yes, I’d heard of this law. Thank you. I didn’t remember it actually made French the official language of Quebec. What I do remember (reading, since I wasn’t born at the time) though is that the Parti québécois was actually elected in 1976 partly on the promise of repealing this law.
It was probably in large part due to the arrival of immigrants from non-British and non-Germanic countries that an English Canadian identity separate from Britain arose. But I don’t know if these immigrants saw themselves as Canadian to begin with, or if they viewed themselves as still Ukrainians or Poles or Czechs for a few generations. Ukrainians, for one, were important in the development of Canada’s multicultural policies.
They saw themselves as both Canadian and Ukrainian/etc. It’s not like there’s any contradiction in that.
Ascribing to another a position they have never actually asserted is pretty much the essence of creating a straw man argument.
Note, however, that you are the only poster who has said anything similar to this, even if to reject it.
I have no problem with your asserting a position, (although it would be nice if you would quit falsely accusing me of holding opposition to it), I just wish you would post an honest discussion rather than tarting up your rants to pretend that you are debating a topic.
I’m from Sudbury, and was in school during the 90’s. My city was officially bilingual, and 40% or so of the population was francophone. There were two French-language school boards (public and catholic) and the English boards offered french-immersion programs, which I attended. Road signs were bilingual, packaging of food and other goods was bilingual (as everywhere in Canada), the local tourist attractions were all fully implemented in both languages, my neighbors spoke French, English, and some other European languages, and major streets in town had names like "Notre Dame"and “Lasallle”; I grew up on “Jeanne d’Arc” and “Cartier”. CBC and SRC shared a radio station downtown, TVO and TFO were both on TV. The library had French books with the English.
I never grew up with the idea that French was a foreign language, even if I learned English first. I never had the idea that Ontario was English and Quebec was French – I was surprised by how few of my Ontarian classmates were fluent in French when I moved away from Sudbury to go to university.
Surrounding Sudbury, the region of northeastern Ontario has a large franco fraction, in many cases towns where these are in the majority. My experience was not one of ‘a few bilingual enclaves’; I suppose perhaps I lived in one, but we’re talking an area the size of France (with a population rather smaller), not a ghetto in the bad part of Toronto.
Aside from the legal points Spoons makes, this is just flatly stupid. I mean no disrespect, but it’s just amazingly ignorant of the facts to assert all Anglophone Canadians did not consider themselves Canadian until after 1945. Have you ever even spoken to one of them? A lot of people old enough to remember the Depression and World War II are still around, you know. You might try talking to them and saying “Hey, did you consider yourself British instad of Canadian until after the war ended?” You’ll get a lot of people looking at you funny. Many weren’t of British descent at all and many who were considered themselves Canadian, not British.
Your argument is not well served by sweeping, prejudicial, and hilariously wrong statements. You sound exactly like the very people you’re complaining about.
If only the SDMB had a way to deal with the kind of disingenuousness displayed by the OP; perhaps a subforum devoted to rants, and certain people empowered to move discussions there.
Sorry, I had missed it. You had asked:
I was trying to say that had full assimilation happened at the time, it would have avoided the cultural and linguistic conflicts that actually happened. The Conquest was a good thing because, first, English government and administration was more efficient and democratic than French, and second, because a French Canada probably wouldn’t have managed to colonize Western Canada and it would have ended up part of the United States.
As for the British colonists adopting the French language, I don’t see any way that would have happened.
How do you think this flavours our perceptions?
Lets add BC
French is fifth, running a close race with Tagalog and Korean. Chinese speakers are 7 times more prevalent and Punjabi over twice as many
How about Saskatchewan?
French is fifth in a close race with Ukrainian. German at number two has almost twice as many speakers.
If it wasn’t for this ‘two founding nations’ no one in the West would take any notice of French as in all cases it makes up less than 2% of what people speak here and there are far larger groups who speak different languages. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but for me ‘two founding nations’ doesn’t mean a thing and is best left in the past where it belongs. Edit: because it doesn’t reflect the reality of the West of today.
Like Tom first said, post both revolutions, a French Canada would end up several United States. And all speaking English (we weren’t so understanding back in the day). It may seem like a pisser, but the Québécois probably came out ahead the way it happened. As a group we haven’t gotten over that some people speak Spanish.
Well, when he is not interrupting, we’ve had several fruitful discussions in this thread and I have probably moved more of his GD threads to the Pit than I have left here, so when a thread actually develops a discussion despite his involvement, I trend to cut it some slack.
