I have participated more fully in the debate portion of this thread, (as opposed to the whining, ranting, and gnashing of teeth portion of this thread), than you have.
On the other hand, every time you post one more personal rant in GD, I have to look it over and make a choice as to whether to ship it directly to the BBQ Pit or whether some of the other participants will choose to raise the quality of the discussion to an actual debate. In each case I actually go to the trouble of pointing out which action I am taking and why I have taken that action, yet I am constantly met with snide remarks and more whining, even when I allow one of your rants to remain in this forum. I do not care enough about you to dislike you, but I am curious as to when you will actually pay attention to the dynamics of this little dance you periodically initiate and begin to post debates rather than tirades in this forum. (I could make my life easier by simply transferring to the Pit, unopened, any thread in GD that has your username as the OP, but that does not seem to be a fair action to take regarding the posters who may have actually tried to engage in a debate. )
I figured you’d come back with stuff like “well, they flew the Union Jack.” Yes, and there’s a maple leaf on the flag now but we’re not all arborists.
What you previously claimed was not that people flew different flags, but that that Anglophones, prior to World War II, did not consider themselves Canadian, and that’s a load of absolute nonsense and you know it.
Your claim that “Dominion” was usually used in place of the adjective “Canadian” is also ridiculous nonsense, as can be very easily shown by just reading newspaper articles from the Second World War.
Again, you sound just like the people you’re complaining about.
Spoons, thanks for the thoughts re: the study of Canadian History. Most enlightening!
I have to confess I was under the impression that the whole “Bilingual Thing” in Canada was purely to keep the Quebecois happy, in much the same way that Maori is an official language of New Zealand but quite literally almost no-one speaks it (150,000 speakers, and less that 5,000 native speakers, out of a population of about 4,300,000).
This talk of “feeling as if you’re entering a foreign country” every time you cross from Francophone Canada to Anglophone Canada is news to me; I’ve known a few Francophone Canadians in my time and- besides all being bilingual- I’ve never heard any of them speak negatively of Anglophones in general.
Well, most people don’t. You unfortunately see some exceptions, even on the SDMB.
But what you have in Quebec is a lot of people who speak a different language, occupying a BIG place. It’s not at all like a beat-up aboriginal culture living in scattered reservations. There are millions of francophone Quebecois and they’re the majority group in a place twice as large as France.
Bilingualism, contrary to what some Canadians seem to believe, was never a sop to a tiny minority; *it’s a recognition of existing fact. *
In fact, in that article alone, the word Canada, Canadian, or Canadians appear 31 times, while Dominion appears only twice, and once Canadians are called “Britishers” So the people at the Globe and Mail certainly thought of themselves as Canadians and not just Dominionites (articles from the Toronto Daily Star, the Hamilton Spectator and the Financial Post suggest they considered themselves Canadians too.
I should mention- in the interests of providing Historical Context- that New Zealand was also referred to as a Dominion around the same time (1907-1953), and is still technically classified as such today (although the word “Realm” is more commonly used, as “Dominion” does have a rather 1930s feel to it.)
Several other parts of the British Empire have also been considered “Dominion”, of course, but the term does seem to be most closely linked to Canada and NZ.
And again it is all about you. Could you be more emo? The French speakers in the West ARE a minority and not a significant one other than we have to cater to them to satisfy some ‘two nations’ crap. That doesn’t mean that French speaking people are the minority everywhere, or that they don’t have rights. You have said in the below statement that it doesn’t matter how we treat the French minority in our province. I’ll obviously point out again how it is all about you, and I’ll add that it seems hypocritical given all the stats in this thread about how Quebec treats its minority language speakers. But, maybe that was Valetron posting that.
Then why the hell are you still a part of Canada? You don’t seem to care about those fellow French speakers in other provinces who at least have a passing similarity to you, so how do you feel about anyone else?
Or, could it be that it really is all about the money?
WTF? What was so emo about HJ’s comment? How is his reply “all about you” more than your original comment is? It’s a statement of fact. There are places in Canada where people speak English, and almost only English with each other and there are places where it’s French.
Concretely, though, how do you have to cater to French Canadians? Really? Beyond some linguistic requirements to get a job in the federal government?
Jebus, I feel like a traitor to my [del]race[/del] background because I feel it would behoove me to learn Spanish, if only to watch other TV stations. Not that “Videos Más Asombrosos del Mundo” really NEEDS me to understand the host. :rolleyes:
Okay, I called the Montreal Department of Public Works to ask about the city’s sewer system. Note who I called, and that, at my first utterance, I was passed through to someone who it was supposed to speak English. After I explained my need, the charming young lady said, “I would be happy to help you, but what do you mean by the word, ‘sewer?’”
Yeah, her accent was cute, BUT THAT’S NOT MY POINT! Note again the department I called. “English required” does not seem to be especially adhered to.
OTOH, the guys I spoke with when trying to get some blueprints printed out were neither as fluent as she, nor as vocally cute, but I could conduct bilingual business with them. As long as it wasn’t Dominion Day, when everybody, anglophone or francophone, is a Canadian :p.
OYAH, the young lady at the concierge desk at a hotel was both helpful and vocally cute. I had to pay three times as expected for the prints, but it wasn’t my money.
He doesn’t care about those people who speak French in the other parts of the country. They are on their own and it doesn’t matter if the rest of us try to help them. The only reason we do try to help them is because Canada is a bi-lingual country and one of those languages is French. Read what he has said in the context of the thread. It is about him. Although, I should keep the emo comments for Valtron.
The basis of two founding nations is that Quebec sees itself as a separate nation within Canada. Thus it doesn’t see itself as one of ten provinces, it sees itself as one of two nations combined in one and wants to negotiate based upon that. Everyone else sees it the other way round (well, until you hear someone complaining that PEI is only as big as a medium city based upon population size). This might explain why guys like HJ (that is a bad abbreviation!) don’t feel much sympathy for people who speak the language outside their province because they have chosen to not live in the francophone homeland. On the other hand, English speakers get upset about Quebec implementing language laws because we consider it something that Canadians don’t do to each other and the minority of English speakers in Quebec should have rights like the French speakers in other parts of the country do.
This was my understanding of the situation and speaking as an interested Outsider, I’m not sure why it doesn’t work both ways- I mean, that would be fair, surely?
The obligatory reference to the sign issue, for one, where French must be on the sign and twice as large as any other language. I’m pretty sure in the ROC you can put up a sign with whatever language you want on it.
I didn’t say anything negative about anglophones. (Well, maybe “It seems to me that English Canadians are extremely sensitive to symbolic gestures but tend to be blind to how things actually work” is borderline offensive but that is in fact how it seems to me.) What I said is that leaving the territory of Quebec is psychologically like entering a foreign country. One where my language isn’t the one that is used. I didn’t say English Canada is an awful place; it’s not, I’ve deliberately gone there to visit many times and I’ll be back. I mean, I am currently in a foreign country and I’m having fun except that the fact that I barely if at all speak the language tires me. English Canada is less “foreign” because I do speak the language, fluently, but for the many francophones who are not completely fluent in English (yes Martini, there are a lot of them), I can see how leaving Quebec would be like entering a very foreign country.
Well, as I’ve said, what I’ve said isn’t an attack on English Canada any more than “the United States is a foreign country to me” would be an attack on the US. And please do not shoot the messenger.
Just like jovan, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Yes, French speakers in the West are a minority. That’s what I’m saying. Personally I’d be okay with having French the only official language of Quebec (with some services in English where many English speakers are found) and English the only official language of the rest of Canada except the territories and New Brunswick (with some services in French where many French speakers are found). This would respect the concept of two founding nations, each with its own national territory, and since there are so few francophones in Alberta you wouldn’t have to pay whatever it is you pay now to “cater” to them.
I’ve said that the concept of a Quebec nation centred on the territory of Quebec instead of a pan-Canadian French-Canadian nation arose in the 50s and 60s. You won’t be surprised to see that the Quebec sovereignty movement arose at the same time. This is all linked. They were able to get nearly 50% approval in 1995 (including more than 60% approval among francophones), but if you ask me why Quebec is still part of Canada, I’d say it’s because many Quebecers don’t like the idea of breaking up a country that they built. They still believe that there’s a way Quebec can obtain the recognition of the fact that it is the homeland of a nation (as I’ve said, the whole rest of the country is the homeland of the other). Plus, sovereigntist politicians today are thoroughly unimpressive.
Of course, this recognition might never come because English Canadians hold dear to the concept of ten equal provinces. When Quebec gets a power that the other provinces don’t have, even if it’s because they’ve never asked since they wouldn’t want it anyway (usually that’s how it works), they complain. To them, Quebec is just any other province, that is home to a larger percentage of the French-Canadian minority, true, but that is not the homeland of anything.
Nothing to do with money, Uzi. I know that for Albertans Quebec = spent money, but we don’t think about that much here. Those who want Quebec to separate want it despite the fact they know it would cost money, and those who don’t also have reasons that have nothing to do with money (such as, as I’ve said, not wanting to break up their country).
I did say I “don’t care” about them, but of course that’s a bit of a misstatement. I don’t care about them more than I would care about a similar French-language minority in a foreign country. If there was, I don’t know, a wave of violence against francophones in English Canada, with gangs breaking store windows, burning houses and beating up francophones in the streets, you can be sure there would be protests in Quebec, even official ones from the Quebec government. But, you know, this is Canada, not Sudan or whatever. We know francophones are in no danger in the rest of Canada, other than that of assimilation, and we already consider them semi-assimilated anyway.
And remember, I’m a young Quebecer (27 years old). When I meet Franco-Ontarians, I notice the fact that they don’t have the same culture as I. They are French-speaking English Canadians, for lack of a better term. Older people, born before the split between francophone Quebecers and other francophone Canadians, might disagree with me.
And this is why I say it seems to me English Canadians all care about style but not substance. Anglophone Quebecers are by far the most healthy language minority in Canada. Even if French is the only official language of Quebec, they have access to any governmental document in English; they have their whole educational system up to and including the university level. There are three English-language universities in Quebec; I believe there is one French-language university outside of Quebec (Moncton), plus two “bilingual” (Ottawa and Laurentian).
In fact, the whole reason why we had to establish language laws and make French the only official language was that the power of the English-language minority was such that francophones, even inside of Quebec, were basically treated as a minority, despite being 80% or so of the population. People couldn’t work in French, couldn’t be served in French in businesses, and of course no immigrant ever bothered to learn French. In other words, francophones were a minority, not just in their own country, but in their own province as well. Today, after those laws, the English-language community is still healthy, but more of a minority. It’s usually possible to work in French and do business in French in Quebec (some parts of Montreal may be an exception), and more immigrants actually do bother to learn French instead of just English. Even the majority of Quebec’s anglophones now know French, just like the majority (rather near-totality) of the rest of Canada’s francophones know English.
Now I know you’re going to go all free-market on me and say that if my language can’t survive without laws to prop it up, then maybe it should just die. (Free market is good when it serves the speaker’s purpose. :p) French in Quebec just isn’t going to die even without laws to encourage its use. But without these laws, you’d end up with two communities that don’t speak with each other and that resent each other, more than we have right now anyway. I think this isn’t the way to go. In fact, I believe Quebec should introduce a single education system with something like 70% of the schooling in French and 30% in English. (Adding a third language somewhere in this would even be better.) It would bring all communities together and ensure that all Quebecers be fluent in French and English. Something like it has been proposed by politicians. But unfortunately it would be unconstitutional to implement unless we keep the French-language and English-language systems as well.
An English homeland? I think there is a place where the English have a homeland, but I just can’t think of it at the moment. Some place called Englishland, or something.:dubious: I think it is East of us somewhere. Needless to say the French have the equivalent.
English is a language that we speak, nothing more. I guess that is the point I’ve been trying to make, if any.
Because that is the basis on which the country was founded. We have this strange idea that people should be treated equally. It tends to carry over to entities like provinces.
Yeah, someone has to pay the bills and if it isn’t you, then why worry? But last year when the federal government was trying to cut fluff from the budget, you guys perked up quite a bit, didn’t you?
I’ve asked this before in other threads. What do you do that is any different then I do when I go home from work at night (well, I actually work in the ME, but you get the idea)? Other than speak French, of course? And even if you did do anything different than I did, am I in any way stopping your from doing it? Is being part of Canada stopping your from doing it? Would an independent Quebec make it easier for you to do it? Would be recognized as the homeland of people X aid this in any way?
You keep going on about what Quebec does for the English minority. Yet, I’ve already demonstrated that the ROC treats French speakers out of proportion to their numbers. You have said it doesn’t matter what we do for French minorities in the ROC, why do you bring up things about how the English speakers are treated in Quebec? You say we have no substance and we’re doing the same thing you are.
You don’t listen. You want what you want and it doesn’t matter what others do or say. You want to have this two founding nations thing, yet there are more than two original peoples who founded and built Canada. Recognizing this gets in the way of allowing you to have a special designation, I guess.
I don’t resent you. I just want whiners to shut up about things that happened 250 years ago whenever some history geek wants to role play. Actually, that doesn’t really bother me, either. Anyone should have the right to bitch. What you shouldn’t have the right to do is stop people from doing things that any rational person knows isn’t harming you in the least. Instead of bitching about a group of people dressing up in old time clothes, maybe you should ask the organizers to be allowed to setup a booth and present your side of the story.
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