You know it’s a really hot-button issue when GOBEAR doesn’t want to get involved! 
(because of all the misunderstandings today, gonna work on preempting one: this is funny to me because you have never seemed to me one to shy away from issues you feel strongly about, whether or not they’re controversial. This is a good thing)
Thanks Gobear 
That made me giggle! I think what you’re looking for is “calins a tous” (France), or “caresses a tous!” (Quebec)
Hee.
And I were a Canadian, I’d probably have jumped in, but I know not to tread on this as an outsider.
We see you as our safe, nonthreatening neighbor and as a result we don’t pay you much attention. Maybe you should invade Maine–it would help your national unity and it would get America to take you seriously. 
Wear burnooses and put up English, French, and Arabic signs on the border. Refer to your PM as Paul Aziz bin Martin al Haj. Have your newsreaders on the CBC pepper their speech with “and that’s the news from Edmonton, inshallah, eh?”
You’ll have us crapping ourselves within hours.
You could start calling us “le grand diable, les Etats-Unis”
OOoohhh, I’m rolling on the floor!
Le grand Satan, les Etats-Unis would be better. Sorry I’m late (not really), I wanted to read the whole thread before posting. Since I didn’t see the skit (don’t have cable), I have to rely on what has been posted in that thread. So… in general I don’t think much will occur from that incident, it will be forgotten in 2 weeks (of course, if there was a provincial election on the horizon, it would be another thing). The main fallout I can see, is if Conan is asked to host a gala at this summer’s Just for Laughs festival :D. He’ll probably be welcomed with a brique et un fanal. The only thing that will probably save the situation, is the fact that it is an American who made these comments, if it would have been an Anglo-Canadian, they’re would have been riots in the street tonight.
With regards to earlier comments about TO being the venue of choice for ridiculing Quebeckers, I must say to the contrary that, to my shame, I think it would have played equally well throughout the west, with the exception of Winnipeg. Saskatoon, Calgary, Kamloops, receptive audiences all. There’s bugger-all for understanding of the issue out here. To be honest, I think the majority opinion is that the whole seperatist movement is just extortion to squeeze extra money and special treatment out of Ottawa. I know many people who would have laughed at much of it, and nodded sagely at the ‘learn English’ comment.
However, if y’all took it in turns to conduct workshops on how to make proper poutines for restaurant personnel out here, perhaps the linguistic rifts would all be healed? Ignorance must be fought.
jarbabyj, I wouldn’t worry. This is our perennial issue, and it can lead to a siege mentality at times. Us vs. Them with both sides playing both roles. However, the broadly tolerant Canada that you normally see is the result of all this vitriol. You can not live together this long, more or less peacefully with these kinds of issues and not have the idea of compromise and tolerance imprinted on you brain. I don’t know of too many countries where these kinds of feeling result in constitutional debates rather than civil war.
Uhm Cheeky you wouldn’t happen to know anyone from RVR high school would you?
Like I said: I don’t care to watch that or have it funded by the government.
No worries jar, I think most of us here can understand why Americans would find the whole thing pretty crazy and out of character. Honestly, we are a fairly prosperous and stable country, why in the world would there be such friction?
I think you’ll find little nuggets like this in all sorts of places you don’t expect. For example why, after (what, 160 years?) are there still southerners that object to being called yankees? (remember, our October crisis is only 30 years ago) and from what I gather there is also a Swedish minority in Finland that have similar language issues to us.
Me, obviously.
And I’m glad to see this has wound down.
As a datum, I’ve lived in Saint-Henri for three and a half years and have never gotten any flack for being an Anglo, in Montreal, Laval, Quebec City, or Laurier-Station. I was at least fairly bilingual by the time I finished cegep, and am now fluent, force de le parler at work and with friends.
Honestly, I think people have settled down at each other a great deal (especially during the time I’ve lived in Quebec… since August 1995), but neither side is exactly calm enough to laugh off the random, witless slinging of ethnic insults yet, which frankly I can’t see as unreasonable, whether it’s a puppet or not.
To a certain degree I can understand and sympathize with what Cheeky’s gone through in the past. Perhaps better than many Americans. I too was an “anglophone”…only the difference was that I was not in Quebec, or anywhere near Canada. I was in South Texas.
I don’t know if anyone here is from Texas, but the southernmost region of the state is called the “Rio Grande Valley”…and the population has always been a Mexican majority. Since the 1970s, the Mexican population there has increased dramatically; I think the last census said that something like 92 or 93% of the households had at least one member who was from Mexico. More often, it would be at least both parents, and probably some, if not all, the children, too (Cite: My parents, who still live there, who saw it on a local news report).
I was fortunate to live in what was a largely “white” city in the early 80s. Still, because I had pale, not brown skin, and because I spoke English, not Spanish (well, not conversational Spanish), I would get the crap beat out of me on a weekly basis. At one time, I was called in to talk to police about abuse…my chest was entirely black and blue, and one of my Phys. Ed. coaches (who saw me in the locker room changing) called the cops thinking my parents beat me. No, it was the chicano kids who didn’t like me because I spoke English. People had no problem with me being Jewish, but a gringo was unacceptable.
Today, in the Valley, if you are a gringo, often you will get 2nd-rate service from the business’ staff. My mother works in a hospital; oftentimes she will get a patient who will pretend to speak no English, even though it says on their chart that they speak it fluently. Why? 1) she’s a woman and 2) she’s white.
Now, I know that many Mexican men and women are not like that, but also consider this: for a while, the McAllen ISD (where I went to school) was considering making Spanish a required language and English an optional elective. Fortunately, the school board defeated it. As it is today, Valley kids do not get MLK Day off, but they do get Cesar Chavez Day off.
Chanes are, if you were to put it up to a vote, the people of the Rio Grande Valley would choose to secede from the Union and join Mexico. Why? Because Mexicans are superior in every way than Americans. (this is not to imply that I think that Americans are superior, etc…I don’t think anyone is “superior”…just different.)
Fortunately, the Valley has never had problems like what Cheeky was talking about in Quebec. All the same, the immigrants from Mexico have the same sort of hubris that the Quebecois do. It’s scary, and very dangerous.
Hubris? Explain, please. If possible, avoid equating the terms ‘Canadian’ and ‘Anglophone Canadian.’
Hubris: Presumption, orig. towards the gods; pride, excessive self-confidence. (cite: Oxford English Dictionary) It originates from the Greek word “hybris” (transliterated into Roman characters)
Another definition, from the Miriam-Webster online dictionary: exaggerated pride or self-confidence
In the terms of what I’m talking about, hubris means having such self-pride that anyone who thinks differently than you is not only incorrect, but they are almost subhuman.
To make it perfectly clear for you, the Francophiles feel that they are so superior and are so “endangered” by those evil, horrible Anglophiles that they make life as unlivable for them as possible (creating such things as the Language Police or beating up kids because they are Anglophiles, etc.). In short, they have pride in their language, culture, etc. to the point of error.
Many in the international community would call Americans hubristic (that of having qualities found in hubris), especially after the Iraq war.
Oh, and I apologize profusely for, as you put it, equating “Canadians” with “Anglophone Canadians.”
I’ll let the French-Canadians on this board explain to you the usefulness of regulations protecting the right to use French. I’m just going to say that I find it intensely humorous that you’re telling an anglophone Quebecer how oppressed I am. Without question, I would rather be an anglophone in Quebec than a francophone in, for example, Saskatchewan.*
And let’s distinguish between the OQLF, including paranoid fantasies thereof, and physical assault, if you don’t mind.
*Note: Random choice of province where service in French is unlikely.
I’m guessing that you haven’t actually read this entire thread, huh?
Never once have I professed myself to be an expert on Canadian politics of any sort, much less those dealing with the separatists. All I was implying in my first post in this thread is thatI have been able to find similarities (I wouldn’t dare say parallels) between my (obviously ) rudimentary knowledge of the above and life in the southernmost reaches of the United States.
Well, if we agree, then why are we arguing?
First, I apologize for the double-post (I didn’t see Alice’s post before posting my latest one)…
I’ll admit, I hadn’t read through all of the posts (yet)…However, the stuff I’ve been talking about come from several years worth of talks with people who have lived in Quebec (Montreal, to be specific) and listening to their stories of life there. It is compounded with the time that I’ve spent in Montreal (admittedly nowhere near the amount of time some others have spent there, but still enough to get an impression). This is compounded again with the experiences I’ve had growing up in Deep South Texas.
Well, let me fill you in here. Essentially, your description of Francophones did a pretty effective job of making you look like an ignorant ass. Had you read the whole thread, including the posts from Franco Canadians that had been put down, insulted and generally treated like crap by their Anglo counterparts, I’m sure you wouldn’t have made such a rediculous, one sided post.
Perhaps you should read the whole thread, and then rethink your comments.
NB - I’m an Anglo living in ALBERTA of all places, but I lived in Quebec long enough to see descrimination and general shittyness on both sides of the issue.