An intolerant people named Québec

Originally Posted by loyalist

Are you insane?
Firstly, Canadien culture came about out of neccesity and not as a rebllion to France.

That I agree with you Loyalist, his reaction was very defensive and his argument was false at that: it probably was an unargumented knee-jerk defensive reaction. People can get awfully defensive about thier convictions, you know that.

Originally Posted by loyalist

Secondly,The British gave all sorts of powers to the French-Canadian community through the Quebec Act and allowed French civil law to go on existing. For a conquest, those are some pretty damn generous terms. Throughout it's history as a colony and Canadian province, Quebec was allowed to keep its own French institutions by allowing the Catholic church to continue community operations in French.

True, the post-Conquest political stance was awfully generous to the French-speaking populace, but do you know why? It was by sheer number force, simple as that. The French-speaking inhabitants, even after the post-Conquest influx of immigration, outnumbered the English-speaking ones by a significant margin. Forcing the immense majority of a population to change their way of life could have easily led to an uprising, especially if they didn't support the Catholic Church (which in turn supported them) like they did, since faith was very important to the French inhabitants. It was a generous deal, but one rather forced by the circumsyances, it wasn't entirely out of the good will of her Majesty.

Originally Posted by loyalist

Thirdly, Bill 101 didn't "ask" English businesses to advertise in French, it forces English people into French schools, French advertising and business in French. It even had an appeal at the UN! It was an active attempt to destroy Anlgo culture and forced us (or tried to) to speak a lanuage that's not our own. Even the British colonial office never passed such a repressive law.

The current Bill 101 does not forces English people into French schools, but it does force immigrants into French schools until the end of high school though. It did ban advertising in English for its first few years (which I think was wrong), but now enforces that French is predominant in advertising, to avoid situations similar to the 50s Montreal, where even buisness ran by French people only advertised in English.

Bill 101 is not an attempt at destroying a culture, it's an attempt at protecting what is left of another. Similar laws have been used in other countries:

• Lituania adopted a similar law to protect its own language from russian and english;
• Israel adopted in 1998 a law that obliged its radio stations to broadcast at least half their songs in Hebrew;
• heck, even California adopted in 1986 a Bill that made English the only official language of the State, it's even stated in the preamble that there is an obligation to "preserve, protect and reinforce the English language", it also made English the obligatory learning language to immigrants.

Originally Posted by loyalist

I have no qualm with people speaking French. It seems that some nationalists ahve a problem with anyone speaking, educating or going about their business with English in Quebec!

Anglos have been in Quebec for centuries, we are part of the province, too. Don't tell us to go home...we already are at home!

Yup, just like some people seem to abhor Quebec nationalists as a whole! But like you said, it's some people, and not all nationalists by a long shot. And yes, you're as much at home as anyone that lives in Quebec, that's not the issue here.

And yes, I'm a nationalist.

EDITED for typos.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by lordjames

Turbot's right when he says that the generous conditions in the Quebec Act were implemented on the basis of necessity, and not because the British were benign and wanted to give Quebec a fair deal. Canadian history has shown that Quebec gets what it wants because it reacts viciously against causes that are important to the province, with some recent examples being Equalization, Adscam, provincial rights and the health accords. It also helps that the province has an abundance of voters that, in many areas, routinely shift political allegiance at the drop of a dime.

I wouldn't say viciously, but strongly, but I won't go into a semantics debate with you lordjames... And yeah, people here have a tendancy of being political girouettes based on what better suits them, or sometimes even on their feelings. I blame our latin temperament, heh.

Originally Posted by lordjames

Protecting the French language is a pretty moot goal, though. If the winds of change blow against the necessity of the French language, then just let it run its course if its not palpably harmful. If French is replaced by English, than the Quebecoise will be able to participate in the global economy that much more easily, and their relationship with the ROC will be that much better. Bottom line: Quebeckers must decide whether protecting the French language is really worth the opportunity cost of a considerably higher standard of living. And really, is it really that important to have an identity so nominally distinct from the ROC (I say nominally because the differences are actually quite negligible, but are trumped up whenever some Quebec politician wants to play the nationalist card to get himself elected)?

Bill 101's protection is not about protecting a necessary language, it's about protecting a language that is an integral part of Quebec's culture. And that's where we disagree: to me, Quebec's difference is not negligible. And that's how many (and dare I say all) nationalists feel, it's not only a politician's trump card... Quebec and the RoC share a lot of common ideals but differ on some points, akin to Canada as a whole and the US, but on a different scale.

Also, speaking French doesn't forbid us from speaking English (obviously!) and being a part of the global economy (or the continental economy for that matter): as far as I heard, the Chinese and French are pretty good in that, and their population is far from being as bilingual as Quebec's population (about 40% of Quebecers speak both English and French)!

Anyways, getting mighty late, sorry if I'm not very clear.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by loyalist

So you FORCE immigrants into your culture? To be honest, if your culture can't stay alive by positive means (ie, encouraging Quebecosi art, culture and discussion) and you're resorting to outright opression to keep it alive (forcing American, British and other English-speaking immigrants into a school where they are bound to struggle as they learn boht the material and a new lanuage), perhaps it's time for the nationalists to have a long, hard talk with themsleves.

Did you even read what I said loyalist?

First, immigrants from English-speaking countries can get into English school if they wish, that part of Bill 101 applies to people who would have to learn a new language to function in our society anyways. It is not, in any case, opression.

Second, California is doing the same thing (maybe actually worse, when you think about it, since I'm not aware of the existence of a parallel educational system, but don't quote me on that) with its Spanish-speaking population since 1986! Are you going to call English-speaking Californians opressive bigots as well?

While you are at it, you might as well blame Canada as a whole for its cultural protection laws (i.e. Canadian content quotas on TV), since the country is obviously too weak to protect its culture by positive means... Prejudices, knee-jerk reactions and gross exagerations are the worse possible things to do in a political argument.

Originally Posted by loyalist

Goodwill or not, it still happend, and that's what important. I never claimed it was done out of goodwill, I merely claimed that it did, in fact, occur.

We agree on that, I was just making it clear it wasn't only out of her Majesty's goodwill.

Originally Posted by loyalist

Given that it was the Feds who protected us when nationalists came to power, I don't see our situation improving in the...unlikely event of a Republic of Quebec. Nationalists are the kind of people who would kisnap one of their own (an elected official), kill him and mock him in a subsequent communique. Then, two decades later, rig a referendum AND lose. Good luck at meeting Clarity Act standards with that kind of attitude.

The October '70 Crisis is not representative of all of Quebec nationalists, especially now. The FLQ always was a fringe idealistic group: some people may have agreed with their left-wing values and their stance on independance, but that all shattered the first time they killed someone. Do you sincerely think nationalist Quebecers approved the kidnapping of James Cross and the assasination of Pierre Laporte...?

Also, please tell me how the '95 referendum was rigged by the PQ (as I assume you are saying)? I'm curious on what you support this. I heard there was fraud on both sides, but with greater occurence from the No camp, along with grey-zone tactics from federal organisms (I can go search for my sources if you wish me to).

While you are at it, can you tell me how and why did the federal government protect you from the nationalists? As far as I know, the English-speaking Quebecers' situation is far from bad compared to other official language minorities... French-speaking inhabitants of Saskatchewan were forbidden to have French schools until 1995!

And I'm not even going to comment the Clarity Act introduced by Mr. Dion... that's another topic altogether....

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