Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by harls

Can you imagine liojack using it for expedited service since it would be woefully underused?

Indeed.

At the same time though, they would be complaining bitterly how a dedicated anglo checkout was yet another sign of how pampered the anglo minority in Quebec is.

BTW, I am in no way arguing in favour of dedicated checkout lines in la belle province for the English speaking minority. That would be silly (and antagonistic).

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Indeed.

At the same time though, they would be complaining bitterly how a dedicated anglo checkout was yet another sign of how pampered the anglo minority in Quebec is.

BTW, I am in no way arguing in favour of dedicated checkout lines in la belle province for the English speaking minority. That would be silly (and antagonistic).

Dedicated checkout lines for a linguistic minority sounds more like something the SANB would advocate for in NB! Only in the Anglo areas of the province. No dedicated check-out lines for Anglo NB in Edmundston, Caraquet etc!!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Do they have an English checkout line???

He lives in Aylmer. Every checkout out line is the English checkout line.

Though they're also nice enough to us for every checkout line to also be the French checkout line.

For the moment at least!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

Yeah but the huge difference is that for one group it’s what they’re supposed to want to avoid while for the other it’s the opposite.

Anglos from the Non side who are detrimental to Canadian unity = counterproductive and idiotic

Nationalist Québécois who are detrimental to Canadian unity = things going as planned

This sums it up quite perfectly.

Note that this latest debate was triggered by a post by TheWave, who is an anglophone from Northern Ontario I think. He said basically the same thing as me, though with less diplomatic language like "fuck the anglo community in Quebec".

[MolsonExport]

^and that remark was eagerly accepted by all the francophones participating in this thread...at the very least, it wasn't challenged whatsoever. Silence is deafening.

I guess it is better to know where one's community stands, in relation to the majority. You guys are constantly asking for sympathy, while giving absolutely none. All while playing footsie with the foreign agent provocateur.

[Acajack]

Guess I missed all the applaudissements...

[harls]

Originally Posted by Acajack

He lives in Aylmer. Every checkout out line is the English checkout line.

Though they're also nice enough to us for every checkout line to also be the French checkout line.

For the moment at least!

They all serve me in French to begin with, how dare they! I get so flustered when they push that local language on me first, and I'm so relieved when they see how hapless I am that they just sigh and start placating me.

(Seriously, I am just projecting a stereotype from Shawville)

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^and that remark was eagerly accepted by all the francophones participating in this thread...at the very least, it wasn't challenged whatsoever. Silence is deafening.

I guess it is better to know where one's community stands, in relation to the majority. You guys are constantly asking for sympathy, while giving absolutely none. All while playing footsie with the foreign agent provocateur.

Indeed. New Brisavoine has certainly cranked up the heat on this thread since his arrival.

I have accepted the fact he is a metropolitan French citizen, but, he is probably a French Communist Party member being paid by Putin to stir up resentment and discontent in a major North American nation.

All to deflect attention from Russian political assasinations and Russian misconduct in Ukraine.

Well played NB, well played.................

[Acajack]

Just to make things clear: I have no reason at all to believe that Harls exhibits angryphone behaviour when out and about in public.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Indeed.

At the same time though, they would be complaining bitterly how a dedicated anglo checkout was yet another sign of how pampered the anglo minority in Quebec is.

BTW, I am in no way arguing in favour of dedicated checkout lines in la belle province for the English speaking minority. That would be silly (and antagonistic).

Ironically, there is already a dedicated French service line in the ROC for francophones in a lots of places, like airports, border crossings, etc. (Though they don't always or often live up to the billing.)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

It has certainly helped to coalesce anglophone pollical support around the Blaine Higgs PC government. The Liberals are widely viewed as the Nouveau Parti Acadien, controlled by the SAANB. If Higgs were a less antagonistic Premier, the Acadian population could have been shut out of power for generations.

I'd really like to know what all of these new political and linguistic fronts that NB Acadiens have opened up antagonistically, to the point where it has caused a backlash among anglophones in the province to the benefit of Blaine Higgs.

I follow New Brunswick news as I have lots of family there and I am not hearing about these unreasonable Acadien demands.

[harls]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Just to make things clear: I have no reason at all to believe that Harls exhibits angryphone behaviour when out and about in public.

I certainly could become an angryphone with one simple snap of the fingers.

But.. why?

Why be a dickhead with the grocery check out person that can't speak English?

Why be a belligerent twat with that dude earning minimum wage at Ashton in Quebec City?

Even dealing with getting health cards and drivers licenses.. give an effort to speak in French and see how much further it will get you.

I knew this in 2001 when I moved here, with high school French.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Well, if your opinion is that the anglophone minority in Quebec is completely illegitimate (despite being present for nearly 250 years), and deserves to be actively suppressed, with no guarantee of linguistic rights beyond grudgingly allowed constitutional mandates, then I don't want to hear you complain any more about the state of francophone minorities elsewhere in Canada.
.

No I don't think that the anglo community in Quebec is illegitimate or should be suppressed, and I think its institutions should be maintained.

That said, I don't think the growth of its institutions should be an open bar and there needs to be a check on them, given the dynamics in Canada and North America, lest they become all of the dominant ones and over time slowly snuff out the francophone ones.

Already we have one example in the Montreal area where there are more students in English-language post-secondary institutions (comfortably over 50%) than in francophone ones, in spite of the fact that anglophones are only about 20% of the region's population.

Most Quebec taxpayers are francophones. I don't see why we should be subsidizing our own assimilation by overbuilding and overgrowing anglophone institutions more than they already are.

A reasonable person should be able to understand this.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I follow New Brunswick news as I have lots of family there and I am not hearing about these unreasonable Acadien demands.

The Acadians have been keeping a low profile recently.

The most recent dust up was over Acadian demands that all paramedics in the province (even in darkest Charlotte County) be bilingual, despite the francophone population down there being 1%, and, despite a chronic severe shortage of paramedics in the province (regardless of linguistic capability).

About once a year, the Commissioner of Bilingualism in the province issues a report (generally describing how horrible things are for the francophone minority). This regularly inflames tensions. On the other side of the coin, the only thing most anglophone NBers (especially in the southern and western part of the province) see is a provincial civil service largely occupied by bilingual Acadians, whose first language is obviously French, often speaking English adequately, but, slowly and in a limited manner. This breeds resentment (just as it would in Quebec if somebody from the Saguenay had to deal with a bilingual anglophone from Montreal for a workplace claim of some kind, and the anglophone only had barely acceptable bilingualism skills).

Finally the President of the SAANB generally goes off half cocked about once a year saying crazy things about what needs to be done to placate the Acadian minority.

It's not that there has been any real recent affront to the anglophone majority, it's just the feeling that whatever concessions that are made will never be enough. This causes resentment and impatience which has been building for the last 25 years or so.

Please keep in mind that the vast majority of anglophones agree that bilingual services are important and should be guaranteed ( which is probably more than what most francophones in Quebec would guarantee to the anglophone minority there). The issue is primarily related to how extensive these services should be, and where they should be available (ie - everywhere in the province or just in places with a significant francophone population). I firmly believe that maybe except for a small 5% minority, most anglophones in NB have genuine goodwill to their Acadian brothers. They just want a little give and take (reasonableness and compromise).

[bobi]

Official trailer of Québexit

• Video Link


I watched it yesterday (on Amazon Prime). It’s not very good, it actually felt like watching a bad summer theater play, but for the same reason it does capture something of the political predicament of the federation.

Btw, the filmmaker, Joshua Demers, was born in Alberta of an Ontarian mother and a Québécois father. He was schooled in French, and lives in Ontario.

[harls]

Originally Posted by bobi

I watched it yesterday (on Amazon Prime). It’s not very good, it actually felt like watching a bad summer theater play, but for the same reason it does capture something of the political predicament of the federation.

It looked sort of interesting, but I suspect it was the algorithm pushing it on me.

Did not watch.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

The Acadians have been keeping a low profile recently.

The most recent dust up was over Acadian demands that all paramedics in the province (even in darkest Charlotte County) be bilingual, despite the francophone population down there being 1%, and, despite a chronic severe shortage of paramedics in the province (regardless of linguistic capability).

About once a year, the Commissioner of Bilingualism in the province issues a report (generally describing how horrible things are for the francophone minority). This regularly inflames tensions. On the other side of the coin, the only thing most anglophone NBers (especially in the southern and western part of the province) see is a provincial civil service largely occupied by bilingual Acadians, whose first language is obviously French, often speaking English adequately, but, slowly and in a limited manner. This breeds resentment (just as it would in Quebec if somebody from the Saguenay had to deal with a bilingual anglophone from Montreal for a workplace claim of some kind, and the anglophone only had barely acceptable bilingualism skills).

Finally the President of the SAANB generally goes off half cocked about once a year saying crazy things about what needs to be done to placate the Acadian minority.

It's not that there has been any real recent affront to the anglophone majority, it's just the feeling that whatever concessions that are made will never be enough. This causes resentment and impatience which has been building for the last 25 years or so.

Please keep in mind that the vast majority of anglophones agree that bilingual services are important and should be guaranteed ( which is probably more than what most francophones in Quebec would guarantee to the anglophone minority there). The issue is primarily related to how extensive these services should be, and where they should be available (ie - everywhere in the province or just in places with a significant francophone population). I firmly believe that maybe except for a small 5% minority, most anglophones in NB have genuine goodwill to their Acadian brothers. They just want a little give and take (reasonableness and compromise).

Any updates about the school bus issue which arose around separate English/French school buses vs. bilingual buses?

And one can imagine the outage from the SANB if this happened to Franco kids in NB:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-b...left-1.7010136

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Any updates about the school bus issue which arose around separate English/French school buses vs. bilingual buses?

And one can imagine the outage from the SANB if this happened to Franco kids in NB:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-b...left-1.7010136

A non issue at present, but, AFAIK, there are no blended busses in NB. French busses for French students and English busses for English students.

[Acajack]

AFAIK the school bus issue is not a new demand from the SANB. It's the way things have been done for a while (separate buses) and the government now wants mixed buses to save money. So the SANB is not asking for anything new. They're reacting to what they see as a clawback of their rights.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

The Acadians have been keeping a low profile recently.

The most recent dust up was over Acadian demands that all paramedics in the province (even in darkest Charlotte County) be bilingual, despite the francophone population down there being 1%, and, despite a chronic severe shortage of paramedics in the province (regardless of linguistic capability).

About once a year, the Commissioner of Bilingualism in the province issues a report (generally describing how horrible things are for the francophone minority). This regularly inflames tensions. On the other side of the coin, the only thing most anglophone NBers (especially in the southern and western part of the province) see is a provincial civil service largely occupied by bilingual Acadians, whose first language is obviously French, often speaking English adequately, but, slowly and in a limited manner. This breeds resentment (just as it would in Quebec if somebody from the Saguenay had to deal with a bilingual anglophone from Montreal for a workplace claim of some kind, and the anglophone only had barely acceptable bilingualism skills).

Finally the President of the SAANB generally goes off half cocked about once a year saying crazy things about what needs to be done to placate the Acadian minority.

It's not that there has been any real recent affront to the anglophone majority, it's just the feeling that whatever concessions that are made will never be enough. This causes resentment and impatience which has been building for the last 25 years or so.

Please keep in mind that the vast majority of anglophones agree that bilingual services are important and should be guaranteed ( which is probably more than what most francophones in Quebec would guarantee to the anglophone minority there). The issue is primarily related to how extensive these services should be, and where they should be available (ie - everywhere in the province or just in places with a significant francophone population). I firmly believe that maybe except for a small 5% minority, most anglophones in NB have genuine goodwill to their Acadian brothers. They just want a little give and take (reasonableness and compromise).

“On vous accommode… raisonnablement.”
https://youtu.be/_jSp-uZiMMs?si=6_IspS35wkDsiBYr (That’s where I got that line.)