Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I've re-read several times and don't see what he did that was so bad. Or even that grossly inaccurate?

Certainly no worse than accusing people who are simply reading the tea leaves (ie many Canadians would like immigrants to integrate better) of personally wanting an all-white Canada.

Why is it that you and Lio always have to doubt my impressions?

I'm telling you that my sentiments were grossly distorted, by the agent provocateur (who only posts to advance Quebec separatism and to slander Canada). You really think that I am pining away for a Canada of 100 million, filled with English-speakers, so that, I don't know, we can achieve some grandeur as a country?

I never said anything remotely to this effect. And you know it.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Why is it that you and Lio always have to doubt my impressions?

I'm telling you that my sentiments were grossly distorted, by the agent provocateur (who only posts to advance Quebec separatism and to slander Canada). You really think that I am pining away for a Canada of 100 million, filled with English-speakers, so that, I don't know, we can achieve some grandeur as a country?

I never said anything remotely to this effect. And you know it.

You are the one who brought up "loss of global heft" in the context of discussing why Japan is either A) going to be OK or B) heading for disaster, and the (extremely unlikely) hypothesis of Canada following their example.

Now I don't know if you have expressed support for the Century Initiative (maybe not?) but our current intake is certainly putting us on that path. Perhaps attaining 100 million a lot sooner than 2100. Maybe 2060?

Have you expressed support for scaling back our intake significantly? I don't recall so, but if you have and I missed it, I apologize in advance.

That said a lot of people seem to be reluctant to even talk about scaling back the intake because it would put them on the same side as "deplorables" who may be asking that for not very noble reasons.

I know it's very en vogue to do that these days, but I think it's insane to judge a policy or forgo one based on who you like better - those who are for it or those who are against it.

I am not going to say that Richard Wagner was a shitty composer just because he was a favourite of Hitler's.

(Not necessarily singling you out BTW. Just calling out the... zeitgeist.)

[MolsonExport]

Don't put words in my mouth. And if you have an issue with what I said, the PM function is there for you to use.

[niwell]

At this stage in the game I don't think immigration for immigrations sake - at least at our current level - is quite the shibboleth it was, even though there's still broad support for immigration as a concept. I run in an admittedly quite left wing crowd (economically speaking, not so much the current iteration) and the general view is that we shouldn't be bringing in people that have very little hope of succeeding / finding anything close to acceptable housing. If things were in a better position that would be a different conversation. This obviously doesn't represent everyone but there is a noticeable sea change on the ground from what I can tell. And of course when we spend time at our place in Eastern Ontario things I hear are a bit more... vocal.

The general attitude in Canada is a far cry from what's happening in some other places in the world, but I do fear if things continue on this trajectory it will become more reactionary. As has been said in the politics thread a change in government may not shift said trajectory as much as some may want.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by niwell

At this stage in the game I don't think immigration for immigrations sake - at least at our current level - is quite the shibboleth it was, even though there's still broad support for immigration as a concept. I run in an admittedly quite left wing crowd (economically speaking, not so much the current iteration) and the general view is that we shouldn't be bringing in people that have very little hope of succeeding / finding anything close to acceptable housing. If things were in a better position that would be a different conversation. This obviously doesn't represent everyone but there is a noticeable sea change on the ground from what I can tell. And of course when we spend time at our place in Eastern Ontario things I hear are a bit more... vocal.

The general attitude in Canada is a far cry from what's happening in some other places in the world, but I do fear if things continue on this trajectory it will become more reactionary. As has been said in the politics thread a change in government may not shift said trajectory as much as some may want.

Giorgia Meloni says "buongiorno!"

[kool maudit]

The Canadian Tories are not even really running on anti-immigration, it's more like a vague "we're gonna set things right" with maybe the more egregious recent programs being implicit in that.

Europe is starting to see some real anti-immigration politics, and it looks nothing like Canada. It would be foreign-seeming to even very conservative Canadians, I suspect. You could call the Trump "America First" construct kind of a dog-whistle or plausible deniability, and sometimes it is, but even those guys one on one are kind of like "we're spending all that over there but what about this country?" There is still that New World liberalism implicit in their framings...

... whereas in Europe it is really just "get the fuck out".

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

The Canadian Tories are not even really running on anti-immigration, it's more like a vague "we're gonna set things right" with maybe the more egregious recent programs being implicit in that.

Europe is starting to see some real anti-immigration politics, and it looks nothing like Canada. It would be foreign-seeming to even very conservative Canadians, I suspect. You could call the Trump "America First" construct kind of a dog-whistle or plausible deniability, and sometimes it is, but even those guys one on one are kind of like "we're spending all that over there but what about this country?" There is still that New World liberalism implicit in their framings...

... whereas in Europe it is really just "get the fuck out".

Canada as usual will be one of the very last arrivals at he "party" if you can call it that.

And as has happened often in the past, the party might be mostly over by the time we get there.

[kool maudit]

Elaborating on that a little bit, we have family friends in the US that are pretty Republican, and I know those guys, I talk politics with them, they follow Tucker Carlson and all that. They voted Trump.

And it's not like they're secret cosmopolitans. They're fed up, they're willing to point the finger. Some of them can be racist. But there is still a LOT of Boomer civic religion in them. There is still a lot of faith in an American experiment that contains Ellis Island, a lot of their dads or grandfathers came through there, even.

Whereas there are times on this side of the pond where guys will get talking right-wing politics and as a Canadian, you're like... "holy shit, these are the fucking Germans." Or these are the French, the Italians even. And the in-group lines are very old and they're hot right now, and it just feels different.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

As a French-speaking Canadian, it's actually a bit refreshing to go the US (especially on the coasts) and find that my language actually has a bit of residual prestige there, something which you generally don't get in Canada where French is often seen either as a low-brow language or an unfair imposition.

Oh, of course France and French culture has a good image in the US (prestigious products adopting a French name, umpteenth book about French women able to reconcile working, raising kids, and staying fit, etc). But there's also a very obvious streak of Francophobia that is still present, and ready to raise its ugly head whenever France is seen not to rubber stamp whatever the "leader of the free world" decides (think of that ugly car commercial mocking the French and their long vacations, which was posted in this thread already).

It's a sort of low-key love-hate relationship. They both admire and despise France. The country is both seen with envy and with horror, an example to follow (lifestyle, chic, effortlessly fit etc), or precisely the example of what not to do (long vacations, "Socialist" laws, many workers' rights, etc).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Giorgia Meloni says "buongiorno!"

Actually she's working on it. But all you'll hear from the liberal medias is "see, ah ah ah, she was elected and nothing changes, she's unable to stem the tide, ah ah ah".

I see this a lot in left-wing French media (such as Le Monde), and it's frankly annoying. Journalists these days are not so much interested in facts as in having their biases confirmed. Same with how Milei's Argentina is constantly mocked ("see the disaster with Milei's reforms, told you so, ah ah ah", etc).

In the real world, things that the media don't report a lot, she's started to do several things that no previous Italian government had done, such as entering in negotiations with Albania (a country outside the EU) to send "asylum seekers" (most of them in fact economic migrants) who cross the Med and land in Italy to camps erected in Albania where their asylum claims will be examined by Italy. Albania is eager to establish friendly relationships with Italy to have an ally to push for their entry in the EU.

The British "Rwanda scheme" has failed miserably, but Meloni's Albania scheme is on track, and it will be a game changer. Several other European gouvernements have now said they would like to copy Italy and open camps in Albania for asylum seekers, but Albania has said they will allow only Italy to do so (at least for now).

She has also negotiated with the dictator of Tunisia so that Tunisia send migrants back to the Sahara desert. France and Germany are uneasy about negotiations with Kaïs Saïed because of his disrespect for democracy and the rule of law, but Meloni has no such qualms, and she has a very business-like relationship with Tunisia, which is quite appreciated in Tunisia, and as a result the Tunisian authorities have done for Italy what they wouldn't have granted to France for example (but it works in France's favor anyway, since many of these sub-Saharan African immigrants crossing the Med from Tunisia to Italy are ultimately headed to France).

Lately the gleeful criticism by liberal medias has been the fact Meloni said Italy needs immigrants to man many sectors (like healthcare), so we've had many sarcastic articles all too eager to say "see, the far-right is just a big sham in fact", but they haven't paid attention to the fact Meloni said she would grant preferential treatment to immigrants of Italian descent, of whom millions live in Venezuela and Argentina and are very eager to leave these countries and go to Italy. That's quite different from integrating sub-Saharan African "asylum seekers".

I don't particularly like her, but I have to admit in the short time she's been in power she's done more to try and solve the immigration problem than Macron in 7 years or Merkel in 16 years.

[Truenorth00]

Francophobia sounds just like the Russophobia nonsense the Russians use in their propaganda.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Francophobia sounds just like the Russophobia nonsense the Russians use in their propaganda.

Some Canadians see French as an imposition, but the vast majority don't really care because it has little to no impact on their lives. As for it being viewed as a low-brow language, I've never heard that about French in general, only concerning Quebecois French compared to standard French. But that opinion doesn't originate in Canada.