Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
I suppose.
Maybe not you, but I've never understood why bilingual labelling was viewed by so many ROCers as this huge concession to Quebec and francophones.
I mean, we're here on the land mass and we're a decent-sized market. Even if Quebec had been independent since 1995, 1980 or even before that there'd probably be some type of fairly extensive trade agreement and many, many products sold in Canada would still have English-French bilingual labelling.
We're not part of the same country as Mexico and tons of products already have Spanish on them as well today. (And the US has even more Spanish on labels and such and they're not part of Mexico either and Spanish isn't even an official language.)
When I hear people say this stuff it's as if they've never travelled abroad in their entire lives.
"Let Quebec separate - then we won't have any more of that damned French on our bloody cereal boxes!"
I think not. Not unless you want 25% of the workers at Kellogg's in Toronto to lose their jobs.
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Muliti-lingual or bilingual labels don't bother me, never have. You were just talking as if there is no protection of the French language whatsoever and I picked out an easy one that every one of us sees every day.
In browsing a few pages of this thread I'm a little taken aback by the impression that people from Quebec (not all, I'm sure, but a majority? I don't know) seem to think you're still at war with the English, and have to fight vigorously to keep them from taking your language and culture from you. Meanwhile, most people in the rest of Canada (IMHO) think of Quebec as just another province where most people speak French.
I don't know... it just feels a little weird to be continually reading that 'us vs them' attitude that seems to indicate that there is still some kind of debt that has to be paid for something that another country did 200+ years ago during periods of war that resulted in the developing of Canada. Most of the rest of us seem to feel that this is ancient history and it's time to move on - the war is over, we now have a great and strong country that goes further than most in recognizing and being respectful of the various cultures, the two most prominent of which are Indigenous and French (which includes the Quebecois with all the accents). And yet you are still talking about separation as if it's a cycle that should come up every decade or so until the argument is compelling enough to go through with it.
Just like when Albertans were talking about separation over oil revenues, this pisses me off. I'm a Canadian, always have been, and I love Canada. I love the diverse cultures and geographical features that each part of the country offers. I love the country as a whole and enjoy meeting people from each part of it and learning about how they live their lives. And yet, one of the provinces doesn't really think of itself as a province and would be more than happy to break up the country if it were feasible to do so.
It's a good discussion and I'm learning quite a bit, but I have to say that I'm losing some of the positive feelings I had for the people of Quebec. Anytime I've visited the province I really enjoyed the place and the people, but now am coming to realize that as soon as English comes out of my mouth I'm probably secretly being despised, but they need my tourist money so they'll pretend to be friendly.