Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by lio45

Exactly. An English Quebecker will have access to a lot more stuff than a Francophone Acadian. They can enter their local big city and order Tim's or McD's in their language, etc. They have a lot less of a glass ceiling too: they can become CEO of Air Canada. They can become PM. They can become GG. Etc.

It's a lot easier to be an unilingual Anglo in Montreal than is it to be an unilingual Francophone anywhere in the RoC.

Frankly I don't know how anyone argues this. But English is English. You can be a unilingual Anglophone in Beijing or Sao Paolo and of course it is very hard to live even in multiethnic Canada only speaking Mandarin or Portugese. My point is this is more about the dominance of English than unfairness in government policy.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Frankly I don't know how anyone argues this. But English is English. You can be a unilingual Anglophone in Beijing or Sao Paolo and of course it is very hard to live even in multiethnic Canada only speaking Mandarin or Portugese. My point is this is more about the dominance of English than unfairness in government policy.

True but it does provide justification or at least a rationale for what Quebec is doing.

[harls]

Anecdote time.

Last summer I was driving back from Winnipeg to my SW Manitoba hometown and we decided to stop in St. Claude, a very small town surrounded by bilingual roadsigns:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/qSju2jcYX8yhaZc5A

My eldest son asked, "Do they speak French here?" I laughed. "Sure, you can try, but don't be disappointed if they give you a blank look".

We stopped at a restaurant and they had poutine on the menu. My kid ordered it in French. To my surprise, the waitress responded in French with no hesitation.

Incidentally, he said it was the best poutine he'd ever had.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Acajack

True but it does provide justification or at least a rationale for what Quebec is doing.

I'm not sure. On one hand English is becoming more pervasive but the previous claim that is because they are an Island in North America becomes less relevant. Quebec is actually a pretty large nation as they go. There is really no scenario where French disappears is there? If not what is the point of all of this. Do more Anglophones living in Montreal present a threat to anyone? As I say this eventually you won't be able to work in the service industry without English but Quebecers need English more and more anyway to function in the world economy so that is inevitable.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The reason that other provinces don't do it is because it's already way more expensive to study outside Quebec than within Quebec for Quebec students. Unlike the McGill situation, there are very few Quebec students "leeching" off ROC money at ROC universities because there is nothing to leech.

Let's say it costs 3500 bucks a year to study in Quebec and 15000 a year to study at the same program at the University of Ottawa. Ontario is gonna ding Quebec students a few thousand bucks more just because they are from Quebec?

Fine then. Quebec students will just stay in Quebec even more and the University of Ottawa will get fewer students. (The number of Quebec students at the University of Ottawa has already plummeted due to the discrepancy in tuition fees as it is.)

Pretty sure some provinces already do the same, so it's pretty clear that the fuss is that Quebec is doing this.

Below is Dalhousie's (The McGill of Nova Scotia dontcha know!) fee calculator. Notice something? Shame on Nova Scotia? How dare they? Screw hockey or lacrosse, hypocrisy is Canada's national passtime.

https://www.dal.ca/admissions/money_matt...fee_calculator.html#citizenship=canadian

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Perhaps not, but I greatly dislike how Balkanized higher education is starting to become in Canada. I may be more sensitive to this because I am in medicine, but, virtually all provinces limit med school enrollment to residents of their own province. This can be a problem with smaller provinces with questionable standards of medical education. For example UPEI is setting up their own medical school, in a city of 80,000, where the hospital is absent many specialties and complex patients are routinely referred to Moncton or Halifax for treatment. Students at this school are going to definitely have an inferior experience compared to their mainland counterparts. I strongly feel that there should not be significant geographic constraints as to where you do your education. This is an act of nation building and broadens student horizons. It would improve understanding across provincial borders for our future leaders. People should be able to go wherever they want for education without significant constraints.

Frankly I don't see why Quebecers would go for this when they invest significantly more to make their post-secondary education system the most affordable in the country.

What would be the advantage of folding our system into the broader Canadian one, when in Quebec you can study medicine for 4000 dollar a year or learn a trade over three years for around 1000 dollars all in.

Ontario comparables for the above are around 30000 a year for medicine and 5000 a year for trade school in a community college.

In most of Canada post-secondary is becoming more and more of an elite thing and as a result of the rising costs is increasingly a barrier to social mobility.

Quebec obviously has a different philosophy and I doubt you'll convince anyone here that the ROC way is better.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

I'm not sure. On one hand English is becoming more pervasive but the previous claim that is because they are an Island in North America becomes less relevant. Quebec is actually a pretty large nation as they go. There is really no scenario where French disappears is there? If not what is the point of all of this. Do more Anglophones living in Montreal present a threat to anyone? As I say this eventually you won't be able to work in the service industry without English but Quebecers need English more and more anyway to function in the world economy so that is inevitable.

Of course it's a threat. Montreal becoming an anglophone city would eventually mean that English would spread outwards to other regions of the province and become the main language there too. French speakers would be relegated to smaller more isolated regions like the Gaeltachts in Ireland.

Ireland is actually an interesting example because all of their government departments and agencies have fancy-schmansy names in Irish Gaelic that appears first on signs and on letterhead. (Sometimes only the Irish Gaelic name appears, in fact.)

But everything beyond the name is in English only.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by harls

Anecdote time.

Last summer I was driving back from Winnipeg to my SW Manitoba hometown and we decided to stop in St. Claude, a very small town surrounded by bilingual roadsigns:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/qSju2jcYX8yhaZc5A

My eldest son asked, "Do they speak French here?" I laughed. "Sure, you can try, but don't be disappointed if they give you a blank look".

We stopped at a restaurant and they had poutine on the menu. My kid ordered it in French. To my surprise, the waitress responded in French with no hesitation.

Incidentally, he said it was the best poutine he'd ever had.

Acajack doesn't like anecdotes like this - it disrupts his worldview.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Acajack doesn't like anecdotes like this - it disrupts his worldview.

Absolutely not. I know it exists. Quite a few of my relatives live in places like this. Though they're often shrinking or on their way out.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Zeej

Below is Dalhousie's (The McGill of Nova Scotia dontcha know!) fee calculator. Notice something? Shame on Nova Scotia? How dare they? Screw hockey or lacrosse, hypocrisy is Canada's national passtime.

Oh look. Another Quebecker putting down the Maritimes (bolded in case anybody is confused). How quaint.

Better add that to the list of passtimes...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Oh look. Another Quebecker putting down the Maritimes (bolded in case anybody is confused). How quaint.

Better add that to the list of passtimes...

Dalhousie is actually an excellent university.

[ToxiK]

Originally Posted by Zeej

Pretty sure some provinces already do the same, so it's pretty clear that the fuss is that Quebec is doing this.

Below is Dalhousie's (The McGill of Nova Scotia dontcha know!) fee calculator. Notice something? Shame on Nova Scotia? How dare they? Screw hockey or lacrosse, hypocrisy is Canada's national passtime.

https://www.dal.ca/admissions/money_matt...fee_calculator.html#citizenship=canadian

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Oh look. Another Quebecker putting down the Maritimes (bolded in case anybody is confused). How quaint.

Better add that to the list of passtimes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc5vN2XReWs

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Zeej

Pretty sure some provinces already do the same, so it's pretty clear that the fuss is that Quebec is doing this.

Below is Dalhousie's (The McGill of Nova Scotia dontcha know!) fee calculator. Notice something? Shame on Nova Scotia? How dare they? Screw hockey or lacrosse, hypocrisy is Canada's national passtime.

https://www.dal.ca/admissions/money_matt...fee_calculator.html#citizenship=canadian

And I hate this, regardless of province, and regardless whether the province is anglophone, francophone of bilingual.

I grew up on PEI. I went to UPEI for my first degree. I had a good experience, but went to Dalhousie for medical school. Attending an out of province university certainly broadened my horizons, and I was exposed to many classmates from multiple provinces, multiple backgrounds and multiple ethnicities that I never experienced while at UPEI. A university like Dalhousie allowed me to challenge myself in many ways, educationally, socially and professionally and helped to make me who I am. Parochialism is the enemy of personal growth. This is why I so firmly believe that there should be as few interprovincial educational barriers as possible.

I may be a UPEI alumnus, but, I have a very healthy concern that the new medical school there will be a misadventure. It will be too small, too limited in resources, and will not expose students to the breadth of medicine sufficiently to become good practitioners. Forcing all PEI medical students to go there is a bad, bad idea. Excess provincialism does not build nations, and limits ones worldview and experiences........

These differential out of province fees did not exist back in the 1970s.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Dalhousie is actually an excellent university.

It is...

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by ToxiK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc5vN2XReWs

Darn America putting down Quebec... who puts down the Maritimes...

This is fun.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Of course it's a threat. Montreal becoming an anglophone city would eventually mean that English would spread outwards to other regions of the province and become the main language there too. French speakers would be relegated to smaller more isolated regions like the Gaeltachts in Ireland.

Ireland is actually an interesting example because all of their government departments and agencies have fancy-schmansy names in Irish Gaelic that appears first on signs and on letterhead. (Sometimes only the Irish Gaelic name appears, in fact.)

But everything beyond the name is in English only.

Ireland is a real stretch. What language majorities with their own political entities are losing their languages? I mean Catalan is a dialect where they are a minority and even there it's still widespread despite active central government discouragement.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Ireland is a real stretch. What language majorities with their own political entities are losing their languages? I mean Catalan is a dialect where they are a minority and even there it's still widespread despite active central government discouragement.

Catalan is most definitely losing ground to Spanish in Catalonia, and this is critically true in Barcelona especially.

I think the language split in Catalonia overall is something like 55-45 Catalan-Spanish.

Not exactly a good model to follow for us. (As much as I love Barcelona, Catalonia and am sympathetic to the Catalans.)

[MolsonExport]

I love how the Quebecois constantly lecture Canadians how terrible things are for Francophones outside of la Belle Province, but should Canadians say anything about how things are maybe not that rosy for Anglophones in Quebec, the comments are routinely dismissed. Those legacy institutions largely date back to the times when such institutions were funded from within.

Personally, I find it tragic that the ROC is becoming less francophone and that Quebec's long-standing English minority is dwindling. I am sure that is music to some people's ears, but not mine. As a Canadian who is very proud to be from Quebec, I think we are losing one of the great things about this country. I will never be a cheerleader for these trends.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

What about Lachute hospital which was forced to remove all English from its signage. I guess having the word "Parking" on a sign is such as threat to French.

In France, the word for "parking" is...drum roll...."Parking"!

Where is the OQLF when we need them?


I remember when the OQLF objected to terms like "Birdie" in golf (they suggested "Oislet" instead, ignoring that "Birdie" has nothing to do with birds). Don't get me started on "Pastagate"

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

In France, the word for "parking" is...drum roll...."Parking"!

Where is the OQLF when we need them?


I remember when the OQLF objected to terms like "Birdie" in golf (they suggested "Oislet" instead, ignoring that "Birdie" has nothing to do with birds). Don't get me started on "Pastagate"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULP0cbGXU8k