Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[begratto]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Sacre Bleu. C'est impossible!!!

I don't think anyone has said "Sacre bleu" in real life since Louis XVI...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by begratto

I don't think anyone has said "Sacre bleu" in real life since Louis XVI...

[begratto]

Originally Posted by Acajack

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.

Actually, 60.2% of post-secondary (universities only, not counting CEGEPs) students study in French in Montreal, versus 39.8% in English.

University / Full time students / Part time students / Total

English
Concordia : 28 860 / 9 670 / 38 530
McGill : 32 400 / 4 190 / 36 590
Total : 61 260 / 13 860 / 75 120

French
École de technologie supérieure (ETS) : 6 960 / 2 070 / 9030
École des hautes études commerciales (HEC) : 8 020 / 5 640 / 13 660
Institut national de la recherche scientifique : 600 / 70 / 670
Polytechnique Montréal : 7 830 / 2 280 / 10 110
Université de Montréal : 35 090 / 10 420 / 45 510
Université du Québec à Montréal : 20 960 / 13 510 / 34 470
Total : 79 460 / 33 990 / 113 450


And I have not even counted the Université de Sherbooke which has a campus in Longueuil, but I had no way to tell how many of the UdS students study at the Longueuil campus

Source : Effectifs d’automne 2023 à temps plein et à temps partiel aux universités canadiennes.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by begratto

Actually, 60.2% of post-secondary (not counting CEGEPs) students study in French in Montreal, versus 39.8% in English.

University / Full time students / Part time students / Total

English
Concordia : 28 860 / 9 670 / 38 530
McGill : 32 400 / 4 190 / 36 590
Total : 61 260 / 13 860 / 75 120

French
École de technologie supérieure (ETS) : 6 960 / 2 070 / 9030
École des hautes études commerciales (HEC) : 8 020 / 5 640 / 13 660
Institut national de la recherche scientifique : 600 / 70 / 670
Polytechnique Montréal : 7 830 / 2 280 / 10 110
Université de Montréal : 35 090 / 10 420 / 45 510
Université du Québec à Montréal : 20 960 / 13 510 / 34 470
Total : 79 460 / 33 990 / 113 450


And I have not even counted the Université de Sherbooke which has a campus in Longueuil

Source : Effectifs d’automne 2023 à temps plein et à temps partiel aux universités canadiennes.

I think I got it wrong and maybe the stats I'd heard about concerned CEGEPs.

That's where the 50% in anglophone institutions comes from.

(Still way over the share of population in those stats you mentioned - about twice the anglophone share in fact.)

[harls]

Move to Québec and expect to learn a teeny tiny bit about how it works?

Shit's crazy.

[begratto]

I found the numbers for the Cegeps. The ratio is 2/3 French 1/3 English

French

Cégep de Rosemont : 5 591
Cégep Gérald-Godin : 1 057
Cégep André-Laurendeau : 3 458
Cégep Bois-de-Boulogne : 3 148
Cégep Lionel-Groulx : 5 694
Cégep Marie-Victorin : 4 677
Cégep de Maisonneuve : 7 029
Collège Montmorency : 8 860
Cégep Édouard-Montpetit : 7 777
Cégep de Saint-Laurent : 4 091
Collège Ahuntsic : 8 989
Cégep du Vieux-Montréal : 6 489
Total : 58 121
67.0% of total

And I could have included St-Jérôme, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu

English

Vanier College : 7 411
John Abbott College : 7 333
Champlain College (St-Lambert) : 3 550
Dawson College : 10 302
Total : 28 596
33.0% of total

Total # of students in GMA cegeps : 86 717

On the English side, it's missing Marianopolis, but it is rather small

Source: Comparez la performance des cégeps, Journal de Montréal

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by begratto

I found the numbers for the Cegeps. The ratio is 2/3 French 1/3 English

French

Cégep de Rosemont : 5 591
Cégep Gérald-Godin : 1 057
Cégep André-Laurendeau : 3 458
Cégep Bois-de-Boulogne : 3 148
Cégep Lionel-Groulx : 5 694
Cégep Marie-Victorin : 4 677
Cégep de Maisonneuve : 7 029
Collège Montmorency : 8 860
Cégep Édouard-Montpetit : 7 777
Cégep de Saint-Laurent : 4 091
Collège Ahuntsic : 8 989
Cégep du Vieux-Montréal : 6 489
Total : 58 121
67.0% of total

And I could have included St-Jérôme, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu

English

Vanier College : 7 411
John Abbott College : 7 333
Champlain College (St-Lambert) : 3 550
Dawson College : 10 302
Total : 28 596
33.0% of total

On the English side, it's missing Marianopolis, but it is rather small

So it could be that some people are manipulating numbers? I know that Dawson is the biggest CEGEP in Quebec though.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

If your dream is strict territorial unilingualism (either within or outside of the Canadian federation), then so be it. Just expect a similar response in the ROC.

I think most Québécois sovereignists would be happy with that.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I think most Québécois sovereignists would be happy with that.

Aside from French schools for your kids and federal tax returns and passport applications, language territoriality (ie living most of your life in English even if you're francophone, because you're in the anglo part of the country) is already the reality for many, many Canadian francophones living outside Quebec.

[vanatox]

Originally Posted by Acajack

So it could be that some people are manipulating numbers? I know that Dawson is the biggest CEGEP in Quebec though.

Missing from the list are subsidized and non-subsidized private colleges. The list is long, especially for non-subsidized ones.

Subsidized private institutions are almost all francophone schools but for the non-subsidized ones, a lot are bilingual institutions. Some francophone only, some anglophone only.

The non-subsidized instituations have been growing in number and size in the last few years as it is the case in the rest of the country. But with the new rules regarding international students, this will most likely stop.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Aside from French schools for your kids and federal tax returns and passport applications, language territoriality (ie living most of your life in English even if you're francophone, because you're in the anglo part of the country) is already the reality for many, many Canadian francophones living outside Quebec.

How would you expect a Francophone living in Newfoundland; which has a French speaking population <1% not to be living their life in English. The Service Canada locations in St. John's and Labrador City are designated bilingual offices. All the rest in Newfoundland are English only.

Took a look at provinces with significant official language minorities and here's the breakdown of Service Canada offices (did not include outreach offices):

Manitoba - 9 bilingual; 8 English only
New Brunswick - 15 bilingual; 3 English only
Ontario - 39 bilingual; 48 English only
Quebec - 40 bilingual; 35 French only

In other provinces , the number of bilingual Service Canada offices are:
Alberta - 10
BC - 10
Saskatchewan - 5
Nova Scotia - 5
PEI - 2

Also, took a look at Service Ontario offices. For Service Ontario offices located in a designated bilingual region, ALL the locations offer bilingual service. In Toronto, for example, there are 20 Service Ontario locations; all offer bilingual service. Same holds true for locations such as Hamilton, Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, London, Kingston, etc. There are bilingual Service Ontario offices outside of the designated bilingual regions; examples include Barrie, St. Catharines and Thunder Bay.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

How would you expect a Francophone living in Newfoundland; which has a French speaking population <1% not to be living their life in English. The Service Canada locations in St. John's and Labrador City are designated bilingual offices. All the rest in Newfoundland are English only.

Took a look at provinces with significant official language minorities and here's the breakdown of Service Canada offices (did not include outreach offices):

Manitoba - 9 bilingual; 8 English only
New Brunswick - 15 bilingual; 3 English only
Ontario - 39 bilingual; 48 English only
Quebec - 40 bilingual; 35 French only

In other provinces , the number of bilingual Service Canada offices are:
Alberta - 10
BC - 10
Saskatchewan - 5
Nova Scotia - 5
PEI - 2

Also, took a look at Service Ontario offices. For Service Ontario offices located in a designated bilingual region, ALL the locations offer bilingual service. In Toronto, for example, there are 20 Service Ontario locations; all offer bilingual service. Same holds true for locations such as Hamilton, Mississauga, Brampton, Markham, London, Kingston, etc. There are bilingual Service Ontario offices outside of the designated bilingual regions; examples include Barrie, St. Catharines and Thunder Bay.

It *says* they offer bilingual service. It doesn't mean they do.

The Thousand Islands Bridge border crossing (the one I use the most) supposedly offers bilingual service. In practice though it does not.

Heck, even Ottawa airport in our country's capital doesn't really offer bilingual service worthy of that name.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by harls

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.

Exactly.

Thank you for making the point in a somewhat more subtle fashion than I did.

One can be Anglo in Quebec. Talk with one's family at home in English. Watch/read whatever English media one wants.

In public? The calculus changes. There's an element of yielding to the majority that goes hat-in-hand with living in a place. Want to live in Germany permanently? Lernen Sie Deutsch zu sprechen. Yeah man, they lost the war. It's still their country.

Just because one had a historical claim under force doesn't mean that it persists when reality says otherwise. That whole 'democracy' bit, and all. Sure, nobody was going to expect the first few decades of reality coming to roost to be pleasant, but hey, history did what it did. At least Anglos had the choice of nine other provinces in which they could happily converse in their native tongue. Everyone knows the score now and would be a fool to think otherwise.

'Protecting' this minority who just refuses to yield to the reality of Quebec is just such a hopeless cause that serves no real purpose except to twist a knife. Part of the relative amicability of the past couple of decades has been the fact the the lines have become clearer with respect with language.

Maybe if one wanted to really learn about the much vaunted multiculturalism we so dearly claim to love we could do so here, because the conversations about the benefits/downsides of immigration and protecting our value-add industries were coming out of Quebec before the rest of the country got a clue. Better to have the ugly conversation and learn from inside as opposed to picking up the pieces afterwards.

Anyway, thanks for harls for living the Two Solitudes. Even if he's out in the boonies of Aylmer (former Ottawa resident here)

[thebasketballgeek]

Québec mandates learning English to its population far more than the ROC does with French. They also do a much better job providing services in English than vice versa. Growing up in Manitoba I was “taught” French from Grade 4-8 and had the option to drop it in Grade 9 (oh boy that bit me in the ass). Whereas in Québec, the kids start learning English from 1e année and have to take English every year until Sec 5. In fact, if they fail the English exam they are not allowed to graduate in my school division. Reminder I live in one of the most Francophone parts of Quebec, so I can only imagine it’s even more strict in the rest of the province.

Then you get to CÉGEP and guess what, you still have to take a mandatory English class for your first 2 years I believe. After that, if you want to pursue further post-secondary education at let’s say Laval University, then believe it or not you have to pass an English test to prove your proficiency.

Of course English being the lingua franca of the world and Québec being in North America plays a large role in that, but it shows what kind of disregard the ROC has for French. I now wish I learned French every year from Grade 1-12. Using thousands of hours of class time to learn another language seems a lot more productive and beneficial for a students brain compared to learning the name of 50 states for an entirely different country…

[kool maudit]

thewave46 is absolutely right. There is a history to Montreal, and there is a sense in which it was always either going to be "Saint James Street" or "the English on that sign is too big", at least for a while.

It's poor form to get too bolshy about OUR MINORITY RIGHTS as Anglos. Play the game, sure, get the lawyers going, school issues, whatever -- but not this.

Per Vallières, whose overheated '60s-era polemic was funny (je me souviens), it's a little rich to cede Salisbury and then immediately flip into being some kind of Zimbabwean NGO petitioning the men in our old offices.

[kool maudit]

To be more inflammatory, English capital could have held Montreal despite the population numbers. It wasn't the spirit of the times, though, and Toronto was right there. Had it mattered to the right people in some irrevocable sense, the October crisis could have been fluffed up into a sub-Maidan circumstance and the PQ could have been displaced by a crew of marionettes typing "Rue Saint James" into their correspondence with the bankers at most.

I would hope that Quebec City is still mindful of these sorts of things as it seeks to maintain the French fact in North America into the future.

Trudeau père had in mind a conception of Canada that could contain such multitudes. This, and Canada itself, may not always be the case.

[harls]

Originally Posted by begratto

I found the numbers for the Cegeps. The ratio is 2/3 French 1/3 English

French

Cégep de Rosemont : 5 591
Cégep Gérald-Godin : 1 057
Cégep André-Laurendeau : 3 458
Cégep Bois-de-Boulogne : 3 148
Cégep Lionel-Groulx : 5 694
Cégep Marie-Victorin : 4 677
Cégep de Maisonneuve : 7 029
Collège Montmorency : 8 860
Cégep Édouard-Montpetit : 7 777
Cégep de Saint-Laurent : 4 091
Collège Ahuntsic : 8 989
Cégep du Vieux-Montréal : 6 489
Total : 58 121
67.0% of total

And I could have included St-Jérôme, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu

English

Vanier College : 7 411
John Abbott College : 7 333
Champlain College (St-Lambert) : 3 550
Dawson College : 10 302
Total : 28 596
33.0% of total

Total # of students in GMA cegeps : 86 717

On the English side, it's missing Marianopolis, but it is rather small

Source: Comparez la performance des cégeps, Journal de Montréal

Héritage in Gatineau is about 1500 I think.

[Acajack]

I think a lot of people forget how 1995 was a bit of a fluke win for the Non. More like the puck deflected into the net off a skate in the final seconds of a tie game than a 7-2 rout.

The Oui side also rose impressively and threateningly quickly from what seemed like oblivion and obsolescence less than a decade before.

Originally Posted by kool maudit

To be more inflammatory, English capital could have held Montreal despite the population numbers. It wasn't the spirit of the times, though, and Toronto was right there. Had it mattered to the right people in some irrevocable sense, the October crisis could have been fluffed up into a sub-Maidan circumstance and the PQ could have been displaced by a crew of marionettes typing "Rue Saint James" into their correspondence with the bankers at most.

I would hope that Quebec City is still mindful of these sorts of things as it seeks to maintain the French fact in North America into the future.

Trudeau père had in mind a conception of Canada that could contain such multitudes. This, and Canada itself, may not always be the case.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I think a lot of people forget how 1995 was a bit of a fluke win for the Non. More like the puck deflected into the net off a skate in the final seconds of a tie game than a 7-2 rout.

That feeling of sudden, rising support for a thing that would portend massive, destabilizing change, and then that second feeling of it just not happening and the whole issue being somehow downgraded from the political to the individual level and boiled off as commentary...

...these have become familiar. But this was an early instance.

I didn't yet live in Quebec in 1995, I moved to Montreal in '96. In the final days and during the count, I distinctly remember people and local media in Halifax discussing whether it might even be worth considering joining the United States. There is apparently some old provision for Nova Scotia, I don't know, maybe that's folklore. But people who could call on the Premier were mentioning it.

A funny complication that was quickly forgotten.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

Québec mandates learning English to its population far more than the ROC does with French. They also do a much better job providing services in English than vice versa. Growing up in Manitoba I was “taught” French from Grade 4-8 and had the option to drop it in Grade 9 (oh boy that bit me in the ass). Whereas in Québec, the kids start learning English from 1e année and have to take English every year until Sec 5. In fact, if they fail the English exam they are not allowed to graduate in my school division. Reminder I live in one of the most Francophone parts of Quebec, so I can only imagine it’s even more strict in the rest of the province.

Then you get to CÉGEP and guess what, you still have to take a mandatory English class for your first 2 years I believe. After that, if you want to pursue further post-secondary education at let’s say Laval University, then believe it or not you have to pass an English test to prove your proficiency.

That seems rather crazy. Why do they insist so much on English proficiency? Not everybody will need English in their professional life.

I see a lot of that "magical thinking" in Europe too. As if any kid in the most remote backwaters of Extremadura needed to be perfectly fluent in English...