Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Zeej

One only need look down the 20 to the issues that amalgamation has wrought upon another large North American city. Who cares if it was in vogue?

Toronto's problems aren't primarily related to the megacity merger.

Big cities are always a bit unwieldy I admit but I've almost never heard anyone say that having a major city or metro split up into tiny municipal fiefdoms is actually the better way.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

Agreed that it's smart strategy for Poilievre to target francophone conservatives instead, though I doubt Montreal's West Island was ever old Tory. Westmount has voted Liberal since the beginning of time. If there are old Torys like Mulroney, they don't make up the majority voters. There's even less "Torys" in NDG and Hamsptead.




Yes. Conservatives want more provincial autonomy and less intrusive federal government, which sits quite well with Quebec nationalists.

Electionist pandering to loud Angryphones is one of the biggest threats to national unity. Along with the Liberal's immigration ponzi schemes upsetting the linguistic balance, Justin is by far the biggest threat to the Canadian confederation since Trudeau Sr IMO.

A Mulroney-esque 1984 sweep of francophone Quebec by Poilievre is virtually impossible, but there are definitely way more potential seats to flip there than in Anglo Montreal. And those in Anglo Montreal are not a sure thing to flip either.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Exactly. It's absurd to claim otherwise. Of course the PQ merger was politically motivated, but so was the creation of Greater London in 1962 (Conservatives trying to win London by drowning the left-wing County of London in Conservative outer suburbs), yet nobody can deny that creating Greater London was for the greater good, even if it was politically motivated on the part of the Conservatives. Imagine if Labour had demerged London when they returned to power!

In the corridors of the Gazette, CJAD and lawn bowling clubs () the municipal mergers were seen as a mean PQ ploy to stick it to anglos by taking away the municipalities they controlled.

But the municipal merger movement involved dozens of municipalities all over Quebec (including mine), most of which were entirely francophone.

Sure the PQ didn't care that anglos huffed and puffed, but they didn't care that some people in Saguenay huffed and puffed as well.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Toronto's problems aren't primarily related to the megacity merger.

Big cities are always a bit unwieldy I admit but I've almost never heard anyone say that having a major city or metro split up into tiny municipal fiefdoms is actually the better way.

Well yes, obviously Toronto's problems aren't primarily related to the megacity. But they have been amplified by it.

Merging very suburban municipalities with very urban ones has and will continue to create tenions over what people in the new megacity actually want. Interests in North Etobicoke (home of the Fords) are very different from those in the Annex and that reality is often felt on the ground as more urban-focused intiatives (or vice-versa) get pushed back by suburban voting interests.

The same is true of the situation on the Island. Demerged municipalities on the West Island are largely NIMBY and preoccupied with their local day-to-day issues. They are better off dealing with their core suburban issues and leaving the 'too-crowded, dirty, difficult to park in' city to address its issues on its own.

Montreal just eliminated all parking minimums on new developments, for example, becoming the largest city in North America to do so. Would have been a total no-go if City Hall was made up of more suburban councillors.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by Zeej

Well yes, obviously Toronto's problems aren't primarily related to the megacity. But they have been amplified by it.

Merging very suburban municipalities with very urban ones has and will continue to create tenions over what people in the new megacity actually want. Interests in North Etobicoke (home of the Fords) are very different from those in the Annex and that reality is often felt on the ground as more urban-focused intiatives (or vice-versa) get pushed back by suburban voting interests.

Ironically, this megacity tension might have been inadvertently resolved by Doug Ford halving Toronto council. Etobicoke has become quite marginalised in the new council, and frees up Olivia Chow to pursue her progressive agenda. Sometimes the simplest answer is to shrink government and cut politicians.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The numbers have gone up and down over the centuries but Jews never completely left what is present-day Israel and have had a consistent presence there for 2000 years.

Palestinians are actually more recent arrivals to the region and even their consciousness and existence as a people is relatively recent by historical standards.

Certainly way more recent than the Jews.

Still not saying that Palestinians don't have a right to exist and have their own state BTW.

To get us back on track in the thread, the existence of French Canadians as a people conscious of its existence arguably pre-dates that of Palestinians by a couple of centuries.

You’re just making things up now.

You also confuse ancestry with culture. Genetic studies show that Palestinians do have a predominantly ancient Levantine origin. https://doi.org/10.3389%2Ffgene.2017.00087

Imagine if America invaded Quebec and then everyone culturally assimilated. Would that mean that the Québecois had never existed and were all now the same as the American invaders? This is the difference between culture and ancestry. People shift and change over time in terms of identity based on various factors but that doesn’t mean they are new to the area.

Prior to the Zionist push, Jews made up 10% of the population. Jews only represented a majority in the area during the Roman period, once again 2000 years ago..

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

You’re just making things up now.

You also confuse ancestry with culture. Genetic studies show that Palestinians do have a predominantly ancient Levantine origin. https://doi.org/10.3389%2Ffgene.2017.00087

Prior to the Zionist push, Jews made up 10% of the population. Jews only represented a majority in the area during the Roman period, once again 2000 years ago..

No they have formed the majority for the past 80 years. Most of the rest is now irrelevant. As Russians form the majority in Kalinigrad and French Quebecers form the majority in Outremont whereas a few hundred Indigenous romaed there for thousands of years and it was probably more Anglophone and less Jewish than it is now.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In the corridors of the Gazette, CJAD and lawn bowling clubs () the municipal mergers were seen as a mean PQ ploy to stick it to anglos by taking away the municipalities they controlled.

But the municipal merger movement involved dozens of municipalities all over Quebec (including mine), most of which were entirely francophone.

Sure the PQ didn't care that anglos huffed and puffed, but they didn't care that some people in Saguenay huffed and puffed as well.

Important to point out that several municipalities outside of Montreal also saw demergers. There were legitimate issues, across all groups, with the mergers as forced through by the PQ.

Longueuil lost Brossard, Boucherville, Saint-Lambert and Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville.

Don't forget - the PLQ did not force demergers, they initiated referendums (ironically), which required a pretty motivated turnout to demerge. The demerger referendums required a 50%+1 vote share with a minimum of 35% of the population voting. Several municipalities voted 50%+1 to leave but did not attain the 35% threshold.

Partisanship asisde, the PQ undemocratically forced the mergers, the PLQ democratically allowed the option to demerge. I guess that's electorist.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Zeej

Important to point out that several municipalities outside of Montreal also saw demergers. There were legitimate issues, across all groups, with the mergers as forced through by the PQ.

Longueuil lost Brossard, Boucherville, Saint-Lambert and Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville.

Don't forget - the PLQ did not force demergers, they initiated referendums (ironically), which required a pretty motivated turnout to demerge. The demerger referendums required a 50%+1 vote share with a minimum of 35% of the population voting. Several municipalities voted 50%+1 to leave but did not attain the 35% threshold.

The PQ undemocratically forced the mergers, the PLQ democratically allowed the option to demerge. I guess that's electorist.

Yes it was more democratic. On that you are correct.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

You’re just making things up now.

You also confuse ancestry with culture. Genetic studies show that Palestinians do have a predominantly ancient Levantine origin. https://doi.org/10.3389%2Ffgene.2017.00087

Imagine if America invaded Quebec and then everyone culturally assimilated. Would that mean that the Québecois had never existed and were all now the same as the American invaders? This is the difference between culture and ancestry. People shift and change over time in terms of identity based on various factors but that doesn’t mean they are new to the area.

Prior to the Zionist push, Jews made up 10% of the population. Jews only represented a majority in the area during the Roman period, once again 2000 years ago..

Most non-Jewish people in the region simply considered themselves Arabs until fairly recently, though yes they've also lived in the region for millennia.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

IThe ancestors of European Jewish people who came from Israel left the territory in 70 CE. They then intermarried and mixed with southern Europeans. Southern Europeans with no middle eastern descent also converted to Judaism thus further diluting that original ancestry.

Except when those people intermarried/converted to Judaism, they became part of the Jewish nation and thus Jewish history because their history too. Indigeneity isn't about DNA or bloodlines, it's about cultural heritage. By your logic, if enough white dudes raped enough Cree women for enough generations, Cree indigeneity is negated. Putting a person's genetic bloodline above their culture is racist. It's like saying Rishi Sunak can't be British because he's brown.

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

The Jewish state in Judea only lasted 200 years.

Uh, no? The Jewish society in Israel before the Roman conquest had existed since pre-history; they originated as a tribal group of Canaanites in the Bronze age. Sure, it was underneath the Persian and Greek empires for a good chunk of time, but most North American indigenous nations never formed sovereign state governments either.

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

We all have places our ancestors left within far shorter windows, that they had inhabited for far longer than Jewish people inhabited Israel originally and yet we make no claim to them.

The difference is that these places are not central our cultural and ethnic identities in the way that the Jewish origin in Israel is. Ever taken a good look at what Judaism is? Its literally a tribal folk religion reflecting Levantine pastoralism. My husband has among his ancestors a French Huguenot refugee who fled to England to escape religious persecution 4 centuries ago, but this is not relevant to my husband's cultural background, like, at all. We wouldn't even know about it if not for the meticulous genealogy records of the Brits. Jews, by contrast, continue to this day to hold a feast in January celebrating the flowering of olive trees, to bang together palm leaves and lemons at their harvest festival, to spend 7 weeks in spring (corresponding to the vegetative phase of cereal crops in the ME) praying for rain, and celebrate dates, figs, olives, and pomegranates as sacred fruits. These land-oriented traditions are almost comically out of place in Europe, yet they are kept.

Again, what's happening in Gaza is atrocious. What has happened to the Palestinians going back to the 1920s has been atrocious. Nobody here is trying to paint making that point as anti-Semitic (I will concede that outside this site, there are plenty of people who are unfortunately trying to do that). Denial of Jewish roots in the region and painting Israel as a European settler society in the same bucket as America or Canada or Australia is what's anti-Semitic.

Also interesting that you focus so much on "European Jews" when this demographic are a small minority of Israel's population, which consists mostly of Jews whose families lived elsewhere in the Middle East before moving to Israel. Pick an average Jew off the streets of an Israeli city and ask where their great-grandparents were born, and you're way more likely to hear Morocco, Iraq, or Yemen then you are to hear Poland or Russia. Contemporary Israeli culture is way more shaped by these Middle Eastern migrants than by the "European Jews". It's not really accurate at all to characterize Israel as a "European settler society" even if we accept your anti-Semitic negation of Jewish history as true, and classify Ashkenazi Jews as white Europeans.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

Agreed that it's smart strategy for Poilievre to target francophone conservatives instead, though I doubt Montreal's West Island was ever old Tory. Westmount has voted Liberal since the beginning of time. If there are old Torys like Mulroney, they don't make up the majority voters. There's even less "Torys" in NDG and Hamsptead.




Yes. Conservatives want more provincial autonomy and less intrusive federal government, which sits quite well with Quebec nationalists.

Electionist pandering to loud Angryphones is one of the biggest threats to national unity. Along with the Liberal's immigration ponzi schemes upsetting the linguistic balance, Justin is by far the biggest threat to the Canadian confederation since Trudeau Sr IMO.

You mean like how the federal and provincial Liberals in New Brunswick pander to the loud and angry SANB?

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Except when those people intermarried/converted to Judaism, they became part of the Jewish nation and thus Jewish history because their history too. Indigeneity isn't about DNA or bloodlines, it's about cultural heritage. By your logic, if enough white dudes raped enough Cree women for enough generations, Cree indigeneity is negated. Putting a person's genetic bloodline above their culture is racist. It's like saying Rishi Sunak can't be British because he's brown.

Uh, no? The Jewish society in Israel before the Roman conquest had existed since pre-history; they originated as a tribal group of Canaanites in the Bronze age. Sure, it was underneath the Persian and Greek empires for a good chunk of time, but most North American indigenous nations never formed sovereign state governments either.



The difference is that these places are not central our cultural and ethnic identities in the way that the Jewish origin in Israel is. Ever taken a good look at what Judaism is? Its literally a tribal folk religion reflecting Levantine pastoralism. My husband has among his ancestors a French Huguenot refugee who fled to England to escape religious persecution 4 centuries ago, but this is not relevant to my husband's cultural background, like, at all. We wouldn't even know about it if not for the meticulous genealogy records of the Brits. Jews, by contrast, continue to this day to hold a feast in January celebrating the flowering of olive trees, to bang together palm leaves and lemons at their harvest festival, to spend 7 weeks in spring (corresponding to the vegetative phase of cereal crops in the ME) praying for rain, and celebrate dates, figs, olives, and pomegranates as sacred fruits. These land-oriented traditions are almost comically out of place in Europe, yet they are kept.

Again, what's happening in Gaza is atrocious. What has happened to the Palestinians going back to the 1920s has been atrocious. Nobody here is trying to paint making that point as anti-Semitic (I will concede that outside this site, there are plenty of people who are unfortunately trying to do that). Denial of Jewish roots in the region and painting Israel as a European settler society in the same bucket as America or Canada or Australia is what's anti-Semitic.

Also interesting that you focus so much on "European Jews" when this demographic are a small minority of Israel's population, which consists mostly of Jews whose families lived elsewhere in the Middle East before moving to Israel. Pick an average Jew off the streets of an Israeli city and ask where their great-grandparents were born, and you're way more likely to hear Morocco, Iraq, or Yemen then you are to hear Poland or Russia. Contemporary Israeli culture is way more shaped by these Middle Eastern migrants than by the "European Jews". It's not really accurate at all to characterize Israel as a "European settler society" even if we accept your anti-Semitic negation of Jewish history as true, and classify Ashkenazi Jews as white Europeans.

I support Isreal but claiming this is a totally different bucket than Australia or Canada because they lived there 2000 years ago seems dubious. I don't care about their genetics or culture. It's also mostly not anti-semitic. They really believe jews are white colonolists and therefore should be killed. They mostly think the same about us so I don't think most of them have a double standard for Jews. In fairness there are still people alive who were displaced which isn't really a thing here.

Bottom line is reasoning with these anti racist anit colonialism woke mob is pointless and counter productive.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

You mean like how the federal and provincial Liberals in New Brunswick pander to the loud and angry SANB?

But New Brunswick is off the radar of the Laurentian Elite, so Quebec Angryphones are still on top of the Liberal pecking order.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Also interesting that you focus so much on "European Jews" when this demographic are a small minority of Israel's population, which consists mostly of Jews whose families lived elsewhere in the Middle East before moving to Israel. Pick an average Jew off the streets of an Israeli city and ask where their great-grandparents were born, and you're way more likely to hear Morocco, Iraq, or Yemen then you are to hear Poland or Russia. Contemporary Israeli culture is way more shaped by these Middle Eastern migrants than by the "European Jews". It's not really accurate at all to characterize Israel as a "European settler society" even if we accept your anti-Semitic negation of Jewish history as true, and classify Ashkenazi Jews as white Europeans.

Also, for "European Jews" in Israel, isn't a disproportionate percentage of them from Russia and the Soviet Union, which isn't what really thinks of as the core of Western Europe. I'm not surprised the wokists would blur the lines and lump them all as evil white Europeans colonists to fit the narrative.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

But New Brunswick is off the radar of the Laurentian Elite, so Quebec Angryphones are still on top of the Liberal pecking order.

The actions or behaviour of the SANB also (maybe "as a result", even) aren't causing an existential threat to the future of the country.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

You mean like how the federal and provincial Liberals in New Brunswick pander to the loud and angry SANB?

Yes. Pretty much exactly that. Official language minorities (the Anglos in Quebec, the Francophones everywhere else) have a longstanding patronage relationship with Liberal parties both federal and provincial.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The actions or behaviour of the SANB also (maybe "as a result", even) aren't causing an existential threat to the future of the country.

Initially I was surprised that the SANB crowd are some of the most ardently pro-federalist anti-Quebec sovereignty people I've met, including my SO's extended family out there. I guess an independent Quebec would cause an immediate existential crisis in Acadie NB.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

Initially I was surprised that the SANB crowd are some of the most ardently pro-federalist anti-Quebec sovereignty people I've met, including my SO's extended family out there. I guess an independent Quebec would cause an immediate existential crisis in Acadie NB.

I mean historical examples would suggest French would cease to be an official language so absolutley extistential for Francophone minorities outside Quebec.

[harls]

Originally Posted by Zeej

Important to point out that several municipalities outside of Montreal also saw demergers. There were legitimate issues, across all groups, with the mergers as forced through by the PQ.

Longueuil lost Brossard, Boucherville, Saint-Lambert and Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville.

I lived in TMR in 2004, I remember when they demerged they spray painted the French off the street signs.