Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Acajack

While it's true that francophones often tend to exaggerate the importance of language, Anglo-Canadians tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to downplay it.

I feel perfectly comfortable in affirming that I probably know Quebec culture AND Newfoundland to a degree that isn't that common in Canada.

Newfoundland is definitely distinct from the rest of Anglo-Canada and the broader Anglo-America, but it's nonetheless still more ensonced in it than Quebec is.

In Newfoundland the talk shows still come from New York and Los Angeles, and the national newscasts and sportscasts from Toronto. Schoolbooks mostly come from Ontario somewhere.

In Quebec and French-speaking Canada all of that stuff comes from Montreal.

There are artists that can fill the Bell Centre in Montreal several nights in a row that don't even bother to play Toronto at all.

As I've already acknowledged, Newfoundland is one of the biggest outliers in the broader continental anglophone culture. But there is still much greater opportunity for cross-pollination due to the common language. CODCO is much more accessible to someone in Moose Jaw than Rock et Belles Oreilles is.

So I think YOWetal is minimizing the differences, even between Toronto and Montreal. (Maybe basing too much on the McGill crowd being "typical Montreal" in your eyes?)

Sure both are big cities in Canada in North America, not too far apart. But Montreal is still to Toronto what Paris is to London, or maybe Brussels is to Amsterdam.

Also, you mentioned differences in art, food, social norms, etc. All of these exist as differences even within the Ottawa-Gatineau metro area, separated by a river. There are certain foods that are hard to find in supermarkets depending on which side of the river you're on.

I mean at the end of the day there is no right answer to these things. Some of it is a rural urban divide but this is where Newfoundlad is really unique in Canada as St. Johns is also in a different universe. Like Baton Rouge or Birmingham Alabama. Also I'd argue more different from Toronto than Montreal is. You give some good examples of other things. The Quebec I know isn't really Anglophone and yes there are lots of obvious and subtle differences and styles but I think a lot of Laurentian Anglophones just have noidea how different say Alberta or especially Atlantic Canada is from them as well.

Yes we absolutely understate the importance of language. Quebec is so unique it's hard to compare.

[P'tit Renard]

It'll be funny if they end up picking Céline to sing Édith Piaf, I guess they couldn't find any chanteuse in France to sing..


JO Paris 2024 : Céline Dion est arrivée à Paris pour la cérémonie d’ouverture
https://www.leparisien.fr/jo-paris-2024/...3-07-2024-GMXP7TC7OVEEBGIPTCVBFBGIIY.php

Céline Dion débarque à Paris
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2024/0...urs-avant-la-ceremonie-douverture-des-jo

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

It'll be funny if they end up picking Céline to sing Édith Piaf, I guess they couldn't find any chanteuse in France to sing..


JO Paris 2024 : Céline Dion est arrivée à Paris pour la cérémonie d’ouverture
https://www.leparisien.fr/jo-paris-2024/...3-07-2024-GMXP7TC7OVEEBGIPTCVBFBGIIY.php

Céline Dion débarque à Paris
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2024/0...urs-avant-la-ceremonie-douverture-des-jo

I thought it was Aya Nakamura. (I know her because of my kids.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPGgnzc34tY

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

It'll be funny if they end up picking Céline to sing Édith Piaf, I guess they couldn't find any chanteuse in France to sing..

Is this an imperialist thing? I can't imagine the UK bringing a Canadian singer for their olympic opening ceremony. Do all French language artists belong to the republic?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Is this an imperialist thing? I can't imagine the UK bringing a Canadian singer for their olympic opening ceremony. Do all French language artists belong to the republic?

Lady Gaga is there too, and will be singing another Édith Piaf song apparently.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

Maybe Valerie Plante's administration has forgotten about Secularism in the public sphere...

Le voile, le symbole de Montréal
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2024/07/21/le-voile-le-symbole-de-montreal

Exactly what I predicted a few weeks ago. With Islam, you give them your finger, they take your arm, as we say in French.

Interestingly, on this issue she's 100% different from Anne Hidalgo, who has always opposed the Islamic veil, and would never accept an Islamic veil on a city publication/poster (that's perhaps the only good thing about Anne Hidalgo, who is otherwise a horrible politician on par with Trump in another genre).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Bill 21 would have more credibility if it didn't consider Christianity to be "cultural heritage," thereby allowing public schools to retain their giant crosses and saint's names, and of course public holidays that enshrine Christian traditions like Easter, Christmas and St-Jean-Baptiste (conveniently renamed la fête nationale).

There's a difference between laïcité and catho-laïcité.

So you suggest removing the cross from the flag of Québec too? For your information, this is the cross of St Michael, chosen as patron saint of France during the Middle Ages, and which featured on all naval flags of France until the French Revolution, hence why it forms the basis of the Québec flag.

For more, if you're unfamiliar with it: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croix_de_saint_Michel

Yes, countries have histories, and roots. And newcomers have to adapt to those roots, not ask the natives to change to adapt to the newcomers (which would be called colonialism).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

The time for such discussions, if they were worth having, was the 1960s. The ship has sailed.

History is circular. Things and issues always come back sooner or later.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

the end result could very well be a Lebanon Lite type of future for the country.

Without the warmth, beaches, sunshine, and dirt-cheap super good street food.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

(And of course Quebec has lots of places with a Newfoundland-ish type of lifestyle within it as well, so these areas are also even more distinct from mainstream North American norms.)

Iles de la Madeleine come to mind. Probably the most polar opposite of the North American Anglo-world (along with St Pierre and Miquelon of course, which is even more of another world than Iles de la Madeleine).

• Video Link

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

It'll be funny if they end up picking Céline to sing Édith Piaf, I guess they couldn't find any chanteuse in France to sing..


JO Paris 2024 : Céline Dion est arrivée à Paris pour la cérémonie d’ouverture
https://www.leparisien.fr/jo-paris-2024/...3-07-2024-GMXP7TC7OVEEBGIPTCVBFBGIIY.php

Céline Dion débarque à Paris
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2024/0...urs-avant-la-ceremonie-douverture-des-jo

I've never liked Céline Dion all that much, but she would be infinitely better than Aya Nakamura. I don't hold my breath though, because the Aya Nakamura circus has now become a symbol of minority-affirmation-against-evil-far-right-forces bla bla bla, so they'll probably shove Aya Nakamura down our throats.

PS: Some have also spotted Lady Gaga, which would be even worse than Aya Nakamura.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Well it's not as deep as it was claimed. There have long been pockets opposed to immigration. Quebec the obvious example for this thread but not only. In the 90s with economic anxiety there as a lot of anti-immigration sentiment. Eventually we just added enough immigrants of high quality that the advantage was so evident it was hard to claim otherwise. But there were always losers and the cultural loss was true outside of Quebec we in English Canada are mostly just resigned to not having culture even when we did that we mostly go along with it. The most culturally unique parts of English Canada mostly didn't get a lot of immigration. Newfoundland is still unique and frankly more distinct than Quebec if we really think about it.

Ontario's cultural identity was its loyalty to the British Empire, so when that empire stopped being a thing, it didn't really have much left. So multiculturalism was grafted onto the province really easily, as it was replacing nothing. It's kind of like if America stopped existing as a unified country - what would places like Ohio or Illinois, whose whole identity is being "the American heartland", be anymore if there is no America to be a heartland of?

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

For the vast majority, the issue isn't immigration, it's the surge in numbers of the last few years. If and when the numbers settle down, peace shall reign again in the land.

I want to think you're right, but I suspect the opposite. Anecdotally I'm seeing way more complaints about cultural or identity elements of immigration than ever before, coming from spaces where that would have been absolutely verboten as recently as 2021. I agree that the surge in numbers is what started this change, but now the "genie is out of the bottle" so to speak, and it's not going to just go back in.

The same angry paralysis about migration that consumes politics in the rest of the west is here to stay, unfortunately.

And this is entirely the fault of Justin Trudeau government. (Unlike, say, housing or our economic malaise, which is really everybody's fault and is a much bigger problem than him).

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Ontario's cultural identity was its loyalty to the British Empire, so when that empire stopped being a thing, it didn't really have much left. So multiculturalism was grafted onto the province really easily, as it was replacing nothing. It's kind of like if America stopped existing as a unified country - what would places like Ohio or Illinois, whose whole identity is being "the American heartland", be anymore if there is no America to be a heartland of?

That's an astute observation. I guess the postnational line by Trudeau probably came from Katie Telford who is a Toronontian and has a British empire parent and of the age when that was in its final throes and I am sure a inflection point in her childhood.

I'm an Ontario transplant but visiting a childhood friend in the early 90ss who were the 100 year old Toronto stock I remember getting a multiday tour of the city and the pride of the cool ethnic neighbourhood that was the Danforth or Chinatown but nostalgia for Toronto the Good. Immigration was bringing in good catholic food but the protestants were still in charge. A few years later I had a Toronto exile for a neighbour and we were excited to go to the small town Greek festival or whatever and I remember him saying yeah we've been there and done that and it doesn't end well. I just thought he was a racist old guy at the time as we love the early shoots of immigration making things less boring. And it was so nice us Canadians let them keep their culture not like the racist assimilation Americans.

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

And this is entirely the fault of Justin Trudeau government. (Unlike, say, housing or our economic malaise, which is really everybody's fault and is a much bigger problem than him).

Totally agree with both of these sentiments. And the genie being out of the bottle. Hopefully we get a compasionate non racist but harsh reduction in immigration numbers rather than as a few others have predicted a return to the status quo under PP. I fear this will only spawn a bigger backlash.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

So you suggest removing the cross from the flag of Québec too? For your information, this is the cross of St Michael, chosen as patron saint of France during the Middle Ages, and which featured on all naval flags of France until the French Revolution, hence why it forms the basis of the Québec flag.

For more, if you're unfamiliar with it: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croix_de_saint_Michel

Yes, countries have histories, and roots. And newcomers have to adapt to those roots, not ask the natives to change to adapt to the newcomers (which would be called colonialism).

For the record, I'm not religious but I also have no problem with Christian heritage. I'm simply pointing out the hypocrisy of a colonial nation imposing its very particular view of secularism on people who happen to arrive a little bit later than the original settlers.

You mention "the natives" but I think you're forgetting that people of European descent are absolutely not native to Quebec or anywhere on this continent.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

For the record, I'm not religious but I also have no problem with Christian heritage. I'm simply pointing out the hypocrisy of a colonial nation imposing its very particular view of secularism on people who happen to arrive a little bit later than the original settlers.

You mention "the natives" but I think you're forgetting that people of European descent are absolutely not native to Quebec or anywhere on this continent.

I think French Quebecers reject this sentiment. Most of them have been in this country longer than some recognized bands in Canada. They are the dominant culture in a democracy so they get to decide what it looks like. Granted the justificiation based on being "original" is a bit ironic given the dismissal of indigenous issues that is pretty common in Quebec.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

You mention "the natives" but I think you're forgetting that people of European descent are absolutely not native to Quebec or anywhere on this continent.

No one is native to any place except Africa if we start going down that line...

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

I want to think you're right, but I suspect the opposite. Anecdotally I'm seeing way more complaints about cultural or identity elements of immigration than ever before, coming from spaces where that would have been absolutely verboten as recently as 2021. I agree that the surge in numbers is what started this change, but now the "genie is out of the bottle" so to speak, and it's not going to just go back in.

The same angry paralysis about migration that consumes politics in the rest of the west is here to stay, unfortunately.

And this is entirely the fault of Justin Trudeau government. (Unlike, say, housing or our economic malaise, which is really everybody's fault and is a much bigger problem than him).

My memories go back the the 1960s and I can't remember a time when there weren't grumblings (and overt racism) about the latest significant group of immigrants and their inability to adapt to Canadian ways.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Iles de la Madeleine come to mind. Probably the most polar opposite of the North American Anglo-world (along with St Pierre and Miquelon of course, which is even more of another world than Iles de la Madeleine).

• Video Link

I wonder whether the English speakers of Iles de la Madeleine have a distinctive accent? I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

My memories go back the the 1960s and I can't remember a time when there weren't grumblings (and overt racism) about the latest significant group of immigrants and their inability to adapt to Canadian ways.

That's human nature but in Canada it's always been quite strongly frowned-upon in polite company.

If that's less and less the case (as some of us are observing) then that's a pretty huge change.

(My memories go back to the late 70s.)