Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[New Brisavoine]

I love how British newspapers always dramatize things. French media have been much more subdued, but I predict apocalypse on the roads tomorrow.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

Gulf Stream doesn’t need to “stop” for effects to be felt, it can simply just diminish, and basically all models point to that.

Yeah, if it actually stopped over a short period of a couple of years, it would be catastrophic.

Not that the cold that would bring isn't survivable. But Western Europe isn't set up in terms of infrastructure, the agricultural economy, etc. to handle it, and couldn't adapt in a short period of time.

[New Brisavoine]

^^At least in France we have nuclear power plants to warm us, but the Germans who have closed all of theirs due to stupid Angela Merkel and Green activists in cahoots with the Kremlin and Gazprom will be in deep sh*t if our weather becomes like Saguenay-Lac Saint Jean in winter... Britain would be in big trouble too. That plus the fact we always have southern France to flee to if push came to shove, whereas their territories are entirely in northern Europe.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I love how British newspapers always dramatize things. French media have been much more subdued, but I predict apocalypse on the roads tomorrow.

Yes, but their Cheetahs can build snowmen!

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

^^At least in France we have nuclear power plants to warm us, but the Germans who have closed all of theirs due to stupid Angela Merkel and Green activists in cahoots with the Kremlin and Gazprom will be in deep sh*t if our weather becomes like Saguenay-Lac Saint Jean in winter... Britain would be in big trouble too. That plus the fact we always have southern France to flee to if push came to shove, whereas their territories are entirely in northern Europe.

They could escape to the warmth of Canada!

[New Brisavoine]

More likely Australia if it came to that.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by Hecate

Why aren’t ham, cheese and wine banned too? All those are linked to cancer. And food colouring won’t give your baby deformities but wine will…

I sometimes ask myself, but you must admit there's a particular problem with excessive amount of sugar in that kind of processed food, that would be very addictive, in addition to being sickening IMO. That's what nutritionists say.
To my knowledge, wine is not so. We don't consume so much of it, only occasionally. I think people addicted to booze would rather have beer or stronger drinks like whiskey.

Anyway, as others mentioned, culture, habits and economic fabric are obviously significant influential factors.
In France and elsewhere, even in the US to some extent, they often try to advocate quality healthy food. It's just not an easy thing to convince kids that eating broccoli is better than M&M's or Kinder.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by mousquet

I sometimes ask myself, but you must admit there's a particular problem with excessive amount of sugar in that kind of processed food, that would be very addictive, in addition to being sickening IMO. That's what nutritionists say.
To my knowledge, wine is not so. We don't consume so much of it, only occasionally. I think people addicted to booze would rather have beer or stronger drinks like whiskey.

Anyway, as others mentioned, culture, habits and economic fabric are obviously significant influential factors.
In France and elsewhere, even in the US to some extent, they often try to advocate quality healthy food. It's just not an easy thing to convince kids that eating broccoli is better than M&M's or Kinder.

Alcohol causes cancer. The WHO acknowledges this. There is no safe amount of consumption, it also causes liver problems and other health issues. As well as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. It’s also highly addictive.

Cured and processed meats contain carcinogens. The European Union has them listed as such. Apparently so do dairy products.

But let’s take a couple studies where lab rats were fed ridiculous amounts of food colouring and die on that hill.

And regarding sugar, Sugar is sugar is sugar, the body doesn’t differentiate where it comes from.

Like everything moderation is key.

And there is no way a pain au chocolat is “healthier” than a bowl of lucky charms. lol and I often consume both for breakfast. And why not… they’re delicious.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Hecate

And regarding sugar, Sugar is sugar is sugar, the body doesn’t differentiate where it comes from.

Fructose is better than glucose. And honey is better than refined sugar.

Anyway, Armageddon has arrived here, just as I feared. Northwest France in November!! Main road to Paris closed, most trains cancelled due to fallen electric poles. And a terrible blizzard which is very uncommon here. Yet +17 degrees Celsius expected by Sunday. Hard to believe! And crazy.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Wow! Halifax, in the frozen north, hasn't even had snow yet. That must be horrible for people who aren't used to it! Eh?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Wow! Halifax, in the frozen north, hasn't even had snow yet. That must be horrible for people who aren't used to it! Eh?

Halifax is south of Paris and London.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Halifax is south of Paris and London.

However Paris and London are warmed by the Gulf Stream. Nova Scotia tends to be cooled by the Labrador Current.

These currents seem to be changing, though, which may help explain France's weather anomaly... or, it's just an anomaly, which happens everywhere on occasion. Or... climate change (I'm going for climate change).

Regardless, we will always be part of Bob and Doug's Great White North, or 'frozen north' as our friends south of the border like to refer to us (for New Bris' benefit and amusement, I'm referring to us as an American might...).

There... have I rambled on about insignificant stuff yet? Devrais-je arrêter de parler maintenant? Is that proper phrasing?

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Wow! Halifax, in the frozen north, hasn't even had snow yet. That must be horrible for people who aren't used to it! Eh?

A lady left the office early at 4pm to return home. At 5:30pm she called to say she had moved only 3 km because of all the car accidents on the road.

As for me, car trip canceled, and Armageddon with the trains. My train which was expected at 8:30pm was delayed and delayed and delayed. All trains from Nantes stopped because strong winds destroyed some electric poles. Eventually at 11:30pm a train came and we "nauffragés du train" as we called ourselves could board it. Epic journey!! But all people were talking to each other in a friendly way, like I had seen in the US. One 56 y/o lady said "it's sad it has to come to extreme situations like this for people to talk to each other". France for you!

Thanks God the guy from the bar at the hotel in front of the train stations offered me free hot homemade chocolate, but most stranded travelers waited in frozen conditions inside the non-heated train station, without even knowing there was a warmed bar at the hotel just in front of the station. Most people are so stupid, it's incredible.

All soils still covered in snow today.

Versailles château posted this yesterday: https://x.com/CVersailles/status/1859600858628989094

[New Brisavoine]

Le Figaro asking the right question today:

Pourquoi la France est paralysée dès qu’il neige quelques flocons

https://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/pour...es-qu-il-neige-quelques-flocons-20240109

Unfortunately I don't think anything will change, because people in France are not used to complaining as I said the other day. Yesterday at the train station I was saying to the other stranded passengers it's not normal that there is total paralysis of roads and trains when there's just a little snow, how would our national railway company operate in Norway where it's like that several months a year??, but none of them were finding it not normal. They were like "it's not usual conditions here, so it's understandable". Like, ok... Except it's like that almost every winter, one or two days of chaos due to a little bit of snow every winter, except normally it's in January-February, never in November.

And the blizzard yesterday was strong, but not hurricane winds either, so if the national railway company can't even protect its electric poles when there is a little bit of strong wind, I don't find it normal. But complaining about customer service is more of an American thing than a French thing alas. At least the national railway employees yesterday were kinder than usual. Usually they treat people as "well" as US federal agents in a U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services local office.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Thanks for your insight on snow conditions in Paris. I never really thought about how normal snow is there, i.e. that you actually do get a few inches of snow in Dec-Feb, and what that means for the people.

A few random thoughts from the east coast Canadian perspective:
- We haven't had any snow to speak of in Halifax this autumn (although other parts of the province have had snow), but it's not unusual for us to have a rogue storm as early as October. Often it's due to a fairly aggressive storm, and can tend to have significant amounts of snowfall (though not always), that usually doesn't last for more than a few days to a week before temperatures climb above freezing again.

- Although Nova Scotians are accustomed to snow conditions, the first snowfall often brings chaos to our roadways, either from people who haven't installed their snow tires yet, or people who have "forgotten" how to drive in snow, i.e. they still drive at speeds and in ways that one would drive on dry pavement. What usually complicates this is that the government seems to often be slow to react to the first storm, in that they don't get the salt trucks out on the roads quickly enough to prevent a layer of ice from forming from compressed snow on frozen pavement.

- Even though winter storms with 80 - 100 km/h winds are common here, we still often have power outages due to trees falling on wires, or wires themselves being weighed down with heavy snow/ice, or just old infrastructure that doesn't pass the test of high winds. I've seen power poles that have survived many storms just snap off due to local wind intensity combined with aging (wooden) poles, etc.

- Some winters we can get absolute piles of snow that seem to stay around forever (the latest I've seen is some snow still on the ground in Early May), while other years the snow is gone by mid March (early/mid April is 'average'). There seems to be no obvious pattern to it (from the layman's perspective), but such are things with the complexity of weather systems...

[Acajack]

I think most people in France and other countries would be surprised at how much chaos a snowstorm can bring in a Canadian city, even if we are "used to it".

If you get a snowstorm or even more than a very light dusting of snow (let's say 5 cm) in the middle of the weekday rush hour even in cities like Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa or Quebec City, it will cause quite a bit of chaos on the roads - maybe not cars slipping all over the place crashing into each other or into the ditch. But very very heavy congestion.

Even if you are well-prepared and equipped, there is only so much the crews can do when snow falls heavily during that specific time.

But sure, we won't be paralysed for hours (and certainly not days) and by later in the morning the roads will be fairly passable or even clear, and the rush hour chaos will be forgotten.

If we get a 20-30 cm snowfall within a couple of hours after it stops snowing the main highways between Ottawa-Gatineau and Montreal will be clear of snow within a couple of hours. Even during the height of most "storms" the main highways are still passable and crews are circulating clearing all the time. You just have to a bit more careful.

In all the years my kids were in elementary and secondary school (over 15 years in total), school was cancelled exactly once because of snow. That time we got over 50 cm during the night.

[Nashe]

Even the East Coast of Canada has some variation. The climate in Halifax is quite different than in Moncton in the winter. They don't even close my building with 30cm+ down.

• Video Link

The worst I remember was back in 1992 (161cm in one storm):

• Video Link

Ironically, I found that video was posted by a co-worker of mine back in the day, haha.

[MolsonExport]

Some parts of London (Ontario) got 2 meters of snow in 36 hours back in what was called Snowmageddon (2010).

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/new...ecember-6-2010-lucan-ontario-record-snow

growing up in Montreal, massive snowstorms were a regular occurrence, but I had never seen anything like what we experienced in London in 2010. You could not see our car in the driveway: it was indistinguishable from the mass of snow blanketing our yard. It took me an entire day to shovel the driveway. Classes were cancelled for 3 days...never before (at least, until Covid) has this ever happened at the University where I work.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In all the years my kids were in elementary and secondary school (over 15 years in total), school was cancelled exactly once because of snow. That time we got over 50 cm during the night.

Yesterday where I was they stopped all school buses in the entire département. They also cancelled all sports activities in the evening, even indoor sports activities. Snowfall in the entire day was 4 cm. I've just checked.

[kwoldtimer]

I hadn't realized that the weather in France had such an impact on Quebec and Quebecois Identity ...