Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I thought the Liberals weren't supposed to win any seats outside of Montreal island?

So we were told...

Yes we get told that on here. Yet current/former cabinet ministers Diane Lebouthillier, Jean-Yves Duclos, Marie-Claude Bibeau and François-Philippe Champagne have won in every election since 2015 and aren't representing ridings in the Greater Montreal Area or the Outaouais Region. And I'm just mentioned the well known names. There are also other lesser known Liberal MPs.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Quebec poll - francophones only

LIB 36
BLOC 30
CON 23
NDP 6

Is there a link to that poll?

Those numbers suggest the LPC will definitely win the majority of seats in Quebec. If the Bloc is only getting about 30% among francophones then they will be lucky to achieve official party status.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I thought the Liberals weren't supposed to win any seats outside of Montreal island?

So we were told...

Everyone considers this a shocking turnaround. You did not notice?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Loco101

Is there a link to that poll?

Those numbers suggest the LPC will definitely win the majority of seats in Quebec. If the Bloc is only getting about 30% among francophones then they will be lucky to achieve official party status.

No but it's Léger.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

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Thank God for YouTube auto translate for the subtitles. I long felt that bilingual subs should be standard for CBC/Radio Canada.


Nouveau Brisavoine, how about Carney’s French?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

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Thank God for YouTube auto translate for the subtitles. I long felt that bilingual subs should be standard for CBC/Radio Canada.


Nouveau Brisavoine, how about Carney’s French?

Why are you are asking New Brisavoine? He is not voting! We are.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Why are you are asking New Brisavoine? He is not voting! We are.

Curious what a French person thinks about his French is all.

Seems many Québec voters think his French is good enough to vote for him.

Did you watch this? How were his answers?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

Curious what a French person thinks about his French is all.

Seems many Québec voters think his French is good enough to vote for him.

Did you watch this? How were his answers?

He did relatively well. The questions were quite soft though.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

And to think... Acadie is one of the milder parts of Canada.

You should see April in Saskatchewan... temperatures can be well below zero at the start of April. Saskatchewan is warmer than New Brunswick right now, and Ontario's just had some major ice storms. Such is the difference between climate and weather.

France definitely has it easy when it comes to weather, but as someone that grew up on the prairies, I find Saint Jean's milder, oceanic influenced climate far preferable to the extremes of a city like Winnipeg.

It can be a bit confusing to refer to Saint John NB as Saint-Jean here. People will think it is St-Jean-sur-Richelieu.

In French we say Saint-Jean-Nouveau-Brunswick or Saint-Jean-Terre-Neuve to tell them apart.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Everyone considers this a shocking turnaround. You did not notice?

I wouldn't call it shocking. It was to be expected with this international crisis. It's rallying round the flag. The opposite would have been surprising.

But it's equally to be expected that there will be a "retour de balancier" rather sooner than later. And the more the "balancier" swings in one direction now, the more violently it will swing in the other direction later.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It can be a bit confusing to refer to Saint John NB as Saint-Jean here. People will think it is St-Jean-sur-Richelieu.

In French we say Saint-Jean-Nouveau-Brunswick or Saint-Jean-Terre-Neuve to tell them apart.

Never heard Saint-Jean-Nouveau-Brunswick in France. In fact 99.99% of French people don't know any city from New Brunswick. I've heard Saint-Jean-de-Terre-Neuve though (but with a crucial "de" in the middle).

[someone123]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Ok but then how do you explain that British Columbia has only 5.4 inh. per km², and the island of Newfoundland 4.4 inh. per km², i.e. almost the same population density, despite the fact that both have seafood and BC has milder climate and more farmland?

Here again, it's not difficult to see that the length of colonization is a major factor. Same can be said for New Zealand: no reason why the fertile and mild areas of NZ should have lower population densities than the St Lawrence valley, other than the fact it was colonized considerably later than Québec.

Again there are so many different variables that it's not correct to deduce that the one you picked must be the dominant factor without a much more complicated analysis. For BC and to a lesser extent Newfoundland the topography also matters, for example. A lot of BC is very mountainous and practically impossible to develop (and it's alpine and does not actually have a milder climate than NL due to the elevation). I'm not saying this is the only other factor, I'm just presenting it as a counterexample to your reasoning.

Population exploded very quickly upon first settlement in some areas like Saskatchewan. Within a matter of 10-20 years they closed much of the gap on areas settled 300 years earlier. All else being equal, it does matter if an area is settled longer, but all else is not equal when it comes to factors like migration.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

He did relatively well. The questions were quite soft though.

I just clicked randomly on one of the three videos at a random moment in the video, and he was saying "à ce moment-ci". So it's off to a bad start.

En bon français : "en ce moment". For some reason, it's not the first time I heard some Anglophones saying "à ce moment-ci", which is incorrect. I wonder where they get that from (it's not even how you'd say it in English).

[someone123]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

+2 with a chance of snow today in Quebec City and +4 and cloudy here in Saint Jean, Nouveau Brunswick, but it's finally warming up, it was a long Acadian winter... spring is finally here.

And Saint John is sort of the northern end of what might be considered Acadia. If you go down to an Acadian town like Pubnico the climate is about on par with somewhere in Denmark, which is colder than Paris but nowhere near any kind of extreme as far as humanity or developed areas go.

One small point is the seasons are shifted a bit. A little less so in NB but in a lot of NS, April is colder than November. It's maybe shifted by one month compared to Europe. Another is you get a lot more bright sunshine in the winter in the Maritimes than in Western Europe (plus it's farther south than areas with comparable climates so the sun is higher in the sky and stronger). +1 in bright sunshine (and with some snow on the ground making things even brighter) can be nicer than +7 and dreary rain. I'm not sure I'd take, say, Dublin weather over Halifax, and a lot of UKers who move to the Maritimes note that they like the climate.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Never heard Saint-Jean-Nouveau-Brunswick in France. In fact 99.99% of French people don't know any city from New Brunswick. I've heard Saint-Jean-de-Terre-Neuve though (but with a crucial "de" in the middle).

I guess NB needs to up its PR game en Francais

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I just clicked randomly on one of the three videos at a random moment in the video, and he was saying "à ce moment-ci". So it's off to a bad start.

En bon français : "en ce moment". For some reason, it's not the first time I heard some Anglophones saying "à ce moment-ci", which is incorrect. I wonder where they get that from (it's not even how you'd say it in English).

Clicked on another random part of the video: "On peut partage les emplois".

Seriously? That's 1st grade mistake. Suddenly he has forgotten the infinitive. "On peut partager les emplois." (no clue what he means by that by the way... do you share jobs in Canada? haven't listened to the rest to see the context)

If he was the British prime minister addressing the French public on French television, that would be considered passable and even commendable (he's making an effort), but of course for a national politician it may be a different story. I don't think people in France would accept a national politician speaking French so unwell.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

I guess NB needs to up its PR game en Francais

The French (educated ones at least) know Acadie. I think they'll never know New Brunswick (it's neither important nor geographically significant like "Terre-Neuve", which also happens to be next to Saint Pierre and Miquelon, so is well known in France... we even call the fishermen traditionnally fishing in Newfoundland waters "les terre-neuvas", a term that is well known in France, because our history with Terre-Neuve is ancient and predates English colonization).

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terre-neuvas

Acadie doesn't really have a city, so no city is known in France (although sometimes I've heard about Dieppe here, but not everybody would know it, only those who are interested in Acadie, but there are quite a few of them in France).

PS: Interestingly, although most French people have heard about "Terre-Neuve", I think only very few of them would know how it's called in English if you asked them (probably less than 1% would know the English name).

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I just clicked randomly on one of the three videos at a random moment in the video, and he was saying "à ce moment-ci". So it's off to a bad start.

En bon français : "en ce moment". For some reason, it's not the first time I heard some Anglophones saying "à ce moment-ci", which is incorrect. I wonder where they get that from (it's not even how you'd say it in English).

Wouldn't you say "at this/that time" or "at the moment"?

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by someone123

And Saint John is sort of the northern end of what might be considered Acadia. If you go down to an Acadian town like Pubnico the climate is about on par with somewhere in Denmark, which is colder than Paris but nowhere near any kind of extreme as far as humanity or developed areas go.

One small point is the seasons are shifted a bit. A little less so in NB but in a lot of NS, April is colder than November. It's maybe shifted by one month compared to Europe. Another is you get a lot more bright sunshine in the winter in the Maritimes than in Western Europe (plus it's farther south than areas with comparable climates so the sun is higher in the sky and stronger). +1 in bright sunshine (and with some snow on the ground making things even brighter) can be nicer than +7 and dreary rain.

Someone posted a map before of Acadia, might have been you, I can’t find it now. It was an interesting map.

The south shore of Nova Scotia has some of the mildest weather in the maritimes.

Here in SJ during the winter, if it’s sunny, it’s almost certainly going to be a colder day. The weather report can be quite deceptive to… the daily high in the winter might be +7, but at like 3 in the morning or something.

I’ve noticed a big flaw in apples weather app regards to this phenomenon. If the daily high happens at like 1am, when you wake up at like 8am your phone will still say “good morning today’s high is X, even if that high was set 8 hours previous and gotten progressively colder since.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Never heard Saint-Jean-Nouveau-Brunswick in France. In fact 99.99% of French people don't know any city from New Brunswick. I've heard Saint-Jean-de-Terre-Neuve though (but with a crucial "de" in the middle).

I had Canadian francophones in mind.