Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[dleung]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Uh, that's not at all what I said. Nothing to do with "merit." I said that she was a racist for being unhappy at how many white people like to play chess. If you want to play chess, play chess, fer crissakes.

And c'mon, no white person could ever have gotten away with that. "I sure wish I could see more white faces on my street." "I sure wish there weren't so many black guys playing basketball every time I come to the court." Yeah, no, nobody's okay with that. But a nonwhite person gets a pass when they complain about white people?

That's fucked up. We older curmudgeons kept on pointing out how obviously, unbelievably fucked up that is in those other threads. Our refusal to nod in unison at the naked emperor sent lots of people into fireworks of hysterics. Which can happen with politics, I guess.

Lol, that story is in the public domain and easy to fact check against your twisting of her words. The only people who got offended by the idea of promoting minority participation in chess are all here on this thread defending affirmative action for Francophone content

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by lio45

He's just trolling, as usual. That's why you don't get his point. There's no point except trolling.

Is that a confession or an accusation?

[Dengler Avenue]

Something just occurred to me.
If you order a MacChicken at the McD in Edmundston in French, do you say “MacPoulet” or “MacChicken”?

Edit: Oh wait, KFC’s still PFK in Edmundston, so I guess it’s MacPoulet chez McDonald?
https://goo.gl/maps/ET9GH8QrSuMDc4XN9

[Hali87]

It's usually just called "McDo's" in French here.

I've actually been to McDonald's in Edmundston and not only is it fully bilingual but something that struck me as a bit remarkable was that half their signage was in English and half in French - but they weren't translations. It's more that some of the deals were advertised in English while others were in French. I guess the assumption is that most of their customers speak both, or in a worst-case scenario, could just ask the person behind them in line. They also had poutine on the menu there (very... different with McDonalds' salty shoestring fries, not necessarily bad).

I would be surprised if in practice most NB francophones didn't just call it "un McChicken" (etc)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Something just occurred to me.
If you order a MacChicken at the McD in Edmundston in French, do you say “MacPoulet” or “MacChicken”?

Edit: Oh wait, KFC’s still PFK in Edmundston, so I guess it’s MacPoulet chez McDonald?
https://goo.gl/maps/ET9GH8QrSuMDc4XN9

I have actually eaten on several occasions at the Pizza Delight right next to there (in the shot).

Never eaten at the PFK-KFC though.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Something just occurred to me.
If you order a MacChicken at the McD in Edmundston in French, do you say “MacPoulet” or “MacChicken”?

Edit: Oh wait, KFC’s still PFK in Edmundston, so I guess it’s MacPoulet chez McDonald?

My guess is that in a place like Edmundston you probably hear both at the order counter. With a clear edge to MacPoulet, though. (Though not as "unanimous" as it would be up the road in Dégelis.)

This type of usage among francophones in NB varies quite a bit according to region.

Northern NB (and especially the northeast) dovetails quite a bit with Quebec in terms of the usage of the French names for stuff.

As you get further into the SE around Moncton francophones will use English terms like McChicken very predominantly, even when speaking French.

[MolsonExport]

Quand je travaillais chez McDo, les clients commandaient toujours des MacPoulets et des Poulet McCroquettes. Mais ils ont aussi toujours commandé un "Milkshake au Chocolat", "des Toasts" et "Beurre de Pinot"

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Quand je travaillais chez McDo, les clients commandaient toujours des MacPoulets et des Poulet McCroquettes. Mais ils ont aussi toujours commandé un "Milkshake au Chocolat", "des Toasts" et "Beurre de Pinot"

Ça correspond parfaitement à la réalité d'aujourd'hui. Les choses n'ont pas changé!

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Quand je travaillais chez McDo, les clients commandaient toujours des MacPoulets et des Poulet McCroquettes. Mais ils ont aussi toujours commandé un "Milkshake au Chocolat", "des Toasts" et "Beurre de Pinot"

Typical Acadian breakfast - "two eggs, side by each, a pair of toast and a Pepsi large"

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Something just occurred to me.
If you order a MacChicken at the McD in Edmundston in French, do you say “MacPoulet” or “MacChicken”?

Edit: Oh wait, KFC’s still PFK in Edmundston, so I guess it’s MacPoulet chez McDonald?
https://goo.gl/maps/ET9GH8QrSuMDc4XN9

The sign in Edmundston actually has PFK on one side and KFC on the other. (Somewhat) ironically, the KFC faces traffic arriving from Quebec on the TCH, and the PFK faces traffic that would be arriving from the bridge to the United States.

For some reason, Franco-Ontariens don't get as much consideration from national corporations (or maybe it's from themselves?) as francophones in NB do.

Here is a the KFC in Hawkesbury, Ontario.

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x4...KEwj1jfXKyr_xAhVHAp0JHTjiCUgQpx96BAhIEAg

It's all KFC (assuming that's a measure of respect or non-respect) and all of the temporary messaging is in English only as well.

When I first started dating my wife (a Franco-Ontarienne from the north), this is one thing I pointed out. Why is commercial signage in 90% francophone places in Ontario mostly in English only, whereas in New Brunswick in such places it's mostly in French?

Also, in places in NB with significant francophone minorities, there is usually at least some commercial bilingualism, but in Ontario there is generally none.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Typical Acadian breakfast - "two eggs, side by each, a pair of toast and a Pepsi large"

With ketchup on the eggs? (Sorry, but that's so gross!)

[Binour]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Quand je travaillais chez McDo, les clients commandaient toujours des MacPoulets et des Poulet McCroquettes. Mais ils ont aussi toujours commandé un "Milkshake au Chocolat", "des Toasts" et "Beurre de Pinot"

Moi, je préfère un verre de Pinot.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I have actually eaten on several occasions at the Pizza Delight right next to there (in the shot).

Never eaten at the PFK-KFC though.

Don't you mean Pizza de light?

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Politics. The ground is shifting wrt official bilingualism in Canada. Fathoming it all, and where it's headed, is beyond my pay grade.

I mean, there's only two options moving forward - status quo or a gradual national rollback. Coming from and living in bilingual areas in this country I can understand why official bilingualism exists, but if I lived anywhere west of Winnipeg I would seriously question why it's a national policy, and with Quebec's proportional size shrinking in this country it's probably only another generation cycle or two away from coming back into discussion in a serious manner.

There's a difference between official bilingualism and personal bilingualism; the former being for government institutions and the latter being for personal use on the ground. It's fairly obvious that personal bilingualism rates in Canada peaked in 2001 and have shown only faint glimpses at continuing to climb. The only province showing really continued growth in OB rates is Quebec - because residents are learning English. The rest of Canada, aside from NB and ON, enjoy OB rates of sub-10% in many instances, at which point we have to ask that after fifty years of OB whether or not to consider that as a success or a failure of the implementation of OB on a national level. As has been pointed out by government departments, French is not on the incline in this country, and indeed raises the issue of national official bilingualism moving forward, and whether or not it should be used as a gateway for higher federal positions for all Canadians.

This is a useful resource: https://www.uottawa.ca/clmc/demolinguistic-statistics/bilingualism-multilingualism

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by JHikka

I mean, there's only two options moving forward - status quo or a gradual national rollback. Coming from and living in bilingual areas in this country I can understand why official bilingualism exists, but if I lived anywhere west of Winnipeg I would seriously question why it's a national policy, and with Quebec's proportional size shrinking in this country it's probably only another generation cycle or two away from coming back into discussion in a serious manner.

There's a difference between official bilingualism and personal bilingualism; the former being for government institutions and the latter being for personal use on the ground. It's fairly obvious that personal bilingualism rates in Canada peaked in 2001 and have shown only faint glimpses at continuing to climb. The only province showing really continued growth in OB rates is Quebec - because residents are learning English. The rest of Canada, aside from NB and ON, enjoy OB rates of sub-10% in many instances, at which point we have to ask that after fifty years of OB whether or not to consider that as a success or a failure of the implementation of OB on a national level. As has been pointed out by government departments, French is not on the incline in this country, and indeed raises the issue of national official bilingualism moving forward, and whether or not it should be used as a gateway for higher federal positions for all Canadians.

The distinction has become muddled for many Canadians. Official bilingualism is not universal functional bilingualism, which is not the Canadian reality, outside some specific areas.

[esquire]

Government PR stuff aside, was it ever seriously expected that Canadians would become functionally bilingual in large numbers?

I mean, Manitoba schools have been graduating large numbers of French Immersion graduates for decades now but if anything the French presence has declined over the years except maybe in the bastion of St. Boniface where you have a cadre of Francophone university staff and students and a small critical mass of recent immigrants from French speaking countries. Small towns that were very Francophone 40 years ago don't have a lot of French-language character left... places like Ste. Adolphe, St. Pierre-Jolys, Ste. Anne, etc.

Canada has done reasonably well at the official bilingualism thing, but on a personal level it's pretty well hopeless and I don't think that anyone ever thought it would realistically take off beyond those few areas stretching from maybe Hearst to Moncton where it existed previously.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

The distinction has become muddled for many Canadians. Official bilingualism is not universal functional bilingualism, which is not the Canadian reality, outside some specific areas.

While technically true, administrative bilingualism is reliant on an appreciable level of personal bilingualism. Without which it cannot function.

And perhaps axiomatically, if more Canadian anglophones had better personal knowledge of French, official administrative bilingualism wouldn't be as much of an issue.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by esquire

Government PR stuff aside, was it ever seriously expected that Canadians would become functionally bilingual in large numbers?

OB as designed in the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was mostly as a result of Quebec's Quiet Revolution and those in Ottawa feeling that if an olive branch wasn't offered to provide better equality between the two that Quebec's secessionist movement would continue to fester. So that commission completed reports from 1967-70, the Official Languages Act was implemented in 1969, and Quebec went and had a secession referendum in 1985 anyway. And when we updated the Languages Act in 1988 they went and had another referendum.

Trudeau of course directed away from biculturalism as it was laid out in the report and instead opted for multicultural policies - the report in question referred to the two founding peoples of Canada as the English and the French, with the Indigenous (referred to in the report as Indians and Eskimos) being mostly left out of the equation entirely, grouped together with 'other ethnic groups'.

The goal of OB was always 1) to appease Quebec's nationalist tendencies and, 2) better service Francophones in Canada and Anglophones in Quebec. The first point seemed to have not been met and the second point has been more or less successful, provincial policies on language notwithstanding. I'm sure bureaucrats in basements in Ottawa had hoped that OB would result in more Canadians speaking French on the whole but aside from a few percentage points this has been far from reality.

[Acajack]

The Laurendeau-Dunton report also recommended more of a territorial and siloed approach to language (for example, English and French work units in the public service).

It wasn't quite the Swiss model that I am always talking about, but it was closer to it than what we have now.

But Trudeau rejected all of that.

Though I have to say that the combination of changing demographics and Quebec forcing Ottawa's hand over the decades has nonetheless moved us slightly more in the direction of the Swiss model since the 60s and 70s.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JHikka

OB as designed in the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was mostly as a result of Quebec's Quiet Revolution and those in Ottawa feeling that if an olive branch wasn't offered to provide better equality between the two that Quebec's secessionist movement would continue to fester. So that commission completed reports from 1967-70, the Official Languages Act was implemented in 1969, and Quebec went and had a secession referendum in 1985 anyway. And when we updated the Languages Act in 1988 they went and had another referendum.
.

The first referendum was actually in 1980, but I get the point.

I don't think that the ability to receive federal services in French or even the ability of francophone public servants to work in their language were significant factors in the build-up to either of the two referendums.

Certainly not in 1995. Especially in terms of receiving federal services in French *in Quebec*, this issue was resolved relatively quickly after the OLA of 1969 was passed.

The crux of the referendum issues were and still would be related to the division of powers, the impacts of the (allegedly) sub-optimal or deficient or prejudicial division of powers on Quebec and its society, and the pervasive inability to reform or revamp the whole thing.

Now, it's definitely possible that the canaries in the coal mine that may point to a rollback of official bilingualism in the federal apparatus could eventually become referendum-driving issues in the future. But I don't think we are there yet.