Quote:
Originally Posted by drew
In my line of business, Quebec is like a black hole. Within the local Engineering and Architectural consulting industry, no one I know (who isn't a large National organization) is licensed or practices within Quebec. I have been all over Canada for projects, but never inside Quebec.
It isn't a strictly language based problem either (especially here in Winnipeg) - but more of a difference in local practices, laws, procedures etc.
With respect to the ASME consulting industry, Quebec functions like a separate country.
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Yes, I know that's the case for a number of sectors of the economy. If you look at office locations for national firms, a number of them have offices from BC to Ontario, then skip over Quebec, and then have offices in the Maritimes again.
I worked for a few large Canadian corporations in my younger days, and while they didn't skip over the Quebec market at all, the way they managed their HR was as if Quebec was like a different country. I.e. a regional manager might get transferred from Ottawa to Winnipeg or Kitchener, but never from Ottawa to Gatineau.
Basically the Quebec side of the company would function like its own self-contained unit, and people would move around within that.
It only happened very rarely that people would cross back and forth over the imaginary line for their careers, and almost always they were francophones from outside Quebec or Anglo-Quebecers. (Even so, even those people still tended to remain within their "sphere".)
Not sure if any of this is a source of "hate" for most people, though.