Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

their hopes dashed by rampant Quebec nationalism, leading to increasing restrictions on where and when they can use their language.

They got the thing though.

This was what Mordecai Richler didn't get, or pretended not to get. He went to the New Yorker with his cosmopolitanism, his liberalism, all those ideals, even raised the spectre of ethno-nationalism -- I don't remember exactly, but I think he was even shameless enough to bring in WW2.

And it's like, "OK -- fine. Beautiful ideas. What a world. So if we do it, what happens?"

You know the answer: English. With some extra steps. With flags and bunting. But eventually, given the continent and the money, English.

Even someone like me, with not a single ancestor from beyond the British Isles, can immediately see this. And I could see it when I was in Montreal, when those arguments were raised by my Anglo peers. "Great, good, wow, global village, individual rights, frictionless commerce... and at the end of all this, we're speaking more English here, right?"

"Well no, hmm, huh, a lot of things could...I just don't like how..."

Illiberal means were used, and very lightly, so far as these things go, because liberal means would not have secured the end goal.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Of the top 35 countries by GDP per capita, which ones are resource-based economies but not oil reliant? Probably just Australia and Canada by my estimation. Just using the eye test, that's about where the cut-off point is for countries that can sustain what we would consider a modern Western welfare state.

But we don't have any example of an independent First World country of <10 million that has Quebec's large territory and vast/diversified resource wealth.

If we did -- your guess that it would be somewhat poor is way less likely IMO than my guess that it would be somewhat rich.

Norway is still the closest example. Not a tax haven, not English/lingua franca/trade based, only a few million inhabitants, generous welfare state, decent quality of life.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by lio45

But we don't have any example of an independent First World country of <10 million that has Quebec's large territory and vast/diversified resource wealth.

If we did -- your guess that it would be somewhat poor is way less likely IMO than my guess that it would be somewhat rich.

Norway is still the closest example. Not a tax haven, not English/trade based, only a few million inhabitants, generous welfare state, decent quality of life.

I don't think that it would be poor, I'm simply pointing the extremely important binary difference between oil and every other natural resource, and that Norway is likely not an achievable goal for an independent Quebec.

I think an independent Quebec likely has a very similar economic profile to Canada, maybe less reliant on real estate, but also less diversified in tech and some other knowledge-based industries that benefit from cross-pollination with the wider Anglo world.

[kool maudit]

Finland, maybe? Also has a bit of a similar history of dominance from a neighbouring population, and a push to retake the language etc.

[someone123]

Looking at Norway, Wikipedia says that English knowledge is over 80% there. Poland is about 40% self-reported English skills.

I wonder if there is a bit of tension in Quebec between resisting Anglicization and accepting English as the current global language of commerce. Quebec's utility bills don't need to be in English but there's a big penalty for poor interoperability with English at the business level.

I understand why Quebec doesn't want immigrants who speak zero French, learn English, and operate in English there. But the English knowledge part is somewhat independent from the French knowledge part and I think the French knowledge and everyday use part is more important. In Canada we seem to spend a lot more effort explaining why we don't need to or shouldn't learn languages than reforming our education system so people learn more languages better.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

The "Westmount Rhodesian" bit was a heated description of a class circumstance, not an accusation of personal unkindness. And it didn't take into account people like the Irish of Goose Village, either, but it wasn't far off the truth.

The Square Mile was real, and toward the end of the 19th century, fewer than 50 men who lived there held 70% of Canada's wealth. They spoke English and were mainly Scots.

All cities have a public language. Call City Hall, the main library branch, the largest bank -- they're going to say words. And in Montreal, those words were English because of those families in the Square Mile, and despite the hundreds of thousands of francophones around them.

It doesn't matter if they were nice, or if the Eaton's lady was real, or even if the politicians who rose up on the resentment this created were sleazy. It was a deeply unstable circumstance and it looked a certain way in those decades that saw the European powers shed their colonies and self-rule become a buzzword in all sorts of places where the Union Jack had once flown.

You can be as open and self-effacing as the Swedes. Maybe it helps them be rich. For sure, if you stumble in Swedish they'll say "sorry" and switch to effortless English without the slightest twinge of any ill feeling. But if you call City Hall, they speak Swedish. When the government sends you a letter, it is in Swedish. When you get a utility bill, it is in Swedish. Because of course it is.

Whatever you can say about Quebec in the '60s and '70s, it is in French now. OK, the pasta menu thing was stupid, LOL, how petty... but it's in French. And there is no half-and-half with this sort of thing, and particularly not with English. There is no libertarian whatever, that just winds up with it being English. It has to be one or the other. And they got it to be theirs.

Well said.

Now the question remains: Can it be theirs and still ours in a greater context? Or does the eventual majority-minority thing rear its head again, and it splits?

I am kind of torn on the topic. I would be curious to see how young Quebec and ROC (those who don’t remember the 1990s, or just very vaguely) view the matter. Where the puck is going and all. Anecdotally, the consensus seems to be ‘Quebec is French and does its own thing’ with shrugged shoulders from this side, not too sure if the same holds true there.

I have a somewhat jaded view of the CBC or old media being too much up the pulse of things below a certain age group. They lost the plot awhile ago; there’s a reason why conventional TV is heavy into remakes to milk a dying cow.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

It is very sad to see rural anglophone enclaves in Quebec disappear, while their francophone counterparts continue to thrive in northern and eastern Ontario, and northern and eastern NB. Governments in these two provinces are increasingly accommodating to their linguistic minorities, while the reverse is true in Quebec.

I really don't think you have a realistic view here. Rural areas are declining pretty much everywhere. Northern NB isn't doing well, nor is NE Ontario.

English pockets of the Townships are absolutely not getting harassed; if their sons and daughters leave for the Big City, it doesn't matter whether they cross a provincial boundary or not (Montreal), the result for the rural area is the exact same.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Finland, maybe? Also has a bit of a similar history of dominance from a neighbouring population, and a push to retake the language etc.

Quebec has a lot more resources, no? (In part due to being significantly bigger.) Including lasting ones like fertile agricultural land and cheap clean power that can be sold to the U.S. Northeast.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by lio45

Quebec has a lot more resources, no? Including lasting ones like fertile agricultural land and cheap clean power that can be sold to the U.S. Northeast.

Definitely. Quebec has better land than anything in the Nordics. But Finland does well, with 2021 GDP per capita of USD 53,982 (Canada is USD 52,051).

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

Looking at Norway, Wikipedia says that English knowledge is over 80% there. Poland is about 40% self-reported English skills.

I wonder if there is a bit of tension in Quebec between resisting Anglicization and accepting English as the current global language of commerce. Quebec's utility bills don't need to be in English but there's a big penalty for poor interoperability with English at the business level.

I understand why Quebec doesn't want immigrants who speak zero French, learn English, and operate in English there. But the English knowledge part is somewhat independent from the French knowledge part and I think the French knowledge and everyday use part is more important. In Canada we seem to spend a lot more effort explaining why we don't need to or shouldn't learn languages than reforming our education system so people learn more languages better.

Quebec is in a pretty unique position though. It has more to lose from English fluency than countries like Norway. My school peers who didn't speak good English tended to stay and vice versa. (The ones who didn't had more limited options, but some still ended up in Switzerland and France.)

My knowledge of English has likely lost Quebec more business than it gained. Had I been unilingual, nearly all my business right now would be Quebec-centric.

I don't think Norway has to fear about losing talent to English-speaking neighbors so easily. Dynamic young Norwegians will likely attempt their high-tech startup in Oslo even if they speak English. (Just a guess; I've never been to Norway, but data seems to show Norwegians aren't moving out in high volumes.)

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by lio45

Dynamic young Norwegians will likely attempt their high-tech startup in Oslo even if they speak English.

Language obviously makes this an even bigger issue, but I wonder if one could even measure the effect over time of "the Los Angeles of Canada is Los Angeles". I think it's pretty huge.

[rousseau]

What a fantastic discussion this has been for the last several pages. Really the best of SSP. I've only been following along somewhat cursorily, but I've already bookmarked it in my head to return to later when I have more time to take it all in.

(When certain posters show up and certain other ones don't, things are good around here. Not naming names or anything...)

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Zeej

Even with no PQ, no referendums and no Bill 101, I don't think there's a reality where Montreal is the undisputed Canadian metropolis today.

Actually, I'd say that the only alternate timeline where there's none of the above (you can't just say "a timeline with no PQ but everything else similar", because if everything else is similar, then a PQ-Equivalent will emerge) is the one that has all the Canadiens assimilated into ordinary British subjects within a few generations after the Conquest.

In this alternate timeline, there's no 1837-1838 Patriots' Rebellion, so there's no 1849 Torching of the Parliament, and Montreal remains capital of Canada. (Basically, in this timeline, the entire Quebec City to Windsor Corridor is the culturalinguistic equivalent of today's Southern Ontario.)

I agree with you that if we "only" go back 50-100-150 years (i.e. if we don't go back to an era before Montreal's Canadien element is just irreversible at that point in time), then all alternate timelines end with an Anglo-Canadian city overtaking Montreal.

[kool maudit]

What about... Montcalm defeats Wolfe but New France remains a desultory imperial afterthought. American Revolution still occurs despite absence of Quebec Act (there were other Intolerable Acts, after all), Halifax becomes largest city of British North America and a major naval port in the buildup to avenge the loss on the Plains.

Nova Scotian British troops sweep upriver in 1837, capturing Montreal and Quebec City. The latter is burned, the former becomes a sizeable British port, albeit with no Lachine Canal power-up as BNA's nascent industrial revolution is centered in Halifax and New Glasgow.

Maritime reign of the New Atlantis, Hollis Street metonym for BNA finance, lobster roll hyperorgy, oligarch palaces out to Chester.

I might be missing some stuff.

Edit: my time gap sucks but its because I'm trying to do a stich from the Plains to the industrial revolution.

[lio45]

In that alternate history, doesn't Nova Scotia join the rebels as the 14th Colony? Pretty sure the Maritimes only earned their strong Loyalist character AFTER all those Loyalists relocated there from the Thirteen Colonies (i.e. strong self-selection). In a timeline where the British fail to conquer Canada, then at the time of the American Revolution, I'd tend to think that the colonists of Nova Scotia would find that their obvious destiny is to just go along with everyone else. No?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Nova Scotian British troops sweep upriver in 1837, capturing Montreal and Quebec City.

I'm going to nitpick again, but even in your timeline, there's no way the Yanks don't find some excuse to grab Canada/Ohio/New France before 1837

As we all know, they were crazily expansionist at the time, and France wasn't very committed to defending the territory.

[thewave46]

John A. Macdonald decides to stay in London in 1857 for the pubs instead of coming back to Canada. The United Province of Canada falls prey to gridlocked government unable to function effectively and bridge the gap between nations. The British tire of shovelling in funds to a colonial government that effectively is stalemated.

The Battle of Fort Sumter doesn't happen. That energy is redirected to Manifest Destiny.

The British eventually cede their claims to the Rupert's Land in exchange for cash, realizing the futility of their tenuous position in North America vis-a-vis the United States.

Canada West soldiers on for a bit, but drifts towards the United States. Canada East, Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland, and New Brunswick remain the British Empire's last tenuous holdings in North America. Montreal is the centre of that.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by lio45

In that alternate history, doesn't Nova Scotia join the rebels as the 14th Colony? Pretty sure the Maritimes only earned their strong Loyalist character AFTER all those Loyalists relocated there from the Thirteen Colonies (i.e. strong self-selection). In a timeline where the British fail to conquer Canada, then at the time of the American Revolution, I'd tend to think that the colonists of Nova Scotia would find that their obvious destiny is to just go along with everyone else. No?

NS was quite definitely the 14th colony, and loyalty to the crown was not absolutely guaranteed. There was great suspicion over the loyalties of the New England planters who moved to the Annapolis Valley to take over the rich farming land after the Acadian expulsion. The Eddy Rebellion in 1776 saw Fort Lawrence (formerly Fort Beausejour) placed under siege by local rebels with a letter patent from George Washington himself. They very nearly succeeded, and the siege was only lifted after British reinforcements arrived from Halifax.

The only reason NS didn't fall was because of the large British military presence in Halifax. That and the fact that NS was not really in geographic contiguity with the other 13 colonies.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

The only reason NS didn't fall ...

Interesting choice of words, considering that had NS "fallen", it is because that's what Nova Scotians actually wanted, so it would have been considered a success

The Thirteen Colonies that actually "fell" don't seem to see it that way in their history books

I wonder though, in kool's alternate Montcalm-beats-Wolfe timeline, is Halifax still as huge of a garrison city 15 years after the (failed attempt at) Conquest? In the real timeline, the Brits had a newly conquered country to continue to control; but in the timeline in which they fail to conquer Canada and just let France keep it, maybe they redirect forces to other war theaters in the following 15 years.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

Interesting choice of words, considering that had NS "fallen", it is because that's what Nova Scotians actually wanted, so it would have been considered a success

Most of the settlers in NS in those days came directly from Europe, not the US. This includes say the Truro township populated by English or Halifax and Lunenburg. It would have been very weird for somebody to get on a boat from the UK in 1760, live in NS for a decade or two, then agitate to join colonies days away by ship that most of them had never seen.

The "14th colony" thing for NS doesn't make much sense since it would be either the 1st colony or the 13th colony depending on what date you pick (founding or British takeover). Acadia predates Virginia and NS as a British colony (already 100+ years old then, not a new pioneer settlement) predates the existence of Georgia.