Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Hali87]

Another observation - more in response to posts about "the inevitable drift towards English";

French has actually had a noticeably growing presence in Halifax over my lifetime, with CSAP (Acadian/Francophone public school board) steadily growing larger relative to HRSB (the "Mainstream Anglo public school board", which includes French Immersion; it is still significantly larger than CSAP). Aside from Dal and maybe NSCAD, the fastest-growing university in Halifax has been Université Ste-Anne, which AFAIK had 0 presence in Halifax even back in the early-to-mid 90s, while now it is effectively the city's 7th university (and has better name recognition than the "6th", AST).

The amount of spoken French heard in public and in business has also increased significantly, both during tourist seasons and otherwise. When I was young, French in Halifax was more something you'd encounter on cereal boxes and official government announcements, and in school, or for the truly ambitious, maybe French-language TV or radio, whereas now it's frequently heard being spoken by actual people in conversation.

A lot of the major office complexes on the Peninsula are full of departments that deal with French-speaking clients/contacts/etc as well as English-speaking ones, which of course requires staff who speak French (and of these, I'd guess ~40% speak French at home and ~40% speak English, with the remainder being "equally both" or "neither"). This seems to be a growing segment here.

A few big factors have been a growing presence of international students (the universities are allowed to charge them higher fees/tuition, and a lot of these students have incidentally been from Francophone countries); the general drift from Rest-of-NS to Halifax, which incidentally included a lot of Acadians; steady migration from NB to NS, ditto; and more recently, steady international immigration (unrelated to post-secondary), which seems to be more Francophone on average than anywhere else in Canada outside of Quebec and NB. I'm not positive but I think there's also been a general drift within the Armed Forces (and various other Federal departments) where Halifax is the "bilingual" Anglo city where you'd put the French-language naval units that for practical reasons (/consolidation of bases) wouldn't be able to operate in truly Francophone parts of Canada, etc - I'm curious whether there are any ships based in Victoria/Esquimault (Canada's "other Navy base") where the crews operate mostly in French. If not, then it's part of an overall trend (which extends beyond the military into the overall bureaucratic and corporate realms) where not only does CFB Halifax bring French-speaking military units and personnel to Halifax, but it does so in a way that actually decreases the presence of the French language in the other Anglo cities where they otherwise would probably have ended up, in this case, Victoria. Within the context of NATO and similar "both sides of the Atlantic" organizations, plus the universities, port, and airport, there are certain advantages to nudging some of Canada's French-language (or more broadly, "non-English languages from the other side of the Atlantic") stuff towards Halifax.

Having grown up here, I naively though that the experience in Halifax - increasing use of French over the 90s-to-now timeframe - was "normal" across Canada, but having seen the rest of the country, I'd actually conclude that it's one of the only cities in the country (possibly even the only one) where this is the case. Which is a bit ironic given the city's early history and raison d'être.

[edit: I think there's also a kind of a priori "hard bilingualism" built into the Province and the nature of its relationship with the French language - the name of the province, and the way that is spelled, is completely different in English (Nova Scotia*) than in French (Nouvelle-Écosse). For reference:

Terre-Neuve et Labrador
Nouvelle-Écosse
Île-du-Prince-Édouard
Nouveau-Brunswick
Québec
Ontario
Manitoba
Saskatchewan
Alberta
Colombie-Britannique

Yukon
Territoires du Nord-Ouest
Nunavut

(with apologies for any spelling errors)



This may seem trivial, but consider that when designing the Province's logo, for example, in ~5 provinces there is a built-in political decision of whether to include both names/spellings or not, and in ~5 provinces this decision simply does not have to be made (in Quebec there would be a not-totally-unreasonable argument that the difference in spelling, an accent over the "e", is trivial enough to not bother including both, and if they decided to be "reasonable, to a fault" they could require the official spelling in that kind of context to be QUEBEC, all-caps, with no accent aigu, which would qualify as technically correct in both languages

In practice, I don't think there's a BC logo that includes the words "Colombie-Britannique" or any reference to French (unsurprising);

Then there's the contrived, New [tab] Nouveau [enter] Brunswick style ubiquitous in NB (sometimes with C A N A D A across the bottom, in case the rest of the logo hadn't made that clear);

Nova Scotia / Nouvelle-Écosse - French below English, sized so that the name is the same length horizontally in both languages, not so that one language inherently gets a larger font than the other;

Prince Edward Island with "identical other than language" logos in each language;

Newfoundland & Labrador (sometimes with C A N A D A across the bottom, which I suspect has radically different implications than in New Brunswick!)




*Nova Scotia technically being the Latin name, retained in English for unknown reasons, while others from that era - Nova Francia, Nova Anglia, Nova Belgica, Terranova, etc, were not retained as the "main" names in English or most other languages. The "truly English" name, New Scotland, is only used as a minor nickname. Interestingly, a lot of languages end up somewhere between the two, often just due to which aspects of the Latin language were embraced or rejected by various other languages over time - in Ukrainian it's roughly "Nova Scotlandia" (Нова Шотландія), which is simply the literal, "100% contemporary Ukrainian" translation of New Scotland, Nouvelle-Écosse, etc.]

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Another observation - more in response to posts about "the inevitable drift towards English";

French has actually had a noticeably growing presence in Halifax over my lifetime, with CSAP (Acadian/Francophone public school board) steadily growing larger relative to HRSB (the "Mainstream Anglo public school board", which includes French Immersion; it is still significantly larger than CSAP). Aside from Dal and maybe NSCAD, the fastest-growing university in Halifax has been Université Ste-Anne, which AFAIK had 0 presence in Halifax even back in the early-to-mid 90s, while now it is effectively the city's 7th university (and has better name recognition than the "6th", AST).

The amount of spoken French heard in public and in business has also increased significantly, both during tourist seasons and otherwise. When I was young, French in Halifax was more something you'd encounter on cereal boxes and official government announcements, and in school, or for the truly ambitious, maybe French-language TV or radio, whereas now it's frequently heard being spoken by actual people in conversation.

A lot of the major office complexes on the Peninsula are full of departments that deal with French-speaking clients/contacts/etc as well as English-speaking ones, which of course requires staff who speak French (and of these, I'd guess ~40% speak French at home and ~40% speak English, with the remainder being "equally both" or "neither"). This seems to be a growing segment here.

A few big factors have been a growing presence of international students (the universities are allowed to charge them higher fees/tuition, and a lot of these students have incidentally been from Francophone countries); the general drift from Rest-of-NS to Halifax, which incidentally included a lot of Acadians; steady migration from NB to NS, ditto; and more recently, steady international immigration (unrelated to post-secondary), which seems to be more Francophone on average than anywhere else in Canada outside of Quebec and NB. I'm not positive but I think there's also been a general drift within the Armed Forces (and various other Federal departments) where Halifax is the "bilingual" Anglo city where you'd put the French-language naval units that for practical reasons (/consolidation of bases) wouldn't be able to operate in truly Francophone parts of Canada, etc - I'm curious whether there are any ships based in Victoria/Esquimault (Canada's "other Navy base") where the crews operate mostly in French. If not, then it's part of an overall trend (which extends beyond the military into the overall bureaucratic and corporate realms) where not only does CFB Halifax bring French-speaking military units and personnel to Halifax, but it does so in a way that actually decreases the presence of the French language in the other Anglo cities where they otherwise would probably have ended up, in this case, Victoria. Within the context of NATO and similar "both sides of the Atlantic" organizations, plus the universities, port, and airport, there are certain advantages to nudging some of Canada's French-language (or more broadly, "non-English languages from the other side of the Atlantic") stuff towards Halifax.

Having grown up here, I naively though that the experience in Halifax - increasing use of French over the 90s-to-now timeframe - was "normal" across Canada, but having seen the rest of the country, I'd actually conclude that it's one of the only cities in the country (possibly even the only one) where this is the case. Which is a bit ironic given the city's early history and raison d'être.

[edit: I think there's also a kind of a priori "hard bilingualism" built into the Province and the nature of its relationship with the French language - the name of the province, and the way that is spelled, is completely different in English (Nova Scotia*) than in French (Nouvelle-Écosse). For reference:

Terre-Neuve et Labrador
Nouvelle-Écosse
Île-du-Prince-Édouard
Nouveau-Brunswick
Québec
Ontario
Manitoba
Saskatchewan
Alberta
Colombie-Britannique

Yukon
Territoires du Nord-Ouest
Nunavut

(with apologies for any spelling errors)



This may seem trivial, but consider that when designing the Province's logo, for example, in ~5 provinces there is a built-in political decision of whether to include both names/spellings or not, and in ~5 provinces this decision simply does not have to be made (in Quebec there would be a not-totally-unreasonable argument that the difference in spelling, an accent over the "e", is trivial enough to not bother including both, and if they decided to be "reasonable, to a fault" they could require the official spelling in that kind of context to be QUEBEC, all-caps, with no accent aigu, which would qualify as technically correct in both languages

In practice, I don't think there's a BC logo that includes the words "Colombie-Britannique" or any reference to French (unsurprising);

Then there's the contrived, New [tab] Nouveau [enter] Brunswick style ubiquitous in NB (sometimes with C A N A D A across the bottom, in case the rest of the logo hadn't made that clear);

Nova Scotia / Nouvelle-Écosse - French below English, sized so that the name is the same length horizontally in both languages, not so that one language inherently gets a larger font than the other;

Prince Edward Island with "identical other than language" logos in each language;

Newfoundland & Labrador (sometimes with C A N A D A across the bottom, which I suspect has radically different implications than in New Brunswick!)




*Nova Scotia technically being the Latin name, retained in English for unknown reasons, while others from that era - Nova Francia, Nova Anglia, Nova Belgica, Terranova, etc, were not retained as the "main" names in English or most other languages. The "truly English" name, New Scotland, is only used as a minor nickname. Interestingly, a lot of languages end up somewhere between the two, often just due to which aspects of the Latin language were embraced or rejected by various other languages over time - in Ukrainian it's roughly "Nova Scotlandia" (Нова Шотландія), which is simply the literal, "100% contemporary Ukrainian" translation of New Scotland, Nouvelle-Écosse, etc.]

You'd actually notice this with French in Toronto too. In fact French appears to be on the up and up in a number of places like that outside Quebec because it was starting from zero, effectively.

I have no idea if ultimately Halifax and Toronto and some other places will replace the Ottawas of the ROC in French-speaking Canada, but the decline of French in the capital and other former bastions outside Quebec is often precipitous, and at the moment at least even modest growth in the "new beach heads" doesn't even come close to compensating.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

This is part of what rubs me the wrong way sometimes about these debates. In one standard presentation, the "ROC" is a blob and it is populated by a species of quasi-American who get easily triggered by Quebec. But the regions vary a lot, they have their own motivations, and Quebec's internal rules are very far down the list of their priorities.

Your secularism point is correct and has been true for 250 years or so (you always have to adjust for contemporary norms going back in time). It means that from the local perspective there, Bill 21 is a very strange law even without looking at any modern hot button politics. But most Canadians are completely ignorant of this (and will post Stats Can statistics about the % who say they are Anglican or whatever). That is fine but it means that local politics won't necessarily be very legible to you if you live outside of the region.

Laws similar to Bill 21 exist in many European countries and even in a number of Muslim-majority countries. It arguably only appears "strange" from a 2020s Anglo North American perspective.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Hali87

This may seem trivial, but consider that when designing the Province's logo, for example, in ~5 provinces there is a built-in political decision of whether to include both names/spellings or not, and in ~5 provinces this decision simply does not have to be made (in Quebec there would be a not-totally-unreasonable argument that the difference in spelling, an accent over the "e", is trivial enough to not bother including both, and if they decided to be "reasonable, to a fault" they could require the official spelling in that kind of context to be QUEBEC, all-caps, with no accent aigu, which would qualify as technically correct in both languages

The simplest way to have it the same in both languages is to have it be Québec in both languages (I just confirmed that the word "cliché" is in English dictionaries with the accent, so... no excuse )

See:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clich%C3%A9

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Hali87

As far as I know, this is just a motion put forward by 1 of 16 council members (maybe out of principle, or maybe just "throwing things at the wall" for political points, enough of his constituents seemed to support this on Twitter, etc). I haven't heard anything about this "passing" and definitely haven't heard anything about the City adopting this as an official position or putting money towards "Fighting Quebec's Bill 21".

Also, it's not a Motion to Oppose Quebec's Bill 21 (etc), it's a motion to request a staff report on the implications of opposing Quebec's Bill 21 (etc). While I get the point that in many (nearly all?) cases, this is a formality where there is "one acceptable conclusion" and any staff who came to any other conclusion would lose their jobs for "being Islamophobic" - ergo, a motion to request a staff report of this nature is effectively the same as requesting that it formally be opposed - Halifax is a bit more of a wild card in this way than say, Brampton or Saskatoon, and I would not be surprised if a motion to make "opposition to Quebec Bill 21" an official position fails to pass here.

(Detailed reports explaining to Council that their ideas are stupid wastes of money, and recommending that they don't go through with whatever they'd been considering, are in many ways a local specialty - and for example are the main reason why we don't have rail transit, a CFL team or CFL-spec stadium, didn't host the Commonwealth Games, and don't have enough housing)

I'll admit that I haven't been following Halifax council position re: Quebec Bill 21 very closely, but to the extent that I do follow municipal politics, it does not really seem to be on the radar very much; compared to the real, ongoing crises directly affecting NS, it would seem frivolous to most for council and staff to be redirecting valuable time and resources towards deciding whether or not to officially scold Quebec for shooting themselves in the foot (Bill 21 is limiting to Quebec's own residents, civil service, and public image/reputation, not NS's). I think that most of council / the public accept that this would be virtue signaling in its purest sense (we would be spending significant time and money on something that inherently changes nothing in Halifax, and in all imaginable circumstances, also changes nothing anywhere else, including Quebec).

So while it's very clear that HRM/NS is not going to do something like Bill 21 themselves*, hand-wringing over whatever draconian inconveniences Quebec wants to impose on its own residents this time is not very high on the list of urgent concerns for most people here. With one caveat being that HRM/NS is likely the most "secular" part of the country, not in the deliberate, Quebec sense, but in the sense that religion is just something that most people are kind of indifferent about, and where religion (and even freedom of religion) simply is not a talking point in local politics or public discourse most of the time. It also seems to have the lowest rates of religious extremism/fundamentalism in Canada (possibly all of North America, as far south as Panama). The only regions I could see being "even more like this" are in the Far North - I'm thinking possibly the Territories and/or Greenland, but probably not Alaska.



*if anything, issuing an official statement declaring exactly that, and then moving on, seems like it would be the most effective approach for most jurisdictions, including HRM/NS.

I agree with you guys about the drift to secularism in a place like Halifax. It is observable in other parts of the ROC as well.

But I think that the transition played out differently in Quebec. It was more brutal and more the result of an active decision as opposed to a drift. That is probably a big reason why Quebec is admittedly more aggressive when it comes to this stuff.

It's also noteworthy that many ROCers are somewhat indifferent to the topic, and I have had people both online and in person say stuff like "and if society becomes more religious again, then so be it". Of course they also have confidence that secularist evolution will continue, so they don't see the need for nudges like Bill 21.

OTOH few people in Quebec would say that a come-back by religion would be a good thing or even "neutral", and they are also not convinced that secularism will always naturally prevail.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

The thing I can't get past is how minor these complaints are.

This argument is fully symmetrical though.

Let's set it in a neutral context. If you can't believe that Catalans could want independence over "minor" stuff, then you also can't believe Madrid would go as far as to put the unity of the country at a very real risk by insisting on refusing to grant "minor" requests.

The only logical conclusion from these observations is that the stuff only seems minor to external/foreign observers, and that to the people actually involved, it's a big deal.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by lio45

The simplest way to have it the same in both languages is to have it be Québec in both languages (I just confirmed that the word "cliché" is in English dictionaries with the accent, so... no excuse )

See:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clich%C3%A9

Well for me and most Anglophones, the simplest way would be "Quebec" (or "QUEBEC") in both languages, because the [é] requires a bunch of extra keystrokes on keyboard configurations that aren't specifically optimized for French (at least on PC - on Mac it's less tedious, but still more work than just typing [e])

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

That's also why I say that my "ROC" includes Quebec...

I use "ROC" all the time when referring to "Canada minus (usually NS, but really whatever place is being singled out). It's an acronym that doesn't usually need explaining (most people would guess "Rest of Canada" or "Remainder of country", which are the same thing), and it's way quicker than "other 9 provinces".

If it was meant to be dismissive and othering, it would probably be RdC, not ROC. I really do think it is just the most concise way of expressing "the parts of Canada that have not otherwise been identified in this paragraph/etc".

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Well for me and most Anglophones, the simplest way would be "Quebec" (or "QUEBEC") in both languages, because the [é] requires a bunch of extra keystrokes on keyboard configurations that aren't specifically optimized for French (at least on PC - on Mac it's less tedious, but still more work than just typing [e])

Officially and legally in Canada, the province of Quebec is spelled "Québec" in French and "Quebec" in English. This is what the federal government does in all its publications. I believe however that the Quebec government uses "Québec" in both languages.

Still officially and legally, Montreal is supposed to be spelled "Montréal" in both languages.

And so really, if you're writing out an address in Valérie Plante's city in English, you should be writing it "Montréal, Quebec". You see this in federal publications sometimes. If they're following the rules, anyway.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I use "ROC" all the time when referring to "Canada minus (usually NS, but really whatever place is being singled out). It's an acronym that doesn't usually need explaining (most people would guess "Rest of Canada" or "Remainder of country", which are the same thing), and it's way quicker than "other 9 provinces".

If it was meant to be dismissive and othering, it would probably be RdC, not ROC. I really do think it is just the most concise way of expressing "the parts of Canada that have not otherwise been identified in this paragraph/etc".

Totally believable, though I wonder if in the absence of any context whatsoever, if people in NS would intuitively think that "the ROC" or "the rest of Canada" meant ON-QC-NB-PE-NL-MB-SK-AB-BC but not NS, if someone mentioned that in a conversation.

I think that for better or worse, for a lot of people, "the ROC" moniker is primarily a feature of the relationship between Quebec and the rest of the country.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

Let's set it in a neutral context. If you can't believe that Catalans could want independence over "minor" stuff, then you also can't believe Madrid would go as far as to put the unity of the country at a very real risk by insisting on refusing to grant "minor" requests.

A and B are sitting in a restaurant. A wants one of B's french fries. B says no. A says he will kill himself if B doesn't give him the french fry. A says it is ridiculous that B would let A kill himself over something so trivial as a french fry, which is about as bad as killing yourself because you didn't get a french fry, so they are even.

The real issue there is not the french fry, it is the suicide threats.

All that being said I agree with you, issues like Quebec provincial worker dress codes should generally be up to Quebec voters. The HRM mayor and council also basically agreed with this and the Charter might agree. The Charter gives wide laterality on a lot of issues compared to similar documents in many other countries.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I think that for better or worse, for a lot of people, "the ROC" moniker is primarily a feature of the relationship between Quebec and the rest of the country.

I don't think this is really true at all. It's hard for me to imagine a conversation where "rest of Canada" would come up where people in NS would jump to thinking it's about Quebec (same here in BC; QC has a very low profile here). I had not heard of this ROC stuff until reading about it on SSP. If I just heard "rest of Canada" in NS I would assume outside NS or similar places (so maybe it would include NB/PEI, maybe NL, but not "Central Canada" or "Out West").

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't think this is really true at all. It's hard for me to imagine a conversation where "rest of Canada" would come up where people in NS would jump to thinking it's about Quebec (same here in BC; QC has a very low profile here). I had not heard of this ROC stuff until reading about it on SSP. If I just heard "rest of Canada" in NS I would assume outside NS or similar places (so maybe it would include NB/PEI, maybe NL, but not "Central Canada" or "Out West").

I think the most common term that people would use would be "other parts of Canada", and probably not "the rest of Canada".

In order to have an "us", you need a "them". I don't think Nova Scotians, or Manitobans, really do that othering thing with the other provinces as a monolith on the one side, and their province on the other.

About the only place in Anglo-Canada that does that is Newfoundland, with the whole Mainland(er) thing that's kind of equivalent to "the ROC".

And even so, I think that Quebec might not even be included in what most Newfoundlanders have in mind when they think of the Mainland(ers).

Quebec probably has its own category of rebuke and scorn in Newfoundland.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I agree with you guys about the drift to secularism in a place like Halifax. It is observable in other parts of the ROC as well.

It's not just a modern drift though. It was always a secular place with a lot of different religions or people who weren't religious or were only nominally religious. It was originally basically protestant and pluralistic from very early on.

IMO there are real differences when it comes to the status of French and bilingualism in NS as well, and they show up in data. About 12% of Halifax residents declare that they can speak French on the census now. I would say that beyond this, the population and politicians are quite receptive to anything having to do with French. I remember a while back when there were some initiatives around French language courses for politicians and they all wanted to take part in it. I don't think it is like that as much here in BC. And I don't think Quebec is likely to notice this "opening" at all.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In order to have an "us", you need a "them". I don't think Nova Scotians, or Manitobans, really do that othering thing with the other provinces as a monolith on the one side, and their province on the other.

IMO there's a pretty strong identity gap between Maritimers and Ontarians or Westerners and Ontarians. And I have heard the "mainlander" thing or similar from residents of Vancouver Island or the Gulf Islands, PEI, and Cape Breton.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

IMO there's a pretty strong identity gap between Maritimers and Ontarians or Westerners and Ontarians. And I have heard the "mainlander" thing or similar from residents of Vancouver Island or the Gulf Islands, PEI, and Cape Breton.

Yes, I used to live in (on?) PEI and "oh, you're from away?" is something you'd hear fairly regularly there. Islands are always a bit special.

[someone123]

"Come from away" was not too long ago used all around Atlantic Canada including in NS.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

It's not just a modern drift though. It was always a secular place with a lot of different religions or people who weren't religious or were only nominally religious. It was originally basically protestant and pluralistic from very early on.

IMO there are real differences when it comes to the status of French and bilingualism in NS as well, and they show up in data. About 12% of Halifax residents declare that they can speak French on the census now. I would say that beyond this, the population and politicians are quite receptive to anything having to do with French. I remember a while back when there were some initiatives around French language courses for politicians and they all wanted to take part in it. I don't think it is like that as much here in BC. And I don't think Quebec is likely to notice this "opening" at all.

I think most people in Quebec see a pretty big difference between first and second language French. (Assuming that second language French is actually growing in the ROC - I assume it is slowly on the way down in most places after several decades of decent growth.)

Sure, if it's actually happening it's a good thing for more non-francophones to be learning French, but it doesn't help that much if on the other hand the numbers of native French speakers who live their lives (or most of their lives) in the language continues to decline, both in relative terms and in sheer numbers.

The name of the game is to have families, communities and regions or "societies" that function primarily in French on a everyday level.

As someone who travels across Canada fairly frequently, I also can't say I have noticed an uptick in people offering to serve us in French, or striking up a conversation in French. I mean, if I am alone they don't know I am francophone so they just speak to me in English, but if I am with other people like my family, they can obviously tell that we are francophones.

If anything the likelihood of them picking up on that and switching to French has gone down in most places, especially in Ottawa, and Eastern and Northern Ontario. Anglo parts of Atlantic Canada seems to have remained the same. Which is to say it's truly exceptional to have that happen.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Totally believable, though I wonder if in the absence of any context whatsoever, if people in NS would intuitively think that "the ROC" or "the rest of Canada" meant ON-QC-NB-PE-NL-MB-SK-AB-BC but not NS, if someone mentioned that in a conversation.

I think that for better or worse, for a lot of people, "the ROC" moniker is primarily a feature of the relationship between Quebec and the rest of the country.

I think you're fundamentally right, but I've yet to see it used "in the absence of any context whatsoever".

So in practice I'd say it's a Quebec-specific thing only to the extent that these topics come up less frequently in the ROC. Talking about the other provinces while avoiding the phrase "Rest of Canada" is pretty tedious, and in practice I don't think there's another "standard, non-political" phrase for that, in either language.

(And with so much communication being text-based these days, a lot of people like to abbreviate things whenever they can)

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by someone123

"Come from away" was not too long ago used all around Atlantic Canada including in NS.

I'm low-key hoping that maybe 10 or 20 years from now, it will be socially acceptable enough to use "CFA" as a convenient acronym for "anyone who has moved to [whatever place is being discussed], whether from the ROC or another country"

As with ROC I don't think there's a more concise way of expressing CFA, but unfortunately the phrase/acronym has baggage, so for now we just settle for using way more words to express the same thing. I'm one of the people who might be "othered" by use of CFA to describe "non-old-stock" people and I'm still fine with the acronym (for pragmatic reasons), and my Albertan parents, who over a few decades began to think of themselves as "Nova Scotian now, I guess, having moved here from Alberta decades ago" would earnestly (or at least humourously) agree that they're CFAs. Because they are.

Although maybe I'm being foolishly naïve (@Lio - there's another one for you, according to the spell check) and the baggage historically associated with the term could become relevant again as more people move to Halifax/NS/wherever and pressures on the, well, non-CFAs increase significantly, to the point that many or even most are displaced (becoming somewhere else's CFAs) or left homeless.