81–87 of 87 posts
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There’s a difference between a tourist and a local. As a tourist you bring dollars. But try getting any government service in English and you’ll get eye rolls and rude behaviour. Even cops in Montreal will not speak English generally.
How many governments around the world provide services in a foreign language?
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We are a bilingual country. The rest of Canada bends over backwards to offer services in French which are seldom utilized. I would not ask for English in Spain or China because it isn't an official language there. We have a national law that all students--anywhere in the country--can receive instruction in either English or French--but this has been consistently undermined in Quebec. They have made it so arduous to q…
> The rest of Canada bends over backwards to offer services in French which are seldom utilized. Citation needed. Federal government offers services in French almost everywhere, as it offers services in English even in areas where almost no one speaks it. But provincial services? There's just nothing. Ontario struggles to keep higher education and health services in French, and this is the province with the highest n…
So it's not just an issue of access, but equal access. That's why I called it 'bending over backwards'. It feels like a lot of politically-correct posturing that ignores the reality that there are very few French speakers in Winnipeg.
Despite all of this, the French services probably still suck. It's likely that they are equal on paper, but not in reality.
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Indeed let's hope it was basically a mistake; right now I have a few French (from France) friends doing phds at the same university, and I'm pretty sure that they will have English chapters in their thesis (research paper insertion).
The student in the article was warned years ago her thesis wouldn't waive her requirement to pass a standardized test. All they have to do is add either a test or transcripts for 3 years of high school in French. Over time I've known many folks who obtained permanent residency through the exact same program (some of them after completing PhD almost exclusively in English). All they had to do was a test.
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Something like that... and since the referendums happened when Quebec was most inclined to separate (in recent memory) that's really a good sign that > 50% of Quebec would prefer not to.
Are you really thinking that half the province against each other is a good sign? Please.
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> The rest of Canada bends over backwards to offer services in French which are seldom utilized. Citation needed. Federal government offers services in French almost everywhere, as it offers services in English even in areas where almost no one speaks it. But provincial services? There's just nothing. Ontario struggles to keep higher education and health services in French, and this is the province with the highest n…
The Manitoba legislature building offers guided tours in English and French at alternating times. Of course the French tour is probably empty >90% of the time, but it still has to be offered in equal frequency. It wouldn't be fair to offer the English tour every 30 minutes, but only do the French tour twice per day. So it's not just an issue of access, but equal access. That's why I called it 'bending over backwards'…
Most provinces do not make that choice, the further west you go.
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I mean you wouldn't have this reaction if you moved to France. Quebec's official language is French - regardless of its status within the rest of Canada. Why would you move it immigrate to Quebec if you are not willing to learn French? If you like Canada but not French, go to Vancouver or Toronto
Anglophones built Quebec alongside Francophones. We've as much right to this province as francophones. Also, here's a hot-tip: telling people they don't belong somewhere and that they should go live elsewhere is usually a really great heuristic of when you're extremely wrong.
I also remember being a kid being ANGRY at Quebec for daring to want to separate, and thought we should just "kick them out, if they want their own country so badly."
I've come to appreciate Quebec as a unique and meaningfully distinct part of Canada. I do not think it weakens my Canadian identity to have one part of the country have a fiercely proud and unique perspective on feeling equally Quebecois and Canadian at the same time (or some balance of the two). Just because I don't have a similar sense of identity about my province, doesn't mean others can't.
I do think it's a bit unfair that the Federal Government has to treat English and French equally while Quebec itself does not, however I've also learned ago that fair actions and intentions do not always lead to fair outcomes. If Quebec did not fiercely fight to protect it's French-speaking status, it would have died a long time ago and got swallowed up from both sides by the English side of Canada. And that would have been a shame.
Finally, I'm an immigrant. And as such, I am deeply welcoming to other immigrants to Canada. But I also am conscious of the fact that refugees notwithstanding, immigrants have a choice in which part of the country they immigrate to. And given that, I don't think that it's unreasonable to build expectations for them that if they move to Quebec they will need to study and master French if they want to integrate. This should not be any more of a shock or burden than expecting Belgian immigrants to understand that there is a French half and a Flemish/Dutch half, and they are quite different.
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The French started earnestly colonizing Quebec less than 100 years before the British conquest so that analogy does not seem apt at all...
What matters is that the inhabitants when Britain invaded were almost all French, and French speaking. It doesn't matter much if their parents had been there for a long time already or not, it was their home and they had founded it.
In general, I am in favor of the rights of regions to self determination as it is generally better when people are ruled by a government they consent to.
I support the right of Hong Kong, Catalonia, Quebec, Scottland and others to succeed if the majority of their inhabitants have a strong and consistent desire to leave.
I do not support discriminatory policies or attitudes that are intended to drive certain groups of people away.