I'm Québécois from birth (Trois Rivières). I voted in the incredibly close '95 seperation referendum. In my view, separation or sovereignty would be bad for us. Separation is mainly predicated on the idea that Québécois are culturally distinct from the rest of Canada, and that our values would be better represented independently. We mostly speak French, and the rest of Canada is predominantly anglo (my New Brunswick…
> Breaking from Canada to underline these minor differences would come at a tremendous cost. Unfortunately, I suspect that the renewed separatist movement is making a lot of people rethink potential futures in Quebec. For example, my wife and I would easily meet the requirements to immigrate to Quebec. We have francophone family in Montreal, we speak French (one of us natively), and we have valuable professional skil…
Quebec Sovereignty Movement
71–80 of 106 posts
Re: Quebec Sovereignty Movement
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
>CAQ is not separatist and bloc has barely any representative. Seperation is at a all time low. I do understand legault has said he's not separatist. Actions > words. Quebec Liberals have been quite vocal that the CAQ are separatists. As an objective ontario person I say the CAQ are separatist. Let's not even bring up Trudeau and western alienation. In terms of Bloc representation. They have what 50% of the seats in…
I am not sure we should care how a political party defines another.. CAQ are definitely against pushing sovereignty. Bloc did better than I remembered, good for them. Outside of equalization, that federal money comes from our taxes. Besides, if Quebec is so much poorer that the ROC it is because of inequalities that is the impetus for seperatist to begin with. You sound like the beating husband that rejoice because t…
Re: Quebec Sovereignty Movement
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Removing the rest of them? Changing the names of all the places named after Catholic Saints? Not having the municipality put up Christmas decorations every year? You know, actually taking action to do that? They only took down the cross in the National Assembly after backlash and calls of hypocrisy. Originally Legault wanted it to stay up. That alone says to me how BS the whole thing is.
> Changing the names of all the places named after Catholic Saints? Not having the municipality put up Christmas decorations every year? But that stuff really is "history and culture" rather than "public endorsement of religion." People in my home country would never tolerate foreign Christians coming in and demanding that the state stop celebrating Eid or changing place names. People are entitled to their heritage,…
Re: Quebec Sovereignty Movement
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Changing the names of all the places named after Catholic Saints? Not having the municipality put up Christmas decorations every year? But that stuff really is "history and culture" rather than "public endorsement of religion." People in my home country would never tolerate foreign Christians coming in and demanding that the state stop celebrating Eid or changing place names. People are entitled to their heritage,…
Supposedly it's Quebecers themselves who want reglious symbols out of the public sphere. Not immigrants or outsiders. Crosses and Christmas trees are reglious symbols, sure there is some "history and culture" there but there is also "history and culture" in Confederate monuments and places named after them. If Quebecers are serious about removing religious symbols in the public sphere they should take steps to actual…
We had a Christmas tree every year growing up in America as immigrants from a Muslim country. When I visit Tokyo in December, which is in a non-Christian country, there are Christmas trees in all the malls. Christmas trees are the archetypal examples of religious symbols that have turned into cultural symbols.
> there is also "history and culture" in Confederate monuments and places named after them.
Please, lean into this.
Re: Quebec Sovereignty Movement
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Breaking from Canada to underline these minor differences would come at a tremendous cost. Unfortunately, I suspect that the renewed separatist movement is making a lot of people rethink potential futures in Quebec. For example, my wife and I would easily meet the requirements to immigrate to Quebec. We have francophone family in Montreal, we speak French (one of us natively), and we have valuable professional skil…
Speaking a foreign language in a country isn’t a human right. Language is one of the things that defines a country!
The rest of Canada goes to great lengths to provide bilingual support.
It's awful to see English being systematically demonized in Canada.
Re: Quebec Sovereignty Movement
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because: [3] exclusively targets non-Christian symbols and came after a campaign of primarily non-city folk freaking out because immigrants are different - most infamously Herouxville where the town published a manifesto warning immigrants against "stoning and burning women. It included, too, an explanation of the importance of Christmas trees." [1]. The Catholic symbology remains in the officialdom - see the giant c…
You’re grafting an Americanism onto Canadian politics and it doesn’t fit. White folks in Georgia may discriminate against Black folks in Georgia even though the two groups share a culture and language. That’s racism. A distinct cultural group seeking to avoid cultural or linguistic change created by an influx of outsiders isn’t “racism.” It’s a human right for distinct ethnocultural groups to seek political autonomy…
Or do you have another explanation for the population , capital, and cultural flight that occurred over the 80s 90s that we have never recovered from?
Re: Quebec Sovereignty Movement
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Breaking from Canada to underline these minor differences would come at a tremendous cost. Unfortunately, I suspect that the renewed separatist movement is making a lot of people rethink potential futures in Quebec. For example, my wife and I would easily meet the requirements to immigrate to Quebec. We have francophone family in Montreal, we speak French (one of us natively), and we have valuable professional skil…
Speaking a foreign language in a country isn’t a human right. Language is one of the things that defines a country!
Re: Quebec Sovereignty Movement
#78The only reason I see this relevant to HN is because lots of tech companies have been opening Montreal offices over the past 20 years. We have 4 universities and most educated people are bilingual in spite of the officialdom. However the drumbeats of separatism are banging again [1], so might be relevant considering what happened to the Montreal economy the last times these idiots were allowed to lead by their inferi…
It's really depressing how little the wider Quebec population understands about the very serious economic consequences of separation. They don't understand that Montreal, and all it's immigrant workers, is paying for their doctors and retirement plans, the reason they can afford a big house, a boat and holidays in Cuba. Making cheap electricity and aluminium isn't enough. There's a strong undercurrent of anti-Islamic…
If people are fine with less consumption and are willing to trade it for the sake of what they see as a better society.. Why not?
That's like looking at hippy community out in the forests. And then bitching at them that they'll have very serious economic consequences.
Re: Quebec Sovereignty Movement
#79I'm Québécois from birth (Trois Rivières). I voted in the incredibly close '95 seperation referendum. In my view, separation or sovereignty would be bad for us. Separation is mainly predicated on the idea that Québécois are culturally distinct from the rest of Canada, and that our values would be better represented independently. We mostly speak French, and the rest of Canada is predominantly anglo (my New Brunswick…
> Breaking from Canada to underline these minor differences would come at a tremendous cost. Unfortunately, I suspect that the renewed separatist movement is making a lot of people rethink potential futures in Quebec. For example, my wife and I would easily meet the requirements to immigrate to Quebec. We have francophone family in Montreal, we speak French (one of us natively), and we have valuable professional skil…
First, a correction: Discussion around the web suggests that this won't affect McGill much.
The text of the new law is available here: http://m.assnat.qc.ca/fr/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/...
One interesting part is that government offices are generally forbidden to provide English versions of written texts in most situations. There are quite a few exceptions, including tourism, communicating with foreign governments, dealing with First Nations, etc. The most important of these is a health, public security and "natural justice" exception:
> «22.3. Un organisme de l’Administration peut déroger au paragraphe 1° de l’article 13.2 en utilisant, en plus du français, une autre langue lorsqu’il écrit, dans les cas suivants:
> 1° lorsque la santé, la sécurité publique ou les principes de justice naturelle l’exigent;
When dealing with new arrivals to Quebec, government offices may provide written materials in other languages for the first six months. After that, apparently all communications must be solely in French?
Quebec actually has a system for helping immigrants learn French and adapt to life in Quebec. For example, see https://www.quebec.ca/education/apprendre-le-francais/cours-.... From what I've heard, it's not great, but it's better than what's available in some countries. But cutting off all access to bilingual written materials after 6 months (which is my understanding of this text) is obviously going to make it harder to help people assimilate.
One of the industries that will be hardest-hit by this law is Montreal's software industry: https://www.lapresse.ca/affaires/chroniques/2022-06-15/proje...
> Selon le regroupement d’entreprises technos, la nouvelle loi 96 « impose un délai irréaliste, car les nouveaux arrivants doivent jongler avec de multiples défis reliés à leur intégration au sein d’une nouvelle culture et à un changement de vie professionnelle »
Basically: You can't move house, start a demanding new job, adapt to a new culture and reach a high level of French in 6 months. This puts Quebec software companies in a tough place, in terms of recruitment. Probably they'll end up recruiting in other locations.