British citizen creates national uproar in Quebec

[Barrister]

I don't know where you get the insistance part.

Qcers don't care much about the postmaster in Yukon being bilingual or not.

Yes the territories, being under quasi-federal jurisdiction, have a very high level of bilingual services.   

[crazy canuck]

Ha ha.

So what would you have us do exactly?

Why not allow people to choose for themselves?

I know it's a radical notion, but it appears to be working well everywhere outside of Quebec so far.

Didn't work in Belgium whee it resulted in massive pressure to go francophone and look down on anything Flemish/Dutch
Won't work in Quebec for much the same reasons I guess.
On the contrary: it only increases the speed at which nation-forming happens in the mind of those who feel repressed.

Made me think of the movement in the US to legislate English as the only official language...

[Malthus]

As for the "special provision" stuff - I happen to think that the gov't is supposed to serve the people, not the people molded into that cultural shape approved by the gov't. Forcing everyone to speak the same language where they don't wish to is a classic case of tyranny of the majority (defined as two sheep and three wolves voting on what's for dinner  ).

Well I agree to some extent as I argued in burkini/pool-gate :p

But I disagree with language.  I would be unhappy to see Bengali or Urdu language schools in England, though I'd have no problem with support for Urdu or Bengali speakers receiving help, or their being Urdu or Bengali language classes in an English school.  If you want a school in a language other than the national, official language then I think you should opt out of the public sector.  Though there should be extensive support for kids  who don't speak the language - such as recent immigrants.

Any attempt to remove public funding from Ontario's francophone schools would cause a terrible uproar, and rightly so.

It would cause an uproar, but I think it'd be right.  I mean their could be some exceptions I could see, for example some sort of Acadian community - and vice versa in Quebec.  But I think that should be the exception not the rule for other communities.

I'm having a difficult time understanding your position. You seem to believe that it is a good idea for a nation to not encourage minorities to speak their traditional languages in *some* cases, but not in others. Who gets to choose, and why?

[Malthus]

I don't know where you get the insistance part.

Qcers don't care much about the postmaster in Yukon being bilingual or not.

Yes the territories, being under quasi-federal jurisdiction, have a very high level of bilingual services.   

Which, it seems, few actually care about or want, least of all people from Quebec, except for purely symbolic reasons.

[Malthus]

As to Zoupa's point that no-one in Quebec cares to educate their kids in English, and so the law has no practical impact:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2007/08/31/language-law.html?ref=rss

The Quebec Court of Appeal ruling that stamped out any hope that 75 immigrant and anglophone children could attend an English school this year is "absolutely unfair," says the president of the province's English School Board Association.

Marcus Tabachnik said Friday there would never have been a flood of children leaving the French-language system to attend English schools if last week's Court of Appeal decision to allow easier access had been allowed to stand.

'The appeals court is the highest court in Quebec. They made a decision, and we expected them to obey that decision, the way we'd be expected to obey it.'
—Marcus Tabachnik, president of the English Language School Board Association"A thousand students out of a million students doesn't shift the balance. It doesn't change anything in terms of the differentiation of the French school boards and schools, and the English schools," Tabachnik said.

Superior Court Judge André Rochon ruled Thursday that the earlier ruling would be suspended until Quebec could appeal it to the Supreme Court, which could take years.

In making the ruling, Rochon said he considered "public order," and he wanted to avoid "administrative and legal chaos" in light of the school year just beginning.

Quebec's three main political parties all welcomed the ruling to suspend last week's judgment that would have allowed 25 Quebec families to send their children to English public schools, provided the children had attended English private schools for at least one year. That ruling went against Quebec's Charter of the French Language.

The Quebec government asked that the ruling be suspended until lawyers could argue in front of the Supreme Court, saying that upholding the ruling would open the floodgates and overwhelm the education system with transfer requests.

The Parti Québécois language critic, Pierre Curzi, said Thursday that making it easier for children to get into English school boards threatened the French language.

"It will be a very important threat against our social cohesion," he said.

Tabachnik said enrolment has gradually dropped in English schools over the past 30 years. He urged the provincial government to address that issue, and to ensure the survival of the English school system.

He said Thursday's decision will further damage the system.

"The appeals court is the highest court in Quebec. They made a decision, and we expected them to obey that decision, the way we'd be expected to obey it.

"Now, to say to the families that it could be a couple of years to know if the Supreme Court will even hear the case — it could be four or five years after that before there's a decision — is absolutely unfair," Tabachnik said.

A lawyer for the families, Brent Tyler, had to break the news to his clients at the Montreal courthouse Thursday.

"My clients are disappointed, that is evident," Tyler said, adding he expected a lengthy delay before both sides could have an audience with the Supreme Court.

"The last time we went in front of the Supreme Court in a similar case, we waited a year and a half to get a court date, and the judges deliberated for a year. In total, it lasted two and a half years," Tyler said.

This too is interesting:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/09/19/quebec-anglophones.html?ref=rss

[DontSayBanana]

The Parti Québécois language critic, Pierre Curzi, said Thursday that making it easier for children to get into English school boards threatened the French language.

"It will be a very important threat against our social cohesion," he said.

This part is ridiculous. Education threatens social cohesion? I can't believe the guy would leave himself open to ridicule this way.

The ruling does not *force* anyone to be educated in English; if a large group of francophones opts for anglophone education instead, that points to a systemic problem that the province should address separately. Refusing to respect cultural and linguistic diversity within your jurisdiction is more likely to harm social cohesion than simply respecting and accommodating it; the complaint smacks strongly of pure and simple xenophobia.

[Malthus]

My overal view of the situation is as follows:

- Official bilingualism was an attempt, noble in its inception but doomed to failure, to create a society which saw itself as neither "English" nor "French" in culture and history, but purely "Canadian".

- A product of 1960s utopian nationalist thinking, which has been overtaken by two significant events:

1. The strengthening of Quebec ethno-nationalism, daunted not at all by the attractions of 'Canadian bilingualism'; and

2. The relative decline of English as an *ethnicity* in the rest of Canada, in favour of multi-culturalism (also vaguely and confusingly embraced by the federal gov't, which somewhat schitzophrenically embraces both multi-culturalism and bilingualsim, even though the two are, quite obviously, incompatible). The difference between the two is that multi-culturalism is more a description of the reality, as a single glance on the Toronto subway would reveal. The type of society envisioned by "official bilingualism" exists no-where except as a hopeful dream.

- In support of their ethno-nationalist project, Quebec politicians of all stripes have embraced a series of restrictive language laws that have had a punitive effect on the English minority living in their province. This is directly contrary to both "official bilingualism" and "multi-culturalism". 

[The Brain]

What exactly is it in Quebec that is so valuable? Why not just declare its independence?

[BuddhaRhubarb]

Last time I was in Quebec I thought the customs people were kind of snotty.  But they were also very hot.

That's how you can tell they are Quebecois,

[Admiral Yi]

What exactly is it in Quebec that is so valuable? Why not just declare its independence?

They supply a massive amount of hydroelectric power to New England.  Plus independence would effectively land lock Ontario.  Plus you'd create a Danzig corridor between the Martimes and the rest of Canada.

Malthus: weren't language rights and/or biligualism officially recognized by treaty or whatever when Canada was formed?

[BuddhaRhubarb]

... as demonstratably untrue. If you are the child of immigrants, you are indeed "forced" into one school system and not the other.

If you go to a school in this country and you're an immigrant then your children will be taught in English.  If there's sufficient numbers a team of specialists in your language may be hired by the school but the language of instruction won't change.

The only exception to that are the people who choose to opt out of our public system.  For example the Lycee Charles de Gaulle, international schools and European schools.

What's so bad about going to a Francophone school when you're from an Anglo home?  I don't understand the problem.

Nothing. a great many kids in Canada (all over the country do what we call "French Immersion" Learning everything at school En Francaise. My Niece is almost fluent in both languages yet is not much of a student. She does average in terms of grades, but has a leg up bilingually.

[Malthus]

Malthus: weren't language rights and/or biligualism officially recognized by treaty or whatever when Canada was formed?

Nope. The Constitution Act of 1867 stated that debates in Parliament were to be bilingual, and federal-jurisdiction court cases. This wasn't in any way "official bilingualism" as we know it - that was the creation of the language act of 1969, following a royal commission in the 1960s, as a whole series of legislative enactments of the 1970s (culminating in the Charter in 1982).

The difference is this: that the 1867 business wasn't an attempt to create a bilingual society as an expression of Canadian nationalism.

[Malthus]

Nothing. a great many kids in Canada (all over the country do what we call "French Immersion" Learning everything at school En Francaise. My Niece is almost fluent in both languages yet is not much of a student. She does average in terms of grades, but has a leg up bilingually.

That's great when it is a matter of choice.

As in many other matters, *choice* and *consent* is what seperates out an experience that is wonderful and positive from one that is seen as oppressive and negative.

Just turn it around, and ask why it isn't okay to require all kids in Quebec to take "English Immersion".

[Barrister]

Malthus: weren't language rights and/or biligualism officially recognized by treaty or whatever when Canada was formed?

Nope. The Constitution Act of 1867 stated that debates in Parliament were to be bilingual, and federal-jurisdiction court cases. This wasn't in any way "official bilingualism" as we know it - that was the creation of the language act of 1969, following a royal commission in the 1960s, as a whole series of legislative enactments of the 1970s (culminating in the Charter in 1982).

The difference is this: that the 1867 business wasn't an attempt to create a bilingual society as an expression of Canadian nationalism.

That's not exactly a "no" answer though.  The BNA Act did recognize certain areas would be bilingual.  I think it also recognized certain language education rights IIRC.

[Malthus]

That's not exactly a "no" answer though.  The BNA Act did recognize certain areas would be bilingual.  I think it also recognized certain language education rights IIRC.

It's not the same, though, as the policy known today as official bilingualism. Not the same in intent and not the same in effect.

Here's the section at issue:

133. Either the English or the French Language may be used by any Person in the Debates of the Houses of the Parliament of Canada and of the Houses of the Legislature of Quebec; and both those Languages shall be used in the respective Records and Journals of those Houses; and either of those Languages may be used by any Person or in any Pleading or Process in or issuing from any Court of Canada established under this Act, and in or from all or any of the Courts of Quebec.

The Acts of the Parliament of Canada and of the Legislature of Quebec shall be printed and published in both those Languages.

http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/ca_1867.html

What can be gleaned from this is that the debates may be bilingual and certain court cases (either federal jurisdiction or in Quebec) may be bilingual and that the official record shall be bilingual.