British citizen creates national uproar in Quebec

[Martinus]

I don't think you know what "either" means.

It's funny. First you said that either he doesn't know English or is a prick. Then you say that of course he knows English and is a prick. These two statements are contradictory.

I don't even know why I am typing this.

[Zoupa]

In the future, please don't then 

[Martinus]

In the future, please don't then 

You are arrogant and unintelligent. You personify perfectly the problem people have with the francophones.

[Zoupa]

ok.

[jimmy olsen]

In the future, please don't then 

You are arrogant and unintelligent. You personify perfectly the problem people have with the francophones.

Talk about stereotyping, you're doing that same thing that Neil does when he says you " personify perfectly the problem people have with gays".

[The Brain]

Two rights don't make a wrong.

[Admiral Yi]

Kick each other's asses.

[garbon]

Talk about stereotyping, you're doing that same thing that Neil does when he says you " personify perfectly the problem people have with gays".

Some stereotypes contain more truth than others.

[Syt]

In the future, please don't then 

You are arrogant and unintelligent. You personify perfectly the problem people have with the francophones.

Having met Zoups I have to politely disagree.

[The Brain]

Everyone on Languish is unintelligent except me.

[Eddie Teach]

Pros and cons of bilingualism should also be taking a back seat here. There's a claim that the person in question was heard speaking English and then pretending not to understand to avoid answering a direct question. If part of that person's job is to answer question, then their sudden loss of ability to speak the language should lead to an equally sudden loss of the job.

He's a doctor, not a customer service rep.

[Martinus]

Pros and cons of bilingualism should also be taking a back seat here. There's a claim that the person in question was heard speaking English and then pretending not to understand to avoid answering a direct question. If part of that person's job is to answer question, then their sudden loss of ability to speak the language should lead to an equally sudden loss of the job.

He's a doctor, not a customer service rep.

And a francophone doctor at that. The kid should be happy they didn't pump him up with HIV-infected blood.

[Eddie Teach]

You are arrogant and unintelligent. You personify perfectly the problem people have with the francophones.

Talk about stereotyping, you're doing that same thing that Neil does when he says you " personify perfectly the problem people have with gays".

You should both use possess instead of have. 

[Zoupa]

In the future, please don't then 

You are arrogant and unintelligent. You personify perfectly the problem people have with the francophones.

Having met Zoups I have to politely disagree.

Them beers were good 

[Malthus]

The issue is whether certain citizen's ancestors are to be honoured into perpetuity over other citizens' ancestors.

If you want to put it that way, suit yourself.

But we already had this conversation, and I answered, to put it simply: yes - that's the reason we are under a British Parliamentary System, studying Common Law and Code Civil and not Ukranian Customs or organizing our bureaucracy around Confucean Ideals. Not because of the superiority of the British system, nor because of a conscious choice or perceived utility of any of those institutions. (*cue for Neil's trolling*).

This is not to say that any of these things are or should be unchanging. But Canada is neither a blank page nor an always changing country and in that regard, in a society which looks to «Rule of Law» as a guiding principle, then, yes, the character that helped structure and build these institutions which frame our everyday lives are French and British - not Ukranian or Chinese. I do not think it is outlandish or xenophobic to recognize it.

Countries are products of their history, and in Canada's case, its institutional history is both French and English.

Again: I do not care about utility. Some choices have to be about ideas and values. It is - or should be - about values and the idea of the country we'd like to shape.

And I would not disagree that persons are shaped by their history. However, your argument appears to be an appeal to conservative traditonalism: the countries' "institutional history" as you put it. That is not an ineffective argument, and as you put it it is a similar argument to that put forward for the common law.

However, as you well know, official bilingualism is a modern innovation, younger in point of fact than I am: it came into effect in the 1970s. Prior to that, it was French "institutions" that were maintained in Quebec and (partly) New Brunswick, but certainly not in most of English Canada. It isn't 'traditional'. Indeed, it was the subject of some injustice to those French-speaking communities outside of Quebec that they were *not* "traditionally" accomodated. 

We are not debating the merits of a conservative, traditional situation, but those of a quite radical innovation and attempt at social engineering - to impose holus-bolus an alien gloss on people whose ancestors did not share it, were not exept in the most tangental way affected by it, and who do in fact have their own culture and values that they appear to believe are worth something.

I would also disagree that the history of Canada has been shaped myopically by English and French alone. Surely the (yes) Ukranians that settled parts of the West, the Chinese that built the railways, the Native Canadians that were here before either French or English arrived, all had something to do with it, no? Why is French given greater prominence in places where no-one speaks it, than any of these others?

In short, if it were not for the threat in the 1970s from seperatism, I suspect there would be no eternal, immutable Canadian "institution" of official bilingualsm. It is a 20th century phenominon, having (as you put it) little to do with utility. As for "ideals" and "values", what exact ideals and values are being honoured or supported by this policy, other than that some ancestries are more important than others? That the French people help to import the rule of law to a savage continent, and thus we should all attempt to learn it? I don't agree with such essentialism.