[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[viper37]

The article is in French, but the tweet in question is in English:
Link

The Tweet

The man is a university professor.  At Ottawa U.  The same university that sanctionned a teacher for asking student to reflect on the empowerement procured by some offensive words by members of their community.  The same university that refused to defend its teacher when attacked by activist students.

In this case however, it is freedom of expression.

Long live Canada, the land of double standards

[Oexmelin]

That guy is a grade A self-important idiot, who even once found himself mainsplaining First Nations issues to Kim Tallbear. https://kimtallbear.com/

[Josephus]

Anyone know what the "jobs not ballots" thing is about?

I think the plan was to accuse Trudeau of only wanting to get re elected, at the expense of jobs. Obviously they messed that up.

[viper37]

That guy is a grade A self-important idiot, who even once found himself mainsplaining First Nations issues to Kim Tallbear. https://kimtallbear.com/

duh!

Still, it's more revealing of English Canada's issues, particularly the entire anglo teacher's corps of this university.  They did not hesitate to qualify their French speaking collegue of racist and well deserving of the student's harassment, but are staying quiet here, protecting freedom of speech.
Double-standards as usual.

In other news, one of the cons of living in Canada is that there's a lot of French speakers:

[crazy canuck]

What does an add from a private immigration consulting firm have to do with English Canada issues?

[Jacob]

The article is in French, but the tweet in question is in English:
Link

The Tweet

The man is a university professor.  At Ottawa U.  The same university that sanctionned a teacher for asking student to reflect on the empowerement procured by some offensive words by members of their community.  The same university that refused to defend its teacher when attacked by activist students.

In this case however, it is freedom of expression.

Long live Canada, the land of double standards

I'm not 100% sure I know the first incident you're talking about. Is it the one where a prof. talked about the n-word and how it has been reclaimed by some people, and then a bunch of black students and allies accused the prof. of being racist, and the prof. got the boot?

And now another prof. is saying that some Quebecois nurses being racist to First Nations people is the equivalent of a lynching, and is saying Quebec is "the Alabama of the North".

And your point is that those two things are basically equivalent, but the first prof. got fired because they are Francophone and the second one received no sanctions because they are Anglophone, and this is evidence of anti-French bias?

Do I understand your point correctly?

[Grey Fox]

I don't think the francophone teacher was fired.

[Grey Fox]

What does an add from a private immigration consulting firm have to do with English Canada issues?

That the RoC hates us.

This is an interesting case, the owner of the firm is a francophone. I'm guessing someone got fired yesterday.

[HVC]

What does an add from a private immigration consulting firm have to do with English Canada issues?

That the RoC hates us.

This is an interesting case, the owner of the firm is a francophone. I'm guessing someone got fired yesterday.

So a francophone owned company sent out a flier, and that shows the the ROC hates francophones?

[Oexmelin]

I think the point is that there is a level of acceptable "Quebec-bashing" in public discourse, which is just ambiguous enough (is it Quebec, as in a political entity, or is it French Canadian, as an ethnicity) to offer plausible deniability about the prejudice underlying it. What makes it grating is that this is often done by people who otherwise drape themselves in their virtuous attitude towards The Other, i.e., the same people would react quite strongly if we simply substituted "the Chinese", or "Pakistanis" in the sentences they proffer.

And while I think we pay too much attention to trolls like Amir Attaran, I have encountered such a thing enough myself - including in academia - that I don't think it's an outraged delusion.

[Oexmelin]

And your point is that those two things are basically equivalent, but the first prof. got fired because they are Francophone and the second one received no sanctions because they are Anglophone, and this is evidence of anti-French bias?

I don't want to presume about Vip's point, but the more specific, narrow point about this case is that, in the case of the n-word, there was a bunch of professors at uOttawa (overwhelmingly anglophones) who quickly "sided" with the administration and the complaining students, whereas in this case, it's more or less silence about Attaran's usual diatribes.

In the case of Attaran, I suspect there is something else at play - mainly, that his schtick has been relegated to the level of background noise. Still, as I said, the grating part is that the sort of spite he displays *can* be relegated to background noise in ways that equivalent spite, for another collective group or identity, would definitely not.

[crazy canuck]

I think the point is that there is a level of acceptable "Quebec-bashing" in public discourse, which is just ambiguous enough (is it Quebec, as in a political entity, or is it French Canadian, as an ethnicity) to offer plausible deniability about the prejudice underlying it. What makes it grating is that this is often done by people who otherwise drape themselves in their virtuous attitude towards The Other, i.e., the same people would react quite strongly if we simply substituted "the Chinese", or "Pakistanis" in the sentences they proffer.

And while I think we pay too much attention to trolls like Amir Attaran, I have encountered such a thing enough myself - including in academia - that I don't think it's an outraged delusion.

How is an ad, by a Francophone owned company, targeted at some unknown group outside Canada, part of the Canadian public discourse?

[Oexmelin]

How is an ad, by a Francophone owned company, targeted at some unknown group outside Canada, part of the Canadian public discourse?

It's presumably conceived by a Canadian citizen, validated by other Canadian citizens, who apparently found it funny enough/acceptable enough to sell to English-speaking people abroad. It's obviously a single instance, but it requires an assumed, shared collective attitude for it to "work".

Francophobes attitudes and low-level prejudices are frequent enough that it rings true to me. And the fact that francophones continuously encounter push-back ("that can't be true/it's not as widespreas as you make it, etc) whenever the matter is raised should give people pause, because it's a very different reaction when say, Middle Eastern, or Asian people point at instances of prejudice. It's a lot more complicated - and politically very different - to push back against Middle Eastern or Asian claims of prejudice being manifested against them. And we wouldn't be using the same fine brush if the joke had been at the expense of, say, Indigenous people: "Con: Indians may attack your wagon".

[crazy canuck]

How is an ad, by a Francophone owned company, targeted at some unknown group outside Canada, part of the Canadian public discourse?

It's presumably conceived by a Canadian citizen, validated by other Canadian citizens, who apparently found it funny enough/acceptable enough to sell to English-speaking people abroad. It's obviously a single instance, but it requires an assumed, shared collective attitude for it to "work".

Francophobes attitudes and low-level prejudices are frequent enough that it rings true to me. And the fact that francophones continuously encounter push-back ("that can't be true/it's not as widespreas as you make it, etc) whenever the matter is raised should give people pause, because it's a very different reaction when say, Middle Eastern, or Asian people point at instances of prejudice. It's a lot more complicated - and politically very different - to push back against Middle Eastern or Asian claims of prejudice being manifested against them. And we wouldn't be using the same fine brush if the joke had been at the expense of, say, Indigenous people: "Con: Indians may attack your wagon".

It is the notion that it received validation that I am struggling to understand.  I note you said, "presumably" but I think you are stretching to piece this data point into your wider observation.

I am not denying that in certain parts of the country it exists, but I don't think this is a good example.

[Oexmelin]

I am not denying that in certain parts of the country it exists, but I don't think this is a good example.

I am willing to accept that, but often the things that "stick" politically are not the best examples of a particularly egregious situation that otherwise exists. I do think it's more widespread than you think, and that it especially stands out as a "safe" low-level prejudice in an otherwise quite policed public discourse about these things. So, I don't lose sleep over that particular ad: it just gets filed away as "yet another example of..."