Canada to firmly re-assess its status as a British colony

[Oexmelin]

I wonder how our Quebec friends would react to an anglo politician in Ontario exhorting the population to speak only English.

I would think he is an idiot. Precisely because the situation of English and French in North America is pretty incomparable. This very simple truth seems paradoxically so hard to grasp.

[crazy canuck]

The sense of entitlement of anglocanadians is pretty staggering, not to mention the veiled comparisons to the gestapo, hints at racism etc.

Man have you got blinders on.  The Francophones are the ones who want to institute State restrictions on language.  The PQ has blamed past losses in neverendums to "immigrants" - which is exactly why limiting immigration is so appealing to some of you.  The society described by Grallon does have striking similarities to State restriction of free expression which has been tried in past Fascist and Communist regimes.

If you are touchy about that then you might want to look a little closer at the extremes of your political sympathies.

[Malthus]

It is not reasonable to use the coercive power of the government to support the culture of one subset of its citizens over another by enacting restictions that go beyond that, to enact measures designed symbolically to emphasize the primacy of one culture over another, to interfere in the free exercise of a parent's choice of language for the education of their children so as to enculturate them with the majority culture even though the parents do not wish this, simply because they are immigrants to the province, etc. 

Hi, I come from Botswana and want to have my kids schooled in Swahili, in Brampton Ontario. Please pay for it, this needs to be a public school. 

I honestly would not care, if the parents could make a case that this would not disadvantage the child - which I would imagine would be difficult to do with Swahili.

English, or French, on the other hand, are languages that would easily pass that test. 

[Oexmelin]

The only Nazi references made in this thread are being made by Viper and you - both from Quebec. So you may wish to reconsider this line of attack.

In this thread, maybe.

Again: it is evident that both "sides" are arguing from a context - with the Quebeckers of Languish asked to defend, or jumbled with caricatures or extreme cases taken from what their opponents deem their position to be, and the Canadians of Languish ascribed some of the political rhetoric that makes it into the chroniclers and columnists of the National Post or the Globe & Mail...

[Jacob]

Hi, I come from Botswana and want to have my kids schooled in Swahili, in Brampton Ontario. Please pay for it, this needs to be a public school. 

Why would someone from Botswana want schooling in Swahili for their kids? Maybe if they were from Kenya or the Comoros, but Botswana?

That's like saying "Hi, I come from Sweden and want to have my kids schooled in Croatian, in Brampton Ontario."

[crazy canuck]

You should call or e-mail the globe to correct them, never buy it again and tell all your friends about their shit reporting.


....right?

You should do that with every newspaper, you should never ever read anything again for that matter because no newspublisher in history has ever published error free.

.....right?

[Valmy]

It is not reasonable to use the coercive power of the government to support the culture of one subset of its citizens over another by enacting restictions that go beyond that, to enact measures designed symbolically to emphasize the primacy of one culture over another, to interfere in the free exercise of a parent's choice of language for the education of their children so as to enculturate them with the majority culture even though the parents do not wish this, simply because they are immigrants to the province, etc. 

Hi, I come from Botswana and want to have my kids schooled in Swahili, in Brampton Ontario. Please pay for it, this needs to be a public school. 

Actually if there was as large a prescence of Swahili in Ontario as there is for English in Quebec I bet Ontario would cave and pay for it.

[crazy canuck]

The only Nazi references made in this thread are being made by Viper and you - both from Quebec. So you may wish to reconsider this line of attack.

In this thread, maybe.

Again: it is evident that both "sides" are arguing from a context - with the Quebeckers of Languish asked to defend, or jumbled with caricatures or extreme cases taken from what their opponents deem their position to be, and the Canadians of Languish ascribed some of the political rhetoric that makes it into the chroniclers and columnists of the National Post or the Globe & Mail...

No, I am reacting directly to what Grallon has posted here.  His view of how Quebec will look after a separation is quite scary.

[viper37]

The story was from the Globe. Restricting the ability of French speakers to attend anglophone institutions and reducing immigration to prevent dilution of the French language are not dramatic steps in your view?  They sound a lot like the racist rantings of a certain past PQ leader.

Indeed I read that Parizeau was literally lurking around some of these meetings.

The  ideas to reduce immigration are just plain foolish.  Immigration is one  of the best ways to keep Quebec's culture and economy alive.

You are confusing two things.  1, there's a group of Ex-PQ MPs who rage quitted.  They left furious that things weren't going their way.  Parizeau is there, as his wife is part of this group.  And these guys have often proposed French only education for Colleges and Universities.
They left because they feel the PQ is not talking enough about the seperatist ideology, not educating the citizens of Quebec to the merits of their ideas. It's an age old debate with the PQ.  They were followed by various other individuals, some quitting, some writing letters, some complaining, etc, etc.

Legault is also an ex-PQ, but he says the timing is not right for independance and the idea should be put on ice.  He's a former seperatist, and his association is a federalist.
Their first proposals dealt with healthcare, education and economy.  Half-hearted measures, far from what we need.  They are only half-dismantling the inefficient School Boards, refusing to hear about private health care because the battle is too tough and propose a raise to the teachers in exchange of a regular evaluation.  They also proposed of paying back the debt, reducing the deficit, seeking efficiency in government services.

Of course, that branded them as right-wing extremists.

AFAIK, their site is not in english:
http://www.coalitionavenir.org/

Anyway.  The immigration proposal is to reduce the numbers from 55 000 to 45 000 for 2 years, though that is misleading as the government already announced a reduction to 50 000.  So, really, it's only 5000 immigrants less for 2 years, the time needed to re-organize the government services to immigrant's integration to our society.  The idea would be to not only seek French speakers, but seek the people we need.  We need doctors, but we have problems getting them to work, for various reasons, too long to explain in this thread.  He simply wants to attract less people and make them better, productive citizens.  Not a bad goal in itself, but again, half-hearted measures.

regarding education, he talks about raising the bar for the French students, i.e. their capacity of writing french at the end of College.  There's already a test for this, he just wants to make it tougher or ask better scores.  Again, not much there.
Lots of talk about having students seeing more theaters, movies, musuems to stimulate their desire for local cultural products.


edit:
got the english text for education.
http://www.coalitionavenir.org/files/complete_version_education_eng_A.pdf

I fail to see anything about French only schools for everyone.

Healthcare:
http://www.coalitionavenir.org/files/Position%20paper%20on%20healthcare%20_full_text2.pdf

Economy:
http://www.coalitionavenir.org/files/Position%20Paper%20Economy%20Summary.pdf

Nothing drastic here.

[Malthus]

I wonder how our Quebec friends would react to an anglo politician in Ontario exhorting the population to speak only English.

I would think he is an idiot. Precisely because the situation of English and French in North America is pretty incomparable. This very simple truth seems paradoxically so hard to grasp.

Like many pleas for double standards, this one doesn't bear any scrutiny. The offensiveness of calling for people in Ontario to only speak English is not caused by the fact that such a call would be effective, or because such a call is necessary - neither is true - but because it is denigrating to those who choose to speak French. That is why people in Quebec would (rightfully) howl in outrage if anyone did it.

Of course, the same is true when the shoe's on the other foot, but people in the RoC are enured to such stuff by now and so hardly react at all.

[Valmy]

You should do that with every newspaper, you should never ever read anything again for that matter because no newspublisher in history has ever published error free.

.....right?

I don't know man.  They described a scary political platform for a party that that party does not actually have.  That sounds like libel to me, not a simple mistake.

[Oexmelin]

The PQ has blamed past losses in neverendums to "immigrants" - which is exactly why limiting immigration is so appealing to some of you.  The society described by Grallon does have striking similarities to State restriction of free expression which has been tried in past Fascist and Communist regimes.

...and we were doing so well.

Every society limits immigration, and the overwhelming majority of societies out there - including the US - limits it more than Canada and Quebec, on a per capita basis. One can certainly take pride in that fact re: Canada, but before ascribing any such talk by a non-party to an undercurrent of fascism (Grallon's own idiosyncracises notwithstanding), maybe some rhetorical precautions would be in order. 

[Berkut]

Man - I sure am feeling the love from quebec after arguing with CC and Malthus that Quebec does actually have the right to take steps to protect the French language.

There is nothing so hated as someone who isn't as radical as the radicals demand.

[Zoupa]

Hi, I come from Botswana and want to have my kids schooled in Swahili, in Brampton Ontario. Please pay for it, this needs to be a public school. 

Why would someone from Botswana want schooling in Swahili for their kids? Maybe if they were from Kenya or the Comoros, but Botswana?

That's like saying "Hi, I come from Sweden and want to have my kids schooled in Croatian, in Brampton Ontario."

The great Dane. Stop being a smart ass 

[viper37]

The PQ has blamed past losses in neverendums to "immigrants" - which is exactly why limiting immigration is so appealing to some of you.

Only Parizeau did that, and he was immediatly contradicted by almost everyone who followed him.  Also, he resigned shortly after that.