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

[The Brain]

Personally, I base my opinions on what everyone outside Ontario thinks on any subject based on what the assholes in Youtube comments have to say.   

It's a scary world out there ... 

Shuddup Jew I m goin to r4pe you

This is incredibly offensive.

[viper37]

Why?

Because they need civilization too.  Just because they are filthy good to nothing barbarians, doesn't mean they can't bask in the benevolent light of evolved bilingual civilizations.

No, seriously, learning other languages is good for the mind, so either French or Spanish.  Spanish isn't much use in norther states, French isn't much use in southern states, so, the states should simply decide what feels good to them.  I think America would benefit a lot from having a multilingual atheist population of they replace church school with language school

Lots of things are good for the mind, but I don't think the government should mandate the use of Sudoku.  The purpose of language is to communicate, and having more than one language is terrible.  That's been the whole point of the pressure to wipe out all the other languages over the last few generations.  And why do you think that French would be of any use in any state?  I would think that Spanish would have more utility anywhere in the US.  The teaching of French in American schools is the product of the remains of the 1800s, when people were still alive who remember the days when French was the common tongue of diplomacy and literature.

As I said, it depends on the state.  Vermont seems to find an interest in offering bilingual services in many places, even restaurants, airports and hotels.  Isn't it strange that you get expelled from an Air Canada aircraft for asking the company to respect its rules and provide you with french services while a country who owes nothing to French Canadian feels the need to teach french in schools and encourage employers to hire bilingual staff?

Besides, all I said it it's good to learn a second language.  French is still widely spoken in Africa, Europe (France, Belgium, Switzerland) and some part of the carribeans (also Louisiana, even if I can't understand them), so it has its uses, eventually, in commerce or tourism.  You never know where you might end up in the future.

Of course Spanish is very useful too, so ideally, everyone in NA would learn the three official languages of NAFTA.  I sure wished I had time to learn Spanish.  German, Dutch and Portuguese are nice too, but not widely spoken outside of Europe.

[Maximus]

Yes, there are anti-Quebec trolls, but you seem to pay them way more attention and ascribe way more significance to them than most anglophones do.

I don't pay much attention to anti-english trolls either, they seem to be a minority in Quebec.  Yet, they do get significant attention in Canada's medias.

Do you pay attention to yourself?

[Valmy]

Personally, I base my opinions on what everyone outside Ontario thinks on any subject based on what the assholes in Youtube comments have to say.   

It's a scary world out there ... 

Shuddup Jew I m goin to r4pe you

This is incredibly offensive.

U dont like freedom of speech typical liberal

[The Brain]

Personally, I base my opinions on what everyone outside Ontario thinks on any subject based on what the assholes in Youtube comments have to say.   

It's a scary world out there ... 

Shuddup Jew I m goin to r4pe you

This is incredibly offensive.

U dont like freedom of speech typical liberal

I like spelling and grammar.

[garbon]

As I said, it depends on the state.  Vermont seems to find an interest in offering bilingual services in many places, even restaurants, airports and hotels.  Isn't it strange that you get expelled from an Air Canada aircraft for asking the company to respect its rules and provide you with french services while a country who owes nothing to French Canadian feels the need to teach french in schools and encourage employers to hire bilingual staff?

Could that be the result of proximity and the fact that it is good on a cost-benefit ratio for businesses in Vermont? Seems like the same could hardly be said for the rest of Canada.

[viper37]

Yes, there are anti-Quebec trolls, but you seem to pay them way more attention and ascribe way more significance to them than most anglophones do.

I don't pay much attention to anti-english trolls either, they seem to be a minority in Quebec.  Yet, they do get significant attention in Canada's medias.

Do you pay attention to yourself?

I'm not anti-english.  I don't hate inferior beings

What I'm refering to, is people who don't want english to be taught at school, or at a very minimal level for fear of losing our identity.  People who think everything english is bad, people who think Quebec tv is the best tv in the world.

There's a limit to everything.  Mine is I simply don't want Quebec defaced.  I don't want Quebec to be a small Ontario or a Big New Brunswick with a folkloric french population.  It's the point I'm trying to get across, wich none of you seems to be able to understand.

If Quebec editorialists were to write about Israel and its people the same way Canadian medias are writing about Quebec and its people, we would be branded as anti-semetic terrorist lovers.  Oh wait, they already do that

[garbon]

There's a limit to everything.  Mine is I simply don't want Quebec defaced.  I don't want Quebec to be a small Ontario or a Big New Brunswick with a folkloric french population.  It's the point I'm trying to get across, wich none of you seems to be able to understand.

But here is what I don't understand. If the people who are living in Quebec didn't want to / didn't learn French, why is that a problem? Why should people support artificially freezing Quebec's linguistic customs in time?

[viper37]

Could that be the result of proximity and the fact that it is good on a cost-benefit ratio for businesses in Vermont? Seems like the same could hardly be said for the rest of Canada.

Of course it is.
In Canada, we're officially a bilingual country.  Many Canadians seems to derive pride in this.  But in practice, it's far from the case.  As I said, I don't mind Canadians outside of Quebec not learning french.  I think they should, I think it'd be great.  But they don't want to, so it's up to them.

However, if there's a law about official bilinguism in this country, I'll ask for it to be respected.  Nor circumvented or ignored.  If Canadians feel it's a stupid law, they are the majority, they can easily repeal the law.  The Reform Party was opposed to bilinguism and came close to power a few times. 

But until then, I feel it's justified to ask an officially bilingual country to act as such.  And people living in a place where french is the majority should learn the language.  There's no way I'd insist on using french if I were in New York, that ain't the language of the majority.  That would be rude of me to insist others adapt to me.

[garbon]

Could that be the result of proximity and the fact that it is good on a cost-benefit ratio for businesses in Vermont? Seems like the same could hardly be said for the rest of Canada.

Of course it is.
In Canada, we're officially a bilingual country.  Many Canadians seems to derive pride in this.  But in practice, it's far from the case.  As I said, I don't mind Canadians outside of Quebec not learning french.  I think they should, I think it'd be great.  But they don't want to, so it's up to them.

However, if there's a law about official bilinguism in this country, I'll ask for it to be respected.  Nor circumvented or ignored.  If Canadians feel it's a stupid law, they are the majority, they can easily repeal the law.  The Reform Party was opposed to bilinguism and came close to power a few times. 

But until then, I feel it's justified to ask an officially bilingual country to act as such.  And people living in a place where french is the majority should learn the language.  There's no way I'd insist on using french if I were in New York, that ain't the language of the majority.  That would be rude of me to insist others adapt to me.

So you think the best way to support the idea that Canada is officially a bilingual country is by forcing people in Quebec to learn French? How does that work exactly?

[viper37]

But here is what I don't understand. If the people who are living in Quebec didn't want to / didn't learn French, why is that a problem?

Because we have to provide them for services in english?  Because they constantly want cities to be declared bilingual* even if they are a tiny minority in the city?  Because they complain everytime ask for being spoken to in French?  Because they call "human rights violation" the fact that they can't have a big english only sign on their streets?

If everywhere you go in Montreal, it looks like Fredericton, Toronto or Boston, where's the appeal to Montreal?  It's nothing but a shell of its past, i.e. there's no appeal to the city, no specific interests for tourism when you can see the same thing everywhere in the continent.

Why should people support artificially freezing Quebec's linguistic customs in time?

Why should I let them deface my nation?  Why should I let them keep their lazyness?  Why should I pay for 2 hospitals because they refuse to mix with french people?

I don't mind providing basic education in french, and financing a part of university education like everyone else.  But I disagree that they should get favorable treatment just because they don't want to learn the language of the majority in this province.  They are not threatened minority, far from it.  We could have had one big super hospital mainly aimed at reasearch.  One director, one of each staff and one building 1.5x the size of one of the hospitals.  But we have twice of everything, just beside one another.  Because english don't mix with French.  They build fences around their community to isolate from the rif-raff of the french neighbourhoods.

Not learning the language is just a symbol, but a powerful one of their general attitude.



*Bilinguism for Anglo-Quebecers means everything in english, maybe in french if you insist enough.  It's just like the Federal government, it means english everywhere there's on anglophone, but french only where numbers justifies it.

[Malthus]

There's a limit to everything.  Mine is I simply don't want Quebec defaced.  I don't want Quebec to be a small Ontario or a Big New Brunswick with a folkloric french population.  It's the point I'm trying to get across, wich none of you seems to be able to understand.

But here is what I don't understand. If the people who are living in Quebec didn't want to / didn't learn French, why is that a problem? Why should people support artificially freezing Quebec's linguistic customs in time?

Oh oh. Now you've done it. 

[garbon]

There's a limit to everything.  Mine is I simply don't want Quebec defaced.  I don't want Quebec to be a small Ontario or a Big New Brunswick with a folkloric french population.  It's the point I'm trying to get across, wich none of you seems to be able to understand.

But here is what I don't understand. If the people who are living in Quebec didn't want to / didn't learn French, why is that a problem? Why should people support artificially freezing Quebec's linguistic customs in time?

Oh oh. Now you've done it. 

Well that's what it seems like it comes down to. You wouldn't need laws forcing people to speak a language if they just you know, wanted to do it of their own accord.

Now to be fair, I can't see wanting to live in Quebec or any place where the majority language was not English and not wanting to learn that language.

[garbon]

Because we have to provide them for services in english?  Because they constantly want cities to be declared bilingual* even if they are a tiny minority in the city?  Because they complain everytime ask for being spoken to in French?  Because they call "human rights violation" the fact that they can't have a big english only sign on their streets?

I'll agree that does sound obnoxious. It also seems like a consequence of having two official languages.

If everywhere you go in Montreal, it looks like Fredericton, Toronto or Boston, where's the appeal to Montreal?  It's nothing but a shell of its past, i.e. there's no appeal to the city, no specific interests for tourism when you can see the same thing everywhere in the continent.

I think you've used this one before. I'm not convinced that Montreal is unappealing if people aren't speaking French. After all, I keep visiting Montreal and the amount of French I know is very little (though increasing).

Why should I let them deface my nation?  Why should I let them keep their lazyness?  Why should I pay for 2 hospitals because they refuse to mix with french people?

I don't really know what that first one means. States change over time with demographic shifts. That's not defacing something. Well apart from what you list about paying for extra services, their "laziness" for the most part doesn't seem harmful. Similar to what I said about people in the US that live their whole lives barely speaking English.  Doesn't bother me but then I also don't see someone refusing to speak English as a personal insult.

[viper37]

So you think the best way to support the idea that Canada is officially a bilingual country is by forcing people in Quebec to learn French? How does that work exactly?

Not forced.  You can't force anything.  But you can lightly coerce them.  Make it harder to keep a unilingual lifestyle.  Show the merits of speaking french in Quebec.
Enforce french as language of work for medium-big companies.  Not use english because one person out of 10 doesn't want to speak French.  They learn, or they work elsewhere.
Not require english profiency for low level work not in contact with tourists (mechanic, store clerk, etc).
Require all customer service to be either exclusively in french or bilingual.
Offer french immersion classes for you anglophones.
French public school mandatory for kids whose parents did not attend english schools in Canada or USA (no Commonwealth bullshit).  English private schools still available to those willing to pay.
Have history lessons focus on anglo-french relationships post 1763 so that kids might understand some of the resentment toward unilingual anglophones.

Lots of small measures, nothing dramatic. Nothing most occidental countries in the world don't already do.  Looking at the California constitution, I found this: "English is the official language of the State of California."  It seems ok for California to define its official language, but it's a racist act in Quebec to have french as our official language yet provide all kind of services in english?  Anglos are weird...