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Old 10-10-2012, 07:19 AM
 
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My understanding of linguistic rules in Canada is that every province has to be bilingual save Kaalalit Nunaak where the official language is Inuit and Quebec where it is French only.
What I don't understand is why the Anglo Canadians, being the majority, didn't manage to pass English only laws in places like British Colombia where most of the population is anglophone, as the Quebecqers did concernng the French language . If they find themselves discriminated, their politicians should pass English only laws . End of story.
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Old 10-10-2012, 07:21 AM
 
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"Nunavut" not "Nunaak" sorry (the latter is the Eskimo name for Greenland)
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Old 10-10-2012, 07:48 AM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
26,883 posts, read 38,053,631 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pigeonhole View Post
My understanding of linguistic rules in Canada is that every province has to be bilingual save Kaalalit Nunaak where the official language is Inuit and Quebec where it is French only.
What I don't understand is why the Anglo Canadians, being the majority, didn't manage to pass English only laws in places like British Colombia where most of the population is anglophone, as the Quebecqers did concernng the French language . If they find themselves discriminated, their politicians should pass English only laws . End of story.
Your understanding is wrong. All provinces in Canada are "single language" except for one: New Brunswick which is relatively small and has about 750,000 people. Its population is about two thirds anglophone and one third francophone and it is officially bilingual.

Of the remaining provinces, Quebec is officially French only but offers a large number of services in English (most of them in fact). Ontario is English but offers a large number of services in French - though not quite a many as Quebec does in English.

The other seven provinces operate almost exclusively in English, though a few do offer a small amount of services in French here and there, and sometimes in other languages too.

Nunavut is not a province but a territory. It has a little less leeway on determining its own policies but I believe the territories (being under federal jurisdiction) are more or less obliged to use English and French, but generally English is the language there. Nunavut adds Inukitut which it is trying to promote more and keep alive, but in practice a lot of official stuff in Nunavut is still in English. For example, they don't even have a full education system in Inuktitut there - it's still in the development stages.

Bottom line: it is completely false to state as some Canadians do that the rest of Canada has to be bilingual whereas Quebec gets to be French only. The only Canadians who would claim this are either idiots or anti-French/anti-Quebec xenophobes.
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Old 10-10-2012, 07:51 AM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
26,883 posts, read 38,053,631 times
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Originally Posted by BruSan View Post
New Orleans where their culture has thrived without anti-English legislation, by the by
Hmm... there isn't really much of anything resembling a francophone-originated culture left in New Orleans.

There is a bit left in the bayou country an hour or two west of there around Lafayette, but it's close to dying out there also.
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Old 10-10-2012, 08:59 AM
 
218 posts, read 1,241,045 times
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Originally Posted by midnightjack View Post
You don't hear french to much in the ROC: that's normal. Huge efforts have been made to eradicate french over the years. Some examples:

1864, Nova Scotia, education act
1871, New Brunswick, Common school act
1873, Price Edouard Island, Official language act
1912, Ontario, Règlement 17
1890 , Manitoba, official language act
1909, Saskatchewan, School act
1905, Alberta , School act
1892, North West T., Loi sur les territoires du Nord Ouest etc etc etc...

Canadians are soooo open, and generous, as long it's in english. How many french universities do you have in Ontario ? In the ROC ? How many french hospitals ?
Actually you hear French plenty in parts of New Brunswick and Ontario. Not in Kitchener-Waterloo, but KW was never a heavily French-speaking city in its history, so that has nothing to do with eradication in our case. The fact is, the only reason we have French on our buses and train stations is linguistic pandering. Would I expect to see English on a bus in Chicoutimi? No. It is the equivalent of that.

Today the decline of French in the ROC has slowed and the remaining decline is due simply to people's choices, not government pressure. In Quebec there is a very distinct message from the government that is hostile to Anglophones and it is reinforced by people like Acajack who consider the tiny minority of unilingual Anglos to be one of Quebec's biggest social problems and a threat to the integrity of Quebecois society.

As for French universities, there is Universite de Moncton which is Francophone, and Laurentian in Sudbury and U of Ottawa also offer classes in French and in which I believe 20-30% of students are Francophone. Ottawa, Cornwall and Hawkesbury have bilingual hospitals and I'm sure many other locations do too.
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Old 10-10-2012, 09:20 AM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
26,883 posts, read 38,053,631 times
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Originally Posted by Redrum237 View Post
people like Acajack who consider the tiny minority of unilingual Anglos to be one of Quebec's biggest social problems and a threat to the integrity of Quebecois society.
Where did I say this exactly?
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Old 10-10-2012, 09:23 AM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
26,883 posts, read 38,053,631 times
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Originally Posted by Redrum237 View Post
The fact is, the only reason we have French on our buses and train stations is linguistic pandering. Would I expect to see English on a bus in Chicoutimi? No. It is the equivalent of that.
It's not linguistic pandering at all. The buses that have French on them in KW would be intercity buses. These same buses would have bilingual signage on them in Montreal or Chicoutimi too.

Trains are the same - all VIA trains have bilingual signage regardless of where they are in the country. Including all over Quebec.

If it is linguistic pandering to have French on trains in Ontario then it is equally linguistic pandering to have English on those same trains in Quebec.
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Old 10-10-2012, 09:25 AM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
26,883 posts, read 38,053,631 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Redrum237 View Post
In Quebec there is a very distinct message from the government that is hostile to Anglophones
Even if they are mean to anglos, the PQ government has been in power for barely a month. Before that the Liberals were in power for about a decade. Do you consider that government to be hostile to anglos too?
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Old 10-10-2012, 09:30 AM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
26,883 posts, read 38,053,631 times
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Originally Posted by BruSan View Post
How many French only universities and hosptials do you think we should fund in the ROC?
Funny you should use the term "should WE fund". ROC francophones pay taxes too!

To answer the question directly, there should be at least one fully francophone university in the province of Ontario, located in the east around Ottawa. There probably should also be a smaller one in northeastern Ontario, probably at Sudbury.

At the very least, this should be a minimum.

Ideally there should be one in Western Canada as well. Probably in Winnipeg.

The east coast is not too badly served with the U de Moncton that has done an excellent job of producing an educated class of Acadians that did not have to assimilate to English in order to get ahead. Note I said "assimilate" - most U de Moncton grads are functionally bilingual, though they remain personally francophone.
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Old 10-10-2012, 09:35 AM
 
22,923 posts, read 15,500,035 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by midnightjack View Post
How condescending ! The dictator warning... ah ah ah ! We, québécois are so naive, we don't see the nazis coming....So, you know our souls better than a majority of us BECAUSE you're an anglo and you DON'T speak French. You should check the intense sessions of Quebec bashing in the ROC, and see which side has lost his mind. Have a good day!
Right back at ya!

There has never been any ROC bashing going on at any St. Jean Baptiste day parades on Rue St Denis where people speaking English are at the very threat of bodily harm from those retarded idiots with their blood up, has there? Naaaah of course not! Hell the waiters even caution you not to be overheard speaking English when those nuts are all marching by. C'mon get real here bub. Bashing the ROC is how malcontents like Marois and her tribe of misfits get elected.

"BECAUSE you're an anglo and you DON'T speak French".
Language again! We've already discussed that one and I put it to you again: would you think of the ROC any differently if we magically all began speaking French overnight? NO; you would simply find another reason to enable describing yourselves as victims and blame us for some other cultural offense.
There are many "pur-laine" French Candians who have left your province BECAUSE of this silliness. You do not occupy the moral high ground in this issue regardless of what you've been told for generations.

Get over yourselves already. One need not understand or speak a language to make a definitive analysis of some of the people speaking it.

It's about the people my friend and nothing whatsoever to do with your darn language. You could be speaking Urdu for all I care. It's about your behaviour! Your failure to understand this goes to the heart of the problem. Were you all speaking nothing but English and performing the same one act play, you'd still be a-holes.

Souls? I suggest you take that out and look at it; really look at it. You invoke that soul thing to describe what the rest of us call our conscience. Would you even recognize one if you saw it?

"Québécois are so naive, we don't see the nazis coming."
Your historical behaviour proves that theory. You wouldn't recognize a Nazi if he was sitting beside you at a meeting of the Quebec Nationale.

Condescending is what you deserve. You bring nothing to the table but the same tired old "we're the victims of all that Anglo hatred towards us suppressing our culture suppressing our language, suppressing our poutine, suppressing our racism, a-la Parizeau".

Looking inward to ascertain some of your own faults would be healthy but will it ever happen? Not likely; as you've had generations of inbreeding that victimology thingy. It's in your genes to use the blame game.

Corruption abounds in your province, why? Some of you will not do anything unless there is something "special" in it for you. That has been the veritable backbone of your political structure for eons.
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