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"50 states to choose from" I've never heard anything more ridiculous in my life. I could say French Canadians have 101 departments to choose from. How is a foreign country relevant?
OK then. 9 other provinces in one of the world's richest countries isn't too shabby a choice either.
No one is forcing people to move, but if they really are THAT unhappy...
Look stop trying to paint me as something I'm not. I am not bitter. I just don't like language laws like Bill 101 and I want to see them repealed. I think we should merge the English and French school boards, personally. Make both fully bilingual. We need to integrate the two communities. I'm sorry if some of my posts seemed rude to you, I'm just frustrated at the attitude that Quebec's only language is french. I'm not like some of those crazy anti-Quebec folks out west, I love the province and I love french Canadian culture and I would like to see them more integrated here in Ontario. And by integrated I don't mean forced to learn English, I mean given more of a presence in Ontario. French is a part of all of Canada, not just a part of Quebec and it deserves a larger voice throughout this great country. Quebec is the most beautiful place in the whole world, and it pains me to see it get so divided. I just want to see equality between the two communities. No more French English wealth disparity. No more language laws. No more of this nightmarish tension.
Unfortunately your view of things in Montreal and Quebec is both outdated and unrealistic, and the vision of a milk and honey bilingual, integrated Montreal is something that never really existed anyway.
Only a small minority of the anglos will. Most of those who disagree strongly will simply move because it is so easy to do so, and of the ones who will protest, most will eventually leave as well. Most people who are still here probably choose to grin and bear it, which explains a meeting to relaunch the Equality Party drew what, 20 people?
But French is on the decline in all other provinces (even New Brunswick). The use of French is under attack in Quebec - not from Anglo Quebeckers: we wouldn't move here/still be here if we didn't understand - but from immigrants, some of whom use Quebec as a stepping-stone to wider immigration elsewhere in Canada and the U.S. I absolutely hate when people move here and say "Oh, I didn't think I'd HAVE to speak French" Like, WTF? You didn't think you'd have to be able to speak to 70% of the population? You weren't aware of this BEFORE you uprooted yourself and moved here? Come on, let's be real here!
If you don't want to have to speak French then fine: there is everywhere else in North America to move to. If you're going to move here from your third-world hellhole then complain about having to learn French then seriously - **** off! Move to Toronto or Vancouver where you don't have to learn any Official Language. (Where it would be considered racist to ask people to speak the local language or in any way dilute their native country heritage.)
And to the PQ: Despite what your old school, diehard supporters say, it's not Anglo-Quebeckers who are creating difficulties! For the most part, we agree! Lay off FFS!
I get your point but honestly the lines between immigrants and old-stock anglos are a bit blurred. The old-stock anglos who would have their origins in the British Isles are probably no more than a quarter of the English-speaking population these days. The anglo community is probably more Italian and Ashkenazi Jewish these days than it is WASP or Irish.
Unfortunately your view of things in Montreal and Quebec is both outdated and unrealistic, and the vision of a milk and honey bilingual, integrated Montreal is something that never really existed anyway.
Aren't you always saying English is making a comeback? How does that make my view outdated? Unlike some crazy people, I don't hate French Canadians at all. Anglo-Montrealers have always been the more transient group, obviously French Canadians have more of a cultural presence in Quebec than anglos do. I come from a British family, myself (lowlands of Scotland), and my grandfather had lived in several cities in his lifetime, before and after Montreal. Just because a bilingual, integrated Montreal may seem unrealistic, it doesn't make it impossible. Montreal was very bilingual (not the people, the city) before Bill 101. Montreal's identity has always been bilingual, no matter how hard the communities have tried to unilingualise it in the past and today, both languages continue to flourish in the city. It's time for both sides to recognise Montreal for what it truly is.
Aren't you always saying English is making a comeback? How does that make my view outdated?
The fact that English is making a comeback doesn't mean that the two language groups are going to be more integrated. Most of the anglos who are moving to Montreal and SW Quebec in general seem to think that they don't have to learn French - as evidenced by the increase in unilingual anglos in the 2011 census. Prior to that the number of unilingual anglos in Quebec had declined in every census for about 40 years as the community embraced bilingualism more and many unilinguals opted to leave.
The flipside of the coin is that the number of unilingual francophones is dropping.
So I fail to see how more unilingual anglos and more bilingual francos is going to lead to some form of positive integration.
In our "unilingual province", English is a mandatory subject matter from grade 1 to the end of Secondary 5 (equivalent to your grade 11), and then Cegep (our 2 years, pre-university program) students have to take at least 2 English classes in their two years of study. So that's 13 years of mandatory ESL.
This, and the more prevalent self-motivation required to learn other languages, might explain the higher rate of bilingualism of Quebec vs the ROC. Learning a third language is also more and more common: for example, my daughter will start having Spanish in grade 1 next year. 25 years ago it only started in Secondary school (equivalent to your grades 7 to 11).
Interesting fact:
Percentage of English-speaking Canadians living outside Quebec who can speak French, which is one of their country's official languages: 6%
Percentage of French-speaking Canadians living in Quebec who are trilingual (native French, English as their country's other official language and Spanish, which has no official status here): 4-5%
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