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Not everyone views things through the Anglo-Quebecers' rights prism.
Quebec at the moment gets more immigrants in total numbers than any other province except Ontario.
Relative to population, Quebec takes in more immigrants that the good old United States of America.
In an average year, Quebec takes in more immigrants in sheer numbers than most US states with a comparable or slightly higher population (VA, PA, OH, MI, IL, GA, NC). It also takes in as many immigrants as New York, which has double Quebec's population (just under 50,000 for each).
Still relative to population, Quebec takes in more immigrants than the immigrant boom states of CA, FL and TX.
While some subgroups like anglophones and English-oriented immigrants (especially those who don't know any French) have high departure rates, overall Quebec holds onto its population in a higher proportion than any other Canadian province.
What does it mean to be bilingual in Canada anyway? Does it mean being able to read and understand Les Miserables and Shakespeare?
Canada isnt really bilingual its basically French in Quebec and English mostly every where else,
So why would Canada bother to go to all the trouble of declaring the country officially bilingual?
Wouldnt have anything to do with Quebec bringing 75 parliamentary seats to the house would it?
Quite a powerful bloc to any aspiring ruling party and rather easy to see why Quebec gets what it wants. Contents
I certainly never make blanket statements about immigrants and don't consider them to be a *threat* to the French language. There are many immigrants who have lived in Quebec for barely five years who are better integrated in this society than some born and bred Anglo-Quebecers whose families have been in Montreal for 200 years.
Quebec's culture and society is not French, but bilingual. Immigrants coming to Quebec and speaking English instead of French as their first official language aren't refusing to adapt to "the culture", but rather adapting to it to the exact same extent as they would be if they were speaking French as their first official language. It's an undeniable fact that the provincial culture you are so proud of would be unrecogniseable without English.
Quebec's culture and society is not French, but bilingual. Immigrants coming to Quebec and speaking English instead of French as their first official language aren't refusing to adapt to "the culture", but rather adapting to it to the exact same extent as they would be if they were speaking French as their first official language. It's an undeniable fact that the provincial culture you are so proud of would be unrecogniseable without English.
Quebec in my view is not a bilingual province. It is a primarily francophone province with an established and historic anglophone minority within it.
In light of this, it is not surprising and indeed normal that a number of the immigrants to Quebec wil gravitate to its English-speaking community, especially if those immigrants are originally English speakers themselves. That said, it is not desirable nor acceptable for 80-90% of the immigrants to gravitate to Quebec's English community (and for this anglicization to be done with Quebec government-paid institutional support via schools. etc.) as was the case prior to 1976. (Often never learning any French at all.)
Nor is it desirable or acceptable for these immigrants who do have a natural and normal leaning for English to eschew the fact that the wider society they live in is mainly francophone, and to refuse to learn and use French in their interactions with francophones and expect members of the majority to make "the switch" just for them all of the time.
It also neither desirable nor acceptable for the anglo community to claim some kind of God-given right to integrate most of the immigrants to Quebec (regardless of natural leanings to English or not) in order to shore up its numbers and replace the native-born of their community who have a tendency to leave for other parts of Canada, often because of a strong resistance to learning and using French.
Canada isnt really bilingual its basically French in Quebec and English mostly every where else,
So why would Canada bother to go to all the trouble of declaring the country officially bilingual?
Wouldnt have anything to do with Quebec bringing 75 parliamentary seats to the house would it?
Quite a powerful bloc to any aspiring ruling party and rather easy to see why Quebec gets what it wants. Contents
Actually, it doesn't have much to do with Quebec's 75 seats at all, or at least not most of them because in the late 60s most Quebec politicians would have been satisfied with a French-only Quebec, English only ROC arrangements. It was the federal government (and especially Trudeau) that did not want this due to Trudeau's soft spot for the anglo community in Quebec and heavy lobbying from the Montreal anglo community (highly influential at the time) for the feds to not let them be "condemned" to a French only future in Quebec.
The Government of Quebec, regardless of political stripe, has never been a strong proponent of coast-to-coast bilingualism in Canada, and the Members of Parliament that Quebec sends to Ottawa have for the most part shared this view (even though they voted for it in respect of party discipline), except for the odd anglo among them of course.
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