Quote:
Originally Posted by goldeneyed
Since we were talking about Vaudreuil-Soulanges earlier on, I always wondered how it would be like if that county was part of Ontario instead of Quebec.
The reason I ask is because of its proximity to Montreal and the West Island. As we know, a lot of people are moving to Vaudreuil from the West Island and most of these newcomers are anglophones. This area has experienced explosive growth since the early 2000's, but in the 70's it had a small and mostly rural feel to it.
If Vaudreuil was part of Ontario, do you think that people during the anglo exodus of the 70's and 80's would have moved there instead of Toronto or other parts of Canada? ?
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This is a very good question and I hope you read my previous post that stated that Vaudreuil-Soulanges does border Anglo-North America via Stormont Dundas and Glengarry, and not only borders Prescott-Russell.
If VS was part of Ontario, it would have a devastating and horrifying effect on the French language in Montréal because Q's language laws do not apply in O.
+
Vaudreuil-Dorion probably would have experienced a massive population boom in the 70s and in 2018 its population would be around 150,000 inhabitants, making it the
second-largest city in eastern Ontario, second only to Ottawa.
+ Vaudreuil-Dorion would be an anglophone regional big city and would attract many anglophones to settle there, not only from West Island. Also many Q migrants would choose VD, they would first settle somewhere else in Q and then immediately resettle to VD as a loophole to get access to English schools. 
+ Saint-Lazare would probably have around 100,000 inhabitants now and VS would have become the New West Island already in the 90s.
+ Grand Montréal would be a cross-border metropolitan area like Ottawa-Gatineau and thus much more exposed to anglicisation 
+ VS would speed up tremendously fast anglicization of Montréal Island and especially its surrounding areas, the nearby north Shore and Salaberry
+ we all know that Ontario uses tax loopholes and too low taxes to lure businesses away from Québec and most likely, mean, greedy and extremely capitalist and economy-minded as Ontario is, it would make special laws and create extra incentives to lure businesses to VL
+ VS would have been turned into something like a special economic zone like Hong Kong and become a financial centre of greater Canadian importance
+ many anglophones on West Island are ignorant towards Québécois culture and never use French in the public sphere, they act like if they are in Ontario and if VS was part of O, more anglophones on West Island would feel like in O, because O would be directly at the border
+ just as Acajack pointed out,
it makes a massive difference whether a franco-commune is in Québec or not.
The francophone community in VS would be already a minority in the 80s and in 2018 they would have become totally marginalized after a massive influx of anglo and allo migration from all of Canada.
+ and just as Acajack said, you could cross the Q/O border, and go to VS and try to speak to people French in VS and most would only knew English (like in Ottawa) and they wouldn't even say "Sorry, I don't speak French" they would just say "I don't say French"
And some more remarks to Golden:
For you, it is
unnatural that VS is part of Q because of the geographic position that would place everything south of the Ottawa river into O.
For me, VS is MUCH TOO SMALL and MUCH TOO close to Ontario,
all of eastern Ontario east of Ottawa should belong to Québec, and the border just feels wrong to me exactly because East -eastern Ontario is part of Ontario and the Ontario border is so close to Montréal.
Historically, all of Eastern Canada was part of Nouvelle France and Québec is the legal successor of Nouvelle-France and I would like to remind you, that Great Britain illegally took control of Canada and fought against France, so Québec has a historic right to get the territories between the US-border and the Ottawa River back.
Since it's unrealistic that O would want to give Q some territory for free, I have always been supportive of proposing a territorial exchange. Québec would get the Hawkesburry and Glengarry region and expand therefore its south-western border and Ontario would get the large Pontiac region.
Unfortunately, I have ot acknowledge that VD and Saint-Lazare are lost and will turn anglophone, this is why it is the moral duty of the remaining francophones to ensure that the rest of the area will remain French-majority. I know that the anglophones are greedy like hawks and waiting to take over Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, right next to VS. Salaberry is very French, just like VD has been 40 years ago.
It's impossible and too late to revert the explosive anglicisation now in the Vaudreuil area, 
but we can undertake measures to stop the further expansion of the anglo zone.
I will tell a friend of mine, who works for the Châteauguay city hall and is aligned with the PQ to make an emergency plan to secure French in the southern-eastern half of VS area and Salaberry:
We will propose the establishment of a nature park and natural preserve, directly east of Saint-Lazare.
This natural preserve and large park will serve as a counterweight and countermeasure to the expansion of the anglo zone. It's very easy:
A nature park stops the expansion of urbanization and thus anglicisation.
Furthermore, roads between eastern VS and Saint-Lazare
shall not be modernized and no money from the government should be put into renewing infrastructure in VS.
Mixed English-French cities like Saint Lazare don't work well because English is an imperial and aggressive language that represses French, that's why it is the best to SEPERATE the Anglo zone from French-speaking Salaberry.
Also to slow down anglicisation in VD and SL, there shall be issued as few new building licenses as possible, to keep urbanization as minimal as possible.
Also the Québec government shall use allophone migration and send them to VD and SL to prevent these towns from getting an English majority and therefore getting official bilingual status, then once these allophone are about to integrate into the English community, we will give them free tickets to Toronto an British Columbia so that can move and make new place available for new un-anglicized allophones, whose purpose will be to keep the share of native anglophones below 50% to prevent these towns from getting an offical bilingual status. If Saint-Lazare can't have a French majority in future, so it's only fair if it won't have an English majority either. Who supports these ideas?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
It's based on the view of only a few people, all of which had an agenda: they wanted more resources (=$$$) put into French instruction in English schools.
Another thing is that Royal West Academy is located in the small enclave of Montreal West which I believe is the most anglo place in the entire Montreal area. Something like 89% anglo. It's probably the place which has the highest percentage of British-origin anglos so you might run into more residual hang-ups related to superiority-inferiority of language groups there than in the rest of Montreal.  |
I got the feeling that even if these schools got XXXL extra millions of $$$$$ for teaching French, that the English kids would nevertheless not use French in the public sphere of Montréal. What's the point of putting so much money into it? Let's rather put it into mandatory franicsation programs of allophones.
And yes, it doesn't surprise me that Jambo sent his daughter to a school in Montr̩al-Ouest Рthat's the second-most English commune in the entire Grand Montr̩al area, even more anglophone than West Island itself. He probably wanted her to experience as few French as possible outside the classroom, so that she would experience French like a museum object in her classroom, instead of being surrounded by a real French environment outside the classroom.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jambo101
Opec you live in a fantasy world where every one should be French, The reason kids from English schools revert to English once out of the classrooms is because they are English! As for my 2 daughters they both had jobs where they had to speak French before getting their big break out west.
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I only want to stop French from further declining and make it stronger. My goal is not to make people be French, my goal is to increase the use of French (that is weak and becoming weaker) in Montréal and its city-centre. I want to keep English schools for native Canadian Anglos.
I have also realized that it is even better for the situation of the French language in general that English schools are kept, because I read articles, etc., and they have shown that, if Anglo kids go to French schools, in these French schools there are allophones and if Anglos make friends with allophones, they speak English with them and not French and thus they anglicize allophones, and therefore it is better when Anglos attend English schools, so that they cannot exert a negative effect on allphones that are supposed to integrate into Québec's French majority. The share of native francophones in French schools have become so diastrously low, that we must first focus on ensuring that allophones learn good French there, so we must keep English schools, so that Anglophones will at least not further lower the share of French in % in the French sector.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
They quickly outnumbered the anglos who reacted by simply moving out of the area (the anglos did leave their mark on most of the town names as you can see by looking on a map).
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True. It always baffles me when Anglos from outside Qu̩bec claim, that Qu̩bec is assimilating anglophones and forcing them into French culture Рit is not Рand it couldn't be further form the truth. Francophones within Qu̩bec are more likely to switch to English than vice-versa, and the share of anglophones outside of Grand Montr̩al, in far away areas is only declining because they are moving away РNOT because they are assimilating to French culture. Western anglophones have the the lowest assimilation rate of all western cultures, they rarely adapt cultures when they are in other non-English countries or provinces.
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