Merlot,
As others have noticed I’d like to first thank you for your sensibility and general attitude on this matter.
Is there something flawed in the law permitting what happened at Air Canada? Contrary to what is often thought, Air Canada does not have the obligation to have French-speaking flight attendants on all their planes or airport services. The obligation exists where the number of French speaking passengers justifies it. It was the case for the 2 flights (Toronto-Atlanta, Toronto-Charletton) and the Toronto airport for which the couple filled complaint. The Superior Court ruled that Air Canada failed to oblige by the law. The Canadian Commissioner of Official Languages has said on numerous occasions in the past that Air Canada fail to respect the law and Air Canada itself admitted violating the law in this specific case. This law has nothing to do with security issues. It says that Canadians, bilingual or not, have the right to be served in one of the 2 official languages when dealing with a federal institution where the demand is large enough.
Some may simply see a guy abusing the system. I don’t know him and what his true intentions were. I don’t care. The fact is that Air Canada has a long history in the non-respect of the law on that matter. The couple would not have gained such compensation if the institution they had problem with had a relatively good record. You have to see it as a symbolic victory.
Of course, you’ll find all sorts of arguments based on numbers, as you have seen here. Numbers are a security ground for most of us because they are considered hard facts. The problem is that most people are unable to understand numbers. It’s starts with someone throwing a first number. And than a guy, myself in this case, acting with a maximum bad will, start building on it using the principles of 'pataphysics "the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments." (Jarry) : the first one says 3% ; I apply it to the Greater Toronto, 5M. Oh gee, funny. Its the population of Trois-Rivières ; and than others start using 1.2% and apply it to the City of Toronto. And then, two other guys come in and notice that 1,2% is almost marginal in comparison with us the anglos in Montréal (Wow! That feels good). The first talks about 30% Anglos in Montréal and the other brings it back to 20% or something close to that. The next one brings in the equation the number of potholes in the streets of Montréal.
Shake it up! Shake it up… Ding! Eureka! We have found the primary explanation of the problem : the god damn seperatists!
That’s what happens with numbers. They finally drive us into more fantasies then emotions.
Oh! By the way. I have another number to throw in, and I will not take care to go into the digits. There are 60 000 people living in the Greater Toronto with French as a mother thong. I heard you, wise guy. Some of them do not use it anymore at home. True. Can we just fucking care for those guys. 60 000 people is the size of a city, all of which contained within the Greater Toronto, grossly the one territory deserved by the TTC.
That’s not worth translating an Internet site, according to a fucking idiot who calls me a xenophobe. The TTC spends 1.3 billion$ every year.
Thousands of French Canadians try to maintain some sort of an identity in Toronto. People like Cloud DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THEM.
This case is about Francophones outside Québec. It has nothing to do with the situation in Québec. It is so God damn mean and opportunistic for the agenda driven radical faction of the pro English group to start whining about their condition. They taught us the lesson about Francophones outside Québec: they are a lost cause. “Speak white, tabarnac”. Tell you what, Merlot: I have ten times more consideration for the anglo community of Montréal than these extremists have for the franco community outside Québec. And that fucking idiot calls me a xenophobe.
One extra note, Merlot. Having studied history as you did, you are perfectly conscious that no synchronic data on a society, even exhaustive, will suffice to understand it (unless using the general principals of !pataphysics). There are two founding people in this country. The relations between the two is a huge framework of it’s history, most intensively after the creation of the Parti Québecois in 1970. Our brand new constitution (1981), the founding stone of Modern politics in Canada (even if not signed by Québec), the laws on bilinguism, other huge pieces of the Canadian legislation and the law 101 here in Québec all originate from these relations between the two founding people. Guys saying there are more Chinese people than French people in Toronto, so it would make more sense to translate the website in Chinese than in French, which makes sense mathematically and the way you would consider Hispanic services in the South of the USA, are history ignorants in Canada (I am quite sure you know more about our history than they do). Most are too young to remember what shopping was in Montréal before the Seventies. A business that would be stupid and run out of business if not serving it’s French clients in French? At that time, Merlot, English was imposed on us by the English economic elite in the stores and in the workplaces. Markets laws were not prevailing. We have decided at one point that it was enough and we took things into our own hands. It is called the Revolution Tranquille. The two communities were living apart before. They talk to each other today. And that results from one thing: both sides have gained respect for the other. That is the reality; contrary to the mediocre B series movie techman has made of it.
Of course, there will always be dinosaurs, infamously called the “Rhodesians”, who will regret the good old times and who will teach there vision of a balanced Canada: bilinguism in Québec and English in the rest of Canada.
I call it bait and switch.
,
