What the separatists would love to have would be a pure Quebecois society, French, white and Catholic, isolated from the rest of Canada and North America which would be able to deal with the world on only their terms. It's nothing but a pipe dream and it's time they woke up and moved into the 21st century with the rest of the modern world before they get left behind. In the meantime, while these bigotted politicians try to prevent the inevitable, everyone in Quebec pays the price for it.
Hello Techman,
I've been reading right along with this thread and have stayed out of it because I don't know much about the political parties, but I have to say there is some definite over-reaching here. While I've only known a few separatists, I've known them 10 years. Of course the few I have met may not represent a majority, but they are very educated, professional, one is a significant business success in Montreal and I am sure they represent a significant portion of the Separatist population. I have never...ever...heard one single hint of the character, attitude, or desire that could possibly reflect the racist/xenophobic caricature you describe in any discussion with the men I have known. Yes, we have seen what you describe through others on this board, so I am not saying by means it doesn't exist and in sizable numbers. But if you are suggesting this represents the basic qualities of those who favor Separatism then you are indulging in gross stereotyping caricature. The men I know are extremely rational and considerate about this subject and sometimes very ambivalent about the choice. They certainly are not racist monsters like some past members. While you have made very good points, you are also quite excessive at times.
"When people from other cultures come here, they don't abandon their own culture and adopt ours. They never have and they never will." As for the idea that immigrants will never change their culture I don't now if you ever studied immigration and social evolution but I have. I can tell you that your statement is partly true and partly grossly wrong. The U.S is the perfect country for the study of immigration and adaptation patterns. The absolutely consistent pattern is, to summarize:
1. 1st Generation (actual immigrants) - keep their cultural heritage adapting where necessary.
2. 2nd Generation (children of immigrants) - become bi-cultural, basically preserve the old and adapt to the new.
3. Generation (grandchildren of immigrants - become mostly uni-cultural aware of origins but identify almost entirely with the local dominate culture.
So your statement only works where time has not been long enough to have the full effect of generational social evolution in a new country. If you are referring to the last 20-30 years you simply have not had the time to see the natural cultural adaption which is generally unusual before the third generation. Of course there will always be Pur Laine snobs/racists who are ignorant of their own generationally evolved past and mixed heritage who insist on using ignorant self-serving definitions to be exclusionary. In the U.S. we have plenty of the same types who want a white Christian national theocracy. But just because our countries have these extremists it doesn't make all white Christians delusional bigots. I happen to fit their ethnic definitions, as well as being basically a "Christian, and I can assure you I do not believe in the gross ideas of racist xenophobes who happen to have the same ethnicity, race, and Christian or Catholic background as me.
Good luck finding a language zealot who will admit it though. Then again, they're so brainwashed that they probably actually believe they are saving their culture. Self delusion is a terrible thing.
This is definitely stereotyping again IF it is meant to represent Separatists in general.
Regarding Bill 101, we all know, despite personal feelings and/or biases, laws like this don't pop up out of a vacuum. Why hasn't there been any recognition of the motivational causes for this law...and NO...that's definitely not irrelevant, even if the cause might not be a justification for the law.
The failed assimilation the Francophones
http://www.montrealites.ca/education/english-and-french-in-quebec-the-history-behind-law-101.html
Seeing that Francophone cannot be assimilated if they are not in contact with the English, London decided to assimilate Upper and Lower Canada in 1841 with the Union Act and later, added more territories to be included in the confederation. The decision to unify the two parts of Canada was taken after Lord Durham has expressed his concern on the importance to assimilate those Francophone as soon as possible because he saw them as people with no history and no education.
French being less educated then English is also a reality reflected in the economy; however, the economic power of the English was not enough to assimilate the French population. English were incontestably the wealthier than French, and with a large difference. In Le choc des langues, Bouthillier and Meynaud reported what Alexis de Tocqueville said about Lower-Canada after he had visit in 1831: "It is easy to understand that the French are the conquered. Most of those in a higher social class are English. French is almost the universal language, yet most news papers, billboards and the French commerce's board are all in English. They owned almost all the commerce.
The two groups evolved so differently that one chose to be exclusively name Canadians while the other still called himself British." (Bouthillier and Meynaud, 139) This testimony reveals how the French were seriously dominated in many areas. English is the language associated with wealth. Many English words are integrated in the French vocabulary because the everyday routine at work was happening in English. Yes, the French speakers live in an English environment; on the other hand, they also continue to speak French among each other. Corbeil explains the few educated bourgeois criticized that phenomenon, where French often use English words when they speak French, but they never tried to defend the use of French language in the work placed. (Corbeil, 67-68) Even if the group was never assimilated, the supremacy of English was accepted by the French until the 1960s.
Quebec starts to understand the factors that influence the evolution of English and French in its territory
During the 1960s, Francophones started to see the future under a new light. The leaders and the citizens changed paradigms on the question of language. This period is also known as the Revolution Tranquille. It is a very important period in the history of language in Quebec because many events that shaped people's vision for the province's future happened during that time. In opposition to the resignation that most Quebecois felt in front of the English supremacy, leaders and citizens started to express in public that the question of language is also a matter of social justice. For many years before, the only critics about the French language in Quebec were about the poor quality of the language in general. The population started to understand that the place of French in the work place is directly linked to its quality. In 1963, the federal government of Lester B. Pearson gave the mandate to a commission to investigation on bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada. They wanted to understand how the English community and the French community evaluated together.
After the conclusions of the Commission on Bilingualism in Canada, the Quebecois realized how much the French speakers were discriminated in the work place. This investigation compared the salary of the fourteen most important ethnic groups in the province. It was revealed that the French speakers were the ranked 12th out of fourteen, in the richest group in the province (Rapport de la Commission royal d'enquête sur le bilinguisme et le biculturalisme). A few years later, another provincial commission (Commission Gendron) came with the same shocking conclusion: Francophones were discriminated against in the work market, even if they were the most numerous group in the population.
Indeed, after hundreds years, when you visit the province, you still felt like it is run by the English, while most of the population is francophone. In his book I don't Speak French, Graham Fraser explained his experience in Montreal in 1965, when he was a student. He says that when he was in an Italian restaurant with a colleague from a small town in Quebec, he had to order for her because the waitress did not speak French. Later when they took a cab, he had to give the destination because the cab driver spoke no French either. He affirms that this situation was very frustrating for his French colleague, who felt like a visitor in her own country (Fraser 136-137). In this period, the government also nationalized Hydro-Quebec, seeking more economic freedom, which would inevitably help to change the situation of Francophones in the province. In the 1960s, the Francophones in Quebec choose to differentiate themselves from other French communities in Canada by refusing to call themselves French-Canadians. They were now known as Quebecois. They claimed more access to jobs, they claimed the control of the education system, they claimed their natural resources, they claimed a French environment and in the end, they even started to dream about an independent country.
The crisis in Saint-Leonard was also a very important event in the history of the province of Quebec because it forced the politicians to create the first linguistic law. When the school board decided in 1963, that most classes would be taught only in French instead of having bilingual classes, it made the Italian immigrant community and a few French parents furious because they believed their children would have better chance for employment if they spoke English. This story lasted for months. The tension between the Francophones parents and the Italian immigrant parents rose to such a level that at some point the two groups started to fight in front of a school in Saint-Leonard. Before this event, the politicians had always avoided the question of language in the province since they know that this subject was particularly sensitive among the voters.
The immigrant parents claimed the right to send their children to an English school. With these events, the government realized that it had to find a legislation that would take state the government's position for the entire province, not for this unique case only. It was then the beginning of provincial laws in Quebec, when the Parliament of Quebec adopted bill 63 in November 1969. This law made most French speakers furious because it gave total freedom to parents regarding the language in which their children will be educated. In 1974, the Bourassa government replace law 63 by law 22. This law declared that French is the only official language of Quebec, but in fact it was not very different from the previous law. This time Francophones were unhappy because they did not see many changes, and Anglophones also were not happy that English was not an official language. Three years later, the government of René Lévesque replaced law 22 with law 101.
To conclude, Quebec has many challenges ahead when it comes to linguistic policy. As we have seen, two linguistic communities have shared this territory for hundreds of years. Both of them feel this is their home, but they do not feel like they are one nation. Moreover, the province has to make sure its laws respect both legal systems that have unique world views. Indeed, the Canadian English common law sees the individual right as priority, while the French civil law in Quebec sees community right as priority. This fact explains why since its amendment in 1977, Law 101 has known many changes. Almost every time an article of the law was contested, the case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. It demonstrates that right now, we have people from two sides that are ready to fight. In the future, it will require effort from everyone. The English Speaker should respect that Quebec society has chosen to continue in French while the French speaker should recognize the English rights and avoid treating them as outsiders.
C'mon Techman, there's a hell of a lot more behind Law 101 than this gross picture of racist white Catholics. While the law as it is probably isn't the right answer, painting the Pro-Separatist side as disgusting extremists is a GROTESQUE injustice to millions of very decent rational and intelligent people. This previous situation wasn't just a natural cultural evolution toward English, it was deliberate disenfranchisement...and the French have every right to resist.
12th out of 14...c'mon.
THUMBS DOWN,
Merlot
