Michel Rochette, president of the Quebec branch of the Retail Council of Canada, sees the Biden administration's message as a "signal'' couched in diplomatic language.
I think that this issue is minor enough to be resolved through other agencies, yes. What I think is not always what is best for everyone though, and I understand it’s a bit self centered to think that my opinion should dictate policy lol.
I just wish things like student debt, bad healthcare under the guise of bleeding edge technology and research, low wages, unemployment, global warming and mass incarceration should be top priority.
Instead they’re arguing over what an entirely different country with a completely different culture and subculture should be doing to accommodate foreign nationals. Yeah it’s shitty that they’re not being inclusive but it’s a bit selfish, no?
Am I being an ass? Sure. I just wish we could focus on more emergent local problems rather than start making a mess out of other countries political systems. I think the “world police” concept is rather overplayed and quite annoying to think of when there is bigger stuff happening at home.
Hue. If French is threatening English as a language of commerce for the Americans, that means Quebec is going in the right direction.
I don’t agree with all the policies put in place by the Quebec government, but I’m giggling as I read this article. It’s good news for the French language.
I feel like the the great zeitgeist is going to shift towards vindicating the Qubecois and their bloody minded nationalism pretty soon. You can feel the rest of the western world starting to think and act just like the nationalists here.
“Bloody-minded nationalism” is a bit of an overstatement, don’t you think? Unless you’re going back over 50 years ago, Québec nationalism has been rather meek.
I have a lot of feelings about Québec’s language laws and its nationalism (I’m French-Canadian from outside Québec, for context) but I find it interesting how Québec making the use of its language necessary for participation in society is seen as nationalistic, even racist, yet Canada making English necessary for participation in society is seen as perfectly acceptable. I bet a lot of the same people who whine about Québec’s language laws would go berserk if they saw non-English signage dominate their community.
Honestly, I completely agree with your assesment of the hypocrisy involved. As a second generation British imigrant to Quebec I have never felt like I had any nation of my own at all, and so learning French and adapting to the majority culture seemed obvious. I find the “anglo” identity here of stubborn resistance to all homogenization to be as silly and self defeating as any other nationalistically motivated politics. We are aboard the Titanic, the iceberg is dead ahead, and we are arguing about the arangement of the deck chairs.
yet Canada making English necessary for participation in society is seen as perfectly acceptable
But it doesn’t. Everywhere I turned in Ontario as an immigrant, I was offered bilingual services (in Toronto). No one ever pushed either language on me specifically. It was just stated to know one or the other. Even my first work place in Toronto had accommodated people that spoke French only.
While I know that in reality corpos are okay with conversing in English in Quebec, the government sure as hell don’t like it. And their reasoning for implementing the laws is nothing more than racism, xenophobia and to fuck with the “anglos” (whoever those might be, but I suspect it’s basically everyone that has no French-Quebecois ancestry).
But it doesn’t. Everywhere I turned in Ontario as an immigrant, I was offered bilingual services (in Toronto).
I appreciate your anecdotal evidence, but it remains anecdotal. I could go on about my own anecdotes living in a province which, on paper is officially bilingual, but where I struggle to receive services in French. Even workplaces in Francophone-majority areas barely accommodate unilingual French speakers. I suspect your experience is far from the norm.
And their reasoning for implementing the laws is nothing more than racism, xenophobia and to fuck with the “anglos”
Look, I won’t pretend racism and xenophobia aren’t issues in Québecois society, they are and that deserves to be addressed. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool. What I take issue with is equating any and all measures to protect the French language with racism and xenophobia. Are the methods the current CAQ government using to supposedly “protect French” often steeped in racism and xenophobia? I definitely think they are. But the concept of French preservation is much larger than the CAQ’s definition of it. Québecois.es have not too distant memories of being second-class citizens under a rich Anglophone elite, I think anyone should understand why they would be apprehensive at multinational business interests entering the province and not giving any fucks about French.
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