NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/soc/culture/canada/8573

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-17 | 4.6 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Dark Lord of the Sith)
Subject: Re: Bilingual posts and Quebec sovereignty
Organization: University of Western Ont, London
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 02:42:13 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Todd Law) writes:
>
> I agree with the "not looking down on each other" part, but
> forget the "equals" part.  (*REALITY*FLASH*) How can the majority
> ever be equal to the minority? Elementary mathematics says it ain't so.
> This is especially true when that majority is buoyed by mostly
> English-speaking America, making the French-speaking population
> less than 2% of Canada and the USA together.  Reality says that
> French-speakers are a minority in Canada.  Why should one minority
> receive a greater status than another? Some will say because the
> French were in Canada early on - but to that I say let's make Cree
> Indian the second language.  What about Alberta, where French is
> the seventh (from my Marketing Management textbook) most common
> language?  If the reasoning was based on justice, I could accept
> it.  But fact is that the reasoning is based on the considerable
> political clout of Quebec, all ideals aside (if ideals mattered
> francophones would stand in solidarity with other minorities,
> especially the anglophones living as a minority among them in
> Quebec).
> {C'est l'arrogance de toutes faces qui est en train de nous tues.}
>
> Todd Law
>
    All right, I have had just about enough from the so-called experts
and their "Canada is ten equal provinces" ideology.

1. Quebec is different not because Quebec is better, but simply because
Quebec has different needs than other provinces. For instance, why does
BC have special constitutional guarantees for railroad links (answer...
all provinces were not created equally).

2. Quebec is NOT a minority, notwithstanding Todd's assertion. Quebec is
a political jurisdiction where at least four fifths of the population
shares the French language as its mother tongue. This is something critics
of Quebec ALWAYS bring up. Bilingualism, whatever merits it has, is nothing
more than a hammer with which English Canada can swing at Quebec. In Ontario
there are countless francophones who are denied French services from the
government but there are THOUSANDS of anglophone kids who learn French free
in immersion. English Quebecers may have had rough times in the last 20
years but that is NOTHING to what French minorities in Canada have faced and
continue to face (New Brunswick's COR party advocating a race war on Acadians,
for example). Bilingualism is not the real issue, it is English Canada's
continued obession with the English minority in Quebec.

3. What we have here is a conflict of visions. Your Canada excludes Quebec
because it demands that Quebec conform (while the rest of the country pays
lip service) to minority rights guarantees and all the rest. Your Canada
excludes Quebec because English Canadians in general want to have a strong
central dictatorship/democracy in Ottawa and Quebecers want their own province
to decide its own destiny. Will renewed federalism work.... I don't believe
that English Canada and the federal regime (whoever is in Ottawa) will ever
find a solution that is acceptable to Quebecers. Todd's attitudes, while very
moderate in tone, reflect the inevitable clash of values that divides Quebecers
and English Canada.

I don't always appreciate what Parizeau says, but I was forced to agree with
him on the eve of the Non vote in Quebec. Parizeau said that English Canadians
(rest of Canada, if you prefer) should define their country as they see it
and Quebecers should define their country as they see it. In essence, if you
want Canada to reflect certain values that Quebec may never accept (universal
day care, for example), then maybe it is better to declare a divorce due to
irreconciable differences then to continue a tortured marriage. Give it a
thought. Canada needs some radical change and this generations leaders are
not going to bring it. And maybe Quebec and English Canada can live side by
side as friends instead of as angry spouses arguing in a divided home.

--
J. P. LaRocque
[e-mail]
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario

"Urk..urk..."
"Apologies accepted", Darth Vader