For someone who complains about my bad copy and pasting (due to the bad coding on from vBulletin in changing where a cursor is when copying and pasting) resulting in mistakes, I'll have to use my right to criticize a "professionally" published article that is rife with spelling mistakes easily corrected by a spell check.
I took upon myself to translate an article by a prominent sovereignist in order to make it available for our discussion and to make sure that the National Post's or Globe and Mail's editorialists' point of view was not the only one to which you were exposed. So I made mistakes in my translation ? It is likely, even though I made efforts.
I'd be curious to see how you'd fare if you were to translate an entire article from English to French.
Likewise the article fails to even once mention similar policies in France.
The author of the article (Jean-François Lisée), already mentionned other examples in another article. Published
here.
Also see
this article for additionnal examples.
Oh wait. Can you read french ? Unfortunately, we can't expect ontarian newspapers to relay the informations presented there. Québec bashing is an old game the Globe and Mail and National Post enjoy most when the answer is silenced.
The article is extreamly biased, hard-headed and appeals to the base.
Like the Québec Bashing in your newspapers isn't biaised. It's an opinion article, and doesn't pretend to be perfectly objective.
But do you know what is the difference Québec Bashing and this article ? It's not bashing anyone.
Another fallacy you continue to perpetuate is the continuation that Quebec is a soverign state/country which it isn't.
This rhetoric can only be used if Quebec seperates from Canada and you use it to justify a new change in immigration policy. To equate what Blair said into the current situation, you'd have to substitute U.K. for Canada, not Quebec.
You seem to forget something. Sir John A. Macdonald wanted Canada to be a centralised legislation, but he failed. Sir Georges-Étienne Cartier made it a federation. Provinces have powers that are not of the federal governments business. The province of Québec is a State in its full right and is a
member, not a creature, of the Canadian Federation.
of course quebec is a nation. are you going to tell me next that the grand canyon wasn't carved out by the flood in which noah built an ark?
We have been recognized as a nation by the House of Commons.
If however both are true and I didn't get the memo, why the heck are our tax dollars still flooding into Quebec and why hasn't Satan appeared to me and offered me a position as a general in the war against God?
the tax money is flooding quebec because money is evil and this is gods way of punishing quebec. DaimonAugustus has been ordered by god to collect 2 of every thing french and put it on his ark of ideology. the ark will sail over the money because those onboard would rather have their wallets bone dry than be swimming in canadian cash.
Frankly, we'd be better off without federal transfers, which keep us into a state of gentle subjection.
We give you money, so stop complaining. I happen to prefer freedom. One of the many reasons I want Québec's independance.
As Quebec is part of Canada, it would appear that the article-writer supports the idea that English should be the common language for the entire country. The fact that some people in Quebec have refused, or neglected, to learn the language (and that some families have done so for generations) is shameful.
Yet no law has ever been written in the country to force the assimilation of Francophones. Canada has allowed Francophone institutions to exists for hundreds of years. In turn, restrictive language laws have been passed in Quebec, and xenophobes can now openly demand a "be like us, or get out" attitude towards immigrants.
Again, Canada is a federation. It has two official languages and provinces are free to choose either of both of these languages as officials. That's written in the Constitution, my friend, and it was the condition for Québec to join the federation. Now, I can understand, read, write and speak both of Canada's official languages. Do you ?
You say that Canada has allowed Francophone institutions to exist for hundreds of years. First, the Canadian Federation would have to have existed for at least 200 years to have done that for "hundreds" of years. Unfortunately, it's 140 years old. Second, if, by "Canada" you mean the british colonies between the conquest (1760) and the BNA Act (1867), then you are wrong.
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 that created the Province of Québec banned french from all colonial institutions, prohibited the colony's catholics (which were all french at the time) from having a position in the colonial administration or in the government, banned all french laws and abolished the french lords' rights as well as the catholic church's rights.
Two british governors tried to enforce the Royal Proclamation, but failed. It is because of the resistance of the canadian population (all french at the time), and because the brits feared that the canadians would side up with the Americans that the Québec Bill of 1774 re-enacted french civil laws, allowed catholics in the administration and government of the colony, and recognized the lords' and the catholic church's rights. It did not, however, re-establish french as an official language.
The Constitutionnal Bill of 1791, following the demands of the Loyalists, divided the Province of Québec in two : Upper Canada (Ontario) was to be a solely english colony, while Lower Canada (Québec) was to be a
billingual colony, even though a huge majority was french-speaking.
After the 1837 rebellion, the Union Bill of 1840 re-united Upper and Lower Canada. Even though french Lower Canada was more populated than Upper Canada, Upper Canada obtained an equal number of seats in the Legislative Assembly. French was also banned as an official language.
In the 1850s, the english population of Upper Canada became larger than that of french Lower Canada. Upper Canada's elected officials therefore began campaining for a proportionnal representation in the Legislative Assembly rather than an equal one. In other words, justice in democracy applies only to english people. Remember than french was still banned.
BNA Act of 1867. Macdonald wanted an english-only centralised legislation. Cartier pushed for a billingual federation and a right for provinces to make their own linguistic laws. He obtained it. However, french was abolished in New Brunswick (1871), Manitoba (1890) and Ontario (1912) early in the history of the federation. Québec was officially billingual until 1977. Since then, all of a sudden, we've become the bad guys. Riiight. After all the efforts made to ban french, we wanted to make our language the only official language of ONE province, our own, the one where we are the huge majority and where yet, we couldn't at the time live in our own language, and we get told that we are racists ? Already told you, justice applies only to english people.
So if we sum up, since the conquest (in 247 years), french has been banned over the country in general for a total of 55 years, and accepted as one of two official languages for 189 years. In Québec only however, it has been banned for 55 years, accepted as one of two official languages for 159 years and has been the only official language for 33 years. In Ontario, now, land of the tolerant and of the saintly, french has been banned for a total of 199 years and accepted as one of two official languages for a total of 45 years (and those 45 years are between 1867 and 1912 remember).
And you dare say we've always been accepted and our institutions tolerated ? You may forget what efforts the british and then canadian governments have made to make us disappear. But we don't.
