Born in Montreal, fully bilingual, lived here for majority of my life - came back 8 or so years ago to a peaceful situation that was broken apart because nationalist extremists freaked out when greeted with "Bonjour, Hi!".
Now I have a government openly saying other cultures don't matter:
Nope - this is a real issue inside our domestic borders. The country has two official languages but only one region that legislates one of them as second class.
Additionally - Quebec's insistence on "protecting their distinct and unique culture" tramples all over the rights of other demographics important to the formation of the country. Ex: Montreal sits on unneeded Mohawk land and the insistence on French (very Quebecois French, see numerous stories of relocating citizens of France not passing the competency requirements) but you can't get served in any Iroquoian language and in much of the north many citizens speak dialects of Cree as a first language.
So you have Indigenous people who were trampled, those who signed treaties that were then broken and/or ignored, the Metis who at least got a slightly better deal having negotiated later and spent a lot of blood, and then the Quebecois who were (basically) on the loosing side of a war & abandoned by the mother country in favour of sugar plantations in the Caribbean.
And of course they get the best deal with untenable consequences and have to be entertained every time there's a complaint that can't possibly be backed up. Whether a referendum ever actually passes the province simply can't afford to separate so, uhh, yeah. Sweetheart deals (when compared to everyone else) because, simply put, racism.
So keep some of the context in mind when Canadians complain that the province will outlaw "bonjour-hi" but you can still be served in English at nearly every fast-food joint in Montreal but might very well not get admitted to a hospital because your French isn't proficient enough.
You've crossed into name-calling and personal attack repeatedly in this thread. Can you please not do that? It's against the site guidelines and we ban that sort of account.
I'm sure you have strong feelings on the topic for completely legitimate reasons, but we need to avoid flamewar here.
jpambrun|3 years ago
[deleted]
qwedf|3 years ago
Born in Montreal, fully bilingual, lived here for majority of my life - came back 8 or so years ago to a peaceful situation that was broken apart because nationalist extremists freaked out when greeted with "Bonjour, Hi!".
Now I have a government openly saying other cultures don't matter:
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-thwarted-by-multicultural...
phoobahr|3 years ago
Additionally - Quebec's insistence on "protecting their distinct and unique culture" tramples all over the rights of other demographics important to the formation of the country. Ex: Montreal sits on unneeded Mohawk land and the insistence on French (very Quebecois French, see numerous stories of relocating citizens of France not passing the competency requirements) but you can't get served in any Iroquoian language and in much of the north many citizens speak dialects of Cree as a first language.
So you have Indigenous people who were trampled, those who signed treaties that were then broken and/or ignored, the Metis who at least got a slightly better deal having negotiated later and spent a lot of blood, and then the Quebecois who were (basically) on the loosing side of a war & abandoned by the mother country in favour of sugar plantations in the Caribbean.
And of course they get the best deal with untenable consequences and have to be entertained every time there's a complaint that can't possibly be backed up. Whether a referendum ever actually passes the province simply can't afford to separate so, uhh, yeah. Sweetheart deals (when compared to everyone else) because, simply put, racism.
So keep some of the context in mind when Canadians complain that the province will outlaw "bonjour-hi" but you can still be served in English at nearly every fast-food joint in Montreal but might very well not get admitted to a hospital because your French isn't proficient enough.
dang|3 years ago
I'm sure you have strong feelings on the topic for completely legitimate reasons, but we need to avoid flamewar here.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.