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.
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.
“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.
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).
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.
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.
This hot take brought to you by someone who clearly hasn’t lived or worked in QC over the last decade.
I did live in Québec a couple of years ago, but you’re right I’ve definitely spent most of the last decade outside Québec.
Do you have any arguments against my “hot take” or did you just feel like speculating on my living and work history?