Quebec is a French speaking (in majority) Canadian province. It has bill 101 which makes French mandatory for a lot of stuff and, notably, makes it hard to get educated in english (until university where it’s pretty much as you wish).
Those are the facts. Now for my admittedly biased French Canadian opinion: it makes a lot of anglophone Quebec resident very sour because they’re very unwilling to learn the language of the majority of people living all around them. Of course this is a gross generalization but this gives you an idea of the issue. It is very complex and discussing it in HN comments is almost hopeless.
You might as well say that quebecoi don't want to learn the language of the rest of the country.
And it's gotten worse under the CAQ recently. A French PhD holder was denied immigration status because a chapter of her thesis was the language of international study, English, so she didn't complete a course "entirely in french".
Denying government services to a chunk of the population based on language is bizarre, especially when such extreme measures are asked for out of others to accommodate French outside of Quebec.
>You might as well say that quebecoi [sic] don't want to learn the language of the rest of the country.
"Between 2006 and 2011, the number of persons who reported that they were able to conduct a conversation in both of Canada's official languages increased by 350,000 to 5.8 million. The English‑French bilingualism rate within the overall population went from 17.4% to 17.5%."
"The growth of English-French bilingualism in Canada was mainly due to the increased number of Quebecers reporting that they were able to conduct a conversation in French and English. Quebec accounted for 90% of the net increase in the number of bilingual persons between 2006 and 2011. In fact, 71% of the net increase in English-French bilingualism in Canada is attributable to the population with French as a mother tongue in Quebec, in particular to the population aged 15 to 49."
"In Quebec, the English-French bilingualism rate increased from 40.6% in 2006 to 42.6% in 2011. In the other provinces, bilingualism declined slightly. The largest decreases were recorded in Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia, where in each case, the bilingualism rate decreased by half a percentage point."
You might as well say that quebecoi don't want to
learn the language of the rest of the country.
You are conveniently proposing a revisionist view of history.
The word "Canada" has had multiple meanings which have been thoroughly perverted. Technically, Canada is not a country per se, rather it is a federation. Canada referred to the nation of what were later called "French Canadians" long before English settlers came. This [1] map from 1579 uses the word Canada almost 200 years before the English conquest. The process of nation building was underway a _long_ time before any English settlers joined. The English appropriated the name (and the flag, and the national anthem) for themselves and promptly outlawed giving or receiving education in French in _all provinces except Quebec_. Some are still fighting against it _to this day_. These facts would not be disputed by any party at he national assembly because... they are facts.
So did the English not want to learn the language of the rest of the country, even when they were vastly outnumbered? No, they did not (and still don't). Yet for example, they generously split their debt between all of the inhabitants of the federation, at a time when the English were vastly outnumbered yet millions of dollars in debt, and the French were much more numerous yet had budget surpluses!
The Quebecois (Canadiens) have absolutely no lesson whatsoever to receive from anybody. The English minority in the province receives many times more funding than it would pro rata. It is cited by the UN as the world's most well treated minority. You, like a lot of other English Canadians, are merely expressing your disdain for Canadiens. The history of this federation is clear, if only more people would learn about it.
Of course I think the whole graduate student being rejected residency for an English thesis chapter is complete nonsense. In the end only about 37% of Quebec voted for the CAQ and I’m not one of them!! I also have no control about what’s asked of people in other provinces; however in practice except at the federal service level nothing extreme is being asked in other province. Nobody is being denied services in Quebec. Define « denied ».
This will end soon, because the new generation is growing with the internet learning English from the web and tv and no amount of suppression laws will stop them...
You won't believe how many people from the older generations never went on vacation outside Quebec, because they don't speak English and are ashamed... Even the "real" French from France are mocking them when they get the chance...
The sad story is people like you perpetuating 30 year old stereotypes about Quebec and sticking to them even after being proven wrong multiple times. Maybe you should practice what you preach and visit the province once in a while.
How do you know how much time I have spent in Quebec and why I am so passionate about it, mon ami? I really really wish those were from 30 years ago, this is what the current government is doing right now:
"Quebec kerfuffle over bilingual greeting Bonjour- Hi!"
Those are from the past few weeks only, not from 30 years ago and we have to expose and share the stupidity to push the government to backtrack as much as possible.
That's why there is a huge brain drain out of the province, resulting in Quebec being one of the poorest provinces in Canada with a lot of unemployment (and high taxes) spinning a vicious cycle...
Just check this one example, to see the sheer stupidity of the language police:
As pointed out your statement about unemployement is incorrect. Brain drain is a huge problem for all of Canada; do you have any statistics showing how it is affecting Quebec more?
Forget the unemployment, there is a much bigger issues at stake with racists governments blaming the immigrants for their failed referendums and resulting in mass business exodus...
This kind of stuff pretty much diminished Montreal and gave the rise of Toronto as Canada business capital...
I'm in Montreal, we're doing fine. Sure Toronto is objectively doing better economically, but sometimes raw economic output should not be the only preoccupation of government (hey, I can make rent in a nice four room apartment as a graduate student!!). I don't like that when people point out that you're wrong and ask you for numbers, you just scream the typical "but, but Quebec is racist!!!!". That's unproductive at best.
Quebec is not racist, the regular people in Montreal are great and they acknowledge the fact how repressive the bill 101 is, actually, it is worst for the regular Quebecois, preventing their kids to learn English from young age and handicapping their future...
The separatists’ leaders are racist, but soon they will go away in oblivion, because the young generation knows better thanks to TV and Internet and are open to the world...
The whole world is uniting; EU is a good example (even with UK getting away, which looks more and more unlikely)... There is no room for chauvinism in this century in my book.
Montreal is one of the best cities in the world, largely because of the immigrants settled there, even tough the nationalist governments try to punish them any chance they get...
Ever try to register a company in Quebec? Let me give you a clue, it is possible, but only in French :-)
Montreal city web site, it does have an English section, but the majority of the documents are in French only...
This is included in what you write, but it should be noted for emphasis that Bill 101 prevents Anglophone immigrants from receiving (public) education in English. That is, a family that moves from Ontario to Québec can receive English-language education for their children, but not one that moves from the UK to Québec (even after naturalization as citizens).
To the extent legally permissible (Québec has a special exemption from a portion of the constitution's minority-language education section), the province takes a model of education where English-education should only be provided to the existing minority, and immigration must bolster the Francophone majority.
It prevents everyone from getting public school English education in the province unless one parent also went to English high school in Quebec and has a special letter to prove it.
All immigrants are prevented, including those from other provinces, all French Canadians as well (unless they have said letter).
As far as I remember from speaking with coworkers from Quebec, there was a loophole as sending your first born child to a private English school ($10k) fro one year and then transferring it to public English school and after that all siblings can go there as well, but I think this is closed now...
At the same time the majority of the separatists leaders children go private English schools...
> It prevents everyone from getting public school English education in the province unless one parent also went to English high school in Quebec and has a special letter to prove it.
Only one parent, and they only need the right to have gone to English school, in Canada. Yes this may be made more difficult in practice due to some bureaucratic requirement.
