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Always amazed and amused by the "right-coded" journalists in Canada who are in a rage over Quebec's language and cultural laws. Why can't those hicks see the benefits of being isolated economic units?
In 50 years Quebec will be recognizably Quebec; this is unlikely true on the sub 25 year timeframe for Ontario and BC.
I don't see any great harm in what Quebec is doing. In fact, I view it as preferable to what Anglophone Canada has been doing these past few decades. After all, Trudeau has called it the "world's first post-national state".
Replacing Canadian university students with foreign students who can pay the higher tuition - and then return from where they came from - what's not to like?
Quebec maintains the health of the french language by requiring immigrants to attend francophone schools, beginning in kindergarten. There were exemptions for Canadians who moved to Quebec from other provinces, or had a parent who was an immigrant. (The latter made me eligible to attend the anglophone school system in the 1970s).
I could see Canadian parents being upset if those exemptions have since been ended.
"and then return from where they came from - what's not to like"
Not a single student will return. Student visas are treated as permanent immigration visa by all those who obtain it. Once you get in, its impossibel to send back.
A student who is being sponsored by their government is expected to return home and contribute to their society. Self-sponsored students are of course free to pursue their own path.
Student visas can be obtained for community college programs. Here we're talking university level courses at a prestigious institution like McGill. This tends to be the preserve of foreign elites sending their heirs to get educated. Or top students who earned the right to a scholarship.
As an Irish American, I can appreciate defending Anglophonia as the universal language of anywhere and nowhere cosmopolitans, but it appears the Quebecois prefer roots.
Sadly post-nationalism has been embraced in Newfoundland also, which could previously claim a distinctive culture: Black History Month, Alphabet soup stuff, Decolonization, (entirely phoney) Indigenization, and generally tearing down, disparaging, or forgetting anything before 1968 is all the rage.
But Quebec’s demands for autonomy at the federal level in the 50s and 60s were a major impetus for the national governments multicultural policy that Trudeau is expressing. The quebecois may have preserved their culture and enclave but these changes made expression of Anglo culture in the rest of Canada officially disfavored
" ...To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of civilization."
Say what you will about his philosophy, but he is 150 million bajillion percent bang on with that quote.
I read about the Algerians switching to English over French a while back. Some guy talks about how colonization is a turn off for studying French. Lol. Algeria is probably worse off switching to English.
With Hamas in the news I became aware for the first time of the existence of that portion of the hadith quoted in their charter concerning murderous Jew-hating inanimate objects. I suppose it was finally topical enough to break through the MSM embargo that had hitherto worked effectivly on me. Makes me wonder what other nasty stuff might be found in Islamic sacred scriptures.
I don't think Anglophone Canadians understand what "massive" means (used twice in this article by different people). English is the first language of 50% of Canadians and French 22%, the rest being mostly immigrant languages. So yes, there are definitely more English speakers, but I don't think two to one is "massive"
Great commentary as always. Query how the geopolitical power balance will be impacted if the Western left is able to impose its full environmental agenda on its middle and lower classes with no viable alternatives (nuclear would be the closest but its out of favor). Russia and China (and other named and unnamed components of the BRICS axis) are unlikely to ever limit their energy output to the extent it materially impacts growth/output. It could be sort of an inversion of the Cold War dynamic where Russia essentially began to implode under its own weight and over-extension (perhaps why China's strategy thus far has been Fabian) although one cannot underestimate Turbo American dynamism.
I love Montreal, and was devastated following its draconian approach throughout much of the COVID madness.
That being said, I fear for the Quebecois culture in the inevitable wake of what will come of this apparently-genuine push to create a Schengen Zone between Canada-United States-Mexico that could eventually extend through more of Central and maybe even South America. That’s always seemed like one of the logical end results (obviously, among many) of the U.S.’s studious attempt to completely disregard its southern border: the creation of a new American super-state.
The creation of an American super state is all but stated policy, and why our southern border is open; we’re not being invaded by Mexico 🤣, we’re absorbing Mexico. Any unpleasantness is borne by the peonage North and South of the Rio Grande.
By the way the Great Lakes Trade zone created by NAFTA is a $6 Trillion dollar a year US-Canadian economy- and that’s real not financialized.
That’s industry, agriculture, shipping, not Hedge Funds.
Quiet people we Northerners, I mean Great Lakes not Yankees.
The challenge is to keep the productive zone productive...doing that with a mobile workforce to the south sounds daunting. My instincts tell me that the best way forward across much of the world will be neo-apartheid suitably camouflaged and regulated.
Vladimir Putin may be a paranoid autocrat and a failing military strategist but when he talks about people in the West who want to "destroy [its]traditional values and impose their pseudo-values... which would corrode [it] from within" you surely have to ask yourself if does have a point? https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers
It's so difficult just now to depart from the stock take on Russia without being damned as a Putin apologist. But viewing Russia as the great bete noir has long been a bit of a fixation of our political/media complex. There have always been better candidates for this label. Russia's huge contribution to European culture just gets airbrushed out.....Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, Solzhenitsyn etc..... where else on the planet is there a culture with such deep links to our own? Thanks to the block headed insistence - after the fall of Soviet Communism in 1989 - that it instantly re-invent itself as a full-on liberal democracy or else, a huge oppotunity to draw Russia into the Western fold was squandered by the Cold War-fixated establishment. I am therefore one of many who think the West bears at least a measure of responsibility for goading Russia into the Ukraine conflict.
By taking time to kill infants in the midst of a (somewhat credible?) military operation, Hamas voluntarily removed itself from being considered as anything remotely human.
Kipling got it right about "half devil and half child". His best stuff is a more reliable guide to the political psychologies at work today than anything coming from the experts.
Im glad the Quebecois are protecting their culture. It used to annoy me but as I’ve aged I see the priceless value of heritage and customs. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Not exactly on-topic but...my wife is Franco-Ontarian from Ottawa and we visit from Nova Scotia every summer. Our stopping point is always Riviere du Loup in Quebec where the Trans-Canada meets the St Lawrence River. A few years ago, my daughter had some stomach pain so we took her to the hospital there. Being bilingual, my wife went inside to the emerge with the daughter to get her registered while I parked the car. Once inside, she informed me that they wouldn't accept her legal, married name as the mother of our daughter. She must provide her birth name to allow the daughter to be registered. Not sure if this is a provincial policy in Quebec or just the maneuvers from a small town health bureaucrat but kind of interesting.
It was odd, could've been the worker or hospital's decision. We assumed after that that Quebec women were not permitted to change their legal name following marriage even if they desired to.
The 1976 Quebec Charter of Rights outlined the passage of a 1981 provincial law intended to promote gender equality. With this law, a woman's maiden name remains her legal name after marriage and cannot be changed without the authorization of the court—which isn't an easy task.
Thank you. For what it is worth, it all strikes me as intrusive and authoritarian. There was always wiggle-room in the old days for those who sought it. Sounds very heavy handed to have to plead a case to a judge to do what you want in a family matter.
Quebec boomers ushered in the Quiet Revolution. They did stick it to those who held Catholic values, but those folks are mostly deceased by now. Blaming boomers for the demise of the Catholic church - that's a funny critique in my book. I praise them for doing it.
You're celebrating too soon then. The thing that will characterise them the most will be having rejected the values of both their parents and their descendants. A more visible example of this is how Quebec Boomers liked to give their children hyphenated last names, with both the father's name and the maternal grandfather's name. You'll find people in their late twenties and older with hyphenated names, but the practice has basically died out, so you won't find younger people with that kind of name. I know a few men with hyphenated names who just go by their father's name, for example.
I find the computer simulation theory to be entirely too elaborate because it still leaves questions as to the nature of the computation, and the laws under which that higher reality must be subject.
Good old fashioned idealism, in my view, is the better approach. It still leaves some mystery but it nicely avoids the contorted incoherence of materialism. I think Schopenhauer pretty much got it right.
Click the like button at the top of the page to like this entry. Use the share or re-stack buttons to share this across social media. Leave a comment if the mood strikes you to do so. And don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done so already.
Always amazed and amused by the "right-coded" journalists in Canada who are in a rage over Quebec's language and cultural laws. Why can't those hicks see the benefits of being isolated economic units?
In 50 years Quebec will be recognizably Quebec; this is unlikely true on the sub 25 year timeframe for Ontario and BC.
I don't see any great harm in what Quebec is doing. In fact, I view it as preferable to what Anglophone Canada has been doing these past few decades. After all, Trudeau has called it the "world's first post-national state".
Replacing Canadian university students with foreign students who can pay the higher tuition - and then return from where they came from - what's not to like?
Quebec maintains the health of the french language by requiring immigrants to attend francophone schools, beginning in kindergarten. There were exemptions for Canadians who moved to Quebec from other provinces, or had a parent who was an immigrant. (The latter made me eligible to attend the anglophone school system in the 1970s).
I could see Canadian parents being upset if those exemptions have since been ended.
"and then return from where they came from - what's not to like"
Not a single student will return. Student visas are treated as permanent immigration visa by all those who obtain it. Once you get in, its impossibel to send back.
A student who is being sponsored by their government is expected to return home and contribute to their society. Self-sponsored students are of course free to pursue their own path.
Student visas can be obtained for community college programs. Here we're talking university level courses at a prestigious institution like McGill. This tends to be the preserve of foreign elites sending their heirs to get educated. Or top students who earned the right to a scholarship.
Maybe, but proportion of self sponsored to government sponsored is probably 99 -1 these days.
As an Irish American, I can appreciate defending Anglophonia as the universal language of anywhere and nowhere cosmopolitans, but it appears the Quebecois prefer roots.
Reminds me of Israel.
Sadly post-nationalism has been embraced in Newfoundland also, which could previously claim a distinctive culture: Black History Month, Alphabet soup stuff, Decolonization, (entirely phoney) Indigenization, and generally tearing down, disparaging, or forgetting anything before 1968 is all the rage.
Newfies are wonderful people who are clannish and very, very distinct.
But Quebec’s demands for autonomy at the federal level in the 50s and 60s were a major impetus for the national governments multicultural policy that Trudeau is expressing. The quebecois may have preserved their culture and enclave but these changes made expression of Anglo culture in the rest of Canada officially disfavored
Conrad Black... is that Brit still in Canada?
He had his chance.
Ya know?
I say Up the 🐸 Frogs del Norte.
Kick out the... uh... anglophones
I've posted this quote from Fanon before
" ...To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of civilization."
Say what you will about his philosophy, but he is 150 million bajillion percent bang on with that quote.
I read about the Algerians switching to English over French a while back. Some guy talks about how colonization is a turn off for studying French. Lol. Algeria is probably worse off switching to English.
The Anglophone is slow poison but very sure...
With Hamas in the news I became aware for the first time of the existence of that portion of the hadith quoted in their charter concerning murderous Jew-hating inanimate objects. I suppose it was finally topical enough to break through the MSM embargo that had hitherto worked effectivly on me. Makes me wonder what other nasty stuff might be found in Islamic sacred scriptures.
I don't think Anglophone Canadians understand what "massive" means (used twice in this article by different people). English is the first language of 50% of Canadians and French 22%, the rest being mostly immigrant languages. So yes, there are definitely more English speakers, but I don't think two to one is "massive"
Great commentary as always. Query how the geopolitical power balance will be impacted if the Western left is able to impose its full environmental agenda on its middle and lower classes with no viable alternatives (nuclear would be the closest but its out of favor). Russia and China (and other named and unnamed components of the BRICS axis) are unlikely to ever limit their energy output to the extent it materially impacts growth/output. It could be sort of an inversion of the Cold War dynamic where Russia essentially began to implode under its own weight and over-extension (perhaps why China's strategy thus far has been Fabian) although one cannot underestimate Turbo American dynamism.
I love Montreal, and was devastated following its draconian approach throughout much of the COVID madness.
That being said, I fear for the Quebecois culture in the inevitable wake of what will come of this apparently-genuine push to create a Schengen Zone between Canada-United States-Mexico that could eventually extend through more of Central and maybe even South America. That’s always seemed like one of the logical end results (obviously, among many) of the U.S.’s studious attempt to completely disregard its southern border: the creation of a new American super-state.
The creation of an American super state is all but stated policy, and why our southern border is open; we’re not being invaded by Mexico 🤣, we’re absorbing Mexico. Any unpleasantness is borne by the peonage North and South of the Rio Grande.
By the way the Great Lakes Trade zone created by NAFTA is a $6 Trillion dollar a year US-Canadian economy- and that’s real not financialized.
That’s industry, agriculture, shipping, not Hedge Funds.
Quiet people we Northerners, I mean Great Lakes not Yankees.
Let the Southons have their murderous Operettas.
The challenge is to keep the productive zone productive...doing that with a mobile workforce to the south sounds daunting. My instincts tell me that the best way forward across much of the world will be neo-apartheid suitably camouflaged and regulated.
Forward?
If you mean extending now...
yes
Militarizing for NATO Ukraine in 2014, and recent US arm sales to Taiwan remind of Hitler moving the Wehrmacht into Rhineland in early spring 1939.
Russia operations in Ukraine since Feb 2022 are what France should have done about Rhineland!
Certainly China sees the historic rhyme.
Russia and the West......
Vladimir Putin may be a paranoid autocrat and a failing military strategist but when he talks about people in the West who want to "destroy [its]traditional values and impose their pseudo-values... which would corrode [it] from within" you surely have to ask yourself if does have a point? https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/invasion-of-the-virtue-signallers
It's so difficult just now to depart from the stock take on Russia without being damned as a Putin apologist. But viewing Russia as the great bete noir has long been a bit of a fixation of our political/media complex. There have always been better candidates for this label. Russia's huge contribution to European culture just gets airbrushed out.....Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, Solzhenitsyn etc..... where else on the planet is there a culture with such deep links to our own? Thanks to the block headed insistence - after the fall of Soviet Communism in 1989 - that it instantly re-invent itself as a full-on liberal democracy or else, a huge oppotunity to draw Russia into the Western fold was squandered by the Cold War-fixated establishment. I am therefore one of many who think the West bears at least a measure of responsibility for goading Russia into the Ukraine conflict.
Thank you Me Soldo. I'm from Québec and it is rare to hear about us from outside of here and not be scolded as Mr Black is doing here. Thank you gain.
Hi Francois....I'm writing from the United States. Is Quebec to the north of us or to the south of us? Thanks!
Juste north of Vermont, New York, New Amshire and Maine
Quebec is just beyond the end of Roxham Road in Champlain, NY.
You'll know you're in Quebec when you get arrested.
Francois - Hang on, these 🇬🇧c--tz are almost at the end of their rope.
❤️☘️🇺🇸
On the level
Hang on
I will, thanks.
One thing is settled beyond doubt:
By taking time to kill infants in the midst of a (somewhat credible?) military operation, Hamas voluntarily removed itself from being considered as anything remotely human.
No.
No, HAMAS all too human.
A return to the Elemental.
The Primal.
This is actual Decolonization, what happened, what happens.
I advocate Gaza Delenda Est, by the way. We should respect their decision and allow our client state to reciprocate.
Kipling got it right about "half devil and half child". His best stuff is a more reliable guide to the political psychologies at work today than anything coming from the experts.
Im glad the Quebecois are protecting their culture. It used to annoy me but as I’ve aged I see the priceless value of heritage and customs. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
A tad of theatrics...afterall, what normal homosexual such as moiself doesn't adore drama queenery?
"Video 1: Two female Hamas terrorists waving guns.
Video 2: The same women pretending to be victims of a bombing while dressed as civilians for the cameras."
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1715414447865410044
Average IQ over there is 80. What can you expect?
Not exactly on-topic but...my wife is Franco-Ontarian from Ottawa and we visit from Nova Scotia every summer. Our stopping point is always Riviere du Loup in Quebec where the Trans-Canada meets the St Lawrence River. A few years ago, my daughter had some stomach pain so we took her to the hospital there. Being bilingual, my wife went inside to the emerge with the daughter to get her registered while I parked the car. Once inside, she informed me that they wouldn't accept her legal, married name as the mother of our daughter. She must provide her birth name to allow the daughter to be registered. Not sure if this is a provincial policy in Quebec or just the maneuvers from a small town health bureaucrat but kind of interesting.
Married women in Quebec keep their birth name, but why this rule would apply to marriages outside of Quebec is odd.
It was odd, could've been the worker or hospital's decision. We assumed after that that Quebec women were not permitted to change their legal name following marriage even if they desired to.
Legally they can't, but that doesn't stop them from using their husband's name socially.
Edit: Was your wife born in Quebec?
Why is there such a rule in the first place? Am mystified by all this.
The rule:
https://www.justice.gouv.qc.ca/en/couple-et-famille/mariage-union-civile-ou-union-de-fait/marriage/married-name/
Google's explanation:
The 1976 Quebec Charter of Rights outlined the passage of a 1981 provincial law intended to promote gender equality. With this law, a woman's maiden name remains her legal name after marriage and cannot be changed without the authorization of the court—which isn't an easy task.
Thank you. For what it is worth, it all strikes me as intrusive and authoritarian. There was always wiggle-room in the old days for those who sought it. Sounds very heavy handed to have to plead a case to a judge to do what you want in a family matter.
It's a legal thing. I wouldn't go to court over it.
One co-worker hated her middle name, which was Marie Clementine. The only time she was reminded of it, was when some bureaucrat required it.
p.s. Can I call you Phil, or is that punishable by a fine?
Phil is fine. A million times better than some things I get called. 👍😂🤣
It's the boomer generation sticking it to the values of all previous generations. In Quebec they're particularly bad like this
Quebec boomers ushered in the Quiet Revolution. They did stick it to those who held Catholic values, but those folks are mostly deceased by now. Blaming boomers for the demise of the Catholic church - that's a funny critique in my book. I praise them for doing it.
You're celebrating too soon then. The thing that will characterise them the most will be having rejected the values of both their parents and their descendants. A more visible example of this is how Quebec Boomers liked to give their children hyphenated last names, with both the father's name and the maternal grandfather's name. You'll find people in their late twenties and older with hyphenated names, but the practice has basically died out, so you won't find younger people with that kind of name. I know a few men with hyphenated names who just go by their father's name, for example.
"One of the most incomprehensible actions of the US-led West has been to push Russia and China closer together."
It is the West's way of punishing Putin by throwing him into the arms of Xi.
True.
I find the computer simulation theory to be entirely too elaborate because it still leaves questions as to the nature of the computation, and the laws under which that higher reality must be subject.
Good old fashioned idealism, in my view, is the better approach. It still leaves some mystery but it nicely avoids the contorted incoherence of materialism. I think Schopenhauer pretty much got it right.