Quebec could reopen Bill 101
I’m thrilled to report that the Quebec government is planning a season of strengthening French and may even reopen the charter of the French language, for example to add laws to punish immigrants who don’t take French classes, and impose language requirements on businesses with 49 employees or fewer. More punishments and heavier fines, that’s what a language needs to thrive.
Update: The CAQ wants to never communicate in English except with members of the “historically anglo” community. Don Macpherson ponders the implications.
Not sure I’d count. Born here to an anglo mother, who was born here to anglo parents (my mother’s dad, born in Griffintown, married a woman from England); this grandfather’s mother was born in Beauharnois in 1843 where her father, an immigrant from County Meath, was working on canal construction. She was married in 1865 to my great-grandfather John Ryan (b. 1837-ish in Tipperary) at Saint Patrick’s by Father Patrick Dowd himself. On the other hand, my father, alas, was an immigrant, from an Irish enclave in Lancashire, so maybe I will not be considered historical after all.
Jack 10:46 on 2019-09-06 Permalink
The new minister is girding his loins to defend the pathetic state of the French majority’s control over the lives of others. He has already changed the name of his Ministry to make sure that diversity and inclusion are for others, not nous.
https://www.facebook.com/xavier.camus.9
Ian 11:26 on 2019-09-06 Permalink
That is a subtle yet very important distinction. Good observation, Jack.
Jack 11:33 on 2019-09-06 Permalink
This from the most important public intellectual in Quebec. “Et rééquilibrer le financement des institutions universitaires et hospitalières, qui désavantage structurellement les francophones.”
Cut funding to Hospitals and University’s built brick by brick by non members of the french majority, this will make me feel bigger in the pants. Sorry too much caffeine.
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2019/09/05/reprendre-la-bataille-du-francais
Ian 11:42 on 2019-09-06 Permalink
…and in many cases, most obviously in the example of the Jewish General, specifically because they weren’t allowed to integrate into the French mainstream.
Kate 12:22 on 2019-09-06 Permalink
This is Jack’s link, for those who don’t Facebook:
jeather 16:17 on 2019-09-06 Permalink
Yes, as I will bang on forever, the first Jewish immigrants here came from eastern Europe, not England — but the Catholic/French schools wouldn’t let them attend and the Protestant/English would, to some extent (there were quotas at McGill until the 60s). Blame yourselves for the Jewish community being English.
Ian 16:38 on 2019-09-06 Permalink
Same thing happened to the Italians and the Greeks.
dwgs 08:53 on 2019-09-07 Permalink
The Italians adapted better because they were able to attend French (Catholic) schools. Even if people in the Greek community wanted to send their kids to school in French they couldn’t because Orthodoxy.
JaneyB 11:36 on 2019-09-07 Permalink
I sense some Supreme Court rulings ahead. Some parts of the original Bill 101 were struck down by them and cannot be snuck back in using the notwithstanding clause.
dhomas 11:52 on 2019-09-07 Permalink
My parents came here from Italy. They and my aunts and uncles could have sent their kids to French school. Many of them chose English for at least two reasons: 1) they thought English was of greater value should they want to move elsewhere in North America (a lot of people came through Montreal, but had plans to either move to the ROC or the US) and they thought they would not learn English if not exposed to it in school; 2) French is similar enough to Italian that they figured their kids would “pick it up”, like many of them did. But it was a choice, as far as my parents told me; no one forced the Italians into English schools.
Kate 14:05 on 2019-09-07 Permalink
dwgs and dhomas: when I was writing for Openfile I went to interview a woman who lives near Jean-Talon market. I can’t remember what the hook was to the story, but this woman’s got an Italian surname and is about third-generation here, speaks English like any anglo. She told me that when her grandparents first took her dad to the nearby French school as a little kid, the nuns turned him away because they were not francophone, so he was enrolled in English school instead and the whole family has tended toward the anglo side ever since. The fact of them all being Catholics together wasn’t in the picture.
That can’t have been unusual. I tend to read the local obituaries on weekends and in Montreal the break of Italian surnames posted seems to be about 75-25 on the anglo side. (I haven’t been keeping count and this may not be exact, but it’s close.)
qatzelok 18:33 on 2019-09-07 Permalink
You can say what you want about Quebecois wanting to preserve the culture, but this has had a strong impact on other cultural communities here as well. Italian Montrealers still often have a distinct “Italianness” that other immigrant Italians have long lost in other cities in N.A..
The first Toronto Italian I met when I was a teenager, spoke like a WASP and ate Velveeta sandwiches on white bread.
Bill 101 may have actually have prevented this kind of thing here.