March 22, 2013

The best defense is a good offense: Quebec

One of the funnier outgrowths of 1960s minoritarianism was Quebec's successful campaign to get speakers of the language of King Louis XIV declared an oppressed minority deserving of as many special breaks from the government as the wounded amour propre of indignant French-speakers could demand. Granted, in picking on English-speaking Canadians -- the nicest, least desirous of trouble people on Earth -- French Canadians weren't exactly banging heads with Menachem Begin.

Not surprisingly, the separatist party in Quebec is upping the ante again. And why not? All in all, it's been a pretty successful ploy.

In the National Post of Toronto, Barbara Kay writes:
Barbara Kay: Quebec’s Bill 14 is a pathological attack on the sin of speaking English 
Thanks to Bill 101, Quebec’s 1977 Charter of the French language, no language in the world is as regulated as French is in Quebec. 
But Pauline Marois’ young minority PQ government was not satisfied with French merely being protected from erosion. This government seeks to establish the primacy of French in a way that will reduce the presence of English in every walk of public and private life. To that end Bill 14, the first substantial revision of Bill 101,  was conceived, written up and prepared for passage. 
Bill 14 contains 155 proposed amendments to the Charter of the French Language. The government considers them necessary because the French language “constitutes a stronger vector for social cohesion…and maintaining harmonious relations.” What Bill 14 is essentially designed for is to elevate the wish of francophones never to speak a language other than French — even the other official language of Canada — to a human right on the same level as the right to medical care.

To this end Bill 14 would co-opt all public institutions, municipalities, school boards, unions, private enterprises and even ordinary Quebecers as participants and – not to put too fine a point on it – occasional spies in the great common project of suppressing English. That the project would radically diminish the freedoms and quality of life of non-francophones seems irrelevant, perhaps even a matter of satisfaction, to this government. 
Francophones’ opportunities to become fluently bilingual would be curtailed.
Some examples of the proposed amendments: 
· A government regulation that allows English-speaking members of the Armed Forces who are in Quebec temporarily to have their children schooled in English would be rescinded. ...
· Officially bilingual municipalities could lose their bilingual status against their democratic will because of slight demographic shifts. 
· Daycares would have to facilitate the acquisition of French-language skills by infants. 
· Employers would be required to justify the need for employees to speak any other language than French. An employee required to communicate in a language other than French would have the right to sue his or her employer for monetary damages. 
The PQ is obsessed with language domination to a degree that is in political terms pathological. The devastation of English school boards; the linguistic hardships imposed on the men and women who protect our country from harm; the cultural and psychological marginalization of fellow citizens for the Original Sin of being anglophone: What we are seeing with this government makes the patriarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in the years before the Quiet Revolution seem anodyne by comparison. 
In throwing off the Church’s domination, and with it all the trappings of their religion, Quebec also divorced itself from its cultural roots. 
The religious metaphor is apt. In throwing off the Church’s domination, and with it all the trappings of their religion, Quebec also divorced itself from its cultural roots. Without roots, there can be no new branches. All Quebec has that may be called culturally unique is language. The moral panic we have seen over the years – first to preserve French from disappearance, but now the push by Quebec’s new high priests to sanctify it and keep it safe from the pollution of other languages – is unjust to non-francophones, but arguably more harmful to francophones, whose aspirations have been appropriated as burnt offerings to the language gods.

Why are they doing this? Well, why is the NCAA holding a basketball tournament right now, even though 67 of 68 teams will end their seasons as losers? Because coming together with your team to fight is fun. Defeating the foe is even more fun. As John Milius phrased it:
Mongol General: Hao! Dai ye! We won again! This is good, but what is best in life? 
Mongol: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair. 
Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life? 
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women. 

Look, very few people have gotten killed in Quebec's language wars over the last 45 years. And it's not as if Quebec has fallen into ruin because the Québécois have been slowly shoving out the Scots and Jews who used to run Montreal's businesses. Quebec isn't Zimbabwe. The Québécois can run their own country.

Sure, it's annoying to see the winners win by being nasty and the losers lose because they are nice, but such is the way of the world.

91 comments:

Will S. said...

Don't think it'll fly this time; Canadians outside of Quebec are sick and tired of Quebec's endless demands, and no-one is threatening Harper and the Tories' reign; neither the diminished Liberals nor the increased NDP are credible threats to Tory power.

Anonymous said...

They haven't been successful though. They should have been their own country by now but they haven't been able to succeed in achieving independence.

And a primary reason for this has been Jewish opposition to Quebec "separatism":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_and_the_ethnic_vote

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1080790.stm

http://www.vigile.net/Quebec-Anti-Semitism-and-Anti

Will S. said...

Parizeau was right about "l'argent et la vote ethnic"; Quebeckers have lost control of their destiny as a people, because of their declining birthrate + high immigration levels of English-preferring allophones.

There's a lesson in there, for the rest of the country - and the planet...

Anonymous said...

It's called Chutzpah!

Anonymous said...

It's called Chutzpah!

Will S. said...

Argh, 'ethnique', not 'ethnic'. Je parle français , franchement! :)

Anonymous said...

it's worth looking into HBD*Chick's posts on Quebec. Quebec was founded by ~5,000 people. As a result, the present population of Quebec (ex. immigrants from elsewhere in the francophone world) are MUCH more genetically related than anglo-canadians to one another. Quebequois are "inbred" enough to create real cohesion but outbred enough to avoid the perils associated with too much inter-marriage.
Also, Quebec has definable features. Time was, you could cheer for the nrodiques or the habs. Now, it's *just* the habs. As a result, the small, slight tensions between (rural, traditional) Quebec City and (urban and urbane) MTL have slwoly vanished.
As for "no one was hurt in the language wars", there was a *ferocious* motor cycle gang war in the 90s, with ethno-lingual roots. We're talking bikers using honest-to-god mortars, C4, bazookas, the whole works.

Reg Cæsar said...

...neither the diminished Liberals nor the increased NDP are credible threats to Tory power. --Will S

Sadly, though, neither Reform nor Alliance nor anything else around are credible threats to Tory spinelessness. So it's a wash.

Will S. said...

Uh, I never heard anyone claim the biker gang wars were ethnic. Turf wars; Frogs on both sides, AFAIK. Biker gangs are just criminals, and they fight each other for control of the drug trade / whores / peelers. The usual bullshit, not over language issues; ordinary people care about such matters, not crooks.

Anonymous said...

First time I hear the 90's biker war had "ethno-lingual roots". I doubt it very much. Unless you mean one gang was backed by the Mafia(who rule Montreal) and the other wasn't.

Petey said...

The main lesson to be learned is that not everyone goes along with multiculturalism. Pierre Trudeau's effort to make Canada into a bilingual country was one of the most ambitious multicultural, post-national experiments of its time, and it has utterly failed. Anglo-Canadians played along, but the French minority did not. They had no interest assimilating into a "more tolerant" milieu, bilingualism allowed them to gain greater political control over the state (how many recent Canadian prime ministers have been Quebeckers?) while simultaneously keeping their region a purist ghetto.

Will S. said...

@ Reg: Agreed; didn't say I was a fan of Harper; I voted Reform and Alliance, back in the day. And I was against the merger, and still wish it hadn't happened. But it did. I simply don't vote any more.

Petey said...

The main lesson to be learned is that not everyone goes along with multiculturalism.

Pierre Trudeau's effort to make Canada into a bilingual country was one of the most ambitious multicultural, post-national experiments of its time, and it has utterly failed. Anglo-Canadians played along, but the French minority did not. They had no interest assimilating into a "more tolerant" milieu, bilingualism allowed them to gain greater political control over the state (how many recent Canadian prime ministers have been Quebeckers?) while simultaneously keeping their region a purist ghetto.

Will S. said...

@ Petey: Except Harper, an English-Canadian from Alberta, of all places, has been PM for nine years now. Furthermore, Quebec has been getting steadily more and more multicultural; Montreal is full of 'allophones', enough that, given how razor-thin the defeat against the vote on sovereignty was in 1995, yet the 'Yes' side still lost (as Parizeau said, due to money and the ethnic vote), means the French-Canadians in Quebec will never get the opportunity to leave again, with all the immigration into Quebec since then.

The lesson here is, low birthrate of natives + high levels of immigration = becoming a minority in your own home. Learn well, Yanks, Europeans, and others. This is your future, unless you stop it.

Reg Cæsar said...

As a result, the present population of Quebec... are MUCH more genetically related... --l'anonyme anglais

When we were first dating, my future wife told me her grandmother was 100% French-Canadian. So was my Grandmother's great-grandmother, and I told her we could find a common ancestor in five minutes. We went into her computer lab and, yes, five minutes later we were ninth-cousins-once-removed.

Not that it's any great shakes being related to the likes of Madonna, Shania, Alanis, Avril, Hillary and Jon Gosselin...

(BTW, kudos to Will for the Red Ensign.)

Anonymous said...

Yes, the English Canadians are so nice. But they too had their own (unconstitutional)versions of the languages laws when the French Candian high fertility rate was threatening the English charactater of their Provinces. They were very effective.

Ontario's Regulation 17

Manitoba Public Schools Act

NB Common Schools Act of 1871

john marzan said...

Hmmm... i wonder why the USA doesnt have a national or official language? i hear it's supposed to be english, right?

Anonymous said...

In English Canada: "Quebecers are narrow-minded intolerant racists always asking for money and special treatments while we English Canadians are so Open minded, multicultural and nice."

In Quebec: "The demographic weight of Quebec and it's influence in Canada is diminishing, Montreal is changing fast ethnically and linguistically, and the rightwing West is becoming too powerful and threatening are "values"."

Subtext:"There are two countries in Canada"

rob said...

http://www.vigile.net/Quebec-Anti-Semitism-and-Anti

Hmm...No mention of Jewish anti-Quebecois behavior and attitudes. Hilariously, they did mention how American Jews use media and cultural of presence to influence American views in 'liberal' and 'urban' ways.

Also, Jews who happened to live in Quebec didn't have as much influence as in the US. Montreal Jews are an insular community, and prefer English. They didn't write much in French, and the culture of critique didn't take off.

Quebec didn't want conscription in WWII, and that's evidence against them.

'Hey, wanna force your kids to go halfway around the world and get maimed or killed for our coethnics? The war could use the manpower, and we won't enlist'

'Uh, you won't even fight? No, thanks.'

Waaahnti-Semite!

Will S. said...

@ Anon 11:49 (BTW, I wish all you gutless anons would pick pseudonyms; can't tell y'all apart, sheesh.)

Why yes, they were effective. And a damn good thing, that; else we would have ended up with the political domination by French-Canadians we had between 1968-2004 (34.5 years out of 36 with Quebec PMs) a lot earlier on. Really, we should have followed Lord Durham's warning about 'two nations fighting in the bosom of one state', BUT instead of following his impractical advice to assimilate them (what with them being Catholic and all), rather, we should have done what we did to the Acadians, deport the damn lot to Louisiana!

@ Reg: Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Ironically, the huge masses of 'Francophone' immigrants imported by express order by the Quebecois, (to undermine the English), by and large defeated the Quebec independence referendum.
A classic case of shooting oneself in one's pied.

Peter the Shark said...

Granted, in picking on English-speaking Canadians -- the nicest, least desirous of trouble people on Earth

Maybe, although polite is probably a better word than "nice." Anglo-Canadians aren't particularly kind. See Will S.s' post above for the typical assholish superiority complex Anglo-Canadian tend to have.

French Canadians have a lot of legitimate grievances about being invaded, conquered and then turned into second-class citizens in their own country. Anglos already have a country - it's called the USA, and they should all move down south.

ogunsiron said...

I'm from Quebec.

It's also my first time hearing that that 90s biker wars had an ethno-linguistic aspect to them. Both sides were French quebecois with some italian, haitian, etc allies battling it out.

Unlike the other canadian posters here I'm not hostile to French Quebec. I do think that its days are numbered though, because the Quebecois are foolish enough to think that passing some laws and inviting boatloads of algerians so called french speakers is what will save their language. The algerians and haitians etc speak french for now, but they'll switch to english soon enough and won't care, since french is simply a tool for them and not a core value.

The Quebecois don't care about marriage or children. Even married people call each other boyfriend and girlfriend (chum et blonde) and they'd much rather go on vacation in the Dominican Republic than to have french kids.

They complain about Montreal being too english speaking but they leave as soon as they can to live in their cheezy suburbs.

I think there's still animosity between Montreal and elsewhere.
I was chatting with this Quebecois girl the other day from a distant rural area and it was striking how, to her, her people's big city was Quebec City and not Montreal.

The Quebecois will have Quebec City for a while, but Montreal is soon gone.

Anonymous said...

As a Quebecois, I would like to point out that our media is dominated by a cartel founded by Pierre Peladeau, an avowed Palestinian sympathizer who was Toronto's Jewish elite's sworn enemy.

Also, anyone who reads blogs or comments from the rest of Canada on current events in Quebec will be astonished by the level of racism and hatred spewed against Quebecois. Not that it really bothers me, we're collectively so used to it.

It is nonetheless interesting that when it suits their purpose, to see how the Jewish-run media can condone an unbelievable level or racism against a specific 'target' group.

Anonymous said...

The WN e-mongols will have to explain this one to me: Does Quebec's sabotage-state bureaucratic model represent inspiring devotion to low-melanin identity pride or are they a bunch of laggard wrecker parasites twisting the white system toward their own private advantage? I know you guys really admire the Gallic forefathers but AFAIK you were less keen on the historical track record of their language.

Route 9 said...

British Canadians should pull the same horseshit across their territories (which comprise the rest of Canada, the bulk of Canada). This nonsense is crazy. It throws up barriers to interaction between their own countrymen - barriers to industry, barriers to a common defense, barriers to politics, etc. Its insanity. They should just secede already if this is their level of fear over having to work with their English-speaking countrymen.

john marzan said...

the puerto rico statehood thing is a great opportunity to finally introduce a bill to declare "English as the National Language" if the GOP is smart enough to see the opening...

Franklin KC said...

"The main lesson to be learned is that not everyone goes along with multiculturalism."


The lesson I see over and over is that in these Western countries where the rules for the majority are 'bend over and grab your ankles', minorities hypocritically don't go along with the very multiculturalism ideology they use to justify the majority making sacrifices to them in the first place, when it means they, the minorities, have to also give up a bit. They want their cake and want to eat it too.

One feels that there eventually must be a tipping point where the Anglo-Saxon Atlas says,"enough", but judging by history, that doesn't seem to happen usually. It may be more like the adage of the frog slowly being boiled, who doesn't realize its happening until its too late. This may be shifting to more of a racial than a cultural discussion, but look at what happened in S. Africa, Zimbabwe; hell, even Detroit, Baltimore, etc. here in the US- in all cases, they should have reached a point of going too far, crossing the line in the sand so to speak. The Anglos should have fought back, and restored the place. They didn't.

The only way that works seems to be through the stealth liberal gentification schemes that Sailer discusses elsewhere. That this works for liberal elites but not for the common people, and the minorities don't come up with effective solutions, says alot. Of course, the elites need the common white man as a shield against the minority masses. Someone to blame for the failures of minorities, someone to function as a steadfast workhorse that they can milk for their own life of luxury, someone who has to take the hits of day-to-day life mingling with minorities. Were it not for the masses of common white man- If its just the 1% and the minority masses- the 1% would be dragged from their thrones, killed, raped, homes pillaged, etc. eventually. One hopes the elites will eventually recognize this and will at some point halt their insanity.

Wellington Howell IV said...

"When we were first dating, my future wife told me her grandmother was 100% French-Canadian. So was my Grandmother's great-grandmother, and I told her we could find a common ancestor in five minutes."

And... the inbreeding continues! Yee-haw! No wonder Louisiana fit so well into the South :D

Anonymous said...

Will S. said...

.......
Really, we should have followed Lord Durham's warning about 'two nations fighting in the bosom of one state', BUT instead of following his impractical advice to assimilate them (what with them being Catholic and all), rather, we should have done what we did to the Acadians, deport the damn lot to Louisiana!


I see things 180 degrees differently. I side with Sir Guy Carleton and James Murray while you favour "Radical Jack", the Whig Lord Durham. You heirs of the Whigs and Manchester Liberals should stand back and ask yourselves if the winner take all, greed is good credo has a downside. It makes for a crass and shabby culture for sure, but it also seems to make Anglos leave other Anglos twisting in the wind as soon as they're a financial liability or when there can be status points gained by playing Lady Bountiful at their expense. As Alec Guinness' character in "Laurence of Arabia" said: "it is better to be an Englishman's enemy than his friend because if you are his enemy he will try to buy you but if you are his friend he will try to sell you". See the Rhodesians and "Westmount Rhodesians" for details.

Maybe it's because I'm a Protestant Irish-Canadian but I prefer the solidarity shown by Quebecers over the dog-eat-dog merchant culture of the Anglos.

Pat Boyle said...

Jared Diamond has a wonderful statistic in his new book. A language goes extinct every nine days.

He is very exercised about this but personally I can't wait until no one speaks French anymore. If someone is rude to you while traveling the odds are they ate being rude in French.

Currently French is about number ten so there are approximately 5,990 languages due to go first. But their time will come.

I once had an argument with my Canadian father-in-law about the popularity of French. He said it was second only to English. Twenty years ago there was no Google so we just made unprovable assertions. I said Spanish had more speakers. And it does sort of.

Spanish is second right after Mandarin in one Wikipedia article and English is second and Spanish third in another. The difference is first language (Spanish wins)versus first and second languages (counted that way English has twice as many speakers as Spanish).

When I was in Ireland a guide pointed to some villages by the coast. He said everyone there spoke Irish - no English speech allowed. It struck me as a form of child abuse. How were those kids going to get jobs when they hit their teens?

But Diamond doesn't see it that way. He thinks that preserving Gallic and French is somehow noble. My reaction has always been that Europe has a dozen different languages all of which have a different word for chair. What's the point? But Diamond of course really only cares about New Guinea which has hundreds and hundreds of languages but no cultures that have ever invented a chair.

Albertosaurus

Mark said...

Quebec skews the Canadian political landscape. It has far more federal seats than it deserves and has used it to blackmail and extort economic transfers from the ROC for years.

I spent many years doing business in Quebec, in the energy sector, so I traveled all over the province. My colleagues and I could never come close to the reported population of Quebec in our "educated estimates" - we always fell short by a couple of million. Very convenient to maintain this deception for economic transfers.

Quebec has been practising a corporatist industrial policy for years. Without economic support from the ROC they'd be a basket case.

Anonymous said...

What other Arnold movies do you base you political philosophy off of? Do you oppose the post office because Sinbad's character was a jerk in jingle all the way. The amusing this Pat B actually is an ethnic scraper who liked to fight when he was younger, but you never see this kind of resentiment soaked bile come out of his pen.

matt said...

What if we apply the Bloomberg thesis to this question?

The Bloomberg thesis is that large cities like to keep/push NAMs out in ways that won't get them accused of racism.

The application is that Montreal is whiter than Toronto or Vancouver and they probably want to stay that way. Mandatory French is a good way to do that, right?

Anonymous said...

Matt of the French speakers are from the more "remote" parts of the Francophonie.

Will S. said...

@ anon 811: Good for you, my FELLOW UlsterProt Canuck; you have a difference of opinion. Great! No, I don't think so. Quebec has been a liability since Day 1; they have taken more than they've given, and have cost us more than they've been worth. We'd have been better off without them, regardless of the Family Compact in Upper Canada, and other problems of our own making. Durham didn't go far enough; he only wanted to assimilate them; I say that would have been impossible, due to the religious differences, and therefore, the Acadian deportation model makes more sense to me as a solution.

BTW, if America had deported all the Negroes to Africa after freeing them, would that not have prevented 'the black problem'? It damn well would have. Deporting the Irish and Cockney criminals to Australia worked for the English; only problem is they didn't deport them all.

Ethnic homogeneity works; diversity does not, usually. If you're lucky, you get Switzerland or Canada; otherwise, you get Belgium - or Yugoslavia or Northern Ireland or Israel / Palestine.

Good fences make good neighbours.

Really, what's so hard to grasp about this? Esp. on Steve Sailer's blog, for Pete's sake!

Dutch Boy said...

Not nice but weak (not synonyms!).

Anonymous said...

@ anon 811: Good for you, my FELLOW UlsterProt Canuck

That's me.

... Quebec has been a liability since Day 1; they have taken more than they've given, and have cost us more than they've been worth. We'd have been better off without them, regardless of the Family Compact in Upper Canada, and other problems of our own making. Durham didn't go far enough; he only wanted to assimilate them; I say that would have been impossible, due to the religious differences, and therefore, the Acadian deportation model makes more sense to me as a solution.

BTW, if America had deported all the Negroes to Africa after freeing them, would that not have prevented 'the black problem'? It damn well would have. Deporting the Irish and Cockney criminals to Australia worked for the English; only problem is they didn't deport them all.

Ethnic homogeneity works; diversity does not, usually. If you're lucky, you get Switzerland or Canada; otherwise, you get Belgium - or Yugoslavia or Northern Ireland or Israel / Palestine.


It's strange how you have these Stalinist daydreams about how to solve Canada's relatively minor frictions between French and English. How about Anglos showing a little solidarity and engaging in a little hard bargaining rather than switching over to your barstool Pol Pot solutions?

Good fences make good neighbours.

....


Good fences do make good neighbours and that's why Canada is a relative success story. Don't forget that Confederation in 1867 saw a divorce as well as a union: Quebec and Ontario got home rule with their own legislatures rather than sharing just the one.

Matra said...

French Canadians weren't exactly banging heads with Menachem Begin

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, virtually all English rights agitation is led by Jews. (This would include the extremely popular No Dogs or Anglophones blog).

they have taken more than they've given, and have cost us more than they've been worth.

That's an example of the aforementioned Anglo merchant culture mentality. I'm not saying you are wrong - quite the contrary - but French Canadians don't seem to think that way. They're concerned about their nation not the other nations within Canada. I don't see anything wrong with that mentality. English Canadians (and old stock Anglo Americans) should watch and learn.

Will S. said...

I didn't say we should do it NOW; I'm saying it ought to have been done. Once again, you're reading into my remarks, something that isn't there.

No, we have to live with it now, best as we can.

But maybe others can learn from our folly; AND, should civilization collapse and we have to start over, maybe even we can learn from it. I will; I can already see you won't.

Anonymous said...

A fair bit of blood during the first decade or so of the "Quiet Revolution" in Quebec.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_de_libération_du_Québec

...It was responsible for over 160 violent incidents which killed eight people and injured many more, including the bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange in 1969.[4][6] These attacks culminated in 1970 with what is known as the October Crisis, in which British Trade Commissioner James Cross was kidnapped and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte was murdered by strangulation...

Anonymous said...

One of the head guys of the FLQ died in the past week. Lots of sympathy for him still..

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/editorials/paul-rose-more-deserving-of-being-forgotten-than-being-honoured/article9812849/

Anonymous said...

Matra said...

[Quebecers] are concerned about their nation not the other nations within Canada. I don't see anything wrong with that mentality. English Canadians (and old stock Anglo Americans) should watch and learn.


One of the big advantages the Quebecers and other French-Canadians had and still largely have is a Jesuit-educated political class. They can argue circles around the plodding Anglos. They also had a secret society called the Order of Jacques Cartier that the Anglo establishment is too polite to mention. Anglos from San Diego to Montreal should learn from the French-Canadian example now that things have changed and we're playing the hand of a minority too.

Anonymous said...

All I know is I have to file our company's Canadian sub's Quebec income tax return in French and I can't read a lick of it.

MDR

Anonymous said...

What if we apply the Bloomberg thesis to this question?

The Bloomberg thesis is that large cities like to keep/push NAMs out in ways that won't get them accused of racism.

The application is that Montreal is whiter than Toronto or Vancouver and they probably want to stay that way. Mandatory French is a good way to do that, right?


You misunderstand the "Bloomberg thesis". The "Bloomberg thesis" is that guys with names like "Bloomberg" and "Emmanuel" can run large cities and do things that guys without names like "Bloomberg" and "Emmanuel" can't.

Anonymous said...

French Canada is unique. It deserves to have its culture and language preserved. It deserves to have some privileges in place to protect against it in an overwhelmingly English speaking country, especially with the onslaught of Anglos moving in as well as non-French speaking immigrants.

BTW, I'm a South Asian living in the U.S.

Anonymous said...

The Quebecois don't care about marriage or children. Even married people call each other boyfriend and girlfriend (chum et blonde) and they'd much rather go on vacation in the Dominican Republic than to have french kids.

Quebec used to be a very conservative, Catholic society until the 60s. The Church was a real power. It was very much an Old World, Catholic, rural society.

Basically the 60s Revolution destroyed it.

Anonymous said...

As a long time reader of Mr. Sailer and a Canadian I have so many thoughts here...

1) To me there are two great lessons to draw from Canada. One is the complete and utter failure of bilingualism. It doesn't work. It doesn't unify a country. It doesn't bring disparate people together. Its only purpose is to empower a minority community at the expense of the linguistic majority. It was never presented to Canadians that way of course. It is a true Trojan horse. I can only offer Americans the strongest warnings against such a policy if it ever appears down there (with the likely substitution of Spanish for French).

The other lesson of Canada is the great danger in having a large hostile unassimmilated population in your midst. Had French-Canadians been assimilated there would have been no problem. The 900,000 who moved from Quebec to New England between 1840 and 1930 have long since melted into American society. Likewise the Acadians in Louisiana have been absorbed. But no real effort was ever made to deport or absorb the Francophones in Quebec. They are probably the most epic assimilation fail of any country ever in the world. As another poster noted, had they been deported after the conquest or assimilated after Durham's report, there would be NO problem in Canada today. (Conversely had they not been conqueerd in 1757, there would also be no problem today, but for totally different reasons.)

2) If a country must have two languages, language zones, a.k.a. territorial unilingualism is much better then Trudeau's hare-brained bilingualism. Belgium and Switzerland which have large French-speaking communities have followed this model in marked contrast to Canada. And these countries are vastly smaller then Canada and actually border France. With territorial unilingualism everybody knows where they stand. Francophones leaving Quebec to settle elsewhere in Canada would have known in advance they were entering an exclusively English-speaking area and could not have agitated for French language "rights". Things like Ontario's bill 17, Manitoba's public schools act, etc, would never have materialized because Francophones would never have had any rights outside of Quebec to French schools. It would have been no different for them then those who had migrated to New England. And of course it goes without saying that Quebec would have been unilingually French.

Failing assimilation, which was never attempted, it would have been much better for everybody.

3) One of the strangest ironies of Quebec is that they historically soldily supported the Liberal party. This was the party of wide open third world immigration to Canada. This has played a key role in undermining Quebec's share of the population of Canada. In Trudeau's day, Quebec had 74 of 266 seats in the Canadian house of commons. This will soon be 78 out of 338. Canada has grown by 72 seats since the 1960's but only four of these have gone to Quebec. Needless to say, this population growth is entirerly due to immigration. French Canadians should have sought an immigration-restrictionist party to maintain their share of their weight in Canada. Instead they did the opposite.

4) I also agree completely with the poster who said English-Canadian "niceness" can also be called "weakness".

Anonymous said...

French Canada is unique. It deserves to have its culture and language preserved. It deserves to have some privileges in place to protect against it in an overwhelmingly English speaking country, especially with the onslaught of Anglos moving in as well as non-French speaking immigrants.

BTW, I'm a South Asian living in the U.S.

So in that case, its really none of your business is it sport?

Btw, there is no Anglo "onslaught" moving into Quebec. Anglos have been bailing out of there since the 1970's.

irishman said...

Pat said:

"When I was in Ireland a guide pointed to some villages by the coast. He said everyone there spoke Irish - no English speech allowed. It struck me as a form of child abuse. How were those kids going to get jobs when they hit their teens?"

I think your guide might have been pointing out Irish language summer schools. They are our equivilivent of your summer camps except they don't let you speak Irish. It's mostly teenagers of around 16/17 who go. They're only strict about language but other than that it's great fun. You spend a few weeks trying to figure out how to smuggle in cigarettes and alcohol so you can make it with as many people as possible.

They Irish version of a losing your virginity before the prom is losing it at Irish camp. But rest assured. There is no-one in Ireland who cannot speak English.

Will S. said...

"They can argue circles around the plodding Anglos"

Yes, we all be ijits. WTF?

This place really does bring out the freaks...

Anonymous said...

To Will S. said...

"Durham didn't go far enough. He only wanted to assimilate them; I say that would have been impossible due to the religious differences, and therefore, the Acadian model of deportation makes more sense to me."

First, let me say that I think the comments of anonymous at 1:34 PM are outrageously unfair to you. He is twisting your words and clearly doesn't get it.

But do you really believe assimilation was impossible? I would mention some 900,000 French-Canadians left Quebec between 1840, right after Durham's report, until 1930, when the great depression finally ended it. They moved to nearby New England and New York. Their descendents assimilated just fine into American society, whic was very largely Protestant at the time. The religious differences didn't keep them from being absorbed into America's tapestry. Irish, Poles, Italians, Croatians, and many other Catholic peoples assimilated well into American society. So I do think assimilation was possible. The PROBLEM WAS, it was never really tried. Also where would they have been deported too? Louisiana was now an American state and would hardly have allowed the British to just dump these people on them? Australia? Wouldn't that have just transferred the problem from Canada to down under? Maybe they could have been sent to mainland France? But what if they said no? Where could they have been sent too? I think assimilation was the only answer but it was never tried. To me deportation would only have made sense if it had been done shortly after the conquest.

Will S. said...

Yes, I believe assimilating that number of people, would have been impossible. The amount that assimilated into New England and NY was nowhere near the amount it would have been if the entire population of Quebec had settled in NY and N England; imagine THAT scenario, instead. Think it would have worked as well as it did?

Fine; if had waited till Lord Durham's report, yes, would have been after the Louisiana Purchase, I realize. Truth be told, I don't know why we didn't deport right afte 1759, when we took New France. Then they simply would have joined in the Acadian expulsion... Why the Acadians were expelled but not the New France inhabitants, is likely due to the sheer numbers, no doubt. Yet if it had been done, it would have prevented everything...

BTW, the commenter comparing me to Pol Pot is a complete idiot, because deportation is nothing like what the Khmer Rouge did, which was genocide. But then, dishonest people will argue dishonestly...

Steve Sailer said...

To pick a name I've mentioned recently, Yosemite rock climber / entrepreneur Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, is a classic postwar Valley Dude. A fine example of America assimilating French Canadian immigrants.

On the other hand, the British declined to try to assimilate French Canadians in Canada because they weren't immigrants. Britain ruled Quebec because Wolfe beat Montcalm in a fair fight in 1759, but that's all it was. It wasn't a license to deprive the French of their language, religion, or culture. The British agreed not to pester the French Canadians and the French Canadians agreed not to rebel against British strategic control of access to the heart of North America, the Great Lakes.

Jonathan said...

"The British agreed not to pester the French Canadians and the French Canadians agreed not to rebel against British strategic control of access to the heart of North America, the Great Lakes"

Yes, that was the Quebec Act of 1774, one of the "Intolerable Acts" that set the American Revolution in motion.

The Thirteen Colonies had other plans for the French Canadians:

"Those who are Protestants among the French will probably choose to remain under the English government; many will choose to remove if they can be allowed to sell their lands, improvements and effects; the rest in that thin-settled country will in less than half-a-century from the crowds of English settling round and among them be blended and incorporated with our people both in language and in manners." -Benjamin Franklin


The French Canadians in New England lived in French for at least 4 or 5 generations but in the 1920's the Irish Bishops prohibited the use of French in their Parochial Schools in many dioceses and ruled that if a quarter of the Parishioners were English speaking a Parish must become English speaking. Jack Kerouac only learned English in High School and current Maine's Governor Paul LePage barely spoke English as a young adult.

Jonathan said...

If the Quebec Act wouldn't have existed, the Canadians(no Anglos at the time) would not have sided with the British during the American Revolution and Will S. would not have the Red Ensign for Avatar.

irishman said...

"On the other hand, the British declined to try to assimilate French Canadians in Canada because they weren't immigrants. Britain ruled Quebec because Wolfe beat Montcalm in a fair fight in 1759, but that's all it was. It wasn't a license to deprive the French of their language, religion, or culture. The British agreed not to pester the French Canadians and the French Canadians agreed not to rebel against British strategic control of access to the heart of North America, the Great Lakes."

Bullshit.

The British tried to wage a kulturkampf in Quebec but called it off once the 13 colonies began to get restless and they figured it was too risky. This was the period when Britain was at its most anti-French and co-incidentally at it's most anti-Irish. But as we did not have any strategic importance the British could do their very worst to us, which they promptly did. Rest assured that given half the chance they have done the same in Quebec.

Anonymous said...

"To pick a name I've mentioned recently, Yosemite rock climber / entrepreneur Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, is a classic postwar Valley Dude. A fine example of America assimilating French Canadian immigrants."

You also mention Napoleon Chagnon frequently.

Simon in London said...

"Sure, it's annoying to see the winners win by being nasty and the losers lose because they are nice, but such is the way of the world."

No, it's annoying to see the losers lose because they're my side - Anglos - and the winners win because they're French! That the Anglo-losers are losing because they're so pathetic as to be defeated by the descendants of a few thousand fur trappers does make it worse.

Unknown said...

Steve Sailer said...
......
"On the other hand, the British declined to try to assimilate French Canadians in Canada because they weren't immigrants. Britain ruled Quebec because Wolfe beat Montcalm in a fair fight in 1759, but that's all it was. It wasn't a license to deprive the French of their language, religion, or culture. The British agreed not to pester the French Canadians and the French Canadians agreed not to rebel against British strategic control of access to the heart of North America, the Great Lakes."


Exactly. There are people here in the comments section, and lots of people in Anglo Canada, who are angrily asking "why didn't they run the French-Canadians through the giant homogenizing machine?". This is from the same school of thought that brought us "invade them all, invite them all". They think the whole world should be run through the military homogenizing machine and that an endless stream of exotic immigrants can also be fed into a domestic homogenizing machine that spits out differently coloured but otherwise identical little Americans, Canadians or whatever you set the dial to.

To me at least, human biodiversity is about cultural biodiversity. There's a lot to be said for language barriers as a way to keep cultural epidemics from spreading too quickly and metaphorically wiping out the whole herd.

Will S. said...

"They can argue circles around the plodding Anglos"
Yes, we all be ijits. WTF?
This place really does bring out the freaks...


What can I tell you man? I speak from a lifetime of experience. The Quebec political class seems to be able to thread those intellectual needles while the Anglos are left looking sausage-fingered.

(I'm "Anonymous @ 8:11 AM, @ 1:34 PM and @ 3:44 PM, by the way)

Anonymous said...

Mr.Sailer, I'm impressed by your knowledge of Quebec history. Actually, that battle at the Plains of Abraham wasn't even a fair fight. A good part of the French forces were local milita, as the bulk of the French army had been sent back to France after inflicting severe drubbings on the Englsih on many occasions.

France was a continental power that simply did not have the navy the British had. Thus, the British could use their strategic mobility to overwhelm isolated French forces.

And I think my 'trapper' ancestors did pretty well before and after the Conquest. How many successful nations were built by Europeans in climates actually harsher than Scandinavia's ? The Viking colonies in Greenland are long gone, while here, well, come visit Montreal this summer and you'll see how we've done.

Whitehall said...

Back in 1998, I had a short consulting gig in Toronto. One night I (a Californian) stopped by a bar in one of the trendier (and whiter) areas of the city and struck up a conversation with a couple of Canadians over some beers.

When the topic of Quebec came up I was treated to the most violent, angry language I've ever heard in a bar. They continued with a long list of impositions and insults they, as English-speakers, had to endure from the Frenchies.

These guys were cursing their countrymen and even went so far as "we need to nuke the lot of them!"

The fact that they were "Irish-Canadians" might have something to do with the violence of their plans but even "regular" Canadians were bitter over the assholary of the French speakers.

My response was that the Americans would never let Quebec succeed. Canada owed the US too much money!

Will S. said...

Exactly, Jonathan; the American colonists wanted to assimilate the French, not permit them to stay French and Catholic, and that was one of the grievances, along with taxation without representation and others, that led to the American Revolution. Perhaps if the British had done to the inhabitants of New France as they'd done to Acadia, North American history would have turned out entirely differently, not just in what is now Canada but also in what is now the U.S.; maybe rebellion wouldn't have been as popular...

Unknown said...

Whitehall said...

Back in 1998, I had a short consulting gig in Toronto. One night I (a Californian) stopped by a bar in one of the trendier (and whiter) areas of the city and struck up a conversation with a couple of Canadians over some beers.

When the topic of Quebec came up I was treated to the most violent, angry language I've ever heard in a bar. They continued with a long list of impositions and insults they, as English-speakers, had to endure from the Frenchies.

These guys were cursing their countrymen and even went so far as "we need to nuke the lot of them!"

The fact that they were "Irish-Canadians" might have something to do with the violence of their plans but even "regular" Canadians were bitter over the assholary of the French speakers.


It's worth mentioning that a lot of that rage comes from the fact that the English-Canadian political and media class spent decade after decade competing to see who could be more generous to French-Canadians in general and Quebecers in particular. The rage was justified. Imagine if you have another ethnic group or nationality run circles around you, cost you jobs and government contracts and all you get from your politicians and media is a scolding for not being progressive enough? The end result is that most English Canadians quietly seethe with resentment against the French and try not to think about them at all. It's too bad but there it is. That's the cost of having a political class that would rather die than appear to have a trace of ethnic or tribal loyalty.

Will S. said...

Hi Chubby Ape.

Some of my ancestors were Westmount WASPs (well, Scotch-Irish Prots, but Westmounters all the same...); others lived SW of Montreal in and around Huntingdon. Back then, Anglos knew how to rule just fine. But then the Quiet Revolution happened, and the WASPs didn't adjust quickly, certainly. But I don't think it was so much that they were idiots, as set in their ways, plus competitive against each other rather than acting in group solidarity, as you say elsewhere.

And official bilingualism didn't help matters, as all that did was indeed empower French-Canadians, and end up reserving most of the federal civil service jobs for them - who always hire more of their own. We have every GD right to be resentful; the system is stacked against us, just as the system is stacked in general against men, whites, Christians, etc.

Whitehall said...

One of the complaints of the Anglo-speakers in Canada was the demand, no "DEMAND!", that the apostrophe be removed from public advertising and signage since no such grammatical device exists in French.

My Anglo colleagues were particularly butt hurt about that demand.

Anonymous said...

I'm always astonished to see English-Canadians seething against how badly they are treated in Quebec. In most of greater Montreal, you can get served in English in all public places. Heck, they often can't even serve you in French. There are English-speaking radio stations, TV stations, 3 publicly-funded universities, etc. All of this is quite normal, as English-speakers are citizens who pay taxes and fully contribute to society.

Still, I'm old enough to have seen my father, a proud, distinguished bilingual man, being disdainfully turned away in a downtown Montreal store because he 'sounded' French.

Ok, there was never apartheid or Jim Crow laws in Quebec, but sometimes I so wish we would treat them as they treated us.

Anonymous said...

The "primary" reason Quebec is not independent is because of the Jews? How absurd. There are few Jews there, most have left, and they have no political power. Quebec itself never voted for independence. They had their chances over and over- what did Canada call the referendum - the Neverendum? And it is the French Quebecers themselves who are bringing in Arab French speakers from North Africa. They are demanding them in fact, thinking the French language is above all. They are suicidal and foolish of course. Do you think Jews want them in? Quebec quit having children - no one's fault but their own. And let them be independent - what does it matter to anyone? Even Canada is sick of it. If they break away, they break away. Toronto and Ontario don't need them and either does the west.

Canadian Observer said...

Montreal is around 30% non-white today. Most of these people come from primarily French-speaking nations, but there are a number of Latin Americans and Jamaicans as well. A heck of a lot of them are being encouraged to come to Quebec to make as suitable mates for overweight Quebecois women. I am being serious here.

It seems that the most vocal and buoyant element of the Montreal political class are overweight Quebecois women. The current premier is one and she is definitely prototypical. You'd be shocked by the number of larger Quebecois women in their 30's and 40's cohabiting with Mexican, Haitian, Tunisian or Algerian men in greater Montreal. This trend has the hallmark of being mutual beneficial for all parties involved. The young immigrant males are fast-tracked to citizenship while these females, who ordinarily would be placed in the scrapheap, are getting some loving from some young foreign bucks. It also augments their progressive left-wing credentials.

Montreal is a funny place, full of ambiguities and shifting identities. It has to be one of the snobbiest places on earth. Someone made a comment earlier about his father being looked down upon in a downtown Montreal store back in the day because he looked and acted like like a Frenchie. You know, that attitude still exists to a certain extent even today, at least in downtown. Try going to a Montreal Canadiens hockey game. You'll find hardly any pure laine Quebecois there. Or if there are pure lainers, they'll do their best to hide it, especially if they are sitting in the lower bowl. I remember going to a Canadiens playoff game back in 2002 and seeing a 40-something pure laine Quebecois guy muttering some outwardly hostile gibberish in his thick Chicoutimi-area accent whenever the opposition scored a goal. Everyone was laughing at him and looking down on him like a clown.

Montreal still has a strong Italian vibe. Also, a Jewish one. Downtown also has a lot of anglo transplants from all over Canada.

If you're French, you definitely at an advantage in Montreal, but only in the bloated government spheres, government-affiliated industries and the media. The enormous publicly-funded tertiary education system of Quebec encourages victimhood amongst the Quebecois and working for the government. The cycle repeats itself over generations. A special place is also given at these institutions to minorities who speak French, encourage Quebecois nationalism and play the victim card. Ingenuity amongst these sorts is sorely lacking.

It is the other communities which quietly keep Montreal afloat on a day-to-day basis. Most restaurants seem to be run by Italians, even in the predominately French-speaking areas. Jews are still heavy in the engineering and tech firms. You'd also be surprised at the inroads that Indians are making in Montreal. Anglos and Jews are still big in prime real estate.

Parti Quebecois-inspired architecture in Montreal is the dregs. Most of the outwardly beautiful edifices in Montreal were built by WASPs. No one ever seems to mention that.

I can't wait to see how Montreal transforms itself in 50 years. I love the city, but I hate the politics.

Chief Seattle said...

My grandfather, a Scottish immigrant, worked as an engineer at a paper mill outside of Quebec. He retired to Ottawa in the early eighties. One of the main reasons was medical care. I remember him saying he wasn't confident that a French speaking doctor would even treat him, or would let him out alive if they did.

My dad mentioned once that the French speaking workers were treated like dogs. His words, and he wasn't someone to exaggerate, though he never went into detail. I know the ownership and management of the mill where my Grandfather worked were all English speakers. There was more going on at the time than just ethnic pride or politics, despite the ridiculousness of the resulting dual-language rules.

Bit of trivia: The Rush song "Trees" is about the French labor movement.

The Maples formed a union and demanded equal rights. The Oaks are just to greedy. We will make them give us light. Now there's no more Oak oppression. For they passed a noble law. And the trees are all kept equal. By hatchet, axe, and saw.

Anonymous said...

A few thoughts...

1) The idea that French speakers in Quebec were ill-treated and subject to oppression sounds pretty lame to me. Quebec has always had a majority French population, a French premier and the Quebec government is composed of 95% Francophones. What southern state has had a black governor continually since the civil war, with a black government and bureuacracy? The idea that French-Canadians were "white N******" is absurd. The comparison is ludicrous.

2) Why couldn't the Francophones have been assimilated after 1840 (Durham's report). Take Ireland. About 1,000,000 Irish left that decade. They were all nominally British subjects. Why couldn't the British government have provided them with strong economic incentives to settle specifically in Quebec? This one action alone would have made the Francophones a minority. Instead they largely went to the USA.

3) One other thing is clear. Quebec's share of the Canadian population is going to continue to decline. Quebec was Canada's kingmaker in times past. Those days will soon be coming to an end. I can't see any repeat of the 1972 election when Quebec was able to impose its will on the rest of the country.

Will S. said...

@ Seattle: I thought "The Trees" was about Canucks and Yanks (Maples and Oaks)...

Anonymous said...

English Canada only exists because of the American Revolution. Loyalists expelled from the US had to have somewhere to land. English Canada is the West Bank of the United States. No wonder the Quebecois are pissed off. Perhaps they should encourage the United Empire Loyalists to become the PLO?

Will S. said...

8:44, the French lost New France to the English in 1759, before the American Revolution; they've been annoyed ever since then, even before the Loyalists arrived.

I don't know what kind of weirdo geopolitical masturbatory fantasy world you live in, but we're not interested in reclaiming American territory. We have our own country, up here; 1776 was a long time ago; unlike the French, we English-Canadians are quite prepared to let bygones be bygones.

Jonathan said...

"unlike the French, we English-Canadians are quite prepared to let bygones be bygones."

LOL, that's the same guy who see Quebecers as a nuisance in Canada since 1759 and wish they had been deported a long time ago.

Will S. said...

I KNEW someone would ridiculously, absurdly accuse me of that, despite the fact that (a) I was expressing what WOULD HAVE been best, IMO, back then, and (b) I explicitly said, if you go back thru my comments, that there's nothing we can do about it NOW, and we just have to learn to live together. Reading comprehension fail...

This thread really has brought out the freaks, and the idiots.

Will S. said...

Let me put it into terms so everyone can understand it: I'm like a nostalgic Southroner who wishes Dixie 'woulda won', yet DOESN'T embrace the modern-day secessionist movement, and remains committed to the United States as it currently exists. I know in this part of the 'net, there are more neo-secesh types, but I'm sure y'all know less radical types, of the kind of which I speak, amongst your friends, neighbours, family, coworkers, whatever.

I'm the same as regards Canadian politics. And I'm not alone; lots of English-Canadians feel the same way. There certainly are ohers who wish Quebec would leave, but I'm not one of them; I don't want to see my country split into two unconnected pieces, and likely splintered further afterwards. I believe in trying to make Canada work, as it exists, intact, despite my wishes about what mighta been.

There. Can y'all understand that? I'm sure you can, if you try.

P.S. The reason why Jews have been opposed to Quebec separatism is two-fold: (a) culturally, and economically, they've been historically part of the English-speaking establishment in Montreal, notwithstanding originally being shut out from certain clubs, etc.; they largely identify as Anglo (except for a few Moroccan Sephardic, francophone Jews; I've met one); and (b) they remember the attitudes of French-Canadians during the past; their support for Father Coughlin and the like; their opposition to Canada's involvement in WWII, and the quasi-fascist tendencies of the Union Nationale. As a result, they want no part of an independent Quebec.

Jonathan said...

"This thread really has brought out the freaks, and the idiots."- Will S.

"The psychological concept of “projection” explains much about modern political rhetoric. It’s a process by which accusations often reflect the accuser rather than the accused."- Steve Sailer

Will S. said...

Yes, and if I were a leftist or a neocon, or other paranoid type, that might actually apply to me. Doesn't, though. Nice try.

Anonymous said...

English North America was virtually just the 13 colonies + Halifax and the Newfies in 1776. The 13 colonies succeeded in their revolution/civil war. Yes, there was a civil war that went on concurrent to the American Revolution, between the Tories and Whigs, especially in the southern colonies. It was brutal and the Tories were expelled after the military fiascos at Kings Mountain, Cowpens and finally Yorktown. The Tories' world collapsed in about an 18 month period. They ended up as refugees by the thousands in places like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Southern Quebec, Niagara and Eastern Ontario. The sons of these guys burned the White House in the War of 1812, killed Daniel Boone's son and they are still sipping sweet tea in Toronto to this day. Newfoundland didn't join Canada until 1948 so really if you exclude the Newfies and the 13 colonies from consideration, English Canada prior to 1776 was really Halifax, Cape Breton and a scattering of settlements in the Maritimes. The rest of Canada was French. So I agree that the current English Canada is a construct of the American Revolution and it probably shouldn't really exist except for the outcome of that revolution. And frankly, just like the Indians, the Quebecois screwed up by not joining the Americans as a state when they were given the opportunity in the Articles of Confederation prior to 1787. But that's a whole other story.

Will S. your ancestors were probably from Charleston or Savannah. If so, you're just a Canadian newcomer in the eyes of the Quebecois.

Anonymous said...

"unlike the French, we English-Canadians are quite prepared to let bygones be bygones."

Your boy Harper produced so much of this crap last year that even Canadians began to question the narrative. In the end, the War of 1812 settled the question of who would run North America going forward and it was not the French (or the Indians), but the British(English Canada) and the Americans. So I understand why the Quebecois want a new deal, hell it's been 200 years.

Anonymous said...

"Quebec isn't Zimbabwe."

Well that's true, however when the Bank of Montreal's headquarters is at First Canadian Place in Toronto, perhaps there is a little Zimbabwe in us after all.

Will S. said...

@ 748: Not my boy; if you've read all my comments, you'd see I don't vote.

That said, I'm glad our government celebrates our history. But the French-Canadian tail has wagged the English-Canadian dog for too long (prior to Harper, who's been in power nine years, we had a 36-year period wherein for 34.5 of them, all our PMs came from Quebec, and only one of those Quebeckers wasn't French-Canadian, Mulroney - Irish-Canadian; we've had enough, which is why Harper, an Anglo from Alberta, has been in power this long, with help from the collapse of the Liberals of course); hence Harper's appeal. It's about time English Canadians ran Canada again; it's our country, more than it is theirs (French-Canadians comprise only 1/4 of the country; why should a minority hold the majority hostage? No more!)

@ 6:27: Actually, I'm not UEL; my people are Scotch-Irish who came here during the potato famines, in the 1820s. Not all English-Canadians are UEL, you know. Many settler colonists, and potato famine refugees, like my folk; plus immigrants from the U.K. through the early 20th century, and even post-WWII...

So yes, you're right; 'les Canadiens' do see us as newcomers; but we beat them fair and square on the Plains of Abraham; pity we were so merciful in victory. Lesson for others: when you defeat an enemy, defeat him totally; deport them all / sterilize all the men / kill them all / whatever solution seems most workable and/or humane; I prefer deportation myself, being not genocidal like Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, though I admit the utter effectiveness of total genocide, if carried through. Regardless, show no mercy; give no quarter. Else the enemy will rise again later, and your apparent mercy will come back to bite you in the ass. Total destruction of one's enemies, by whatever means, is the only way to guarantee they won't revive to defeat you again. Inhumane? Perhaps. But does / would it work? Well, consider, in ancient times, all the peoples slaughtered who no longer exist, to be any sort of threat. Or if they exist, because they were only mostly slaughtered, look how politically impotent they are, e.g. the Copts of Egypt, the Assyrians of Mesopotamia... Wiping out, either completely, or largely, by whatever means, one's enemies, is the only way to prevent them re-rising against you. Let us all remember that, for future. BTW, next time Europe starts a WW, no 'Marshall Plan' for them afterwards; let them suffer, even the allies; let them fix their economies themselves; then it'll take longer, and they won't be economic rivals / geopolitical rivals. No aid, to any nations, ever, regardless. Let everyone sink or swim, on their own abilities. (If it weren't for U.S. aid to Israel, they'd have had to either come to grips with their Arab neighbours, or wiped them out mercilessly; either way would be preferable to the status quo.)

Fuck mercy; it's not a quality nations can afford. Best left to individuals.

Will S. said...

BTW, no-one drinks sweet tea in Toronto; and most of the UEL who came here were from New York; most of the southern UEL went elsewhere, like the Bahamas, for example. Northerners, came here. If you all weren't so navel-gazing, you might know that.

fnn said...

Louis Riel is one of those guys that
all Canadians have heard of but hardly any Americans. Paul Fromm seems to fit that role today.

Will S. said...

Comparing Paul Fromm with Louis Riel; that's something I'd never have expected. Not sure what to make of it...

Anonymous said...

"I can't wait to see how Montreal tranforms itself in the next fifty years."

I very seriously doubt Canada OR the USA will be around in 2063.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

Isabel said...

"Mr.Sailer, I'm impressed by your knowledge of Quebec history. "

You are? Really?

"Actually, that battle at the Plains of Abraham wasn't even a fair fight. A good part of the French forces were local milita, as the bulk of the French army had been sent back to France after inflicting severe drubbings on the Englsih on many occasions.

France was a continental power that simply did not have the navy the British had. Thus, the British could use their strategic mobility to overwhelm isolated French forces.

And I think my 'trapper' ancestors did pretty well before and after the Conquest. How many successful nations were built by Europeans in climates actually harsher than Scandinavia's ? The Viking colonies in Greenland are long gone, while here, well, come visit Montreal this summer and you'll see how we've done."

Most rational comment on this hysteria-fueled thread. Honestly, the bigotry and ignorance is surprising, even for this blog. And such crybabies, jeez grow a pair, I mean that's what you tell everybody else, right?

Anonymous said...

To isabel said;

New France had a manpower militia supply available of about 14,000-16,000 military age males. It also had a number of regular French field battalions available for defense. Wolfe had only about 3,300 troops available at the Plains of Abraham. He was actually quite outnumbered. The French lost partly because of the disastrous tactics of Montcalm, but mainly due to the discipline and courage of the British soldiers. See the book France in America.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your support Isabel.

Sorry Anonymous at 3:25, you'll have to look a bit further. The forces actually present at that battle were roughly equal in numbers. French militiamen were 'irregulars' not trained, unlike the bulk of British soldiers, for set-piece battles. Sturdier French forces soundly defeated the British later at Sainte-Foy, but had to pull out because, yes, of the superior British navy.

Finally, it is a bit puzzling to see so many here hate hate hate us with a vengeance, while getting only of Quebec the highly distorted view the Canadian mainstream media feeds them. Again, may I extend again that invitation to visit us ?

Anonymous said...

"Again, may i extend again that invitation to visit us?"

No thanks. Nothing would make me happier then to see Quebec leave confederation. We'll keep the 7 billion in "equalization" payments you shake us down for each year and you guys take 23% (your population share) of the national debt, which was largely created by French-Canadians like Pierre Trudeau. And after you separate, I hope I never hear another word of joual-'French' ever again in my life.