Canada/Quebec - Possible understanding?

Cthulhu224 · 1 year

I have mixed feelings about Macleans article. But I'm super pissed off at the people using this as an excuse to hate.

First off, I think using Bonhomme Carnaval to represent corruption in Quebec was a mistake. I mean its a festival... It gives them a bad image that they really don't deserve. I just wished they would of used something else like an Iris and Snowy Owl with dollar signs or something...

Obviously politicians around Canada are attacking Macleans because they know any kind of support for Macleans will give separatist kudos. This is also very sad.

There's no denying we have a serious problem with corruption in Quebec, and we're certainly not the only ones. Are we the most corrupt? I don't know, but we did have quite a lot of controversy recently.

Other than the Bonhomme Carnaval image, I don't really have a problem with the article itself. However, I'm really disappointed with the overall response from Quebec and the rest of Canada, for a lot of people it seem to serve as an other excuse to hate on Quebec. And its also an excuse to hate on the rest of Canada here in Quebec.

I'm a 100% convinced this controversy would not have happened in any other province. Its really just because the article is about Quebec. And many Quebecers are quick to tag any kind of criticism as "Quebec bashing"

It goes to show that Quebec is an outsider in Canada and I'll never really feel home in my own country, just because I'm a Quebecois. And for the record, no I'm not a separatist. I don't even care about it anymore, its so annoying and alienating I try to stay away from the issue as much as possible.

TL;DR The haters from the rest of Canada and Quebec are both responsible for the marginalization of Quebec. And it really really sucks.

Screw all the haters.

3pair · 1 year

I haven't read the complete article, and don't live in Quebec, so it's hard for me to comment on any of the content contained therein. That said, I find the image of Bonhomme Carnaval on the cover to be in really poor taste. It gives me the impression that the rest of the article is simply shock content designed to sell magazines. Bonhomme is a symbol of a festival, a celebration, and ultimately a culture, and has nothing to do with how a province is governed. Its just shock journalism designed to move units by pointing fingers at old cultural enemies. Its a shame some people are actually buying into it.

glennkachmar · 1 year

I think it is just that controversy sells more papers. I think the media loves to drag up old issues and try to get people riled up. They're the media - attention whores by definition. Plus all the old school media is dying and they know it. It reminds me of how every year at Christmas and/or Easter the major publications come up with some flashy cover with Jesus and dig up some bullshit controversy.

Anyway, I think that the culture and language of Québec should be celebrated and protected. I think that Canada is would never be the same without the Québecois (and I don't mean the Parti Québecois). I don't really think there is tension. When I have traveled to Québec, I have been welcomed warmly and I am always happy to meet people from Québec or other French speaking parts of the country (je parle français aussi).

May we no longer be the two solitudes.

PR0FiX · 1 year

I am an English speaking person that was born in Montreal. I've lived in Quebec my whole life. I've always felt torn between Canada and Quebec. Quebec is my home and I love living here very much but I also love Canada and what Canada stands for.

One of my biggest wishes is for Quebec to be a symbol of unity for the rest of the world. I want to show the world that it is possible to live in peace even with language and culture as a factor.

I also want Quebec to show the world that the people of Quebec are the kindest and most understanding people of the world. I wish the Quebec government would stop basing Quebec culture on language and start basing it on the actions of people. A language is just a language but it's what we do as a people that really matters.

I am 100% for the preservation of Quebec culture but I think Quebec needs to realize that its culture is being tainted by things like Bill 101 and now 103. I would rather lose a little bit of culture and gain unity and respect by the world.

Anyway... my 2 cents...

goalieca · 1 year

J'ai grandi à vancouver et je comprends bien la point de vue du ouest canadien. Je voudrai t'écrire un essai sur le sujet pour tout expliquer mais disons que le problème c'est l'ignorance. Ailleurs au canada on ne suit pas trop la politique canadien et surtout pas la politique québécoise. On connait mieux les affaires des É-U que les affaires dans notre propre province. Oui c'est triste mais le plupart du monde ici regardent les médias américains et l'education au niveau sécondaire n'est pas complete. Donc, malgré qu'on est une ville mondiale et vraiment multi-culturelle, on ne comprend pas notre propre pays.

Stucipher · 1 year

I love Quebec, though I haven't even been there. It seems less Americanized than the rest of Canada, well the West at least, where I'm from (BC).

I'm not sure of the whole story of the conflict between Quebec and the rest of Canada. To me it doesn't matter; I, personally, am not really involved and I don't think I should make a habit of getting involved in other peoples' prejudiced crusades. We all have the ability to get along, co-operate and change our biases and preconceptions; a lot of people are simply either too stubborn, afraid or ignorant of why doing so is probably the best thing for us all.

"I sincerely hope we will understand each other someday."

You can be happy that many of us already do understand each other; it's just that examples of mutual respect do not make the news as often as feelings of resentment and expressions of anger do.

MechaBlue · 1 year

I honnestly don't really understand why there is tension between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

I am speaking for myself and of my impressions.

I grew up in BC and live in Alberta. My impression is that Quebec takes a lot of federal tax money from the rest of Canada while not wanting to be in it. The language laws, baby bonuses, etc. are seen as wastes of money used to prop up a dying culture. The Bloc is an incredibly strong party that wants separation but, in the mean time, feels entitled to bleed the country dry. Everything from sovereignty association, to not signing the 1982 constitutional amendment, to having different institutions (e.g., no CPP, CRA, etc.) implies that Quebec doesn't want to be part of Canada. The alleged ballot stuffing during the separation referendum adds to this as well.

These are the negative impressions that I have picked up over the years from a distance. Some are from personal observations and some are absorbed from others. Yes, I am biased against Quebec. But I recognize this and realize that I must explore this bias.

More recently, I did some reading into the FLQ crisis on Wikipedia, it's history and outcomes. In high school, it was presented as terrorism without context (Is terrorism ever without context?) and the most notable aspect was that the War Measures Act was invoked. We spent more time on the 7 Years War than we spent on understanding how Quebec fits into modern society. We spent an ungodly amount of time on the fur trade. I suppose it makes sense, as that period and those activities are safer to teach than anything new enough to be relevant.

After reading up a bit on the FLQ crisis and the events that lead into it, things started to make more sense. The sense of neglect from Ottawa came to a head and out of that period came real political change. The BQ is a living artifact out of that time period and, I'm guessing, is composed of some of the politically active youth of that period. In many ways, they are pursuing an agenda that was forged 40ish years ago. I'm also of the opinion that Quebec will be subsumed by the culture that surrounds it, something that either scares the BQ or is used to scare people into supporting them.

I suspect that many people in western Canada are ignorant of the history of Quebec because it's not important in our day-to-day lives and because our schooling doesn't cover it well. I also suspect that a certain amount of that ignorance is intentional because it's treasured and leveraged by power brokers as an easy way to rabble-rouse.

I know I have miles to go before I have a clear picture of Quebec and its role in the confederation but, at least, I understand that now.

gawkbasher · 1 year

Hmm. American here. I've spent a lot of time in Ontario but only recently begun visiting Quebec (City).

I can honestly say the place has some of the nicest, friendliest people I've ever met and I'm absolutely in love with the place. I've gotten some gruff attitude from some people but honestly not nearly as much of it as I have anywhere else.

In my experience, Quebecers have been pretty proud of who they are and are not afraid to let you know about it. I think most peoples' opinions of them are formed from experiences they've had outside of the province rather than in it. It's a wonderful place to live and yes, I am a bit jealous. :)

quelar · 1 year

Your english is great, no problems following, no reason to apologize.

Nitrodist · 1 year

You yourself describe yourself as a French-Canadian instead of a Canadian. That is why this tension exists.

Jean-Baptiste1763 · 1 year

English follows.

Salut UsbSuck. À mon avis, les canadiens francophones et anglophones qui sont éduqués et qui connaissent des gens de l'autre côté de la clôture linguistique n'ont aucun problème avec leurs vis-à-vis. Mais chez les québécois comme dans le reste du Canada, il y a des ignorants fiers de l'être, qui ont peur de l'inconnu et se revalorisent en imaginant des raisons de haïr quiconque est différent d'eux.

Hi UsbSuck. My opinion is that learned, educated anglo and franco Canadians who have the chance to know people on the other side of the linguistic fence have no problem with each other. But in Quebec as in the rest of Canada there are people who are proud of their ignorance, afraid of the unknown, and nurture their self-esteem by imagining reasons to hate whoever's different from them.

mrtherapist · 1 year

There isn't any common animosity towards Quebec from the parts of Canada that I have lived in.

As a monolingual Canadian, I consider the bilingualism of this country as a valuable statement about our cultural identity.

Asking for an opinion on Quebec to me is like asking for an opinion on Newfoundland. Both provinces have strong subcultures but I am proud to call both Canadian.

I have deep respect for Quebec and see it as a part of Canada. I don't understand the modern reason for the dispute between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

We could argue needlessly about history indefinitely. We all need to remember that all of the people from the original disputes are dead.

Kinaek · 1 year

Personally I dont hear much about anything from Quebec(Im in Ontario) and consider them my french speaking neighbors. I remeober the last time I heard anything of the Bloc Quebecois(sorry US Keyboard, lol) was when there was talk of a coalition to throw Harper out on his ass. At that point I heard a bunch of FUD, mostly from conservatives, about how the liberals and NDP were teaming up with the "evil" separatists and I just thought to myself, "what a bunch of assholes(the conservatives)". I understand where the Bloc comes from, but I dont think it would be a good idea to separate. Splitting Canada in 2 would amount to splitting us into 3. We'd end up with the east being segregated from the west, both screaming that the other doesnt understand them, with Ontario in the middle going "can we switch spots" to Quebec. Personally I think all of Canada benefits from us being one whole country. When i think of Quebec, I dont think "evil separatists", I think of loose strippers, cheap beer and all night clubs. Oh and I also end up picturing Bon Homme and the Ice Castle.

Khalnath · 1 year

I think a lot of Canadians from the rest of Canada took personal offense at the separtist movement. I was mostly offended by the attitude that it was at all appropriate to force people to stay if they didn't want to.

Personally, the reason I bear a grudge against Quebec has a lot to do with the way federal political parties treat Quebec. The Liberals haven't had a party leader who wasn't from Quebec since... uh... I actually don't know, because I didn't start paying attention until Chretien. Every one since then has been from Quebec, even if they are neither French-Canadian nor primarily Francophone. (Paul Martin) The Conservative PM before Chretien was the infamous Brian Mulroney. Where's he from again? Oh yeah, he was born in Quebec.

I don't mean to put across the idea that I think there's anything wrong with someone from Quebec being the PM. The problem I have is that the parties all kiss Quebec's ass come poll time because there are a lot of voters in Quebec, most of whom vote for a party that doesn't really exist outside Quebec. That means they are voters that the parties want to fight over.

jimmycorpse · 1 year

The "BLOC Québécois" party isn't very strong

In the last election The BLOC won 49 seats with 9.98% of the popular vote while the NDP won 37 seats with 18.18% of the popular vote and the Green Party won 0 seats with 6.78% of the popular vote.

I don't really have an opinion about Quebec (I like visiting), but you can't say that the BLOC is weak when it's grossly over-represented in parliament.

AkaokA · 1 year

I couldn't help reading your final sentence as "eïteurs gona eït" in my head.

Cheers from Toronto :)

BONUSBOX · 1 year

anglophone-francophone friendship!

^ anglophone living in montreal all my life. i know it's not possible to be both, but i don't associate myself with either separatist or federalist views.

as an english speaker i do see a lot of hypocrisy coming from this side. one example in particular is town of mount royal in montreal. they preach against separatism and act so deprived, yet they fence off their city and create a little anglo enclave smack in the middle of the island of montreal. shit isn't going to change for anyone unless we all unite. being apathetic to language and background is a start for me. we all need to expand our horizons a little, because english or french, we're minorities in one way or another.

strawhathacker · 1 year

I'm an anglo that lives north of Montreal, in the Laurentians, where we have a fairly high tourist population from Québec, Ontario, and frequently from Europe as well.

One of the things I notice is francophones getting frustrated with anglophones who make no attempt to speak French.

That doesn't sound all that interesting, but often, with my anglophone ears I can detect that these people are not Canadian - they're American, British, etc.

Around here the ROC often takes a bad rap because unilingual non-Canadian anglos are not speaking French. This saddens both my wife and myself because all the anglophones we know in the area speak at least some French.

konungursvia · 1 year

There isn't really that tension, it's just that Maclean's, owned by Rogers, has to earn money. So it tries to find scandals.

[deleted] · 1 year

Southern Ontario here. We love the French, and Quebec is considered one of the coolest places to visit.

And? French girls are amazingly hot. You have nothing to worry about my friend, the French are a key part of Canada.

Hey, our provinces are back to back. We aren't that different.

Abe_Vigoda · 1 year

Harper's government is bent on destroying the country so his fucking media outlets are dredging up the old east vs west debate.

Ignore that shit.

quelar · 1 year

So being an anglo from Toronto, I can say that we get very little news from the rest of Canada unless it's a major story. Having watched feeds from the rest of the country it's not much difference, although there are more 'major' stories carried from Ottawa/Toronto due to government and size.

This is partially due to customer driven content, we like to hear what's happening close to home, and partially due to the fact that our government masters love to have the tools to be able to split us apart for their own gains, Quebec is the seperatist french, the maritimes are all poor and lazy, Ontario only cares about itself, the Praries are all rural hicks, Alberta evil oil companies, and BC are a bunch of hippies. It makes it easy for governments to divide us this way and conquor.

Meanwhile as I've been all around canada I've seen nothing but mostly reasonable people who want to work together to make this country better, most younger quebeqois realize that seperation isn't something that is a reasonable and just want to be treated fairly by the rest of canada and not constantly vilified by english canada.

As we see the young generation adopt more social media and share our feelings directly with each other instead of through media and government mouthpieces, we'll see we're all willing to work together to make things better instead of being torn apart by those that want to divide us.

atypicaloddity · 1 year

I'm an Ontarian (ugh, what a horrible word that is). I've been to Quebec a few times, stopping for a visit on my way to and from Nova Scotia. I've never had a problem with anyone I met; they all seemed friendly, even on St. Jean le Baptiste day when anti-Canadian graffiti was everywhere.

The Quebec-ROC rift seems to be based on Quebec's special status--no other province has the autonomy or special treatment afforded to Quebec. And much of that treatment occurred, at least to our perspective, because of Quebec's threats to secede. It appears to non-Quebecois that we're paying off Quebec to keep them in the country.

The Macleans article was about Quebec politicians being the most corrupt in Canada. That's not a slight to the people of Quebec any more than someone bitching about their own government is blaming themselves. The article laid the blame squarely on Quebec's politicians, and now everyone seems to be complaining that the article attacks Quebecois. Maybe the cover image wasn't the best choice, but it hardly constitutes an attack.

Honestly, the fact that politicians would actually censure Macleans over this article just lends credence to the complaint that Quebec gets special treatment.

[deleted] · 1 year

A lot is going to change in this country when the Baby Boomers all die.

RenegadeMoose · 1 year

Heya UsbSuck,

I moved to Quebec back in '80 or so, just in time for the referendum. I left many years later, around '91-ish. The referendum in '80 got nasty... really really nasty. But most of the local francophone kids and anglophone kids we all agreed we were pals and weren't gonna let it cause us grief.

Almost all french people I met were pretty cool (and the girls... oh my! sigh I miss Montreal and my youth).

At work in a warehouse one day I once had a fella named Guy challenge me "what do you think da problem his between Henglish and French?" I started to reply "Well General Wolfe had this battle with a guy named Montcalm" he waved his hand and walked away "oh you wanna talk General Wolfe now tabernaque...". Whole bunch of the guys both french and english laughed as he walked away. :D

My experience in Quebec back then made me wonder if maybe the media and the politicians were using the French-English mix as an issue instead of focusing on real problems like fixing the economy.

Now that I'm older I'm convinced that's the case, especially as I see the situation south of the border where everything is Democrat versus Republican. All just a bunch of caca used to obscure the real problems in society.

Also, I'll give Quebec credit. Some of our absolute best PMs have come from Quebec. They seem to be the only ones with the gumption to not bend over to American pressure. I refer here to Jean keeping us out of Iraq. That alone makes him the greatest in my books.

Myself, I'm not even paying attention to that Macleans thing. And regardless of being an anglophone, I'll defend Quebec against anybody out west here that wants to gripe about it.

(so funny, anglophone/francophone means nothing to ppl out west, they got no idea).

Sciar · 1 year

I have lived in both Quebec and Ontario. I was born in Ontario and have spent the majority of my life here. I have to tell you that I can understand how Quebec feels slightly separated from the rest of Canada but it is mostly self brought. All of the attempts at separation has removed Quebec from the current news. If the population wants to be more involved they can be, but Ontario is the central point of the country.

If you don't live in Ontario it seems to be fairly even that you are slightly less informed/recognized by the country. It's not a mean spirited attack it's just how the population has been setup. The only difference is that Quebec has many people who are upset and angry and believe a self government will be a better option. I believe we are all one country and instead of any movement towards separation Quebec would benefit more from putting that hatred (In some not all) towards trying to be more of a part of the country.

The only French majority political party standing on a heavy platform of separation creates a bit of a problem. Not to mention the financial crisis Quebec would face without the backing of the country. I vote we all just get along.

Mon francais n'est pas tres bon maintenant parce que je n'avais pas un chance pour l'utiliser. Mais il y a encore les personne qui peut parler les deux langue meme si il vie seulment en Ontario.

canadianleftie · 1 year

I'd really really like to believe that an understanding between the two cultures is possible. But, spending 10 minutes browsing through the comments sections at the CBC, the Globe or the National Pest quickly demonstrates that any understanding between the two is a long long ways off.

bluehazed · 1 year

Hey, you guys are Canadian to me, Ontarian here!

I'm actually working on my Français, mon ami :)

[deleted] · 1 year

My biggest problem with Quebec is Montreal. They kept Price and let Halak go. It's 4-2 after two against Buffalo and Auld doesn't look so good.

Solia · 1 year

Born and raised on the Prairies, here's my two cents:

We like you guys. We consider you Canadians. Many of our parents and grandparents first landed in Quebec when they immigrated and have always been thankful for your hospitality and generosity. The majority of us come from cultures who are also proud of their uniqueness, their language and their traditions. We celebrate our heritage and the heritages of our neighbours, we all share each other's delicious food and recipes brought from our homelands. We also have a large French population here, many towns are still almost entirely French-speaking. We embrace their heritage as part of our own as Canadians. We have french, german, and ukrainian bilingual schools. I personally attended schools in the German Bilingual program and learned French and Spanish as well. Our schools also offer many other languages for people of many other heritages. We have churches in just about every language, we have stores that sell food from almost every ethnic background, for 2 weeks every summer, we have a massive festival where many nationalities celebrate their own cultures and share them with everyone else.

And so we look at you in Quebec, or at least the rhetoric that gets reported and we wonder, why in the world can't we all get along?

We see ourselves living in relative harmony and peace, all of us proud of our heritages and cultures, our languages and food and the roles our people have played in the history of Canada. Together we work to preserve our pride in where we come from, and understand that we must work together to have a common future. We're obviously not perfect and there are many difficulties to overcome, but we are trying. And you guys don't even seem to be trying.

From this perspective, you guys just look like immature children, squabbling over unimportant matters, bickering over the size of lettering on street signs. We wonder why you don't like us, when we have done nothing wrong to you. We wonder why you insist on arguing about something the rest of the nation has moved on about. We are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants here. We all have pasts that we wish to preserve - and we can all see that in order to do so peacefully, we have to work together. I believe this is a lesson that we were taught in Kindergarten.

So basically, we're just waiting and hoping that one day you'll join us. Finally.

Edit: A number of Quebecers are commenting that they have difficulty seeing themselves as "Canadian." Well, so does the majority of the Canadian population. I certainly do. We are a young country, made up of people from all over the world and our concept of who we are as a nation is still developing.

armagin · 1 year

I have visited Quebec multiple times and I can say that it is a wonderful part of the country that should not be missed by anyone. My one problem with Quebec is the language laws that make it extremely hard for an English person to integrate into Quebec society and vice - versa. The fact that there is a large portion of the country that practically requires me to speak and understand french to live there really is frustrating. I can't imagine that it is much better on the inside.

UsbSuck · 1 year

[deleted]

prsnep · 1 year

The animosity between Quebecois and rest of Canadians, Western and Eastern Canada (Western Alienation), between whites and minorities, etc are all fake issues created to get easy votes from the uninformed majority.

I can't give you concrete proofs; it comes from a lot of anecdotal evidence. People are fickle. You can make them feel angry about anything. This "wedge politics" is a big theme in America as well.

floodpower · 1 year

My family is all from northern ontario ( the Kap ) but me and my immediate family now live in Peterborough. We visit Kapuskasing multiple times a year however, and many members of my family there speak french, are married to french people, etc. The French people up their speak a funny melange of french and english which is hard to understand until you get the accent down. French people up there seem to sort of have a rep for getting drunk and riding around on their snowmobiles. My french cousin in law used to sell blow all over northern ontario (basically from Hearst down to around Cochrane etc) until he got busted and sent to rehab... While some people hate on the French in Northern Ontario most of it is jokingly (as opposed to criticism of the natives, where most people tend to be serious about the legitimacy of their comments even when they are joking)... Example: My cousin in Kap who has a partner and two children told me she got a house with a drive way and their own yard for 90 dollars a month 15 minutes outside of town because (according to her father) it was subsidized housing built for native canadians who paraphrasing "don't have cars so they can't live there/don't want to talk an hour to go to the LC" lol. Basically my point is that I feel like a lot of "hating" on French Canadians (obv not ALL*) is really just good natured joking about cultural differences, where as when people are hating on natives they tend to not be joking even when they are.

xworld · 1 year

The "BLOC Québécois" party isn't very strong, and is mostly supported by older population.

I disagree.

Some months ago, 300 young souvereignists met at that event.

LiThiuMElectro · 1 year

As a fellow Quebecois to be honest they got what they fucking deserve. I am sick and tired of all the fucking political bullshit and all the corruption in QC. It's like every stone you look under or every shit you start digging up there is a fucking politician going on a spending frenzy with our money blowing it up likes he's some kind of Arabian Oil King pin.

NOW that someone points finger with a "shocking" frontpage everyones is doing the prude offended virgin marie. Hell with them seriously this province is runned by a bunch of morrons who ever is in power. They are milking us like cow over taxing the shit out of us.

I don't know about other province because the media outlet is shutting us down of all the news out their like we are some kind of 3rd world damn north Korea country and I guess that why I'm so pissed off about all the shit going here. I get the feeling that everywhere else in Canada is run tight like the army and they got no Scandals or nothing.

I Don't know... with all the crappy "public investigations" they are doing spending LOADS of money on it for results like "oh hmm.. I don't remember" or "NO YOU DID IT" kinda throwing the ball around it's wasting of time and taxes payer money. I don't see rapists and bank robber getting out on easy rolls with "Hmmm sorry judge I don't remember" "oh poor thing here a cookie run along"

I'm "proud" to be a French Canadian because of our cultural background and language. But I don't think that my Children (when i'll have some) and grand-children will be able to say the same on the look back on how we are sinking in new lows every year it seems....

This is my two cents, sorry for bad raging English and swaring

munchbard · 1 year

I'm just going to go ahead and say this.

From what I have experienced in my little corner of Canada, is that there are a number of people who are fairly racist towards two particular groups in Canada. This is due to their treatment by the government to help sustain their 'cultures' and 'way of life'. These people aren't pissed off because 'they are a different colour or, speak a different language'. They are racist (not even sure if this would be the proper term...) because of the perks and handouts that these two cultures recieve over the rest of the population.

UsbSuck · 1 year

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cinematix · 1 year

There is tension because things like the Bloc Quebecois party exist. No other province has it's own political party. Can you imagine what the countries policies would look like if every province had their own political party?

Why are the taxes different?

Why is it different to be qualified for a loan?

I think the reason there is tension is that every other province follows the same sort of basic layout and goes along with everyone else, except Quebec.

I do not want to see them separate, but when they kept using separation as a threat to get what they wanted out of the federal government I am pretty sure they lost a lot of support from anyone who was around during that time. I know a number of people who moved away from Quebec because they were worried that they would succeed in separating and they were really frustrated about it. They are fine with the everyday people, but the politics of it are very different.

There is also such a huge focus on Quebec Culture and making it exclusive of Canadian Culture. Why can the two not coincide? With the huge fight about language I think most people who do not read far into it just think of Quebec as a bunch of whiners because of the language issue.

You mention you identify as a Quebecer and have a hard time to identify as a Canadian and that is exactly why there is so much tension.

Issachar · 1 year

I'm trying very hard to understand the position of Quebec inside Canada.

I think the fundamental problem is that many Québécois see Canada as a union of two groups, Anglophones & Francophones, while much of the rest of the country doesn't see it that way at all. They see Canada as a union of many provinces with some provinces more influential than others because they have more people living in them.

The problem is that if you take the second view, Quebec has roughly a quarter of the population and should not expect their influence (whether in parliament, the size of transfer payments or elsewhere), to be much greater than that. If you take the first view, you'd expect Quebec to have influence and importance far greater than would be justified by only a quarter of the population.

There are other factors such as Quebec's language laws, but I think the first factor is at the root of much of it.

tenkadaiichi · 1 year

While the Bloc may not be exerting a whole lot of power (wait, weren't they the Loyal Opposition for a while?) they are a national political party that runs only in one province. Any party that runs for a national election should actually be running nationally, fielding candidates all over the place. It's a joke that we have a provincial special interest party in national parliament.

Not only that, but they got 2/3 of the seats that Quebec has in parliament, 49 out of 75. Clearly Quebec does rally pretty strongly behind the party.

Having said all that, my beloved Alberta was pretty much the same when the Reform party was around. At least Reform ran candidates in multiple provinces.

Goupidan · 1 year

Well you see the Commission Bastarache is causing a lot of media attention, and even other provinces are talking about it. MacLean's just wants to sell about show something about how bad Quebec is. I disagree with the censorship (free press), and I object Charest's response.

armagin · 1 year

I would like to point out one thing to all the people commenting in this post:

Montreal is not Quebec

Frederic54 · 1 year

Montréaler here too, I don't understand also what is the problem with the ROC... Canada is my country and I like it :), I have nothing against people in ON or BC. I understand that a lot of people in QC speak (a broken) French and have some fears of all the english/allophone people... I am more concerned by the level of corruption everywhere here, relation between cities and mafia, roads that are 30% more expensive than elsewhere, bridges that fall, etc.

I watch mainly SRC and TV5 and sometimes V ; on TVA there is a lot of BS and uninteresting stuff like "le banquier" or reality show like OD. I have read various newspapers for a couple of years, even if French is my first language, I like The Gazette the most followed by La Presse. JDM is sensationalist.

dizavin · 1 year

From what I understand is that quebecers feel that they are of such a unique culture, that they should become thier own nation. (Which is such a French thing to do, that you can't deny the humor there.) but when it came time for a referendum, the majority voted to stay.

I think the hard part that quebeccers face is the fact that not really anyone else cares that much. At least not out west. I'm from Alberta and live in BC and it's hard to care about the strife of the French to have their language spoken across Canada when, well, out west nobody speaks it. Were better off knowing Chinese or Hindi. You basically learn some phrases in high school only to never ever use them.

But then again, in BC and Alberta it's hard to care a out anything that happens out east. Were fairly unrepresented considering we put more money into the county than anyon else and get litle say into how it's run.

UsbSuck · 1 year

[deleted]

bms42 · 1 year

Canadians are hypocrites, they hate everything that doesn't speak english, especially french. However they have a reputation to maintain, the one on how they are so open-minded and caring people. Also they want Quebec ressources. They have to deal with us but can barely contain their hatred for us. So they go passive agressive on us, constantly. The Macleans article is just one of a great many example of it.

The main claim to corruption comes from the sponsorship scandals where a huge bunch of Canadians politician and businessman corrupted a very tiny amount of Quebecois using an incredible amount of resources, taxpayers money amongst other. If you try that hard with that many resource in any place to corrupt people you will find someone to be corrupted at some point, they did. They stole our chance to have a country (they need the resources, not the people) by corrupting key individuals and Canadians are twisted enough to consider this is an example of corruption in Québec, not in Canada.

In french we say: être de mauvaise foi

I have no clue how it translate but this is why we can't be united, one of the party only wants our assimilation, while the other actually tried to be part of the adventure, look at what it brought us; I work in english in Montreal, I get served in english in Montreal, I have more problems being spoken to in french than in english... bilingualism is the tool they used to assimilate us, only us actually tried to be bilingual, not them, ipso facto, now that it's done, why don't we all communicate together in english all the time heh, speak french at home, it's easier that way...

This is why it's not working, we should just go back to seceding from them and all this bullshit would go away, face the facts, they do NOT want to be friend with us, they despise us and can barely contain it.

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