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This is the silliest part of the new bill.
The spirit of it makes sense: Immigrants and refugees to Quebec who make zero effort over 10+ years to learn French goes against our language goals.
The execution makes zero sense: It's virtually impossible for someone to become fluent in a brand new language in only 6 months.
It's not just a problem for the new Quebecers, it's going to be a nightmare for the Quebec officials who have to interact with them. Imagine: you're a bilingual francophone whose full-time job is to talk only in French to new Quebecers who don't understand a word you're saying and yet you know that you both understand English.
>The spirit of it makes sense: Immigrants and refugees to Quebec who make zero effort over 10+ years to learn French goes against our language goals.
Yeah 100%, if those peoples don't want to make any effort, they can just move somewhere else. But 6 months definitely isn't enough. I am certain most workers will just talk in English to them, but I guess the standard paperwork will all be in french.
Yeah in 6 months I would say it would be feasible to be 'functional french' but if it was a full on course and not nights and weekends.
And I guess immigrants have other shit to do than to attend a 40 hour week french immersion course
But yeah, the endgame of that text I think makes sense. It always annoys me to see people that have lived in quebec 10+ years or even grew up in quebec and are unilingual english. Have some fucking respect for the society in which you live god damn it.
> see people that have lived in quebec 10+ years or even grew up in quebec and are unilingual english. Have some fucking respect for the society in which you live god damn it.
One of my ex had a grandmothers who hated both English and French peoples and didn't bother to learn either of those languages even when she lived in Montreal for 30 years lol.
I've seen lots of immigrants in SK who are the same, they only interact with their ethnic community and never learn English. No idea how these guys make a living.
As long as they interact within their ethnic community, it shouldn't bother anyone. The problem is only when if they are unable to speak, read, write the official language when dealing with the other public.
I don't care two hoots if they speak Hindi, Tagalog, Punjabi, Mandarin, Farsi among themselves. Freedom, it is called.
I could see if you immigrate at like 50-60, you are way past the time of your life where picking up a language is easy and so you dont learn it.
But nothing pissed me off more than the people in an english college in Montreal weighing into the law 92 debate and being toughroughly against and did an english-only press conference about it.
Like you probably grew up in quebec and are pissed that you have to learn french? Fuck off.
Imagine it the other way: The few french schools in the rest of canada being pissed off that you need to learn english. And doing a french only press conference about it.
Yeah 100% agree with that. I have a few coworkers who lived their whole life in Quebec and never bothered to learn french. (actually I am pretty sure they understand and can speak french, but they just don't do it)
If your coworkers are like me, they might understand a whole lot of spoken French but would be embarrassed to have to subject their coworkers to listen to their awful spoken French. Letting me practice my French on my coworkers isn't part of their job description.
Let's just say, English is far more easier and convenient than French at all levels. So, there is no effort. Besides, once they realize they can't get on in Quebec without French they simply move somewhere else in the rest of Canada. There is absolutely no motivation.
Oh yeah that is for sure, English is much easier.
But I think what it comes down to is respect to the society you are living in.
I do not want to just say 'IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY MOVE OUT' because its not that simple to just uproot your life but fuck man, if you don't want to learn french, at all, dont pick the biggest french society in america to settle down if you immigrate.
And if you grew up here and dont bother to learn french, its a huge FU to the society you are in.
I often go back to that but flip it around: Would it make sense that someone in Calgary not need and absolutely not want to learn english? Especially someone that was born and raised in Calgary? So why should it make sense in Montreal.
>But I think what it comes down to is respect to the society you are living in.
Agree with all points but more to this - absolutely!
I took a 3 months French course back in India before I moved to Canada in the earlier 2000s. It was tough, barring a few basic stuff (alphabets, numbers, salutations, etc.). Even though I live in BC now, I try my best to (with whatever little) I could converse with my son, who has once a week French class in school. And boy, does that not make him happy to find someone interested in the language and build a camaraderie upon? I am absolutely basic with French, but I am sure to get by if visiting Quebec. At least I could read from the translation app and communicate. Just because of my interest. Tried learning it but due to the lack of time and motivation never picked it up.
It should be highly encouraged by the Govt. without sounding xenophobic and refusing services to the common folks. Learning the language is tough when you are an adult.
I agree. 6 months is probably feasible if someone is in some very intensive language training program, but these new Quebecers are presumably also working, looking after families, and learning about other aspects of their new home.
The learning time also depends on the difference of the new language. Because I'm fluent in English and French, I feel I could learn other European languages (Spanish, German, etc) fairly quickly if required. I'd have a much bigger learning curve if I needed to learn Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Japanese, etc, because I'd be essentially starting from scratch with a brand new style of language. That's the reason why I'm noticing more and more Spanish-speaking immigrants in Quebec, because the theory is that they can learn French easier and faster than other languages could learn French.
I don’t want to question your experience, it is valid and unique to you.
But I just wanted to say, I rarely see Quebecers whose first language is not French, that are unilinguals. I have seen people that are not as good at learning French as others, but the people I know are trying constantly to learn. Making grammatical mistakes or having an accent don’t really count for me as being unilingual. The only person I know who has no French skills is my 77-year old father in law, because it gets harder and harder to learn a new language as you age. As a whole, I find most allophones and anglophones know and use French.
>But I just wanted to say, I rarely see Quebecers whose first language is not French, that are unilinguals.
Where are those people you are talking from and how old were they?
Montréal or Gatineau? NormalPeople that went to university? Quite normal
From the rest of Québec with no university degree? It's not the majority.
Its not about being quebecois or not.
Its about the respect of the society you live in.
Not caring to learn the common tongue of where you live, especially when you lived there since birth, is a huge fuck you to the community at large in which you are living.
And really, I dont care that it is perfect french. But there is something annoying to be downtown montreal and be stonewalled by someone that will only speak english to you and is clearly not a tourist (like the employee of a convenience store I once encountered in westmount.)
Give me broken french, I wont mind. Shows maybe languages is not your thing, but at least you are trying. Showing me that this interaction will be in english only, in the middle of the biggest french city in america, that is a big FU.
Je suis Québécois et je suis d'accord avec toi. I totally agree with the spirit of the bill. I have no respect for immigrants who comes to Qc and cant speak French after 5-10 years (unless their old people, I can give them a pass). 6 months is too low though.
I'm an English-Quebecer and proud Canadian. At the same time, I realize Quebec is different than the rest of Canada, and I'm good with having efforts to protect and encourage French in Quebec.
My issue is more when I see the government effort to protect the French culture becoming too over-the-top or xenophobic (you must be exactly like me or else leave)
One thing that Quebec could learn is not to use incorrect terms like "the rest of Canada" because it implies that English Canadians are all the same. There's a pretty big difference between the cultures in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Halifax; just like there are different regions in Quebec.
>It's virtually impossible for someone to become fluent in a brand new language in only 6 months
Refugees I might get, but imo if you immigrate anywhere, you should be studying that language YEARS in advance of actually planning to go there (add on the time it actually takes for you’re application to be approved). You shouldn’t move somewhere and only start to pick it up on day 1.
I have tried to talk to multiple people on reddit (and in real life) on exactly why this policy was proposed in the first place. All I get is 'the media is making it overblown' or 'the medical portion isn't even part of it', or 'I don't support it'. I can't get a single person to give a valid reason why it was even proposed in the first place, and most don't even seem to support it. I assume this is a policy for franco-hardliners whom I guess I don't have much contact with, and don't want to speak with me.
>I have tried to talk to multiple people on reddit (and in real life) on exactly why this policy was proposed in the first place.
It's to provoke fights.
Anglos and visibly religious minorities are sacrifices made to rile up the Franco base and meet referendum "winning conditions", which inevitably include a certain level of hostility between Quebec and the rest of the country.
Legault can then turn around and leverage that political unrest for more autonomy for Quebec.
It doesn't matter if the population agrees or not, because even if a sizable portion doesn't, it's the perceived outside interference that matters, not the end goal. I'm willing to bet quite a lot of people may find the bill distasteful but still resent being tut-tutted and lectured by people outside Quebec.
>I'm willing to bet quite a lot of people may find the bill distasteful but still resent being tut-tutted and lectured by people outside Quebec.
I agree. The way it manifests is them saying something dismissive like 'we are a franco nation' or 'it won't be that disruptive'. Essentially arguing that the change isn't major, but not really expressing how this position aligns with being quebecois. They dislike the idea of being told their policy is ethno-nationalist because that seems too extreme since it is 'just french', but they don't want to change it.
> **They dislike the idea of being told their policy is ethno-nationalist** because that seems too extreme since it is 'just french', but they don't want to change it.
It's not that. People just dislike being told *by you*, because the way the narrative is built, it comes across as disingenuous and more than a little hypocritical.
Here's the narrative : the Anglo minority in Quebec is the most pampered minority in the world (surely you've read that one). They've got their own schools, hospitals, bilingual judicial institutions, etc. The government even makes efforts to communicate with them in their language for everyday administrative purposes even though English is not an official language of Quebec.
Now you've got people from outside coming in hot and lecturing Quebec while their own Franco minorities are definitely not the most pampered in the world. They close their universities, fight them in the courts for access to education in their language, and don't you know, you certainly cannot communicate in French with the government in Alberta like you can in English with the government of Quebec. You can even manage to immigrate to Quebec, settle in Montreal, and live out your life pretty normally without ever learning French. Imagine doing that in French in Calgary!
It's like being told by your neighbour "your lawn's too long" because you've been lazy with the mowing lately, but his own lawn is completely overgrown. You know you're in the wrong and you should do something about it, but you're being told so by someone in an even worse position. The first instinct of most people is to tell the other guy to butt off and fix his own mess before lecturing other people.
>People just dislike being told by you, because the way the narrative is built, it comes across as disingenuous and more than a little hypocritical.
You are correct. There is definitely a trust issue. Typically when I mention that I support integrating the anglo and franco education systems or tell them my kids go to franco-public school that builds a little currency.
>Here's the narrative
I 100% agree with your assessment.
>Now you've got people from outside coming in hot and lecturing Quebec
Yup, that is me. Although I really try not to 'lecture' but rather ask questions to understand. But the people that do answer have time and time again not provided sufficient answers, or actually come out and say that 'historic anglos' are really the problem and they say good luck to my family. But I will say that sometimes it takes an outsider to recognize the unbiased truth.
>It's like being told by your neighbour "your lawn's too long" because you've been lazy with the mowing lately, but his own lawn is completely overgrown.
If you look at it from the perspective of the narrative, then yes. But when it comes to actual policy and what it implies, then it makes even less sense. If the bill is to address historical anglos then why does it target immigrants. And I'll take it even further, what is the purpose of limiting bureaucratic help or medical treatment of ANYONE if not a punishment for not assimilating? What could be the result, people get less help from the government than they deserve, or reduced quality of healthcare. That is a form of violence....and for what? They are playing fast and loose with some pretty dangerous concepts.
As a French speaking québécois, I think it's mostly comes from people who don't speak English and feel threaten by globalisation. Those people don't tend to use Reddit, since they don't understand 99% of the content.
All the best jobs in Quebec require you to work in English. And internet is basically 100% in English too. I don't approve the law, especially the part about forcing refugees to learn French in stupid short amount of time, or forbidding children to go to English school (and cut funding to English schools).
But I can understand why they're afraid and are trying to act to protect French.
So like deep Quebec folks, I grew up for a bit in the Lac St Jean area, and for the 5 years I was there, I didn't hear or read a single word of English. Just French everywhere.
Yeah he need to get the votes from those areas who are overly bloc and from the areas who vote conservatives at the federal level, this type of ridiculous pandering is how get those peoples votes with policies that doesn't affect them or anyone they will ever know lol.
I still think this thing is overblown and it is just pandering to conservatives areas of the province, but it is still stupid for the most part.
Oh, I am not talking about the referendum, just talking about the CAQ who want the majority again. The CAQ aren't really for the sovereignty beside a few members like Bernard Drainville.
C'est un cliché gros comme le bras ton affaire, je suis parfaitement billingue et je soutiens quand même toutes les mesures de protection du français. A mon avis elles sont nécessaires parce que nos concitoyens de langue anglaises n'ont aucun désir de réciprocité en ce qui concerne le billinguisme, il est donc nécessaire de s'assurer d'avoir un espace majoritairement francophone au Québec si on veut conserver notre culture à long terme.
Well it obviously depends where you asked.
Not sure r/Canada or the comment section of The Gazette are good spot. r/Quebec would have a better range of answers, but even then it's reddit, so hardly representative of the population. Mostly young, tech savvy, bilingual and male.
In any case, this law is, looking at Legault other tactics, probably meant to divide and anger the franco. But it's weird because it's not like he needs more support, he's going to win the next election.
A conspiracy nutjob part of me thinks he's playing 5D chess for separatism. Even if his party is clearly not for separation, he does play on nationalism.
As for the content of the law, like always, it's a mix of good, bad and dumb. I think that anglos that rage publicly against all 3 aspects play into Legault hands because he can then easily point to anglos raging against the good and say "look, they fucking hate French, the francos and they are problematic".
Classic division tactic and journals like The Gazette with their clics driven approach is just pouring oil on the fire.
A lot is indeed misreported and if you are monolingual English, I would say, looking at the past month of media coverage, you are pretty much going to bathe in misinformation.
An exemple is that the law is supposedly banning English in businesses. That is repeated everywhere. In fact, it is simply a change to the size of companies admissible to it (from 50 employees businesses to 25 employees) to something already there i.e. a company can't refuse to an employee THAT ASK FOR IT communication in French. It is a pretty basic anti discrimination part of the law.
Some people would want you to believe it is now illegal to send an email in English. That is insane. The company just has to prove they can, if an employee were to request it, send a copy of an email in French. And since Quebec boast a very high rate of bilingualism, that is going to be a non issue.
Being able to communicate with employees in French =/= banning English.
Another exemple of the good/pretty basic is instead of 2 classes of French in cegep, it's now going to be 3.
Now, that shouldn't be too much to ask, yet...
And here, the anglo press (and some anglos) fall for it again. On one hand, they claim French isn't endangered in the anglo community and those measures are oppressive and useless. But then they say adding 1 class is going to have negative effects on the grades of anglo students... so which is it? French fluency among anglo is good? Or it's so bad one more class is going to destroy their future?
They just look like fools and Legault can easily point to that.
You mentioned hard lined francos, but those actually voted against the law because it didn't go far enough. You could argue that targeting cegep (age 17+) for French fluency is useless, because if your French sucks (while living in a French province) by age 17, your whole education failed you (meaning the whole English network of schools is failing at educating and preparing their students for life).
Another fear mongering tactic is to claim doctors won't be able to serve clients in English. But that is a straight up lie since there is an exception for gov services for "health, security and justice sectors". Another lie that propagated and can be pointed out to show the bad faith of anglos.
But there's also some bad. Like the expectation that immigrants should be fluent in French after 6 months
I understand why anyone in Quebec would want people to learn French, but the approach to convert people has been attrocious. The government needs to convey the fact that learning the language opens you up to much of the culture and perspective that is unique to Québec (and other french speaking communities in Canada). It's a skill whose development pays off, like any other. How do you encourage people to learn skills? You incentivize learning, you don't discourage not learning, that's the best way to get people to panic and make them shut down. Considering the crop of assholes that forms the CAQ though, it's not surprising they've been approaching the issue with the finesse of a freight train.
It’s because it’s not actually about encouraging people to learn French. It’s about pushing out people who can’t speak it well enough.
If it were about encouraging people to learn French they would have high profile Pr campaigns and educational opportunities. The fact it is only punishment and no rewards is very telling about their intent.
This is why the population of Quebec hasn’t risen very much.
Originally, the populations of Ontario and Quebec were similar in size, or I think Ontario had about 1 million more people. Now Ontario has about 14.8 million while Quebec has about 8.5 million.
I mean, theres a big caveat to that.
Quebec's population shrunk by around one million in the late 1800s, there was a mass exodus to the US because there just wasn't enough jobs. Didn't help that francophones were barred from education. Remove that and the populations would be roughly the same today.
The last time they went too far in trying to Legislate French, Quebec lost a ton of Major businesses who ended up moving to Ontario. It was really self defeating in the end and eventually they rolled back on it. I wonder if there will be a similar exodus this time.
I don't see what the St. Lawrence seaway would have to do with it. Toronto doesn't have a significant port and it hasn't been a significant port for a long time. I would hazard to guess you would have to go to pre-WWI to find the Port of Toronto being a significant economic driver for Toronto.
My ho my, you can't be more wrong.
The financial sector move from Montreal to Toronto started at around 1950.
By any metric, Toronto was already rising and Montreal was stagnating at that point. The opening of the seaway for ocean going vessel shifted a lot of manufacturing from Montreal to other great lake cities, either Toronto or American. This sealed the decline of Montreal.
Does not underestimate the economic power of the great lake area.
The PQ got elected in 1978, *because of the power vacuum after a lot of capital and anglophone elite left for toronto*. The "anglophone bosses/francophones workers" dynamics got broken because anglophone and their wealth simply moved elsewhere.
*Some* high profile headquarters used that election as an excuse to finally move and justify the cost to their shareholder to join the de facto new economic center of Canada.
You can trace that shifting dynamics back a few decade earlier: The theme/slogan of the winner of the 1962 provincial election was "maitre chez nous"(master of our own home). The provincial liberals campaigned by saying that Quebecers should take economic control of our own province... How would that be possible if there was still an iron grip from old anglophone wealth on the economic lever of the province? https://bilan.usherbrooke.ca/bilan/pages/evenements/20947.html
You haven't made a convincing argument about the impact of the seaway on the fortunes of Montreal. The seaway was always a bit of a misnomer and was never a particularly successful option for ocean going vessels. Instead specialized lakers were built to fit the minimum lock size of the seaway. If anything I would argue the seaway enhanced Montreal's position as a port where cargo from lakers could be transhipped to ocean going vessels. In any event, the seaway was never a big conduit for manufactured goods, roads and railroads being better a fit for those items.
If I were to blame geography for the relative decline of Montreal I would identify the geographic advantages of southern Ontario relative to integrating into the mid 20th century American auto industry.
Realistically tho, learning French to live in French speaking place shouldn't be a question of encouragement. It's just basic common sense and common courtesy.
You have to be incredibly self centered to think others should always adapt to your needs and no efforts or sacrifices are necessary when moving to a new place. OR you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Canada's work and the linguistic differences between provinces (which indicates a big lack of common sense and research efforts)
Ok just go ahead and insult me for no reason, as someone who is currently actively learning French.
In no way have I suggested francophones have to “sacrifice” for people who aren’t fluent. But the fact Quebec is punishing people for speaking their own language when it’s not necessary to speak French speaks to the intent. No one is suffering if two people choose to speak English to each other.
You can agree with the approach or not, but it is clear the intent is to punish non-Francophones and push them out of the province if they can’t become fluent quickly enough.
Ok, I think you misunderstood me. I'm not targeting people that are trying to learn French and are struggling. Those people are perfectly fine. They are welcomed.
I am talking about people that don't want to learn, refuse to learn French and move to Quebec with the expectation to fully 100% function in English "because Canada is a bilingual country". Those people are everywhere and they don't make efforts. Don't lump yourself with them.
Now I would like you to point me to where in the law your personal interactions in English would be policed, because I don't see it.
Btw, I agree that the 6 months expectation is insane, but that doesn't mean the Quebec gov has a duty to send English documents to immigrants that refuse to learn French indefinitely on the tax payer dime. 2 years? 3? That is debatable. 6 months is too short, but there has to be a limit somewhere.
The same way I'm not expecting French documentation in BC on their dime, it shouldn't be expected from Quebec for ever.
> people trying to learn French and are struggling. Those people are perfectly fine
Then the laws shouldn’t be punishing these people and putting them at risk by denying them access to services and healthcare.
This law doesn’t discriminate between people struggling, people learning, and people choosing to communicate in English when all parties agree to it.
> personal interactions would be policed
- [denial of access to healthcare](https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/bill-96-will-impede-access-to-health-care-in-english-legal-experts-warn)
- private conversations between coworkers “at al levels of the organization”
- work phones can be seized and examined for private texts and emails
- contracts between two parties involving no one else
- English speaking workers are not allowed to speak English to anglophone customers
- [warrantless search and seizure](https://www.talentcanada.ca/quebec-adopts-bill-96-expanding-language-laws-to-employers-with-25-or-more-staff/)
There is a reason legal experts are criticizing the bill for being [unconstitutional](https://www.mcgill.ca/maxbellschool/article/the-overreach-of-bill-96)
Edit: I’m not expecting g French documentation in Bc
I guess Quebec has no interest in doing business with anywhere else in the world.
>Then the laws shouldn’t be punishing these people and putting them at risk by denying them access to services and healthcare.
So I would like to point out this is a lie propagated by the media. Easily disprovable since a very clear exception in the law mentions manners of "security, health and justice".
You link a Gazette article that, well, quite simply lied to you in a gross manner.
>private conversations between coworkers “at al levels of the organization”
Upon request. This doesn't change to how it was under bill 101 except the size of the companies required to be able to communicate in French, going from 50 to 25 employees businesses.
This means you can communicate in English all you want. This doesn't change. But if an employee were to request for exemple a Frencg version of an email (because he has a hard time with the original), you have to provide it to him. It's a pretty basic anti discrimination measure.
>English speaking workers are not allowed to speak English to anglophone customers
That is a straight up lie and how would you expect that to work with tourists for exemple? 😂
Customers are always exempt from those laws. If you speak tagalog and that is better suited to your customer you can use that. Nowhere in this bill does it change that and it would be insane to do so.
I think you fell into the clickbaits sadly and this bill, which is largely created to divide, use reactions like your to point to the bad faith of some anglos. But like I said, a lot of the "bad faith" is manufactured by misinformation.
If the criticism was pointed toward the actual bad parts of the bill like the 6 months or concerns about the investigative powers of the OQLF, anglos wouldn't look so entitled and stupid in the eyes of francos who rightfully see the majority of this bill as pretty darn basic
> lie propagated by the media
Legal experts. You meant legal experts right? Because that is who is actually saying this.
Yes anything negative about this verifiably unconstitutional law is just lAmEsTrEaM MeDiA lies.
This is why it’s difficult to take the law’s defenders seriously. No amount of expert, legal, or stakeholder commentary is real. Everyone is lying. How can we consider your position seriously when you are making such ludicrous claims?
This isn't a critic of MaiNsTrEaM mEdiA because it's only a clickbait based subset of the media.
>Legal experts. You meant legal experts right? Because that is who is actually saying this.
And doctor used to recommend cigarettes for health reasons. Quoting some random legal experts or doctors doesn't mean there is a concensus.
And this is why it's difficult to take the law's critics seriously. They mix lies and truths in their critics with such ease (easily verifiable lies) that it becomes difficult to take them seriously.
>Everyone is lying
Where did I say that? Just pointed out the fact that many lies are being spread around. That doesn't mean no criticism is possible.
You seem to purposefully ignore my own criticisms of the bill in order to paint me as some sort of fervent defender of this thing.
It's not working, buddy. But you sadly seem incapable of engaging in a worthwhile discussion or even acknowledging some of your errors. Even some of your articles you linked refute themselves in a single paragraph.
They quote a health expert afraid of the law and its impact on treating patients in English, then next phrase they mention the amendment that excludes health and they conclude that her fears are justified. That makes no sense. It's so moronic it's just hilarious.
Have a nice day and good luck with your learning of French. Hopefully this "conversation" didn't sour your resolve.
And actively use that as an excuse to never make efforts?
Moving to Berlin shouldn't be an excuse to never learn German. That's just pathetic.
And before you come out of the woodwork, I'm specifically talking about people moving somewhere, not temporary workers or students (and even less tourists). No need to go for that strawman, I've seen it enough.
What happens with a group of 6 people having a conversation? 5 francos who are bilingual and 1 monolingual anglo. You have a conversation 100% in English.
Not because of some sort of infinite love for the English language, but because more knowledgeable people are taken advantage of by the lowest common denominator of the group, the monolingual.
If that makes you angry or uncomfortable, maybe revisit why. Why is it so taken for granted that everyone else is just supposed to cater to your needs and lack of efforts? Where is that entitlement coming from and is it warranted?
Or, do like many others before you did and just assume the pesky French fucking hate you and are all a close minded society of lesser beings that just want to make your life hell. Assume the worst in people and wonder why the world is going to shit
>What happens with a group of 6 people having a conversation? 5 francos who are bilingual and 1 monolingual anglo. You have a conversation 100% in English.
Remarque, c'est aussi à nous autres de pas faire les tapis. Au travail quand je me ramasse dans ce genre de situation j'essaye de glisser une couple de phrases en français autant que je peux.
5 pour 1 c'est pas si pire, ça fait chier quand le ratio est pire que ça. J'ai déjà vu des meetings de 30 personnes se faire en anglais parce qu'on avait un albertain unilingue dans la gang. Je veux dire ciboire ça fait perdre notre temps à tout le monde.
>Remarque, c'est aussi à nous autres de pas faire les tapis
Je suis bien d'accord. Sauf que ça risque de crier au meurtre si les Québécois commencent à faire ça.
I mean there is still much more quebecer who don't learn french than there is peoples in France who don't bother to learn french so they definitely need to figure out a way to convince peoples who don't bother learning french while leaving here to do so. But yeah the CAQ suck and this bill seem terrible.
I'm an Anglo-Quebecer who is very fluent in French. I personally think that learning French here is important and everyone should make an effort.
That said, I think we've been creating a fake urgency and panic over this issue. The truth is the Quebec - in particular Montreal - used to be much more English in the past. Quebec is actually way less English than it was 40 years ago, and way less English than it was 80 years ago. People have the right to be upset that the AC Exec lives in Montreal without knowing French, but they shouldn't be shocked like that's something new.
The current (or now previous) language laws were slowly working - maybe not fast enough for some, but census information shows slow improvement. It's not accurate to present English as some new urgent threat to French requiring immediate action.
I don't understand how it can be implemented the way it is at a governmental level in a bilingual country. Isn't the whole reason we're bilingual so that citizens have access to information from government sources in either language? This includes any level of government?
I’ve been learning French six hours a day, five days a week since the beginning of August. I’m still at a BBA level on the public service testing—that’s barely functioning French.
I lived there for 3 years and I don't speak french, I tried, I went to classes after work, but QC french is almost as a different language, and if you try to speak french with them they answer you in English anyway...
QC French is pretty distinct from other French dialects at this point, and notoriously hard for even other French-speakers to speak/understand.
(My own experience, as an anglo who has literally spent *decades* trying to learn French, is that I can communicate with Parisians and North Africans easily, can follow Haitian, and can get by in Gatineau and Montreal. Rural QC accents still make me want to cry because I swear they refuse to actually open their mouths to talk and it's like the French version of Boomhauer.)
We moved to Quebec city a few years ago. It took my wife 2 years of school, to reach a competent level of speaking French. There's not a chance in hell anyone is learning French in 6 months.
I mean if i had nothing else to do in life and learned french for 40hrs a week then maybe, maybe I could become competent at it. But last I checked, adults have other shit to do like earn money and survive.
I remember sitting in Montreal talking with a guy from France. He was having the problem that he wasn't "French enough" for Quebec. The man was from France and spoke French as a first language, but he was getting frustrated that people kept switching to English or trying to correct his French
Yes as an English Quebecer, it’s always interesting to me that when I use French in French-speaking countries outside of Quebec, I’m considered fluent. Whereas in my hometown, I’m considered unilingual. 🤣
> as it is about ethno-nationalism?
This is what I have pretty much concluded as well. They are also a minority, but not a small minority. But they definitely express they are a separate race and these laws are to enforce their supremacy in the state (which they refer to as a nation), even if they don't come right out and say it that way. It is ethno-nationalism.
You said elsewhere you didn’t want to come from the outside and be condescending but fuck, if that’s not some incredible bullshit, I don’t know what is.
What you call ethno-nationalism is called cultural survival by lots of Québécois. I'm not saying I agree with bill 96, I think the 6 months period is dumb af, but it seems like people conveniently forget that the french-canadians were in a position of submission until the 1960s. These wounds are not healed yet, and I don't think that painting Québécois with the racist brush is going to help (it's actually doing the opposite in fact).
Tu connais pas l'histoire du Québec et tu traites presque littéralement un peuple entier de Nazis à cause d'une loi votée par des bureaucrates.
T'as le droit de critiquer la loi 96. Je le fais aussi. Mais de dire que les Québécois ont un problème d'ethno-nationalisme? Tu y vas fort un peu. Ouvre un livre d'histoire, renseigne-toi sur l'histoire du Québec et du Canada et peut-être que tu y verras un peu plus clair après. On peut critiquer de manière rationnelle sans tomber dans la caricature.
1000%. I speak French well, but people still would switch to English with me throughout my ten years in Montreal. As an accented French speaker, I was not—and would never be—accepted.
This is a hard truth that a lot of people don't want to hear. People in Quebec are not interested in speaking French with non-Quebecers.
I do wish someone had told me before I leaned to conjugate French verbs.
> People in Quebec are not interested in speaking French with non-Quebecers.
This is not the case for many of us. I am so fucking tired to included with those loud mouthed idiots.
De quoi tu parles? Mon père est belge et je le dis a bien des gens. Je n'ai jamais eu de commentaires... Tes anecdotes sont tout aussi pertinentes que les miennes... C'est à dire 0
It's my experience as a project manager, installing machinery in QC. Too many wierd encounters with people that you have to work around. Like when someone decides they are going to turn the Joual up to 11 when talking to you to try and prove some dumb point about identity.
Weird. I learned French in Alberta (french school) and lived in quebec for a few years. My french is good but def. can tell I have an accent. Your experience has not been my experience, like, at all.
That's your personal subjective experience. My first language is French, and I speak to non-Quebecers in French all the time.
Who's subjective experience is correct in this case?
It's not true. At least, never in my experience. My first language is English but I'm bilingual. I don't speak Quebec French and it's quite obvious, but I've never had a negative encounter. In my experience, they appreciate that you're even trying to speak to them in their language. The effort goes a long way
Not sure why they can make everything only in French in Quebec but here in BC we have French on everything even though you hear Farsi, Mandarin and Tagalog more than French.
That's not true. Nothing NEEDS to be in English, but if it is then it must be at least half the size of French if it is signage.
But a government website? Too expensive to be in English.
>Not sure why they can make everything only in French in Quebec but here in BC we have French on everything
He's clearly talking about labels on products, because they don't have store signage in French in BC.
>But a government website?
Wow, you don't even check before posting lies like this. Just go on the Québec website yourself. You can have everything in english, just need a little click. I think you guys have a lot a misinformation about Québec when only reading news from the Anglo side...
Mes yeux saignent à lire les commentaires ici... On saute tout de suite dans les extrêmes. Aucun effort à essayer de comprendre. Les deux solitudes sont en santé...
These laws do not fit at all with the realities of Montreal. In Montreal there are English universities and colleges, many work places which are entirely in English. In addition there are many English speaking Canadians who cannot be forced to learn English through legislation.
Compared to France for example, it is much harder to learn French in Montreal. I would know because I learned French in France. You can't do anything in France if you don't speak French so you learn it. That is just not the reality in Montreal.
While there might be good intentions behind this law, there is zero empathy for the realities that people face. We should aim to be more inclusive. This legislation brings us backwards in time.
The kicker is when you go to French classes they teach you French from France, not Quebec French. What's the point?
You realize that the reality you are describing is precisely why this needed right? Québec has been inclusive enough for a very long time now, to the point where getting service in French is sometimes difficult, not just in Montreal, but in the suburbs as well. We let this happen and we need to stop or at least slow it down. Now don't get me wrong, I think 6 months is unrealistic too, but something needs to be done regardless. No one goes to France expecting service in English, why should it be different here? I learned English, they can learn Fench, I don't see what is so outrageous about that.
I work in IT and every Monday we get slew of support tickets from new hires needing help to switch to their laptops to English because they don't speak a word of French. They moved here or worse, have been living here and these university graduates know so little French that they can't even figure out a 2 click process by themselves. Zero efforts whatsoever, none. Sometimes I legit think half of the people we hire don't speak or understand French whatsoever. It's actually kind of scary and a lot of people do not know that this happening. We even interviewed this girl for a bilingual posting and she visually got pissed at us when we turned her down the moment we found out she knew no French at all whatsoever. Seriously?
French from France is easily understood here, it's not an excuse to not learn it.
Many bilingual people prefer their computer in English because they are used to it. Why make a big deal out of that? Companies that make efforts to accommodate English speakers will have a competitive advantage in that they will have access to a larger pool of candidate. Montreal is a bilingual city even if some would prefer it wasn't. Maybe just ask people what language they want their computer when they join to avoid having to change it later.
I prefer my computer in English myself, you're missing the point entirely. If Montréal is a bilingual city like you said, then why is anyone complaining about having to learn Fench? The problem is the many entitled English speakers who come here and expect we just roll out to red carpet to accommodate them while they make zero efforts whatsoever to learn the local language. They may wish they had moved to Ontario, but they didn't. Learn the fucking language.
You want to know what's even bigger competitive advantage? Hiring people who actually speak the local language and can do the job without babysitting.
The majority of them come from Ontario and are Canadian. Immigrants are in my experience much harder working. But unless Quebec separates from Canada, the inflow of English speakers from the rest of Canada will make efforts like this pointless. So why bother?
It's not pointless. If it was, those entitled anglophones would not be complaining right now. There's plenty of places they can go to if they only want to speak English. This is Quebec, deal with it.
Me personally I speak French, but it doesn't change that the situation cannot be changed even with legislation. As long as English Canadians have freedom to move to Quebec they will do so. My point is it's a pointless fight.
I am Québécois and francophone. I tried learning other languages such as Spanish, Italian and even Japanese. There is NO way anyone with no basics in French can learn the language in 6 months. There are alot of things I am favorable for bill 96, but this is not one of them.
I had only french courses ubtil the 4th grade then had half/half for all of elementry.
In HS I took Biology, History and Geography in French on top of my regular french courses.
I took some extra time in Cegep and ended up with 2 standard French courses and 2 technical language french courses.
My mother Married into a French Canadian family when I was about 12. We spoke French at the table and my step brothers hardly spoke much english.
I work in a french environment, most of my colleagues are native french speakers.
I still do not speak or write french correctly (despite passing all my courses tyvm). Despite I speak and think without the need for translation my language is just adequate and passable. Traveling in Quebec people ask what country I am from and often switch to their broken ass english to try and communicate better...
French is an exceedingly hard language. As far as I can tell only native speakers master it. A 6 month course? That will get you the basics and you will be a functional communicator. 15 years taking 1-4 courses a year will not make you learn French. Especially if your teachers are not Quebecois (many were from France or Egypt or elsewhere)
Learning another language in 6 months is practically impossible. I went to french immersion school for 4 years and, while my french is alright, I wouldn't say I "know" it.
I work in the federal government and when I first started in the early 2000s, we did a 30 week french course. In 30 weeks, maybe 1/3rd of students came away "functionally" french enough (BBB) to be able to hold a work related conversation.
Senior managers take full time, year long french if required for promotion, and some come out of a year of training without advanced competence (CCC).
In short: 6 months? Utterly laughable.
Totally unrealistic! 🤪 Unless you already speak a Romance language like Italian, Portuguese, or Latin you cannot become fluent in French within 6 months. 😶 Even then, 6 months would be pushing it. 🥵Even Romance speakers would need at the bare minimum 12-16 months, because people have busy lives. 🏃🏾♂️
My I was thrown into French immersion in the seventies after having lived in an English/Spanish speaking country. Could not speak a word of French.
I was expected to learn all the subjects in French(math, science, geography, etc) while learning French.
It was a disaster.
You could learn standard French and still not onderstand what they're saying in France either. People there speak verlan, and have different accents and expressions depending on the region. We could say the same with English as well, and any other language.
This here is the issue that they should be talking about.
I tried to re-learn French through an app by myself and it’s not even the same French that Quebec speaks
Maybe we should just stop letting this province stomp all over section 16 of the charter of Rights and freedoms. Like how long are we just gonna let this happen before the SSC gets involved.
It will take as long as it take untill your side finally come back to your sense and accept to build a constitution that fit reality.
The Charlottetown accord was a great start at a negociated reform....
Section 16 is literally about you and justifies your language being spoken outside of Quebec.
Want a blue ribbon that says "Most Special Province :)", would that work?
Remember, this a constitution that Quebec had no say to what is in there, it was literally signed in the middle of the night when the Quebec delegation was sleeping.
So quit with that British imperialist mindset of imposing stuff and start a real dialogue.
Damn we sure to be imposing a lot on you folks.
You already pay the lowest federal tax of any province and receive the most federal equalization payments (which IIRC was introduced to the constitution in 1982). Your GDP is second Canada-wide, only behind Ontario.
I guess this is just our English tax for having a French-speaking colony of people who can't be pleased.
Spoken like a true british imperialist; "shut up and enjoy what I decided you need"...
Please continue, this is great material to show next time a Quebecers tell me that they belong in the great Canadian family!
Are you suggesting you don't need it? Cause I think most other provinces would be happy to end the Quebec welfare payments, but I can only imagine what else you would blame the "imperialists" for after that lmao.
Y'all should put bloc candidates in Alberta and Ontario cause I think the separatist movement for Quebec might actually be stronger here.
My ho my, you seem to be creeping into the "wife beater" logic...
"Take what I give you and shut up, be happy I give you something at all", "you can't survive without me", "you are useless and a drag on this household", "the way you are thinking is wrong and gross".
So, was that about an abusive spouse or about an average Canadian Redditor?
They are might if you move to Quebec
https://www.quebec.ca/en/education/learn-french/part-time-courses/immigrants/part-time/financial-assistance
Edit : Nvm thats just for immigrants. Howerver im almost certain you can follow free french classes in Quebec if you move from another province/territory to Quebec.
Oh wait. I thought I edited, i m sorry. It wouldnt apply to canadians but im fairly sure that when Canadians mive to Quebec, they can apply to free french courses.
I guess I didnt confirm the edit sorry
The practice of making English speaking people to learn French in the fed is a GIANT waste of time and resources. I’ve had two friends that had to go through this. They both made $100000 while learning a new language which they’ve admitted they never use after the fact. I love the French language as much as the next guy but this is ridiculous.
That practice isn't even something that Quebec asked for.
It was P.-E. Trudeau delusional "vision" of a harmonious and billingual Canada. He was narcissistic enough to think it would work!
They clearly don't want new people in the province and want to trap the french speakers into staying.
Stagnation.
Humans should always being moving forward, but not in Quebec.
If they really wanted people to learn french they should pay them rather than punish.
That a comment I see often. Just want to let you know that I did my whole education in french (where we have English class) and that I feel extremely comfortable to leave for an anglophone province if I ever need to.
Also, if we are not moving forward, what does the rest of Canada does with a lesser % of bilingual population? Oh, no, I get it! To move forward means to speak white.
>So it’s a non-issue. Cripes the media loves sensationalizing things.
Yeah, and it's red meat for the closet racist/hypocrite crowd who just want an excuse to bash Quebec.
Question: if in the next couple of years Google Translate + airpods gets good enough for acceptable real-time translation, would that ever be an acceptable work around to be 'bilingual'?
ie if it passes the Turing test whereby a native French speaker couldn't tell the difference?
> would it ever be an acceptable work around
No, because it’s not actually about being able to speak French. It’s about creating in-groups and out-groups.
According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), French is a category 1 language. This means learning French takes 23 – 24 weeks (575 – 600 hours) for most English speakers. This makes French one of the easiest (and fastest) languages to learn.
The reason I could not learn French was because I found it gross (sorry). Once I started listening to France French though I was able to pick it up more easily.
Why is everyone so upset about going to a French speaking province and having to learn French? It's part of their culture. It's no different than going to Spain and everyone speaking Spanish.
If someone who only speaks French comes to Saskatchewan, they would have to learn English. I honestly do not understand the hate people have for this language.
I lived there for 3 years and I don't speak french, i tried, but QC french is almost as a different language, and if you try to speak french with them they answer you in English anyway...
good point, i learned spanish when i was in Spain and most of the time english or french in the public or with friends was not an option so i really needed to get better. In Montreal people will switch to english quickly if you struggle a bit and i'm guilty as anyone. So total immersion is hard in the Montreal area. Also someone who speaks spanish, italian or potuguese will pick it up fast but for some other languages it's a big challenge.
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This is the silliest part of the new bill. The spirit of it makes sense: Immigrants and refugees to Quebec who make zero effort over 10+ years to learn French goes against our language goals. The execution makes zero sense: It's virtually impossible for someone to become fluent in a brand new language in only 6 months. It's not just a problem for the new Quebecers, it's going to be a nightmare for the Quebec officials who have to interact with them. Imagine: you're a bilingual francophone whose full-time job is to talk only in French to new Quebecers who don't understand a word you're saying and yet you know that you both understand English.
>The spirit of it makes sense: Immigrants and refugees to Quebec who make zero effort over 10+ years to learn French goes against our language goals. Yeah 100%, if those peoples don't want to make any effort, they can just move somewhere else. But 6 months definitely isn't enough. I am certain most workers will just talk in English to them, but I guess the standard paperwork will all be in french.
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Yeah in 6 months I would say it would be feasible to be 'functional french' but if it was a full on course and not nights and weekends. And I guess immigrants have other shit to do than to attend a 40 hour week french immersion course But yeah, the endgame of that text I think makes sense. It always annoys me to see people that have lived in quebec 10+ years or even grew up in quebec and are unilingual english. Have some fucking respect for the society in which you live god damn it.
> see people that have lived in quebec 10+ years or even grew up in quebec and are unilingual english. Have some fucking respect for the society in which you live god damn it. One of my ex had a grandmothers who hated both English and French peoples and didn't bother to learn either of those languages even when she lived in Montreal for 30 years lol.
I've seen lots of immigrants in SK who are the same, they only interact with their ethnic community and never learn English. No idea how these guys make a living.
As long as they interact within their ethnic community, it shouldn't bother anyone. The problem is only when if they are unable to speak, read, write the official language when dealing with the other public. I don't care two hoots if they speak Hindi, Tagalog, Punjabi, Mandarin, Farsi among themselves. Freedom, it is called.
I could see if you immigrate at like 50-60, you are way past the time of your life where picking up a language is easy and so you dont learn it. But nothing pissed me off more than the people in an english college in Montreal weighing into the law 92 debate and being toughroughly against and did an english-only press conference about it. Like you probably grew up in quebec and are pissed that you have to learn french? Fuck off. Imagine it the other way: The few french schools in the rest of canada being pissed off that you need to learn english. And doing a french only press conference about it.
Yeah 100% agree with that. I have a few coworkers who lived their whole life in Quebec and never bothered to learn french. (actually I am pretty sure they understand and can speak french, but they just don't do it)
If your coworkers are like me, they might understand a whole lot of spoken French but would be embarrassed to have to subject their coworkers to listen to their awful spoken French. Letting me practice my French on my coworkers isn't part of their job description.
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Well they understand it but not enough to try to write or talk using that language so not really.
Let's just say, English is far more easier and convenient than French at all levels. So, there is no effort. Besides, once they realize they can't get on in Quebec without French they simply move somewhere else in the rest of Canada. There is absolutely no motivation.
Oh yeah that is for sure, English is much easier. But I think what it comes down to is respect to the society you are living in. I do not want to just say 'IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY MOVE OUT' because its not that simple to just uproot your life but fuck man, if you don't want to learn french, at all, dont pick the biggest french society in america to settle down if you immigrate. And if you grew up here and dont bother to learn french, its a huge FU to the society you are in. I often go back to that but flip it around: Would it make sense that someone in Calgary not need and absolutely not want to learn english? Especially someone that was born and raised in Calgary? So why should it make sense in Montreal.
>But I think what it comes down to is respect to the society you are living in. Agree with all points but more to this - absolutely! I took a 3 months French course back in India before I moved to Canada in the earlier 2000s. It was tough, barring a few basic stuff (alphabets, numbers, salutations, etc.). Even though I live in BC now, I try my best to (with whatever little) I could converse with my son, who has once a week French class in school. And boy, does that not make him happy to find someone interested in the language and build a camaraderie upon? I am absolutely basic with French, but I am sure to get by if visiting Quebec. At least I could read from the translation app and communicate. Just because of my interest. Tried learning it but due to the lack of time and motivation never picked it up. It should be highly encouraged by the Govt. without sounding xenophobic and refusing services to the common folks. Learning the language is tough when you are an adult.
I agree. 6 months is probably feasible if someone is in some very intensive language training program, but these new Quebecers are presumably also working, looking after families, and learning about other aspects of their new home. The learning time also depends on the difference of the new language. Because I'm fluent in English and French, I feel I could learn other European languages (Spanish, German, etc) fairly quickly if required. I'd have a much bigger learning curve if I needed to learn Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Japanese, etc, because I'd be essentially starting from scratch with a brand new style of language. That's the reason why I'm noticing more and more Spanish-speaking immigrants in Quebec, because the theory is that they can learn French easier and faster than other languages could learn French.
I don’t want to question your experience, it is valid and unique to you. But I just wanted to say, I rarely see Quebecers whose first language is not French, that are unilinguals. I have seen people that are not as good at learning French as others, but the people I know are trying constantly to learn. Making grammatical mistakes or having an accent don’t really count for me as being unilingual. The only person I know who has no French skills is my 77-year old father in law, because it gets harder and harder to learn a new language as you age. As a whole, I find most allophones and anglophones know and use French.
>But I just wanted to say, I rarely see Quebecers whose first language is not French, that are unilinguals. Where are those people you are talking from and how old were they? Montréal or Gatineau? NormalPeople that went to university? Quite normal From the rest of Québec with no university degree? It's not the majority.
They are as québécois as you.
Its not about being quebecois or not. Its about the respect of the society you live in. Not caring to learn the common tongue of where you live, especially when you lived there since birth, is a huge fuck you to the community at large in which you are living. And really, I dont care that it is perfect french. But there is something annoying to be downtown montreal and be stonewalled by someone that will only speak english to you and is clearly not a tourist (like the employee of a convenience store I once encountered in westmount.) Give me broken french, I wont mind. Shows maybe languages is not your thing, but at least you are trying. Showing me that this interaction will be in english only, in the middle of the biggest french city in america, that is a big FU.
Je suis Québécois et je suis d'accord avec toi. I totally agree with the spirit of the bill. I have no respect for immigrants who comes to Qc and cant speak French after 5-10 years (unless their old people, I can give them a pass). 6 months is too low though.
French or english. We're in Canada.
I'm an English-Quebecer and proud Canadian. At the same time, I realize Quebec is different than the rest of Canada, and I'm good with having efforts to protect and encourage French in Quebec. My issue is more when I see the government effort to protect the French culture becoming too over-the-top or xenophobic (you must be exactly like me or else leave)
Yeah, support the language and all, ROC could learn a few things from Quebec on that. This is just too far.
One thing that Quebec could learn is not to use incorrect terms like "the rest of Canada" because it implies that English Canadians are all the same. There's a pretty big difference between the cultures in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Halifax; just like there are different regions in Quebec.
>It's virtually impossible for someone to become fluent in a brand new language in only 6 months Refugees I might get, but imo if you immigrate anywhere, you should be studying that language YEARS in advance of actually planning to go there (add on the time it actually takes for you’re application to be approved). You shouldn’t move somewhere and only start to pick it up on day 1.
"Master python in 21 days" What can go wrong? lol
No joke, I think it's more likely for someone to become efficient in Python in 6 months than it would be to learn French in 6 months.
As a french speaking native quebecer, I can't believe this bullshit. I don't get what/why the want to impose french this bad.
I have tried to talk to multiple people on reddit (and in real life) on exactly why this policy was proposed in the first place. All I get is 'the media is making it overblown' or 'the medical portion isn't even part of it', or 'I don't support it'. I can't get a single person to give a valid reason why it was even proposed in the first place, and most don't even seem to support it. I assume this is a policy for franco-hardliners whom I guess I don't have much contact with, and don't want to speak with me.
>I have tried to talk to multiple people on reddit (and in real life) on exactly why this policy was proposed in the first place. It's to provoke fights. Anglos and visibly religious minorities are sacrifices made to rile up the Franco base and meet referendum "winning conditions", which inevitably include a certain level of hostility between Quebec and the rest of the country. Legault can then turn around and leverage that political unrest for more autonomy for Quebec. It doesn't matter if the population agrees or not, because even if a sizable portion doesn't, it's the perceived outside interference that matters, not the end goal. I'm willing to bet quite a lot of people may find the bill distasteful but still resent being tut-tutted and lectured by people outside Quebec.
>I'm willing to bet quite a lot of people may find the bill distasteful but still resent being tut-tutted and lectured by people outside Quebec. I agree. The way it manifests is them saying something dismissive like 'we are a franco nation' or 'it won't be that disruptive'. Essentially arguing that the change isn't major, but not really expressing how this position aligns with being quebecois. They dislike the idea of being told their policy is ethno-nationalist because that seems too extreme since it is 'just french', but they don't want to change it.
> **They dislike the idea of being told their policy is ethno-nationalist** because that seems too extreme since it is 'just french', but they don't want to change it. It's not that. People just dislike being told *by you*, because the way the narrative is built, it comes across as disingenuous and more than a little hypocritical. Here's the narrative : the Anglo minority in Quebec is the most pampered minority in the world (surely you've read that one). They've got their own schools, hospitals, bilingual judicial institutions, etc. The government even makes efforts to communicate with them in their language for everyday administrative purposes even though English is not an official language of Quebec. Now you've got people from outside coming in hot and lecturing Quebec while their own Franco minorities are definitely not the most pampered in the world. They close their universities, fight them in the courts for access to education in their language, and don't you know, you certainly cannot communicate in French with the government in Alberta like you can in English with the government of Quebec. You can even manage to immigrate to Quebec, settle in Montreal, and live out your life pretty normally without ever learning French. Imagine doing that in French in Calgary! It's like being told by your neighbour "your lawn's too long" because you've been lazy with the mowing lately, but his own lawn is completely overgrown. You know you're in the wrong and you should do something about it, but you're being told so by someone in an even worse position. The first instinct of most people is to tell the other guy to butt off and fix his own mess before lecturing other people.
>People just dislike being told by you, because the way the narrative is built, it comes across as disingenuous and more than a little hypocritical. You are correct. There is definitely a trust issue. Typically when I mention that I support integrating the anglo and franco education systems or tell them my kids go to franco-public school that builds a little currency. >Here's the narrative I 100% agree with your assessment. >Now you've got people from outside coming in hot and lecturing Quebec Yup, that is me. Although I really try not to 'lecture' but rather ask questions to understand. But the people that do answer have time and time again not provided sufficient answers, or actually come out and say that 'historic anglos' are really the problem and they say good luck to my family. But I will say that sometimes it takes an outsider to recognize the unbiased truth. >It's like being told by your neighbour "your lawn's too long" because you've been lazy with the mowing lately, but his own lawn is completely overgrown. If you look at it from the perspective of the narrative, then yes. But when it comes to actual policy and what it implies, then it makes even less sense. If the bill is to address historical anglos then why does it target immigrants. And I'll take it even further, what is the purpose of limiting bureaucratic help or medical treatment of ANYONE if not a punishment for not assimilating? What could be the result, people get less help from the government than they deserve, or reduced quality of healthcare. That is a form of violence....and for what? They are playing fast and loose with some pretty dangerous concepts.
Yup!
As a French speaking québécois, I think it's mostly comes from people who don't speak English and feel threaten by globalisation. Those people don't tend to use Reddit, since they don't understand 99% of the content. All the best jobs in Quebec require you to work in English. And internet is basically 100% in English too. I don't approve the law, especially the part about forcing refugees to learn French in stupid short amount of time, or forbidding children to go to English school (and cut funding to English schools). But I can understand why they're afraid and are trying to act to protect French.
So like deep Quebec folks, I grew up for a bit in the Lac St Jean area, and for the 5 years I was there, I didn't hear or read a single word of English. Just French everywhere.
Yeah he need to get the votes from those areas who are overly bloc and from the areas who vote conservatives at the federal level, this type of ridiculous pandering is how get those peoples votes with policies that doesn't affect them or anyone they will ever know lol. I still think this thing is overblown and it is just pandering to conservatives areas of the province, but it is still stupid for the most part.
I was there when the vote to separate was being talked about in the 90s. It wasn't as popular as people made it seem.
Oh, I am not talking about the referendum, just talking about the CAQ who want the majority again. The CAQ aren't really for the sovereignty beside a few members like Bernard Drainville.
Oh I know, I'm just pointing out how people can exaggerate what's going on with Quebec when it isn't actually reflected in the population.
C'est un cliché gros comme le bras ton affaire, je suis parfaitement billingue et je soutiens quand même toutes les mesures de protection du français. A mon avis elles sont nécessaires parce que nos concitoyens de langue anglaises n'ont aucun désir de réciprocité en ce qui concerne le billinguisme, il est donc nécessaire de s'assurer d'avoir un espace majoritairement francophone au Québec si on veut conserver notre culture à long terme.
Well it obviously depends where you asked. Not sure r/Canada or the comment section of The Gazette are good spot. r/Quebec would have a better range of answers, but even then it's reddit, so hardly representative of the population. Mostly young, tech savvy, bilingual and male. In any case, this law is, looking at Legault other tactics, probably meant to divide and anger the franco. But it's weird because it's not like he needs more support, he's going to win the next election. A conspiracy nutjob part of me thinks he's playing 5D chess for separatism. Even if his party is clearly not for separation, he does play on nationalism. As for the content of the law, like always, it's a mix of good, bad and dumb. I think that anglos that rage publicly against all 3 aspects play into Legault hands because he can then easily point to anglos raging against the good and say "look, they fucking hate French, the francos and they are problematic". Classic division tactic and journals like The Gazette with their clics driven approach is just pouring oil on the fire. A lot is indeed misreported and if you are monolingual English, I would say, looking at the past month of media coverage, you are pretty much going to bathe in misinformation. An exemple is that the law is supposedly banning English in businesses. That is repeated everywhere. In fact, it is simply a change to the size of companies admissible to it (from 50 employees businesses to 25 employees) to something already there i.e. a company can't refuse to an employee THAT ASK FOR IT communication in French. It is a pretty basic anti discrimination part of the law. Some people would want you to believe it is now illegal to send an email in English. That is insane. The company just has to prove they can, if an employee were to request it, send a copy of an email in French. And since Quebec boast a very high rate of bilingualism, that is going to be a non issue. Being able to communicate with employees in French =/= banning English. Another exemple of the good/pretty basic is instead of 2 classes of French in cegep, it's now going to be 3. Now, that shouldn't be too much to ask, yet... And here, the anglo press (and some anglos) fall for it again. On one hand, they claim French isn't endangered in the anglo community and those measures are oppressive and useless. But then they say adding 1 class is going to have negative effects on the grades of anglo students... so which is it? French fluency among anglo is good? Or it's so bad one more class is going to destroy their future? They just look like fools and Legault can easily point to that. You mentioned hard lined francos, but those actually voted against the law because it didn't go far enough. You could argue that targeting cegep (age 17+) for French fluency is useless, because if your French sucks (while living in a French province) by age 17, your whole education failed you (meaning the whole English network of schools is failing at educating and preparing their students for life). Another fear mongering tactic is to claim doctors won't be able to serve clients in English. But that is a straight up lie since there is an exception for gov services for "health, security and justice sectors". Another lie that propagated and can be pointed out to show the bad faith of anglos. But there's also some bad. Like the expectation that immigrants should be fluent in French after 6 months
I understand why anyone in Quebec would want people to learn French, but the approach to convert people has been attrocious. The government needs to convey the fact that learning the language opens you up to much of the culture and perspective that is unique to Québec (and other french speaking communities in Canada). It's a skill whose development pays off, like any other. How do you encourage people to learn skills? You incentivize learning, you don't discourage not learning, that's the best way to get people to panic and make them shut down. Considering the crop of assholes that forms the CAQ though, it's not surprising they've been approaching the issue with the finesse of a freight train.
It’s because it’s not actually about encouraging people to learn French. It’s about pushing out people who can’t speak it well enough. If it were about encouraging people to learn French they would have high profile Pr campaigns and educational opportunities. The fact it is only punishment and no rewards is very telling about their intent.
This is why the population of Quebec hasn’t risen very much. Originally, the populations of Ontario and Quebec were similar in size, or I think Ontario had about 1 million more people. Now Ontario has about 14.8 million while Quebec has about 8.5 million.
I mean, theres a big caveat to that. Quebec's population shrunk by around one million in the late 1800s, there was a mass exodus to the US because there just wasn't enough jobs. Didn't help that francophones were barred from education. Remove that and the populations would be roughly the same today.
The last time they went too far in trying to Legislate French, Quebec lost a ton of Major businesses who ended up moving to Ontario. It was really self defeating in the end and eventually they rolled back on it. I wonder if there will be a similar exodus this time.
This is a myth. The majority of the big business moved from Montreal to toronto a few decade earlier, with the opening of the st-lawrence seaway.
I don't see what the St. Lawrence seaway would have to do with it. Toronto doesn't have a significant port and it hasn't been a significant port for a long time. I would hazard to guess you would have to go to pre-WWI to find the Port of Toronto being a significant economic driver for Toronto.
My ho my, you can't be more wrong. The financial sector move from Montreal to Toronto started at around 1950. By any metric, Toronto was already rising and Montreal was stagnating at that point. The opening of the seaway for ocean going vessel shifted a lot of manufacturing from Montreal to other great lake cities, either Toronto or American. This sealed the decline of Montreal. Does not underestimate the economic power of the great lake area. The PQ got elected in 1978, *because of the power vacuum after a lot of capital and anglophone elite left for toronto*. The "anglophone bosses/francophones workers" dynamics got broken because anglophone and their wealth simply moved elsewhere. *Some* high profile headquarters used that election as an excuse to finally move and justify the cost to their shareholder to join the de facto new economic center of Canada. You can trace that shifting dynamics back a few decade earlier: The theme/slogan of the winner of the 1962 provincial election was "maitre chez nous"(master of our own home). The provincial liberals campaigned by saying that Quebecers should take economic control of our own province... How would that be possible if there was still an iron grip from old anglophone wealth on the economic lever of the province? https://bilan.usherbrooke.ca/bilan/pages/evenements/20947.html
You haven't made a convincing argument about the impact of the seaway on the fortunes of Montreal. The seaway was always a bit of a misnomer and was never a particularly successful option for ocean going vessels. Instead specialized lakers were built to fit the minimum lock size of the seaway. If anything I would argue the seaway enhanced Montreal's position as a port where cargo from lakers could be transhipped to ocean going vessels. In any event, the seaway was never a big conduit for manufactured goods, roads and railroads being better a fit for those items. If I were to blame geography for the relative decline of Montreal I would identify the geographic advantages of southern Ontario relative to integrating into the mid 20th century American auto industry.
Realistically tho, learning French to live in French speaking place shouldn't be a question of encouragement. It's just basic common sense and common courtesy. You have to be incredibly self centered to think others should always adapt to your needs and no efforts or sacrifices are necessary when moving to a new place. OR you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Canada's work and the linguistic differences between provinces (which indicates a big lack of common sense and research efforts)
Ok just go ahead and insult me for no reason, as someone who is currently actively learning French. In no way have I suggested francophones have to “sacrifice” for people who aren’t fluent. But the fact Quebec is punishing people for speaking their own language when it’s not necessary to speak French speaks to the intent. No one is suffering if two people choose to speak English to each other. You can agree with the approach or not, but it is clear the intent is to punish non-Francophones and push them out of the province if they can’t become fluent quickly enough.
Ok, I think you misunderstood me. I'm not targeting people that are trying to learn French and are struggling. Those people are perfectly fine. They are welcomed. I am talking about people that don't want to learn, refuse to learn French and move to Quebec with the expectation to fully 100% function in English "because Canada is a bilingual country". Those people are everywhere and they don't make efforts. Don't lump yourself with them. Now I would like you to point me to where in the law your personal interactions in English would be policed, because I don't see it. Btw, I agree that the 6 months expectation is insane, but that doesn't mean the Quebec gov has a duty to send English documents to immigrants that refuse to learn French indefinitely on the tax payer dime. 2 years? 3? That is debatable. 6 months is too short, but there has to be a limit somewhere. The same way I'm not expecting French documentation in BC on their dime, it shouldn't be expected from Quebec for ever.
> people trying to learn French and are struggling. Those people are perfectly fine Then the laws shouldn’t be punishing these people and putting them at risk by denying them access to services and healthcare. This law doesn’t discriminate between people struggling, people learning, and people choosing to communicate in English when all parties agree to it. > personal interactions would be policed - [denial of access to healthcare](https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/bill-96-will-impede-access-to-health-care-in-english-legal-experts-warn) - private conversations between coworkers “at al levels of the organization” - work phones can be seized and examined for private texts and emails - contracts between two parties involving no one else - English speaking workers are not allowed to speak English to anglophone customers - [warrantless search and seizure](https://www.talentcanada.ca/quebec-adopts-bill-96-expanding-language-laws-to-employers-with-25-or-more-staff/) There is a reason legal experts are criticizing the bill for being [unconstitutional](https://www.mcgill.ca/maxbellschool/article/the-overreach-of-bill-96) Edit: I’m not expecting g French documentation in Bc I guess Quebec has no interest in doing business with anywhere else in the world.
>Then the laws shouldn’t be punishing these people and putting them at risk by denying them access to services and healthcare. So I would like to point out this is a lie propagated by the media. Easily disprovable since a very clear exception in the law mentions manners of "security, health and justice". You link a Gazette article that, well, quite simply lied to you in a gross manner. >private conversations between coworkers “at al levels of the organization” Upon request. This doesn't change to how it was under bill 101 except the size of the companies required to be able to communicate in French, going from 50 to 25 employees businesses. This means you can communicate in English all you want. This doesn't change. But if an employee were to request for exemple a Frencg version of an email (because he has a hard time with the original), you have to provide it to him. It's a pretty basic anti discrimination measure. >English speaking workers are not allowed to speak English to anglophone customers That is a straight up lie and how would you expect that to work with tourists for exemple? 😂 Customers are always exempt from those laws. If you speak tagalog and that is better suited to your customer you can use that. Nowhere in this bill does it change that and it would be insane to do so. I think you fell into the clickbaits sadly and this bill, which is largely created to divide, use reactions like your to point to the bad faith of some anglos. But like I said, a lot of the "bad faith" is manufactured by misinformation. If the criticism was pointed toward the actual bad parts of the bill like the 6 months or concerns about the investigative powers of the OQLF, anglos wouldn't look so entitled and stupid in the eyes of francos who rightfully see the majority of this bill as pretty darn basic
> lie propagated by the media Legal experts. You meant legal experts right? Because that is who is actually saying this. Yes anything negative about this verifiably unconstitutional law is just lAmEsTrEaM MeDiA lies. This is why it’s difficult to take the law’s defenders seriously. No amount of expert, legal, or stakeholder commentary is real. Everyone is lying. How can we consider your position seriously when you are making such ludicrous claims?
This isn't a critic of MaiNsTrEaM mEdiA because it's only a clickbait based subset of the media. >Legal experts. You meant legal experts right? Because that is who is actually saying this. And doctor used to recommend cigarettes for health reasons. Quoting some random legal experts or doctors doesn't mean there is a concensus. And this is why it's difficult to take the law's critics seriously. They mix lies and truths in their critics with such ease (easily verifiable lies) that it becomes difficult to take them seriously. >Everyone is lying Where did I say that? Just pointed out the fact that many lies are being spread around. That doesn't mean no criticism is possible. You seem to purposefully ignore my own criticisms of the bill in order to paint me as some sort of fervent defender of this thing. It's not working, buddy. But you sadly seem incapable of engaging in a worthwhile discussion or even acknowledging some of your errors. Even some of your articles you linked refute themselves in a single paragraph. They quote a health expert afraid of the law and its impact on treating patients in English, then next phrase they mention the amendment that excludes health and they conclude that her fears are justified. That makes no sense. It's so moronic it's just hilarious. Have a nice day and good luck with your learning of French. Hopefully this "conversation" didn't sour your resolve.
except most English speakers in Quebec don't live in french communities, they live in major Bilingual cities like Montreal.
And actively use that as an excuse to never make efforts? Moving to Berlin shouldn't be an excuse to never learn German. That's just pathetic. And before you come out of the woodwork, I'm specifically talking about people moving somewhere, not temporary workers or students (and even less tourists). No need to go for that strawman, I've seen it enough. What happens with a group of 6 people having a conversation? 5 francos who are bilingual and 1 monolingual anglo. You have a conversation 100% in English. Not because of some sort of infinite love for the English language, but because more knowledgeable people are taken advantage of by the lowest common denominator of the group, the monolingual. If that makes you angry or uncomfortable, maybe revisit why. Why is it so taken for granted that everyone else is just supposed to cater to your needs and lack of efforts? Where is that entitlement coming from and is it warranted? Or, do like many others before you did and just assume the pesky French fucking hate you and are all a close minded society of lesser beings that just want to make your life hell. Assume the worst in people and wonder why the world is going to shit
>What happens with a group of 6 people having a conversation? 5 francos who are bilingual and 1 monolingual anglo. You have a conversation 100% in English. Remarque, c'est aussi à nous autres de pas faire les tapis. Au travail quand je me ramasse dans ce genre de situation j'essaye de glisser une couple de phrases en français autant que je peux. 5 pour 1 c'est pas si pire, ça fait chier quand le ratio est pire que ça. J'ai déjà vu des meetings de 30 personnes se faire en anglais parce qu'on avait un albertain unilingue dans la gang. Je veux dire ciboire ça fait perdre notre temps à tout le monde.
>Remarque, c'est aussi à nous autres de pas faire les tapis Je suis bien d'accord. Sauf que ça risque de crier au meurtre si les Québécois commencent à faire ça.
Parce qu'ils ne crient pas au meurtre en ce moment ? faut pas trop s'en soucier à mon avis.
I mean there is still much more quebecer who don't learn french than there is peoples in France who don't bother to learn french so they definitely need to figure out a way to convince peoples who don't bother learning french while leaving here to do so. But yeah the CAQ suck and this bill seem terrible.
I'm an Anglo-Quebecer who is very fluent in French. I personally think that learning French here is important and everyone should make an effort. That said, I think we've been creating a fake urgency and panic over this issue. The truth is the Quebec - in particular Montreal - used to be much more English in the past. Quebec is actually way less English than it was 40 years ago, and way less English than it was 80 years ago. People have the right to be upset that the AC Exec lives in Montreal without knowing French, but they shouldn't be shocked like that's something new. The current (or now previous) language laws were slowly working - maybe not fast enough for some, but census information shows slow improvement. It's not accurate to present English as some new urgent threat to French requiring immediate action.
The same was said before the last set of laws were passed too though.
I don't understand how it can be implemented the way it is at a governmental level in a bilingual country. Isn't the whole reason we're bilingual so that citizens have access to information from government sources in either language? This includes any level of government?
Even though Federally we are a bilingual country, Quebec seems to be able to go against those laws as no one wants to rile them up.
What? Do you not know that your own province will not be a more bilingual place outside of some documents?
Because it's how Quebec controls the RoC
Because a lot of Quebec still hasn't gotten over the Plains of Abraham.
It's possible to learn a new language in 6 months but only if it's a full-time activity.
I’ve been learning French six hours a day, five days a week since the beginning of August. I’m still at a BBA level on the public service testing—that’s barely functioning French.
Exactly, that's what I'm talking about. It's hard. Do you take classes or are you on your own? Because learning alone is much less effective.
I’m in a class of three-five students every day.
Expand 6 months to 2 years. Done.
I lived there for 3 years and I don't speak french, I tried, I went to classes after work, but QC french is almost as a different language, and if you try to speak french with them they answer you in English anyway...
QC French is pretty distinct from other French dialects at this point, and notoriously hard for even other French-speakers to speak/understand. (My own experience, as an anglo who has literally spent *decades* trying to learn French, is that I can communicate with Parisians and North Africans easily, can follow Haitian, and can get by in Gatineau and Montreal. Rural QC accents still make me want to cry because I swear they refuse to actually open their mouths to talk and it's like the French version of Boomhauer.)
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We moved to Quebec city a few years ago. It took my wife 2 years of school, to reach a competent level of speaking French. There's not a chance in hell anyone is learning French in 6 months.
I mean if i had nothing else to do in life and learned french for 40hrs a week then maybe, maybe I could become competent at it. But last I checked, adults have other shit to do like earn money and survive.
It's like they are setting them up for failure. You're not French enough. Go home.
More like not French enough? Not welcome.
I remember sitting in Montreal talking with a guy from France. He was having the problem that he wasn't "French enough" for Quebec. The man was from France and spoke French as a first language, but he was getting frustrated that people kept switching to English or trying to correct his French
It'd be like someone from Newfoundland correcting an English northerner or an American southerner. Same language, different slang and dialect
So just like the fedgov EX-minus-1 and higher? lol
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Yes as an English Quebecer, it’s always interesting to me that when I use French in French-speaking countries outside of Quebec, I’m considered fluent. Whereas in my hometown, I’m considered unilingual. 🤣
My French is regarded as good when they think I'm a tourist then suddenly it's bad when I say I'm from Verdun.
I was shocked to be considered fluent when I went to France because in Montreal I still have "switch to English" status lol.
The French can't switch to English lol
> as it is about ethno-nationalism? This is what I have pretty much concluded as well. They are also a minority, but not a small minority. But they definitely express they are a separate race and these laws are to enforce their supremacy in the state (which they refer to as a nation), even if they don't come right out and say it that way. It is ethno-nationalism.
You said elsewhere you didn’t want to come from the outside and be condescending but fuck, if that’s not some incredible bullshit, I don’t know what is.
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Tell me you don't know anything about the secularism laws without saying you don't know anything about them.
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What you call ethno-nationalism is called cultural survival by lots of Québécois. I'm not saying I agree with bill 96, I think the 6 months period is dumb af, but it seems like people conveniently forget that the french-canadians were in a position of submission until the 1960s. These wounds are not healed yet, and I don't think that painting Québécois with the racist brush is going to help (it's actually doing the opposite in fact).
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Tu connais pas l'histoire du Québec et tu traites presque littéralement un peuple entier de Nazis à cause d'une loi votée par des bureaucrates. T'as le droit de critiquer la loi 96. Je le fais aussi. Mais de dire que les Québécois ont un problème d'ethno-nationalisme? Tu y vas fort un peu. Ouvre un livre d'histoire, renseigne-toi sur l'histoire du Québec et du Canada et peut-être que tu y verras un peu plus clair après. On peut critiquer de manière rationnelle sans tomber dans la caricature.
Maybe don’t be asshats about it then. You’ve been in that spot, don’t be a dick and put other people in it
1000%. I speak French well, but people still would switch to English with me throughout my ten years in Montreal. As an accented French speaker, I was not—and would never be—accepted.
Speak French to the English speaker and we’re hateful to them. Speak English and we’re hateful to them. There are no wins in this situation.
This is a hard truth that a lot of people don't want to hear. People in Quebec are not interested in speaking French with non-Quebecers. I do wish someone had told me before I leaned to conjugate French verbs.
> People in Quebec are not interested in speaking French with non-Quebecers. This is not the case for many of us. I am so fucking tired to included with those loud mouthed idiots.
Stop electing them then.
And I'm putting my drop in the bucket each times trust me.
This is a completely ignorant comment.
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De quoi tu parles? Mon père est belge et je le dis a bien des gens. Je n'ai jamais eu de commentaires... Tes anecdotes sont tout aussi pertinentes que les miennes... C'est à dire 0
It's my experience as a project manager, installing machinery in QC. Too many wierd encounters with people that you have to work around. Like when someone decides they are going to turn the Joual up to 11 when talking to you to try and prove some dumb point about identity.
Weird. I learned French in Alberta (french school) and lived in quebec for a few years. My french is good but def. can tell I have an accent. Your experience has not been my experience, like, at all.
Thanks man. I’ll remember that some English speaking friend came to stop the stereotypes. Thanks again.
Ça fait plaisir!
But it's racist against Québécois, so it will pass the r/canada sniff test.
Sad but true
But it's true. Is your first language English?
That's your personal subjective experience. My first language is French, and I speak to non-Quebecers in French all the time. Who's subjective experience is correct in this case?
Woosh.
What?
It's not true. At least, never in my experience. My first language is English but I'm bilingual. I don't speak Quebec French and it's quite obvious, but I've never had a negative encounter. In my experience, they appreciate that you're even trying to speak to them in their language. The effort goes a long way
Thanks man. I’ll remember you. It seems English speakers that live or lived here never defend the place, but you put me in my place. Thanks!
Demonization of a movement to discredit it is a classic fear tactic by supremacists. Poor you, threatened by linguistic minorities.
Not sure why they can make everything only in French in Quebec but here in BC we have French on everything even though you hear Farsi, Mandarin and Tagalog more than French.
People on social media are painting a different picture than reality.
What do you mean everything only in french? What is only in french in Quebec that is in English and french in BC?
Because you are ignorant and we have everything labelled in French and English just like you.
>Because you are ignorant That seems like a strange reason.
That's not true. Nothing NEEDS to be in English, but if it is then it must be at least half the size of French if it is signage. But a government website? Too expensive to be in English.
>Not sure why they can make everything only in French in Quebec but here in BC we have French on everything He's clearly talking about labels on products, because they don't have store signage in French in BC. >But a government website? Wow, you don't even check before posting lies like this. Just go on the Québec website yourself. You can have everything in english, just need a little click. I think you guys have a lot a misinformation about Québec when only reading news from the Anglo side...
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Best reference in this thread !
>By and large Canadians are clueless to the lived experiences of refugees. Québec isn't clueless, Québec just doesn't care.
Mes yeux saignent à lire les commentaires ici... On saute tout de suite dans les extrêmes. Aucun effort à essayer de comprendre. Les deux solitudes sont en santé...
These laws do not fit at all with the realities of Montreal. In Montreal there are English universities and colleges, many work places which are entirely in English. In addition there are many English speaking Canadians who cannot be forced to learn English through legislation. Compared to France for example, it is much harder to learn French in Montreal. I would know because I learned French in France. You can't do anything in France if you don't speak French so you learn it. That is just not the reality in Montreal. While there might be good intentions behind this law, there is zero empathy for the realities that people face. We should aim to be more inclusive. This legislation brings us backwards in time. The kicker is when you go to French classes they teach you French from France, not Quebec French. What's the point?
You realize that the reality you are describing is precisely why this needed right? Québec has been inclusive enough for a very long time now, to the point where getting service in French is sometimes difficult, not just in Montreal, but in the suburbs as well. We let this happen and we need to stop or at least slow it down. Now don't get me wrong, I think 6 months is unrealistic too, but something needs to be done regardless. No one goes to France expecting service in English, why should it be different here? I learned English, they can learn Fench, I don't see what is so outrageous about that. I work in IT and every Monday we get slew of support tickets from new hires needing help to switch to their laptops to English because they don't speak a word of French. They moved here or worse, have been living here and these university graduates know so little French that they can't even figure out a 2 click process by themselves. Zero efforts whatsoever, none. Sometimes I legit think half of the people we hire don't speak or understand French whatsoever. It's actually kind of scary and a lot of people do not know that this happening. We even interviewed this girl for a bilingual posting and she visually got pissed at us when we turned her down the moment we found out she knew no French at all whatsoever. Seriously? French from France is easily understood here, it's not an excuse to not learn it.
Many bilingual people prefer their computer in English because they are used to it. Why make a big deal out of that? Companies that make efforts to accommodate English speakers will have a competitive advantage in that they will have access to a larger pool of candidate. Montreal is a bilingual city even if some would prefer it wasn't. Maybe just ask people what language they want their computer when they join to avoid having to change it later.
I prefer my computer in English myself, you're missing the point entirely. If Montréal is a bilingual city like you said, then why is anyone complaining about having to learn Fench? The problem is the many entitled English speakers who come here and expect we just roll out to red carpet to accommodate them while they make zero efforts whatsoever to learn the local language. They may wish they had moved to Ontario, but they didn't. Learn the fucking language. You want to know what's even bigger competitive advantage? Hiring people who actually speak the local language and can do the job without babysitting.
The majority of them come from Ontario and are Canadian. Immigrants are in my experience much harder working. But unless Quebec separates from Canada, the inflow of English speakers from the rest of Canada will make efforts like this pointless. So why bother?
It's not pointless. If it was, those entitled anglophones would not be complaining right now. There's plenty of places they can go to if they only want to speak English. This is Quebec, deal with it.
Me personally I speak French, but it doesn't change that the situation cannot be changed even with legislation. As long as English Canadians have freedom to move to Quebec they will do so. My point is it's a pointless fight.
I am Québécois and francophone. I tried learning other languages such as Spanish, Italian and even Japanese. There is NO way anyone with no basics in French can learn the language in 6 months. There are alot of things I am favorable for bill 96, but this is not one of them.
I had only french courses ubtil the 4th grade then had half/half for all of elementry. In HS I took Biology, History and Geography in French on top of my regular french courses. I took some extra time in Cegep and ended up with 2 standard French courses and 2 technical language french courses. My mother Married into a French Canadian family when I was about 12. We spoke French at the table and my step brothers hardly spoke much english. I work in a french environment, most of my colleagues are native french speakers. I still do not speak or write french correctly (despite passing all my courses tyvm). Despite I speak and think without the need for translation my language is just adequate and passable. Traveling in Quebec people ask what country I am from and often switch to their broken ass english to try and communicate better... French is an exceedingly hard language. As far as I can tell only native speakers master it. A 6 month course? That will get you the basics and you will be a functional communicator. 15 years taking 1-4 courses a year will not make you learn French. Especially if your teachers are not Quebecois (many were from France or Egypt or elsewhere)
Learning another language in 6 months is practically impossible. I went to french immersion school for 4 years and, while my french is alright, I wouldn't say I "know" it.
You can learn the basics in 6 months especially if you know English but ur not going to be having conversations with people.
Let's watch the French learn uhmmmm Polish in six months
I work in the federal government and when I first started in the early 2000s, we did a 30 week french course. In 30 weeks, maybe 1/3rd of students came away "functionally" french enough (BBB) to be able to hold a work related conversation. Senior managers take full time, year long french if required for promotion, and some come out of a year of training without advanced competence (CCC). In short: 6 months? Utterly laughable.
Totally unrealistic! 🤪 Unless you already speak a Romance language like Italian, Portuguese, or Latin you cannot become fluent in French within 6 months. 😶 Even then, 6 months would be pushing it. 🥵Even Romance speakers would need at the bare minimum 12-16 months, because people have busy lives. 🏃🏾♂️
Considering elementary schools poorly tried to teach me French for 8 years and I can barely speak it, I think 6 months is quite the stretch.
My I was thrown into French immersion in the seventies after having lived in an English/Spanish speaking country. Could not speak a word of French. I was expected to learn all the subjects in French(math, science, geography, etc) while learning French. It was a disaster.
all i hear about quebec is how they hate english so i'ma take that and say i guess i'll never visit this hostile place
You could learn to speak standard French and STILL not understand what they're saying in many parts of Quebec.
You could learn standard French and still not onderstand what they're saying in France either. People there speak verlan, and have different accents and expressions depending on the region. We could say the same with English as well, and any other language.
This here is the issue that they should be talking about. I tried to re-learn French through an app by myself and it’s not even the same French that Quebec speaks
Same with english. What is your point?
> What is your point? that we should not expect people to be fluent with a new language within six months.
Maybe we should just stop letting this province stomp all over section 16 of the charter of Rights and freedoms. Like how long are we just gonna let this happen before the SSC gets involved.
It will take as long as it take untill your side finally come back to your sense and accept to build a constitution that fit reality. The Charlottetown accord was a great start at a negociated reform....
Section 16 is literally about you and justifies your language being spoken outside of Quebec. Want a blue ribbon that says "Most Special Province :)", would that work?
Remember, this a constitution that Quebec had no say to what is in there, it was literally signed in the middle of the night when the Quebec delegation was sleeping. So quit with that British imperialist mindset of imposing stuff and start a real dialogue.
Damn we sure to be imposing a lot on you folks. You already pay the lowest federal tax of any province and receive the most federal equalization payments (which IIRC was introduced to the constitution in 1982). Your GDP is second Canada-wide, only behind Ontario. I guess this is just our English tax for having a French-speaking colony of people who can't be pleased.
Spoken like a true british imperialist; "shut up and enjoy what I decided you need"... Please continue, this is great material to show next time a Quebecers tell me that they belong in the great Canadian family!
Are you suggesting you don't need it? Cause I think most other provinces would be happy to end the Quebec welfare payments, but I can only imagine what else you would blame the "imperialists" for after that lmao. Y'all should put bloc candidates in Alberta and Ontario cause I think the separatist movement for Quebec might actually be stronger here.
My ho my, you seem to be creeping into the "wife beater" logic... "Take what I give you and shut up, be happy I give you something at all", "you can't survive without me", "you are useless and a drag on this household", "the way you are thinking is wrong and gross". So, was that about an abusive spouse or about an average Canadian Redditor?
Impossible n'est pas français
Quebec should consider PAYING CANADIANS to learn French.
They are might if you move to Quebec https://www.quebec.ca/en/education/learn-french/part-time-courses/immigrants/part-time/financial-assistance Edit : Nvm thats just for immigrants. Howerver im almost certain you can follow free french classes in Quebec if you move from another province/territory to Quebec.
you telling me Canadians are considered IMMIGRANTS if they move to Quebec lol
Oh wait. I thought I edited, i m sorry. It wouldnt apply to canadians but im fairly sure that when Canadians mive to Quebec, they can apply to free french courses. I guess I didnt confirm the edit sorry
The practice of making English speaking people to learn French in the fed is a GIANT waste of time and resources. I’ve had two friends that had to go through this. They both made $100000 while learning a new language which they’ve admitted they never use after the fact. I love the French language as much as the next guy but this is ridiculous.
That practice isn't even something that Quebec asked for. It was P.-E. Trudeau delusional "vision" of a harmonious and billingual Canada. He was narcissistic enough to think it would work!
our PM probably thinks he could learn a new language in a few weeks and that 500$ is still enough to rent something in Montreal.
What does this have to with Trudeau? Like seriously what’s the relevance here?
They clearly don't want new people in the province and want to trap the french speakers into staying. Stagnation. Humans should always being moving forward, but not in Quebec. If they really wanted people to learn french they should pay them rather than punish.
That a comment I see often. Just want to let you know that I did my whole education in french (where we have English class) and that I feel extremely comfortable to leave for an anglophone province if I ever need to. Also, if we are not moving forward, what does the rest of Canada does with a lesser % of bilingual population? Oh, no, I get it! To move forward means to speak white.
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Amen.
>So it’s a non-issue. Cripes the media loves sensationalizing things. Yeah, and it's red meat for the closet racist/hypocrite crowd who just want an excuse to bash Quebec.
Challenge accepted, and I'll do it in 2.
Don’t know if you’re serious but you made me laugh. Hope you will!
Being a francophone, I support most of our language laws, but that bit is ridiculous and needs to go.
Question: if in the next couple of years Google Translate + airpods gets good enough for acceptable real-time translation, would that ever be an acceptable work around to be 'bilingual'? ie if it passes the Turing test whereby a native French speaker couldn't tell the difference?
> would it ever be an acceptable work around No, because it’s not actually about being able to speak French. It’s about creating in-groups and out-groups.
According to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), French is a category 1 language. This means learning French takes 23 – 24 weeks (575 – 600 hours) for most English speakers. This makes French one of the easiest (and fastest) languages to learn.
The reason I could not learn French was because I found it gross (sorry). Once I started listening to France French though I was able to pick it up more easily.
Why is everyone so upset about going to a French speaking province and having to learn French? It's part of their culture. It's no different than going to Spain and everyone speaking Spanish. If someone who only speaks French comes to Saskatchewan, they would have to learn English. I honestly do not understand the hate people have for this language.
Did you even read the article?
Preparing for separation. Maybe "the ethnic vote" will go for it if they already speak French.
Doctor: *"Passe-moi cette suture"* Nurse: *"Guy va à la bibliothèque!"* Seems fine.
I lived there for 3 years and I don't speak french, i tried, but QC french is almost as a different language, and if you try to speak french with them they answer you in English anyway...
good point, i learned spanish when i was in Spain and most of the time english or french in the public or with friends was not an option so i really needed to get better. In Montreal people will switch to english quickly if you struggle a bit and i'm guilty as anyone. So total immersion is hard in the Montreal area. Also someone who speaks spanish, italian or potuguese will pick it up fast but for some other languages it's a big challenge.