Ror you Quebec Seperationists

It is BULL. People supporting the seperation are all ignorant traitors to our mother country Canada, Quebec needs us and we need Quebec. Quebec has a HUGE debt and guess who's paying it off, CANADA! Who cares if we don't all speak French, wer'e getting there. It is required in our schools to take French class and i am a bilingual. More and more of the young students I know are learning French and in 10 years, i bet most of the country could speak French. Canada's economy would fall apart if there were a seperation. If Canada's economy fell apart, then it's leading trading partner, the US would have a major depression. And once the US falls the rest of the world would follow because America trades with all over the world but mostly Canada. Think twice about leaving Canada, Quebec needs Canada and Canada needs Quebec. United, we are the best country in the world.

So how come they don't want to learn English in Quebec? Wouldn't it be cheaper and quicker to teach the French minority English than to teach the English majority French?

Its about respect for their heritage. Not which is the better langauge. Anyway, everyone knows that that elfish langauage in the lord of the rings works best

Quebec is a stone around the neck of Canada, one that horribly mismanages the huge amounts of bribe money it is given not to separate. I say let them go if all they want to do is take our money and impose a "greater Quebec" on the rest of the country, we'd be better off in the long run.

Oh man, I'm bored of the rings already. :lol:

I'm pretty tired of this French/English debate too. They want to speak French...let 'em. You don't find a lot of French speakers (bilingual or otherwise) west of Winnipeg until you look at the younger kids...my generation and older never really had a fair shot at learning the language, not that we tried that hard either. You do find a fair number of Quebec residents that can at least get along in English though, even if they aren't fluent.

I don't agree with their language laws at all...just like I wouldn't agree if Alberta decided that any words not spelled in American had to be slightly smaller than words using real English or Newfoundland decided that all signs had to be in Gaelic.

Things are looking up though. The PQ and BQ are on the decline and all the latest polls on the subject show that a referendum wouldn't even be close...the majority of Quebeckers want to stay in Canada. Why all these attempts from the west to stir things up?

That's got at least as much to do with population distribution as anything else though...Quebec has more ridings because they have more people, therefore they get more stuff. Pretty simple politics.

All of that money doesn't flow east either, a fair bit of it stays right here in the west. Saskatchewan and Manitoba are always "have not" provinces and BC tends that way when the economy is bad. I don't see a lot of bitching about that on here. I don't see a lot of screaming about the Maritimes either, although they get back more than they put in too. No complaints about the Territories. For that matter I don't see a lot of complaints about Northwest Ontario...yet they get back, federally and provincially, more than they put in.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Quebec and the Golden Horseshoe decide who governs, so they get more stuff. The Golden Horseshoe and Alberta provide most of the money. The rest of us pay our way by providing food and cultural diversity and people who talk funny.

There are similar regional disparities in most of the countries on this planet, even itsy bitsy ones like England. Why is it just our country and some really unstable places in Eastern Europe who can't seem to recognize that?

More french schools for the rest of Canada, but....

University of Quebec May Drop English
Josh Pringle
Friday, February 6, 2004

The University of Quebec in the Outaouais is considering a proposal to drop English-language masters programs because staff can't properly communicate with anglophone students.

The proposal is being resisted by many, including the francophone director of the English MBA programs.

Jan Saint-Macary says it's become a political issue, because there's no other reason to cancel the programs.

The university administration will consider the proposal February 17th.

And in here in Ottawa, the city council is grappling with a $100 million budget shortfall for this year. They are looking at possible program cuts and a 13% tax increase on what are already some of the highest property taxes in Canada.

But they still have money for....

Bilingual tips for business

By JOHN STEINBACHS, Ottawa Sun

The city unveiled a bilingualism program yesterday designed to improve the way some Ottawa businesses communicate with their clients in both official languages. It's another language project funded by a 5-year, $2.5-million federal grant.

The program will begin in the Byward Market and St. Laurent Shopping Centre and possibly later extend to other parts of the city, according to a package distributed yesterday.

It offers businesses access to cheap translation services, workshops in spoken French and help in recruiting bilingual staff, among other services.

Under one brochure titled How to find that rare gem, the city has listed special services that businesses can access to find an employee who speaks English and French.

The package also offers tips on how to offer "quality service in French and English."

The list includes having employees wear tags identifying themselves as bilingual and having staff address customers with "hello/bonjour."

And here are some nice facts about Quebec that most people don't know. Just a few since there are so many:

8. In the 1999-2000 fiscal year the federal government handed out $62,591,832 in French minority language grants outside the province of Quebec, only $3,341,000 was given in English minority language grants inside the province of Quebec even though there are more English speaking Canadians in Quebec than there are French Canadians outside of Quebec.

9. The Commissioner of Official Languages' department has a staff of 109; 79 (72.4%) are Francophones and 30 (27.5%) are Anglophones. This department is in place to ensure the rights of minority languages. Figures quoted are from 1998.

17. Canada is the only nation in the world that does not have its national history museum located in its capital city. In 1989 the Federal government under Brian Mulroney relocated the National Museum of Canadian history from Ottawa to Hull, Quebec. The name was changed to the Museum of Civilization. The Museum's coat of arms was also changed to a design representing the French and Aboriginal cultures, there is nothing in the design representing peoples of British descent.

19. In 1999 a United Nations tribunal condemned Canada for forcing one of its English-speaking citizens in Quebec to take his human rights case to them when it could have addressed the problem internally. The tribunal said that Canada is taking an undemocratic stance on minority language rights in Quebec. The tribunal was perplexed by Canada's lack of concern for human rights within its borders, yet it is a leading advocate of human rights on a global basis. The assault on the principle of Freedom of Expression is another point to note here.

32. Every university in Canada charges the same tuition fees to all Canadians, regardless of which province they come from, except Quebec. Universities in Quebec charge almost double per credit for out -of- province (Canadian) residents. But, if you are a foreign student and plan to enroll in any course in French, you pay the same tuition as a Quebec student.

52. While most countries monitor the internet for felonies and other major criminal acts there are presently only 3 governments in the world that use government intervention to regulate non-criminal content and use of the internet, the three governments are China and Vietnam (which are both communist countries) and the government of Quebec.

53. Quebec is the only western government since Nazi Germany to place restrictions on the use of an individual language on commercial and private property, and written and oral communication between employees and management of private businesses.

58. In Quebec, a municipality must have at least 50% Anglophone population to qualify for the right to put up a bilingual sign (French language must be twice as large as the English wording). Outside of Quebec, municipalities require only a 5% francophone population to qualify for minority language rights, these rights include schools, churches, hospitals and document translation to be provided in the French language.

63. All provinces in Canada use English Common Law as their judicial system except Quebec, which uses the Napoleonic code.

104. On November 12, 1997 an article appeared in National Geographic magazine concerning the ethnic cleansing of thousands of English speaking Canadians from Quebec.

108. The Supreme Court of Canada was designed to reflect the Canadian Landscape and it's peoples. Of the 9 Judges that sit on Canada's Supreme Court, 5 are from Quebec and the 6th is a Francophone from New Brunswick. This is 2/3's of the entire bench. Quebec Francophones represent only 22.5% of Canada's population.

Whatever happened to "I believe in diversity, not assimilation"? These types of "statistics" grow tiresome and are a symptom of a country with nothing to complain about.

m