The Parti Quebecois. - Page 8

On January 22 2013 00:51 Thorakh wrote:
Are you not allowed to place text in a language of your choosing on a sign? The greek restaurant needs to have its shit in French as well, I guess? Language police just sounds extremely silly.

On January 22 2013 00:26 Tobberoth wrote:

How is that funny, and how is that what I said?

My point was that just because your culture isn't protected by laws doesn't mean it disappears. Say french and english are given 100% equal "rights" in Quebec, will everyone speak English there 200 years from now? Probably, though that would happen eventually anyway if that was the case. But it also wouldn't mean that 20 years from now, only 5% of the population there speaks French.

It's such a weird situation especially because it's allowed by modern times. If something like this happened 400 years ago and a very small minority in a small part of a country tried to protect their culture by laws, they would have been kicked out. Nowadays, instead, there has to be protective barriers put up, which really only delay the innevitable. If you give equal space to both, the part which people prefer will succeed.

On January 22 2013 01:06 Djzapz wrote:

What you said ignores the whole thing where people value certain cultural elements. The fact that you don't personally give it any value doesn't change anything. Come on dude. Your apathy DOES NOT change the fact that many people don't want our culture to die off or to be diluted.

I look at what happened to the natives and I think it's incredibly sad and a huge loss. You seemed to think that they were doing great.

On January 22 2013 01:15 Tobberoth wrote:

It's not about apathy. Sure, I don't care about whether or not people speak french in Canada, but I'm not saying it's bad that they do and I'm not saying people have no right to care. All I'm saying is that experience shows us that fighting this kind of invisible threat to your culture is futile. It's one thing if the rest of Canada tried to forcefully get rid of french, such as changing laws to specifically destroy the culture... for example a law disallowing kids to speak french in school. However, I also find it weird to try to do the opposite.

Is it a huge loss if no one speaks French natively in Canada in 300-400 years? That's up to opinion I guess, but my reasoning in this case is that if you give French and English equal space (point being to not discriminate against either) and people over time choose to go with English, then it can't really be a huge loss since it was voluntary. What would be even cooler would be if there was a merger over time and the Canadian language became more of a mix of French and English.

On January 22 2013 00:26 Tobberoth wrote:
If something like this happened 400 years ago and a very small minority in a small part of a country tried to protect their culture by laws, they would have been kicked out.

On January 22 2013 01:15 Tobberoth wrote:
Is it a huge loss if no one speaks French natively in Canada in 300-400 years? That's up to opinion I guess, but my reasoning in this case is that if you give French and English equal space (point being to not discriminate against either) and people over time choose to go with English, then it can't really be a huge loss since it was voluntary. What would be even cooler would be if there was a merger over time and the Canadian language became more of a mix of French and English.

Commerce and business
Product labels, their instructions, manuals, warranty certificates as well as restaurant menus and wine lists must be in the official language. Other languages may be used, provided the official language's prominence is at least equivalent.[16][17][18]
Catalogues, brochures, folders, commercial directories and other such publications, must be in the official language. All software (for example, video games and operating systems) must be available in French unless no French version exists.[19]
Signs and posters must be in the official language and they may also be in another language provided the official language be markedly predominant.
A number of exceptions to the general rules for commercial products, signs, and advertising:
Products destined exclusively for export;
Educational products for the teaching of a language other than French;
Cultural and ideological companies, groups, signs, and literature (including non-French broadcasters, newspapers, etc.);
Companies (usually multinational corporations) that sign an agreement with the OQLF permitting an exemption from the francization requirement. (However, the rules regarding the right of a worker to work in French still apply.)[20]
In many parts of Quebec, various signs with bilingual French and English text of equal sizes can be seen, although French is usually slightly predominant on these signs; for example, it is located to the left of other languages so that it is read "before" the non-French text when reading left-to right. Formerly, the size and colour of text in other languages were tightly regulated as well.

On January 22 2013 01:48 Abraxas514 wrote:
OK guys, let's settle the french sign debate with some facts.



Signs and posters must be in the official language and they may also be in another language provided the official language be markedly predominant.

So what this means is that if I have a sign for a car wash, for example, it must look like this:

L A V E-----A U T O
-----------carwash----------

The signs that you see that aren't in french we're given the grandfather clause because they are a core part of montreal culture BUT don't think that means they are legal, they are just 'tolerated'.

But the fact of the matter is, I can't have a sign outside my mexican restaurant that says "Fiesta!!" or call my restaurant "Joe's Burgers". French must be predominant, which means in larger font, and on top.

Now, if you go to my OP you will see a link to a Ben and Jerry's where the language officer did not like some of the in-store signage.

The fact that there is a law restricting me to put up a sign on my private property describing my private business is incredible. It's no wonder so many people just up and left over the past few decades, nobody wants to play by these rules.

On January 22 2013 01:48 Abraxas514 wrote:
The fact that there is a law restricting me to put up a sign on my private property describing my private business is incredible.

On January 22 2013 02:18 Dawski wrote:
Personally I don't feel like a people identifying themselves by their culture instead of by their own person and merit makes sense.

On January 22 2013 01:48 Abraxas514 wrote:
Now, if you go to my OP you will see a link to a Ben and Jerry's where the language officer did not like some of the in-store signage.

On January 22 2013 02:18 Dawski wrote:
Personally I don't feel like a people identifying themselves by their culture instead of by their own person and merit makes sense.

I'm a 3rd generation dutch immigrant myself. My family assimilated into the western BC culture but at the same time that's not losing our culture, that's adding onto it.

On January 22 2013 01:41 Kukaracha wrote:

If we still functioned like 400 hundred years ago, France and the UK would have wiped Canada off the map. Hopefully (or oddly, as you seem to think), we have learned to respect each other's lives a little more.


I don't know if you're being hypocrite or not, because I'm pretty sure that you do hold values and that you do feel nostalgia when those values that you dearly held on slowly vanish.

Now, if you say that it's just that you personally don't care about our culture, well, I mean, ok? Every man for himself I guess. Poor Injuns.

On January 22 2013 02:35 Kukaracha wrote:

Where does your personal merit start and your education end?

And are you saying that you're basically... cultureless? Come on.
You're an anglophone canadian. You're not dutch. You have only small traces of your dutch heritage. You were born in the Canadian culture - and if you believe that it doesn't change a thing, then I invite you to travel around the world because there are differences between the Na tribe in China and the working class of Louisiana.
I'm an immigrant myself, first generation. And even I don't call myself "chilean", most of what was chilean in my has been lost long ago. Why would I perpetrate the Chilean tradition in France anyway? I'm emigrating, this isn't a damned invasion. There is no comparison with people who lose their traditions in their own homes.


Oh my, how scandalous. Meanwhile, every succesful European film is remade in english before its release in North America because fuck french/finnish/german/spanish/portuguese.

On January 22 2013 03:03 Kukaracha wrote:
@Tobberoth no, I meant that it was hypocritical of you to say such things when you would probably react in a similar fashion if your own culture was concerned.
It's not different than saying that money doesn't matter when you have everything you need. Sure, a very small number of people will genuinely not care, but most simply don't realize what it is like to be broke.

On January 22 2013 03:03 Kukaracha wrote:
@Dawski what other things that aren't culture seperate us from mokeys, aside from physiological details?
And your grandparents did the right thing, as I said it does make sense to adopt the culture of a country you emigrate to, but to adopt the culture of those who come into your home... dunno, sounds different, don't you think?

On January 22 2013 03:27 Tobberoth wrote:

It's a good point to make, but I still don't consider it hypocrisy since I'm not telling anyone to do anything I wouldn't do in a similar situation. If I said "Quebec should obviously do this, it will fix the whole problem in the long term", sure. While a very different situation, slightly similar sentiments are brewing in Europe. Extreme right wing parties are claiming that islam is "invading" Europe and diluting our culture and we need to try to prevent this by law, a person I know actually told me she got mad when she saw an article in arabic in a Swedish newspaper. I personally found that quite disgusting and I think the whole movement is stupid, because they are making something which might be plausible on a very long term scale seem immediate, and it easily takes racist tones such as saying "If we keep allowing muslims into our country, Swedes won't be blonde and blue eyed anymore, our culture will be destroyed". And I would go with a similar perspective there (though, again, the situation is not exactly comparable to french canada), we are allowed to like our culture, but if we have to pay with racism to prolong "blond hair and blue eyes in sweden" for a few decades, I say it's not worth it. If I'm allowed to stay swedish, I honestly don't care if Swedes all have brown hair and don't speak swedish in a few hundred years. As long as it's voluntary and happens naturally.


Well, has anyone said anyone has to adopt any culture? From what I understood, the discussion is whether or not laws should be used to try to curb english influence, so that in the long term, the culture can be maintained through the generations by force, while your discussion is rather about english canadians coming to your part of canada and telling you to stop being french canadian.

On January 22 2013 03:41 waltermatthau wrote:
Speaking to the whole rudeness vs anglos perception questioned earlier, I've heard people mention or complain about it to me before but every time I've been to montreal or QC the experience has been at the very worst comparable to NY/Chi and usually quite congenial so long as I do my best with french. My experience might be a little different since I'm speaking as a vermonter from near the border, so I'd met some quebecois and picked up local broadcast french over tv/radio as a child before ever going to canada. The only thing that bugs me is when the wealthier set comes down from montreal or QC to vermont on vacation to throw some (admittedly needed) tourist money around and end up bossing staff around, expecting people to speak french in our state or disregard tipping norms.

More to the topic, the question I have here is probably most relevant to montreal posters- how do you guys feel the language policies have been working out in regard to immigration? I ask because the last time I was in the city, it seemed to me that at least some of the population speaks neither french nor english as their first language. Some of it'll come down to demography, but is there any concern that the hot ticket immigrants and investors will just go west and save themselves some of the added adjustment/costs? I really respect the drive to preserve the culture but I'm curious where the discourse is right now as to how you balance that with the need to keep the local economy dynamic, and what lengths people are willing to go to in favor of one at the expense of the other.