Either the English or the French Language may be used by any Person in the Houses of Parliament of Canada and of the Houses of Legislature of Quebec: and both those Languages shall be used in the respective Records and Journels of those Houses: and either of those Languages may be used by any Person or in any Pleading or Process in or issuing from any Court of Canada established under this Act, and in or from all or any of the Courts of Quebec.

The Acts of the Parliament of Canada and of the Legislature of Quebec shall be printed and published in both those Languages.

Bill 101 (Charter of the French Language, Bill 22 (Official Language Act of Quebec) and company are in direct violation of this Policy and must be repealed at once. The Fascist Language Laws of Quebec making French the Sole Official Language of the Province is also in direct violation of the Constitution Act of 1867. The English Language must be restored as the Co-Official Language of the Province of Quebec ASAP. The Province of Quebec must be a bilingual province in which English and French Languages are treated equaly and have the same rights and privilages.

Both English and French Cultures and Languages should be protected in the Province of Quebec. Both Anglophones and Francophones built and shapped the Province of Quebec and both Cultures and Langauges should be respected and protected.

God Save the Queen
Long Live a United Canada

I SUPPORT HOWARD GALGANOV IN HIS QUEST?

I suppose the language police never went into Westmount? Like anglophone communities in Quebec have the freedom of choice as to store signage? No! We are in racist Quebec!

“As part of this campaign, Mr. Galganov is calling for a boycott of all French-owned businesses in the area.”

Like Eaton’s was never identified by racist Quebecers as an Anglo institution to be avoided because of the apostrophy in its name… Likewise, any name with an apostrophy was considered to be illegal due to this racist language movement in Quebec. Like banning an apostrophe will save a culture! What a pack of racists in Quebec.

It’s funny how Franco-Canadians can so readily cry racism when they can’t see it at home.

Lack of tinkering is what I’m arguing for. I agree with you that a unified school system would be desirable, but it would have to come about about under the right circumstances, otherwise, i don’t see the benefit in changing anything.

As long as some anglos feel they have to defend everything they have, for fear that if the nationalists had their way, english would just about disappear, and as long as some francos see everything english as a threat to all that is Quebecois, mixing the two together more than they need to be is a recipe for conflict, unfortunately.

In the end though, I think it is primarily the anglos that have something to gain (as well as the most to lose) in agreeing to a single, french language school system. At some point they (we) will have to decide whether we want to be part of Quebec, or are happy to be english Canadians living in a french speaking province. The status quo is fine for now, but a little hope and vision for the future is nice sometimes.

I am not really going to be able to say anything new on Francophones in the ROC, as you obviously have experienced the situation firsthand and know it really well. My big thing with too many restrictions and legislation is that people tend rebel against them. There is a very good book called Influence by Robert Cialdini and he writes about the idea of scarcity. He has an example of some cleaning product that was going to be forbidden to be sold in a particular county. So people started buying up and hoarding this thing and even after the law was passed, they went to neighbouring counties to buy it. And they did surveys and found out that people were much more favorable to it and bought more of it in this county than in neighbouring ones. It was something they had a right to and when it became more scarce, they wanted it more.

I think you get this tendency with legislation as well. Once you start mandating certain things, people will become more hostile to them.

Found this, page 2:
http://www.brandonu.ca/Library/CJNS/12.2/hoover.pdf

I was referring to natives only, and my point wasn’t about putting up signs in Mohawk or English in Châteauguay, but in Kahnawake. As I said: it’s not up to me as a non-Mohawk to decide what the language of everyday life in Kahnawake should be.

Now, there are next to no Mohawks who live in Châteauguay as far as I know, so I don’t see the point of having Mohawk signs there. Or at least forcing businesses to have them. If businesses want to put them up as a nice gesture to their Mohawk clients, then that’s their choice.

I don’t expect French signage and service at all when I go to west end Ottawa communities like Nepean and Kanata, but I sure as hell do when I am in Gatineau, in Québec, where I live and where francophones are the vast majority of the population. And I can totally understand why most francophones in the Eastern Ontario community of Embrun feel the same way and why they mostly support the bylaw.

Not sure about this. Historically, the Mohawks and the Iroquois were allied with the British and hence mainly learned their language. Whereas the Hurons and the Montagnais were allied with the French, the “colonizing” language many of them use today.

This is a hugely complex issue, with tons of people manipulating statistics to suit their own positions (the French is doing great crowd vs. the French is on the ropes crowd), one that would probably require its very own blog.

I believe the most recent numbers actually showed a slight increase in the number of francophones in the vast area of Canada west of the Ottawa River. No one said it officially, but I would say most of this is likely due to people from Quebec plus some New Brunswick Acadians moving to Alberta to take advantage of the boom. Also, a small portion of the international immigration to these areas is francophone as well.

This is the present. Where you can get an idea of the future is when you look at what language francophones speak at home. In a province like Ontario about 40% of francophones speak English rather than French at home. Now, this doesn’t mean that the francophone speaking English at home will forget his or her French, but it gives you a good idea of what their kids are going to be speaking as a first language.

In Ottawa, the figure is something like one third of francophones who speak English at home, and if I recall it rises to close to half for people in their 20s and 30s, the prime childbearing years. So the end result is that lots and lots of francophones there are going to have anglophone offspring (who may or may not speak some French as a second language), and even if there is a trickle of new blood coming into the community (as evidenced by the slight increase in numbers I referred to above), this can’t possibly offset the decline caused by the language switch that such a huge proportion of the francophone community is making.

Why is this happening? Well, part of it is just par for the course when you’re just 4% of the population in a massive English-speaking part of North America called Ontario. There is also the fact that there are some big institutional gaps in French-speaking Ontario, such as the lack of a bona fide French-language university. The bilingual University of Ottawa claims to play this role, but the fact is that behind its very visible, predominantly francophone senior management and staff, on an academic level it is more and more an English-language institution that leaves an increasingly small space for French.

Retail service in French in Ottawa (even in the east end where francophones are more numerous) is often non-existent. To try and get served in French everywhere you go during the day in Ottawa (as I once was assigned to do by a newspaper as a young reporter) is to be made to feel like one is severely mentally retarded.

Francophones in Ottawa used to be concentrated in the east end, most notably in Vanier, Overbrook, Sandy Hill, Lower Town and further out in Orleans. In many areas, they were the overwhelming majority of the population. Kids grew up playing with their neighbours in French, speaking French at the corner store and the local restaurants, and French totally dominated the schoolyards of francophone schools.

Go to an east end Ottawa schoolyard in these areas today and listen to what the kids who go to school in French all day (and don’t even start to learn English as a second language until Grade 3) speak between themselves. Within minutes, you will come to the same conclusion as me: in the future, the primary common language of Franco-Ontarians will be (if it isn’t already) English.

Facebook discussion groups for the francophone Ottawa schools I attended as a child feature discussions all in English. And all these people spoke French to each other in the schoolyard! I can’t imagine that the kids today are going to do the reverse, and go from English in childhood to French as adults. Can you?