Comments on: Possible changes to Bill 101

By: I am Jack's Comment

I am Jack's Comment — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:58:47 +0000

And hopefully one day enough French-speaking Quebecers will be confident enough in the future of the French language in Quebec that there will be support for allowing signs of equal prominence.

One day.

Not because it really matters at the end of the day, but because it is kind of insulting to be told you can only display signs in your own language. [Cue examples of insulting gestures from Anglo-Quebecers towards the French-speaking majority - but two wrongs don't make a right and we're talking about Bill 101 specifically here]

I would think – and am curious if I am wrong – that supporters of restricting English signs to half of the prominence of French regard this as best an unfortunate necessity as opposed to an ideal way of dealing with the English minority.

[And to clarify - I am not saying that the current state of affairs should or should not lead French-speaking Quebecers to have this level of confidence in the future of their language in Quebec].

By: I am Jack's Comment

I am Jack's Comment — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:43:16 +0000

^^^^ What CD said

By: CD

CD — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:48:16 +0000

You hit the nail on the head, AFG. Bill 101 isn’t the same law that it was in 1977. Amendments have allowed it to achieve its original goals without being overly restrictive.

Just like any other law, after 30 years it becomes a bit outdated and should be tweaked from time to time. Your suggestions are right on the money- the complaints procedure and the naming requirements for companies are unworkable. I once had the bizarre situation of telling a company from France that their company name wasn’t French according to the OQLF– if they wanted to set up a Quebec subsidiary, they would have to change their name (or easily get around the law by paying $1000 to have the name registered as a trademark.)

The vast majority of Quebec anglophones are almost completely unaffected by Bill 101 and don’t really care about it. The only people who really care about it are the crackpots that you mentioned. But you will notice that they have no support among anglophone Quebecers. Alliance Quebec closed down after its government subsidy was cut off, because it had almost no volunteers or private contributions. Galganov’s shop closed down for lack of customers, his radio show got cancelled for low ratings, and he lost every public office he ran for. Allen Nutik didn’t even run for office because his political party had no public support, money or members. The easiest way to deal with these guys is to just ignore them.

By: whippersnapper

whippersnapper — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:07:44 +0000

Justify bill 101 in your essay.

By: acadianman

acadianman — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:05:54 +0000

I think that’s a wonderful idea, I would love to see how the others can respond.

By: Whippersnapper

Whippersnapper — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:38:02 +0000

1000-1500 words

By: Whippersnapper

Whippersnapper — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:37:10 +0000

Sigh… you make me tired,
I have to write a paper on whether or not bill 101 is justified and I don’t have 100/1000 words. I have an idea! Let’s see who can make the most persuasive essay by 7:00 tomorrow morning. Use examples from our history. I’ll judge them and announce a winner. Should the French have been assimilated after the English conquest?

You know you really want to. It could open up some real good points here.

By: Making a Complaint to the OQLF for (and because of) Idiots « AngryFrenchGuy

Making a Complaint to the OQLF for (and because of) Idiots « AngryFrenchGuy — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:34:56 +0000

[...] this is an illustration of how the system makes it to easy for people to make impulsive complaints about trivial [...]

By: Toddles

Toddles — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:52:32 +0000

Thanks, Angry. That’s a great point, that Bill 101 has had the effect, given the hard-to-resist sea tide of English surrounding Quebec, of promoting bilingualism.

By: angryfrenchguy

angryfrenchguy — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:35:35 +0000

See InFlames? We can do a lot more work if we keep emotions down.

Two comments:

“I think it would be better to promote the beauty and utility of the French language, build and develop more French businesses, schools, and universities of unequaled excellence”

-The difficulty in doing that is that Québec Anglos (8% of the population) get over 35% of the Higher education and Health Care budgets.

“promote bilingualism and provide incentives to people to learn French or English.”

As I have demonstrated here before, Bill 101 promotes billingualism while Official/institutional billingualism does exactly the opposite and promotes monolingualism.

http://angryfrenchguy.com/2008/04/19/camille-laurins-bitches/