AngryFrenchGuy

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1. edward,

   if i may – and this is how i interpret mr. kondak’s writing above – it is through liberty and choice that the strengths of a society are built and maintained – not the machinations of government interventions.

   the french fact in quebec (by and large – an unrecognised jewel tarnished by recent socialist governments with totalitarian sympathies) has been institutionalised – it is in the process of being reduced from its genuine nature in the quotidian and the language has been politicised (almost transformed) into an idealogy.

   i think we can agree that idealogy is the precursor to death – in politics.

   

   johnnyonline

   February 21, 2010 at 3:27 pm
2. What you propose sounds a bit like Goethe’s Mephistophelian deal. Sell your soul in exchange for riches and power.

   I get the impression that the “English” that people hide under their beds about here is not so much what comes from Ottawa as what comes from the US. The cultural imperialism, or perhaps more appropriately described as cultural opium, which comes by following the path of least resistance in all things from business, to books, to TV and music. It is the fear that McDonalds will one day replace La Banquise and that Bon Jovi will become the Despised Icon of America in Quebec.

   No?

   

   edward

   February 21, 2010 at 4:20 pm
3. “3) The encouragement in Quebec society that francophones learn English. Knowledge of English is the key for the survival of the French language in Quebec because it is needed for business and, ultimately, the one thing that will protect a culture and language is economic strength.”

   French Québécois already speak English in numbers and to levels of fluency many times above and beyond “reasonable” and “global-thinking” societies like Korea and the Philippines that are highly regarded in Anglodia for their embrace of the gospel of English. Québec’s crime is to be French (Francophobia is very profoundly entrenched in English-speaking thought) and to not give enough special privileges to the “Native English-speaker”, the contemporary concept equivalent to the 19th and early 20th century “white man”.

   “4) Encouraging anglophones to live, work, invest, educate, and deal with the Quebec government in unilingual English.”

   Actually, unlike you, Tony, we in Québec do not believe in the inferiority of the English speaker. We believe he is just as intelligent as members of other human cultures and able to learn and live in the common language of the society in which he lives, just like the rest of multilingual humanity. The segregation of the Anglo is wrong and must stop.

   

   angryfrenchguy

   February 21, 2010 at 5:02 pm
4. that’s precious agf – first alienate – then proceed to suppress and marginalise – results: dispersion alienation, and segregation – and now you are personally calling for what – desegregation/integration?

   the anglophone community in quebec has already adapted to the “modern collectivity.” the original intention was an excellent idea but the execution was botched. i believe the anglophone community has had enough help in that department from the government already thank you very much. personally – i don’t need it – and personally, i don’t want it.

   

   johnnyonline

   February 21, 2010 at 5:58 pm
5. AFG writes:

   Actually, unlike you, Tony, we in Québec do not believe in the inferiority of the English speaker. We believe he is just as intelligent as members of other human cultures and able to learn and live in the common language of the society in which he lives, just like the rest of multilingual humanity. The segregation of the Anglo is wrong and must stop.

   When Quebec ceases having repressive, human-rights violating language legislation that attempts to create and impose an artificial common language on all the people of Quebec, we shall see exactly what the common language(s) of commerce in Quebec is.

   From the preamble to Bill 101:

   Whereas the National Assembly of Québec recognizes that Quebecers wish to see the quality and influence of the French language assured, and is resolved therefore to make of French the language of Government and the Law, as well as the normal and everyday language of work, instruction, communication, commerce and business;

   

   Tony Kondaks

   February 21, 2010 at 6:29 pm
6. The more that unilingual anglophones can live, work, invest, communicate with the Quebec government, and be educated in unilingual English, the greater the possibility that French will be protected and flourish in Quebec.

   I know that sounds like a contradiction to most, but that — within the context of an independent Quebec — is what will save French.

   

   Tony Kondaks

   February 21, 2010 at 6:33 pm
7. the following is from:

   www dot thomasbrewton.com/index.php/weblog/why_individualism_is_better_than_collectivized_government_power/

   In January of 2006, I spent 10 days in and around the Indian City of Bangalore, where an entrepreneurial revolution is going on. I visited many of the companies that were leading that rebirth of Indian capitalism, including a 15-year-old company called Infosys.

   Infosys had gone from zero to more than 50,000 employees in less than 15 years. (Talk about creating jobs!) Their ultra-modern campus in Bangalore would put Microsoft’s Redmond campus to shame! (I have visited both.)

   I asked the founder of Infosys what accounted for the company’s phenomenal success. His answer was revealing: “Dr. Emerson, the government got out of the way! When we started this company 15 years ago, we had to pay three times the world price to buy a computer. Today, we pay the world price. The government got out of the way!”

   

   johnnyonline

   February 21, 2010 at 7:05 pm
8. “I know that sounds like a contradiction to most, but that — within the context of an independent Quebec — is what will save French.”

   Explain yourself. You can’t make patently absurd statements without at least attempting to explain what you mean.

   Does freedom of Italian-Canadians to use Italian in Quebec also preserve the French language? Why do you think that an 8% minority has any impact whatsoever? As long as Franco-quebeckers can speak English when they need to then the Anglophones don’t actually bring anything unique to the table.
   Do they?

   

   edward

   February 21, 2010 at 7:30 pm
9. Johnny,
   We get it. People like me who have had to deal with Visas and work permits and immigration know that government pretty much makes simple, noble things unbearably complicated and painful. But government also provides needed services that business simply cannot. In addition business behaves in ways that are absolutely not in the interests of society at large. Making money is great business practice, but it is not a virtue. That is the big conservative lie, that if we all just went about getting rich the world would be a better place.

   There is simply no substitute for government. For every screw up we hear about in government there are ten screw ups that get covered up in big business. But we have no legal right to find out when business screws up, in contrast to government.

   

   edward

   February 21, 2010 at 7:41 pm
10. edward writes:

    Explain yourself. You can’t make patently absurd statements without at least attempting to explain what you mean.

    Does freedom of Italian-Canadians to use Italian in Quebec also preserve the French language? Why do you think that an 8% minority has any impact whatsoever? As long as Franco-quebeckers can speak English when they need to then the Anglophones don’t actually bring anything unique to the table.
    Do they?

    Sorry, I thought I did explain all this.

    The premise is: economic strength is the #1 factor that protects a language and culture. In the context of Quebec living in a sea of English in North America, knowledge of English is essential for that economic strength.

    So, too, is Quebec getting its fair share of entrepreneurs, capitalists, and professionals to come and live, invest, and work in Quebec. Unless unilingual anglophones — who make up the bulk of the 330 million + people in the rest of Canada and the USA — can come and work, live, be educated in etc. in unilingual English, they won’t come in the numbers we need them to.

    

    Tony Kondaks

    February 21, 2010 at 7:41 pm
11. So we should also make it easy and welcoming for unilingual speakers of Mandarin, Hindhi, and Spanish to come and live here. No need for French at all (except in as much as it attracts those unilingual French speakers from Europe)?

    I moved here thinking that English would be like the American Express card (accepted everywhere) but it turns out that the American Express card is NOT accepted everywhere. Luckily I also have a Mastercard and VIsa –i.e. I spoke French well enough to get by. I would say that if you are planning to move to a new country you had better learn the local language. This is just common sense. Don’t leave home without it.

    

    edward

    February 21, 2010 at 7:52 pm
12. edward writes:

    I would say that if you are planning to move to a new country you had better learn the local language.

    The local language and the language of commerce for most people moving to Quebec prior to the passage of language legislation was English because they moved to anglophones areas. No need to learn a folk language despite it being spoken by a majority of the people in the province which was a whole solitude removed from their everyday experience.

    Kinda like the first French-speaking settlers who came to the land now known as Quebec who refused to speak the language of what was then the aboriginal majority.

    I believe that same kindness should be extended to the francophone majority today.

    

    Tony Kondaks

    February 21, 2010 at 8:13 pm
13. The Anglophone majority of Canada doesn’t communicate in Cree either as far as I know…

    Sure if you can get buy in business using only English then I agree that you shouldn’t be forced by law to use French. But I suggest that any business setting up in Quebec today will lose a lot of revenue if they refuse to use French, not because of law but because of economics.

    I get your basic point. Having lived some years in Japan I saw how their decision to assign English as the default base language for communicating basic information to non-Japanese speakers made life much easier for the foreign work-force (and pissed off French working there to no end). Quebec’s decision to do just the opposite seems shortsighted in comparison, but on the other hand English was so commonplace here already. You probably see at least double the English on the streets of Montreal than on the streets of Tokyo. But even so, I highly doubt that the Japanese government would be well-advised to discourage foreign immigrants from learning Japanese.

    So yes I agree that Quebec should embrace English as a language for foreigners to communicate when French doesn’t work for them, but that should, as in all other places, be a failsafe rather than the final goal.

    

    edward

    February 21, 2010 at 8:39 pm
14. edward,

    please don’t misconstrue what i have written – i am not advocating the dissolution of law, order and good governance – i am a proponent.

    however i am definitely opposed to big government – in particular, the kind of government that is big enough to provide “everything” is precisely the kind of government that is big enough to take “everything” away. history has proven this time and time again.

    it seems your left-leaning social mores blind you to this and further result in your suspicious attitudes to the creation of wealth – which i need not remind you is the source of all social programmes.

    there have never been more regulations on business than there are now and still there are fraudsters (al gore vincent lacroix and earl jones come to mind and let’s not forget bernie madoff) – the vast majority of businessmen are law-abiding tax-paying individuals and if you feel otherwise – wellllll… what can i say?

    they say socialism will come to a grinding halt when there is no one left to tax (see modern day california). it must be fun spending other peoples’ money without consequences eh? the problem lies in the future when those responsible for crap policies are nowhere to be found.

    in terms of our discussion – i pray that the consequences of language laws over time will prove beneficial but like tony i have my doubts – there are still many years to go before anyone can say with real certainty one way or the other.

    

    johnnyonline

    February 21, 2010 at 9:06 pm
15. and just to throw a little spark into the thread – a court decision is coming up in the next two weeks deciding whether that law (originating from the windy city) used to railroad conrad black into prison is valid or no. the vague nature of its wording seems to have come under scrutiny. in essence the appeal contends that ruling on a crime that is not defined will not be allowed to stand on the books.

    imagine if the law will not stand up to the challenge and uncle connie is released to accuse his detractors of false imprisonment.

    

    johnnyonline

    February 21, 2010 at 9:34 pm
16. edward writes:

    So yes I agree that Quebec should embrace English as a language for foreigners to communicate when French doesn’t work for them, but that should, as in all other places, be a failsafe rather than the final goal.

    Actually, it’s no one’s business to determine “final goals”. Speech is the business of the person speaking it and the state has business in the larynxes of the nation.

    

    Tony Kondaks

    February 21, 2010 at 9:56 pm
17. Funny but I think we are all fundamentally in agreement. Just our fuzzy edges might not align perfectly.

    (For example I think Bush was a worse spendthrift than Obama could ever be — Obama spent billions to shore up the capitalist economic system while Bush wasted billions to salvage his daddy’s reputation in Iraq). Bush handed Obama the worst economy in decades and Obama will hand his successor a recovering economy. In fact among the big investment banks that declared record profits in 2009 is included the Federal Reserve Bank. The bank CEOs are handing themselves huge bonuses to congratulate themselves and the GOP is handing Obama his head on a platter to thank him….) But that is a whole other country…

    Tony, the state has business in serving the interests of its citizens and in this case it is square in the larynxes of the nation. I agree with you that telling people they cannot use a certain language is overstepping its bounds, but actively encouraging people to use the language they see best serves the needs of the majority of citizens is well within their mandate: Education, public service campaigns, immigration policy etc. (And this should actually include encouraging people to learn English as a second language for the good of all.)

    

    edward

    February 21, 2010 at 10:35 pm
18. i believe mr. bush persecuted a war in iraq (with the approval of both houses) because the trade towers went down with almost 3000 american citizens in them.

    mr. obama has now spent more money and indebted the usa to the tune of more than all previous presidents combined. and as canada’s largest trading partner – mr. obama cannot hand over the economy soon enough.

    bailing out banks, automobile manufacturers and overleveraged homeowners does nothing for the economy but burden taxpayers with a larger bill. what happened to good old bankruptcy law? you know the old fashioned – you screwed up – and now somebody else is going to staighten it out stuff in an orderly and measured fashion?

    edward, would you like to volunteer to teach esl – i can get you a classroom and students?

    

    johnnyonline

    February 21, 2010 at 11:18 pm
19. edward writes:

    I agree with you that telling people they cannot use a certain language is overstepping its bounds, but actively encouraging people to use the language they see best serves the needs of the majority of citizens is well within their mandate…

    I’ll agree with that…provided such encouragement doesn’t infringe on any individual liberties or any rights and freedoms contained the charters of rights.

    

    Tony Kondaks

    February 22, 2010 at 12:11 am
20. Tony:
    > Kinda like the first French-speaking settlers who came to the land now
    > known as Quebec who refused to speak the language of what was then the
    > aboriginal majority.

    Actually, I remember historian Marcel Trudel commenting that colonizing North America was actually the first linguistic shock for the French colonists. Many of them did become fluent in one or several aboriginal languages, at the same time as the natives became fluent in French and/or English. Some missionaries even wrote bilingual dictionaries. (Learning your target’s language was considered important for proselytising.)

    I read this in one of his two Mythes et réalités de l’histoire du Québec books; I don’t know which one right now and I can’t check since I’m in Europe for a few months. But as these books are actually a digest of his life’s research, it’s quite likely that it’d be possible to find even more information about the subject in one of his other books.

    Of course, this is not to say that the French colonists were anything other than paternalistic toward the natives. I’ve seen some French apologists here go on and on about the supposed fundamental difference between how the French and English colonists treated the aboriginals, and while it is true that there was a difference, especially if we look at the Conquest of the West — Sid Meier’s game Colonization doesn’t offer the French a bonus in dealing with the natives for nothing ;-) — when one prominent French colonist said that he wanted to build “one nation, one blood” out of the French and the Indians, what he was describing was assimilation and not of the French wholly into the native culture and way of life. But still, saying that the French “refused” to learn the language of the aboriginal majority is inaccurate.

    

    Obelix

    February 22, 2010 at 5:10 am
21. > al gore vincent lacroix and earl jones come to mind
    > and let’s not forget bernie madoff

    One of these is not like the others…

    Just one comment: people were talking about global warming even before Al Gore made it his goal to educate the public about it, you know. I remember hearing about it in the late 80s and early 90s, but at the time they called it the greenhouse effect. (Global warming, of course, is caused by the greenhouse effect but they are not synonyms.)

    This said, Al Gore holding the flame of global warming might have done more damage than good to his cause, since Gore being a politician, it politicized the issue. Now if you don’t like Gore, Democrats or the left, you can just say that you don’t believe in global warming, since it’s a political, not scientific, issue.

    I don’t know how much we should do about global warming, and I don’t know what will happen if we do nothing. But this said, scientists agree that the planet is warming up, which could cause major changes in climate in the next few decades, and our emissions of carbon dioxide are thought to be the culprit; they’re at least correlated with global warming. In every field, we should not let the fact that it might be bad for business stop us from doing what’s necessary.

    

    Obelix

    February 22, 2010 at 5:27 am
22. JOL:”i believe mr. bush persecuted a war in iraq (with the approval of both houses) because the trade towers went down with almost 3000 american citizens in them.

    mr. obama has now spent more money and indebted the usa to the tune of more than all previous presidents combined.”

    Many would argue that what Mr. Obama spent was simply to pay the bill that Mr. Bush stiffed him with when he left the table:
    http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3036

    The only thing Iraq had to do with 9/11 was the fact that the administration pretended there was a link. That argument didn’t even make sense in 2002, but Mr. Cheney assured us the evidence was there. We later learned it was all hype. Did you not get the memo? ;-)

    

    edward

    February 22, 2010 at 7:58 am
23. The key point in the link I posted is this: “By the time CBO issued its new projections on January 7, 2009 — two weeks before Inauguration Day — it had already put the 2009 deficit at well over $1 trillion.”
    That is, Obama INHERITED the largest deficit in US history. This is simple fact.

    The net loss from the TARP program is around $50 billion at this point. One can debate whether preventing the us banking system from failing was worth the price, but don’t forget the US has spent over $900 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.

    

    edward

    February 22, 2010 at 8:14 am
24. In January of 2006, I spent 10 days in and around the Indian City of Bangalore, where an entrepreneurial revolution is going on. I visited many of the companies that were leading that rebirth of Indian capitalism, including a 15-year-old company called Infosys.

    Infosys had gone from zero to more than 50,000 employees in less than 15 years. (Talk about creating jobs!) Their ultra-modern campus in Bangalore would put Microsoft’s Redmond campus to shame! (I have visited both.)

    I asked the founder of Infosys what accounted for the company’s phenomenal success. His answer was revealing: “Dr. Emerson, the government got out of the way! When we started this company 15 years ago, we had to pay three times the world price to buy a computer. Today, we pay the world price. The government got out of the way!”

    Yes, and today companies like Infosys and Tata report a shortage of employees with skills other than English, export lo-value English jobs to countries Mexico, Romania… an the US and hire british backpackers to man their call centers while they redirect their indian employees to enginieering and desing jobs.

    Québec’s workforce is much more bilingual and even multilingual than India’s. Canada and the US can take the call center and back office jobs, Québec will be better positioned for the higher value work.

    Say: Merci Camille Laurin.

    

    angryfrenchguy

    February 22, 2010 at 10:57 am
25. Like you Angy french guy i spent 40 years in the city of Montreal. And I have seen a city of capitalism and wealth burn to ashes. Why has the mightily Montreal fallen I asked myself, the answer Sherlock, the government interference. Not only in those call centre jobs but all specialized jobs like engineers , doctors, nurses, language proficiency anyone????. Government interference of bill 101 has killed Montreal. Refeundum’s have killed Montreal, nationalism has killed Montreal

    But it’s the Anglos have call centre jobs and MCjobs and the French speakers and separatist like yourself have taken over the union jobs and civil service jobs that actually pay a mortgage. I ‘m all right jack.

    

    Angryphone

    February 22, 2010 at 11:17 am
26. Obelix wrote:

    But still, saying that the French “refused” to learn the language of the aboriginal majority is inaccurate.

    Of course it’s accurate.

    Yes, you’ll always find one or two that learned the language of the aboriginals where they landed but, overall, virtually none of the francophones did. Indeed, if they had in any large numbers and had, as is expected today, respected “the language of the majority” as the common language, we’d still be speaking aboriginal languages in Quebec today, which virtually no one but the members of those aboriginal communities do.

    And my point here is not to say that the English were any better than the French in this regard but, rather, to counter the point that the existence of a majority language necessarily dictates on a moral or legal ground that it therefore must constitute the common language. Our history with the aboriginals is the evidence for that and Quebec linguistic supremacists must stop using this “majority language must be the common language” justification for language legislation. To do so is petty and, yes, insulting to the natives.

    

    Tony Kondaks

    February 22, 2010 at 12:45 pm
27. AFG writes:

    Québec’s workforce is much more bilingual and even multilingual than India’s. Canada and the US can take the call center and back office jobs, Québec will be better positioned for the higher value work.

    AFG, there’s a good reason why you’ll never become Minister of Commerce.

    

    Tony Kondaks

    February 22, 2010 at 12:47 pm
28. Obelix writes:

    But this said, scientists agree that the planet is warming up…

    I’m not a scientist so I’m in no position to say whether global warming is real or not, but saying “scientists agree that the planet is warming up” is, simply, incorrect on two points:

    1) If emerging reports are any indication, scientists do not agree that the planet is warming up; and

    2) Even if 99.9% of all scientists agree that the Earth was warming up, it means nothing from a scientific point of view.

    Science is not democracy and “consensus” holds virtually no weight. These are things for politicians.

    Science is directly opposed to consensus. Indeed, all the major scientific breakthroughs went against consensus. All it took was once scientific theory then backed up by emirical evidence to destroy whatever prevailing consensus existed at the time.

    Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity dispelled the unanimous consensus that time was absolute; Newton dispelled the unanimous consensus about gravity, etc.

    Science is not a democracy.

    

    Tony Kondaks

    February 22, 2010 at 12:56 pm
29. Every time I read TK’s comments, I’m reminded of Pope’s admonition :
    « –A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. »

    

    Raman

    February 22, 2010 at 1:06 pm
30. “Government interference of bill 101 has killed Montreal. Refeundum’s have killed Montreal, nationalism has killed Montreal”

    And I suppose that the separatists are also to blame for the downfall of Detroit, Baltimore, Hartford, Kingston, etc…

    

    angryfrenchguy

    February 22, 2010 at 3:19 pm

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