Quote: “Check the history books!”
General Wolfe won the Battle of Quebec and united Canada under English rule! The defeated French in Quebec were not evicted like the Acadians. As a GENEROUS gesture to the defeated French, they were allowed to remain and use their own language as well as English and Napoleonic law within Quebec. There is no historical case for the use of French in the rest of Canada. This is something that in recent times has been foisted upon the rest of Canada at considerable expense by the Liberal/Quebec Party.
Quebec has deliberately driven out businesses and anglophones with its language policies and deterred new businesses. Examples: Canadian Pacific Railway HQ now in Calgary, Shell Oil Canada HQ now in Calgary, Sun Life Insurance HQ now in Toronto, Ingersoll Rand plant in Ontario instead of Quebec. It then has the cheek to plead poverty and absorb vast sums of money from the rest of Canada through the Federal government equalisation payments.
As a further example of what is going on, just a few days ago I was listening to CBC Radio One profiling the case of the Irish pub in Montreal. This has been in operation for ten years. The language Nazis have recently started to persecute the operators because some "signs" are not bilingual. They are not complaining about functional signs such as the way to the bogs (les !!!!eurs?) but want old metal Guinness signs that are only available in English and are hung on the walls as part of the DECOR of an IRISH pub to be bilingual English and French. They are prepared to destroy the business and the jobs that it provides over this. This is how stupid the Quebec government is!
Equalisation payments via the federal government should be eliminated. Taxpayers in productive provinces should not be required to subsidise parasite provinces that have deliberately destroyed jobs and made their businesses uncompetitive by their negative fiscal and language policies.
In addition to the above, the cost of bilingualism has been imposed upon all Canadians and has contributed to making the country less competitive. The message to Quebec (and some other provinces and territories) should be “Pay your way and contribute to Canada instead of being a drain on the country.”
I have no objection to Quebec Province and individual Quebecois using French as well as English AT THEIR OWN COST in Quebec (apart from aviation) but cannot support such lunacies as the pub case mentioned above. There should be no cost for any of this to the rest of Canada. Quebec residents should use English in the rest of Canada. They have to use it anyway. You can be sure that when Bombardier sells CRJs to some American air operator or railway rolling stock to New York City that negotiations and documents are in English!
Residents of Quebec should be grateful that they are there and that they are able to use French as well as English and have Napoleonic law in Quebec. Stop pushing for more and trying to make the whole country dance to and pay for strictly provincial issues.
I must add that over the years I have known many francophones from Quebec and they have all been very pleasant people. It’s similar to Americans and the USA. As individuals Americans are great and generous people but the USA is probably the most unpopular country in the world. Quebec makes the same mistakes. As a consequence it has alienated vast parts of Canada (the West particularly) and contributed to Western separatist movements such as Westfed and the Western Canada Concept.
It’s an unfortunate fact that in Canada any attempt to have an intelligent and sensible debate on Quebec, French language and Indian and Eskimo issues (another $9 billion pa for the so-called first nations) draws a torrent of irrational abuse!
Last edited by Carrier; 21st February 2008 at 12:34.