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LadyAngelika -> RE: "African American"? (2/24/2010 3:44:54 PM)
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ORIGINAL: BLoved
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ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika
So you claim to be an expert on Québec Seperatists now to? Oh my... speak about what you know, ok?
I lived in Quebec before the FLQ crisis. I've followed the development of seperatism up until the passing of my wife, after which I lost interest in most everything.
I'm quite sure I'd have heard of a referendum result favouring seperatism.
True. But the issue isn't that black and white. The fact that they didn't get a majority vote doesn't mean that it is not the majority opinion. I know people think that things are that black and white, but it's not. Many sit on a fence.
Also the fact that it has been an issue since 1775 and a very hot issue for the last 40 is testimony of how complicated this issue is.
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Having given this more thought ...
Alright...
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I was quite young when my parent's business had gone bankrupt. We had to move around a lot as it was difficult for dad to find work.
We moved to N.D.G. (Randall, I think) which is where I started school. I recall it rained the day I sold apples for the cub scouts, my first kiss, my brother accidently setting fire to a field, a homeless man sitting at the top of the stairs eating a bowl of soup he'd begged from my mother. My dad was working again and it wasn't long before we moved to Laval West.
Laval was a little town just downstream from the Lachine rapids. Learned to swim there, how to build a basement, how to hunt earthworms for fishing, how to fish.
Lachine Rapids are on the south shore of Montreal. Laval is on the North Shore. You might want to revisit a map of Montreal.
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So I've always had an interest and concern for Quebec. Everyone was concerned during the FLQ crisis. Terrorism in Canada? Impossible!
I cut a little of reminiscing out in order to get to the heart of the issue (which is off topic, but you brought your own thread this far off topic so... )
You are right. The Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) detonated bombs over a period of 7 years which culminated in the kidnapping and murder of Pierre Laporte Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour of the province of Quebec in October 1970, which we refer to now as the October Crisis.
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And Trudeau ... we owe so much to that man for who we are as a nation. Passes the War Measures Act and all sorts of people are rounded up.
On this point, we will agree. Very few world leaders knew how to run a country with conviction and charisma glove like Trudeau. He was no bullshit.
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Having lived through it, I don't think there were many who took their eyes off Quebec after that.
Actually so much has happened in the last 40 years that people really don't talk about it anymore. Probably most people don't know about this.
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And along comes the PQ. I can't think of another country where a provincial government says they want to seperate, and will hold a referendum for that purpose, and the federal government did nothing to stop it.
Really? You think the federal government did nothing to stop it? You really hold that opinion? Just because they didn't come out with guns doesn't mean they did nothing.
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I have always been proud of the Canadian sense of tolerance for differences in others, that we never acted against this principle of democracy, that people have the right to self-determination.
True. Though I think that we should be careful about patting each other on the back so much as I've seen quite a bit of intolerance.
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And while I disagreed with the goals of the PQ, I respected their decision to do this through the ballot box.
Strategically, they did things all wrong.
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Right up until the language rights issue.
While I don't agree with what they did to deal with the language issue, I agree that something had to be done.
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Banning all languages on signs but french (including english, one of the two official national languages, french being the other) was wrong. It demonstrated a willingness to persecute Quebecois minority rights and they knew it. That is why thet attached the "Notwithstanding Clause" to it. The first and only government in Canada to deliberately prevent the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be applied.
I'd heard that the language laws had been subsequently modified. I do not know the details. Between wife and child life got busy and I lost interest in the outside world.
Canada is bilingual. Every Canadian province and territory is unilingual English except for Quebec which is unilingual French and New Brunswick which is bilingual.
There is no banning of English signs. There was a law that said that signs could not be only in English. It also said that the French portion of the sign has to be larger.
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I notice you were born after the FLQ crisis.
It isn't the FLQ crisis but the October Crisis and yes, I was born 2 years later. Part of my extended family were members of the FLQ so I think I know a thing or two.
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You wouldn't recall DeGaulle's "Vive le Quebec Libre!" and the shockwave it sent through Canada. You wouldn't have experienced our pride as a nation during our centennial year.
Ok, so I wasn't around when happened, no. I was born 5 year llater. But it impacted almost every day of my life. And I've seen the speech over and over again, studied it's impact in history books, debated with others about what right a foreigner had to come in and speak about our faith...
Oh yeah, you're right. It has no impact on me at all.
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We have changed quite a bit since then.
Some things have changed and some things have remained exactly the same.
While I am not in agreeement with a lot of the decisions that the PQ made, I am grateful that someone stepped up to the plate and did something about trying to preserve my language and heritage. I just wish they would have made better decisions and would have created less animosity in this country by doing so.
- LA
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