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BLoved -> RE: "African American"? (2/25/2010 5:28:58 AM)
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ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika
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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.
My understanding is that while many people vote PQ in provincial elections because they want a very strong pro-Quebec government representing them, they do not support the PQ platform to seperate. That's why they win elections and lose referendums.
They're not sitting on the fence, they are using the PQ as leverage.
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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.
In '67 we had a french-canadian governor general (Georges Vanier), an incredibly popular french-canadian prime minister (Trudeau), a very strong representation from Quebec in parliament and cabinet ... there was nothing on the horizon for English Canada to feel threatened by Quebec.
I can see why those born post-FLQ would see relations between the two differently than those who knew Canada before the crisis. The FLQ polarized us as a nation in a way that had not been the case before.
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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.
Damn! Another myth of my youth dispersed.
There are rapids near Deux Montagnes, just east (on edit, "west") of St. Eustache. Dad told me they were the Lachine Rapids and I never thought to check. My apologies.
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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.
For half the population, give or take, it is 'ancient history', before their time.
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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.
They campaigned in the referendum. I mean that they took no legal steps to prevent the referendum, passed no legislation regarding it.
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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.
As have I. There are intolerant Canadians as there would be in any nation, but our tolerance for the referendums, for a seperatiste government in Quebec and a seperatiste party in Paliament ... I can think of no other nation with that much tolerance.
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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.
In what way was the french language in jeopardy?
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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.
I believe Ontario is also officially bilingual.
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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.
That sounds like the modified law, not the original.
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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.
I am sure that has a lot to do with why we differ in our view of english-french relations prior to the crisis.
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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.
I'm not saying it has no impact ... I am saying there is a difference growing up in Canada before the crisis as compared to growing up after the crisis. I grew up believing we could all get along and that language was not an insurmountable barrier dividing us. Post-FLQ we no longer get along and language became a divisive issue.
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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.
I don't believe anyone in Canada has ever intended to deny the Quebecois their language or their heritage.
Certainly not like we did with native peoples in the 50s.
The FLQ radicalized the issues and the PQ took advantage of it. English Canada was demonized for political gain and we are still living with the consequences.
The whole seperatist movement has been like a gun to the head of English Canada, and has done more harm to the goodwill in this country that anything else I can think of.
No one likes having their country threatened.
I've lost track of the number of times I've heard English Canada should have a referendum to see if we want Quebec to stay or go.
~sigh~
How far we have fallen since 1967.
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