How can I express my real feelings about my culture if I can’t do it in my own language? I traveled all over Canada and I lived in 5 different provinces. You dare judging me and you never visited Quebec! I’m proud of our artists, of our music, of some of our public policies, of our TV and movie industries…
Should I be ashamed of my culture because some people are separatist. They just don’t care about the rest of Canada (ROC), they have their own life, their own identity. They want to do the best for their people without having to deal with Ottawa.
Learn French and maybe you will understand my culture, why I feel as a foreigner outside of Quebec even if I’m still in “my country” as you said.
In my heart, I’m Québécoise and, more important, citizen of the world!
—une Québécoise
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2009.
fuck you….separate and suck it
I think separatists should find their way to France. This is Canada. ALL of it!
There are French speaking communities all over the country ESPECIALLY in the Maritimes. Quebec proposes to leave those Canadians out of their separate country… I wish I knew how to say FUCK THAT in Francaise
Maybe you wouldn’t feel like a foreigner if the goddamn Bloc wasn’t making the rest of Canada hate your guts.
But Kay, what would they do in France? They don’t speak real French. 😀
Cette paye parles avec deux langues officiel. Je suis une anglophone mais je pense c’est meilleur pour parler dans les deux, pas juste l’une. Aussi, c’est meilleur pour voyager de les provinces Atlantique a Ontario parce que c’est tres francais dans le moyen:) Beaucoups l’annees passe un bon ami dit a moi (en anglais) “C’est ne juste pas, je parle avec toi dans ta langue mais tu savoir pas a parler avec moi dans la langue je parle.” Je pense, il est correct, et j’apprendre a parler une p’tit peu mais svp excuser ma grammaire terrible!
“How can I express my real feelings about my culture if I can’t do it in my own language? “
“Learn French and maybe you will understand my culture, why I feel as a foreigner outside of Quebec even if I’m still in “my country” as you said.”
It depends on who you want to express your feelings to. If you want to communicate with anglophones, you might have to speak in English. Also, when I am in Quebec and trying to speak French, which I don’t have a lot of opportunities to use since leaving high school many years ago, don’t scoff, look pissed off and then switch to your shitty English because my shitty French offends you so much. I think I am beginning to understand your “Quebec culture” quite well without having to learn French. The more Quebec tries to protect it’s culture, the more isolated it will become and less other Canadians will care about Quebec. The more Quebec tries to share its culture with the rest of the country by opening it up, making things more accessible (e.g. in english) the more Canadians will understand the uniqueness of Quebec and the more Canadians will want to protect that identity which is an important part of our history. Nova Scotia is full of various cultural histories and we’ve found ways to preserve our traditions (Acadians, Scottish, Loyalists, German, Irish etc) and still get along as a province.
I’ll take the Bloc over the Conservatives.
Using Kay’s arguement about Quebecers ignoring the non-Quebecois francophones situated across the nation, (who don’t necessarily identify with Quebecois) there are a certain number of Newfoundlanders who have never agreed to Confederation and want to separate so that Newfoundland can once again become a proud independent nation unto itself. Should they be taking into consideration the english speaking populace situated across the nation with their desire to separate?
Quebec has a unique culture among our provinces and territories. But they are not alone. Newfoundland also has a distinctively unique culture. First nations cultures are unique, etc. Isn’t it great that the fabric of our national quilt is pieced together with such diversity! Separation would just make a hole in our quilt that is more beautiful when it is in one piece.
“Quebec has a unique culture among our provinces and territories. But they are not alone. Newfoundland also has a distinctively unique culture. First nations cultures are unique, etc. Isn’t it great that the fabric of our national quilt is pieced together with such diversity! Separation would just make a hole in our quilt that is more beautiful when it is in one piece.”
Oceanlady for the win
Citizen of the world…What a fucking laugh that just gave me.
You want to be a citizen of the world numb nuts…you gotta learn ENGLISH, If you really want to travel throughout the world & want a second language, SPANISH is way more useful than French. My brothers in Asia… French doesn’t even have a standing over there, he says that supposedly there’s some French in Vietnam, but in 7 visits there & having explored all over that area & more than 10 trips to China, there is no French, but English, you can get by with that.
LMFAO…citizen of the world, thank you so much, I love a good laugh.
I like Quebec. Quebec City and Montreal are great cities. I’ve always enjoyed visiting them. I’ve never had a problem travelling through Quebec. Most people I meet are polite and most speak at least a bit of English, which generally matches up nicely with my bit of French. I don’t see the issue here?
We all take French in school, but unless we have some way to practice it regularly, we cannot expand the base we are given, and we eventually lose it.
I wish that I could understand French when it is spoken to me, but I cannot. When you ask me for directions/aid, I really do want to help you, but you speak too fast and you sometimes use slang. I can speak it badly, and I can read it with a dictionary in hand. But, because I have not had the opportunity to use and hear it due to my location, I hesitate to speak in French. It would be painful for you to have to listen to me, and embarrassing for me to have to explain to you that unless you spoke so slowly that you separated each word, I cannot understand what you are saying. So, the language problem is not due to my unwillingness to learn–it is due to my lacking the opportunity to learn.
That said, I have never thought of the Québécoise as foreigners or even as separate in any way except for (maybe) some cultural differences. Even here, from the films that I have watched from Quebec, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference.
“In my heart, I’m Québécoise and, more important, citizen of the world!”
And, regardless of the difficulties the language barrier presents, still, you ARE Canadian.
I think the world has come to the point where the imaginary lines that have been drawn and defended with force in the past are now starting to blur due to international travel, immigration, the world market, the United Nations and the communication between cultures that the internet has opened up. We have some way to go, but in many ways, borders have become more traditional territory markers than the walls they used to be. So, it is dismaying that in a country as liberal and diverse as Canada, we have a community within it trying to erect walls. I am not even sure anymore if it is to keep certain kinds of people out or to protect the people within. I mean, will the Québécoise also create walls within the walls for the other cultures that live in Quebec? I don’t know, it just seems like the premise which the original argument was based on has become outdated due to the diversity that is now as much a part of Quebec as it is the rest of Canada. No walls Quebec could erect can change that unless it boots out all of its ethnic populations–including those of English descent. Regardless, the Québécoise cannot change what has already happened–the reason they cannot ‘go back to France’. The Québécoise are not French. They are FrenchCanadian (just as the English-speaking people are not English). And as Canadians, they share with their English-speaking neighbours a common identity through a shared history, culture and even family that cannot be undone–it is a part of who they are. Perhaps it is this denial that causes Canadians outside of Quebec to feel resentful towards separatists. It would be like a family member denying/disowning everything the family is about–like the family was a source of shame. I mean, I may not understand or even like the culture of my teenagers but the common ground that we do share enables us to communicate and enjoy each others company. It is only when we cannot accept differences simply as diversity that we run into problems.
This doesn’t help you much though = ). I think the way to go is to say to people that you are proud of your French heritage and the part it plays into who you are as a Canadian. So ultimately, you are a Québécoise Canadian world citizen. (I didn’t say French because although it is the language you speak, I am sure that your family has roots in other ethnic groups.)
As far as the French contributions to Canadian art goes, it is only the people who avoid pieces done in languages other than their own that lose out. One of my favorite films is in Polish, and one of my favorite poets writes in German. I am aware that I am losing something in translation, but I am gaining more than I am losing. And, of course, music and visual art is universal.
I’m from Quebec and I don’t want the separation, but a lot of people judge us because of where we’re from. Not everybody is like that.
Btw, I love Halifax 🙂
There’s a whole lot wrong with seeing Quebec as a separate nation. I learned french in school, much like everyone else, and I even went so far as going through immersion in grade 6 thru 9. Thankfully, I managed to retain at least a rudimentary knowledge of french. When I went to Montreal last, I found that even the fact that I attempted to speak french for the majority of my stay seemed to satisfy at least the store clerks and hotel staff (even with the realization that it’s their job to deal with anglos all day), and even the few clients I had met with, as well as the business people I ran into during the trip. The problem is that; it’s a language issue. For most Quebecois they seem to think that the language IS the culture. In fact, that has been the drum they have beaten since the 70’s it seems. Now, clearly, since I have only visited, I cannot begin to imagine what being a Quebecois is.
I think the progressive spread of human rights activity in the world lends better to blur our differences than immigration, travel and even living in an ethnically diverse neighborhood. We needed to have developed some tolerance and understanding of our differences before we could really welcome a strange neighbor into our communities and have them ACTUALLY be welcome. Holding human rights close to your heart actually creates a kind of referral service for every other human being on the planet… not a bad thing.
I like TV in Quebec…flipping around all you see is singing, dancing, old people in colourful clothes, middle-aged men still with long, wacky clown make-up and a trained seal – and that’s just the news cast…
If they do seperate, it would help me – by knocking 7 hours off the drive to Toronto!
tabranac.
Quebec is great. Other parts of Canada are great.
Isolationism sucks.
…and they trend nowadays is for borders to fall, not rise. COUNTRIES are barely sovereign now, what with NATO, G-8, UN, OAS, etc. For a province to try to be separate and special laughable. Interdependence is the name of the game, kiddies.
Separatism is dead and Quebec is doing great. They have amazing cinema, tv (ie watch ‘les Invincibles’ or ‘les Bougons’ if you understand french and want a good laugh), great musicians (coeur de pirate, nikki yanofsky, jean leloup, malajube etc…), the best food (well dairy, duck and french anyway), fantastic geography, Montreal+Quebec city, love winter, are hydro powered (more climate change friendly) and are generally doing awesome. The language thing is unfortunate but not insurmountable. It’s hard to be truly bilingual or accepted by another culture if you’re not. Anglo or Franco in QC or in the ROC. If you can get over that, you can go on enjoying the good parts and good people.
The Bloc should be illegal… unless they run in the rest of the country equally, like every other political party… We’ve kind of done it to ourselves haven’t we, allowing this to happen?
Why should the Bloc be illegal? If that’s the case then independent MP’s would have to be illegal too. Look at politics in Canada…there really aren’t any truly national parties any more anyway. The Liberals care about Ontario and the Conservatives serve the west. As much as I hate to separatist parties around, they really should have the right to exist. It would be pretty undemocratic to start restricting the agendas of our political parties.
If only the Government would gets some balls and stop funding bi-lingualism the French languge debate in Canada would be like the language, dead as a nit. French used to be a world language, now it’s a curiousity, like French plumbing.
What I mean Miles… is that to be a FEDERAL party you should have to dun candidates in ALL provinces to be considered for any electoral funding… if you are an independent MP – that is different, you are not part of a party. But a party like the Bloc should exist in other provinces too to be legitimate, that is my point.
For that matter, I dig a lot of the Bloc’s policies, except for the separatist part, but I do kind of like their politics. I’d rather vote for them than the Liberals PCs or certainly the NDP.
It’s nopt that they are separatist that bothers me – it is that they can get away with running no other candidates in any other part of the country and still get treated like a federal party – why should they get their cake and get to eat it too?
I felt the same way as you initially Dartmouthy…but I don’t think there should be any obligation for a party to run candidates in every riding. Quebec has about 1/4 of all Canadians. Just running in Quebec alone, the Bloc stands to represent a very sizeable chunk of Canada and they have the democratic right to elect whoever they want into office…it doesn’t matter what their politics are. There’s no good reason why a political party has to run candidates everywhere to get federal money…it’s just based on the number of votes they get. Other countries deal with this issue too. The Israeli parliament (Knesset) has over 12 political parties with very broad agendas and they are forced work together to accomplish anything. Sometimes it seems like Canada may be moving away from the federal party system to something more like Israel.
Wow Miles, thats a scary though! lol. We need libertarianism more than ever 🙂
Sorry all my posts have one letter missing or misspelled every now and then btw… lol. Not only am I semi-retarded, but apparently my keyboard is too. My apologies.
http://www.nationalpost.com/scripts/story.…
This is a perfect example of why I love Quebec… reasonable social policies and politics… they they get it. AND to boot they charge less than half of what we charge here in monopolistic Nova Scotia for booze and beer AND you can get it in a corner store. Paradise? Pretty fucking close for Canada. I think it would be the best thing ever for them to annex the Maritimes along with the hydro deal… lol. I’d learn better french if I got cheap beer out of the deal fo reals. Along with progressive, real social policy. See, I kind of like the Bloc.