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Anyone here remember when you could lose your job in Canada (or couldn't get one in the first place) because you were had the wrong last name, was baptized in the wrong church (or didn't belong to one at all), spoke English with the wrong accent, or was a homosexual? Or knew an elder who had that experience?
Anyone here remember when you could lose your job in Canada (or couldn't get one in the first place) because you were had the wrong last name, was baptized in the wrong church (or didn't belong to one at all), spoke English with the wrong accent, or was a homosexual? Or knew an elder who had that experience?
That's an interesting one. In New Brunswick, as a kid (1980s), I remember some friction between people with an RC background and Protestants. N.B. was pretty divided along those lines in the old days, it was bad before my time.
In Saint John, there used to be a street that was considered the "border" between a Catholic neighbourhood and a Protestant one. Kids from both neighbourhoods used that street, but were warned by their parents, to always keep to one side of that street if they were Catholic, and Protestant kids were told to keep to the other side of it. So the kids would use that street to walk to school, but walking on opposite sides. That was still happening in the 1960s.
A teacher told us he remembered an incident that happened when he was a kid: a kid from a different denomination left his own neighbourhood to play with this group of young boys. They were getting along great. The kid from the other neighbourhood suddenly says, "You guys are nice. My mother warned me that if I played with you, I'd grow a tail and horns." :roll eyes: I guess that took place in the 1950s.
In Saint John, there used to be a street that was considered the "border" between a Catholic neighbourhood and a Protestant one. Kids from both neighbourhoods used that street, but were warned by their parents, to always keep to one side of that street if they were Catholic, and Protestant kids were told to keep to the other side of it. So the kids would use that street to walk to school, but walking on opposite sides. That was still happening in the 1960s.
Seems a lot like Belfast. I guess the Irish and Scottish who settled NB carried their prejudices with them.
Seems a lot like Belfast. I guess the Irish and Scottish who settled NB carried their prejudices with them.
Big time. There even used to be Orangemen's parades, when my Dad was growing up in the 1930s. He was RC, they didn't participate, but he remembers Orangemen's Day.
The Irish community in Saint John was split between the RCs and the Ps. Also, the "establishment" in Saint John was Anglican. Then French RC Acadians started migrating down into the blue collar neighbourhoods during the 20C. There wasn't a heck of a lot of friction between Acadians and RC Irish, fortunately, but there was a rivalry between the French vs. the Irish RC clergy.
It was once an oddly "Balkanized" province. Things changed quickly after the 1960s, but not overnight. In the 1980s I attended a high school where the principal insisted that everyone sing O Canada at the beginning of school assemblies, and then God Save the Queen at the end. He was a very proper older English gent. It was always the same routine at the end of assemblies: He'd say "Everyone, The Queen." Some wag would yell from the back, "Where?" Everyone would stand, except for a couple of rows of rebellious anti-monarchists.
Anyone here remember when you could lose your job in Canada (or couldn't get one in the first place) because you were had the wrong last name, was baptized in the wrong church (or didn't belong to one at all), spoke English with the wrong accent, or was a homosexual? Or knew an elder who had that experience?
My mother left an accounting firm she worked for because she was Catholic, and she'd discovered it was an unwritten rule that you simply did not make partner unless you were Protestant. Likewise, she was shocked when she met her first Protestant in CEGEP and they didn't have horns, when she was growing up schools in Quebec were either Protestant or Catholic School board, so living a semi-rural, sheltered lifestyle she hadn't ever met someone before that she knew was a protestant. Certainly, my father, who is a visible minority and arrived in 1965 as a child, faced serious barriers due to race, often telling me that he owes much of his work ethic to it, because he knew that he had to work twice as hard and be twice as qualified as a white man if he were going to achieve the same. My Dutch grandparents had it much worse, upon my aunt's death their French neighbours and the church threw her body into an unmarked paupers grave (unconsecrated ground) without their knowledge or consent because they assumed immigrants couldn't possibly deal with the arrangements themselves, but of course didn't want to incur the costs of a proper burial.
My father Anglicized his surname so he could get a job. Hence, I have an Anglo surname.
The wrong church thing kind of sticks today. My mother is very atheist but she sent us to church (Catholic) because she was afraid we'd be bullied in school if we didn't seemingly have a religion, she just told us what bull**** is was when we got home.
Seems a lot of parents still do that today. If they only knew how many other parents were doing the same thing. Lol
I grew up in Anglo-Canada and went to school mostly in English, but in one of the places we lived, I actually went to a French school that shared a building with an English school. They were separated by a long corridor. We shared the gym. Anyway there were lots of fights between Anglophone and francophone kids, and at one point the principal of our school got the crap beaten out of him by anglo kids from the other school. We're talking 13-14 year old kids. The principal came to school with his arm in a sling the next day.
In all the places I grew up in the climate was passively homophobic. In the sense that jokes about gays and harassment of kids suspected of being gay was fairly accepted and usually went unpunished. Even by school authorities.
The racial climate overall wasn't too bad if I recall. Well, racially charged comments and even slurs were more tolerated than today, but on the other hand people didn't hang out in segregated groups. I had friends of all origins in the 70s and 80s.
By the time I was a kid religious authorities exercised very little control over wider society. Though they certainly did in French Canada during my parents' youth.
I grew up in Anglo-Canada and went to school mostly in English, but in one of the places we lived, I actually went to a French school that shared a building with an English school. They were separated by a long corridor. We shared the gym. Anyway there were lots of fights between Anglophone and francophone kids, and at one point the principal of our school got the crap beaten out of him by anglo kids from the other school. We're talking 13-14 year old kids. The principal came to school with his arm in a sling the next day.
In all the places I grew up in the climate was passively homophobic. In the sense that jokes about gays and harassment of kids suspected of being gay was fairly accepted and usually went unpunished. Even by school authorities.
The racial climate overall wasn't too bad if I recall. Well, racially charged comments and even slurs were more tolerated today, but on the other hand people didn't hang out in segregated groups. I had friends of all origins in the 70s and 80s.
By the time I was a kid religious authorities exercised very little control over wider society. Though they certainly did in French Canada during my parents' youth.
I think we went to the same school... possibly.
With the same bull**** haha
The worst was when during a snowstorm the French side was closed but the English wasn't, or vice versa, because they were different school boards.
In the 1990s I also worked in two places in Ontario where francophones were forbidden from speaking in French between themselves. One was a retail-type job but the other was a white collar work environment.
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:roll eyes: I guess that took place in the 1950s.
