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If you look at the various trends back in 1977, one can get an idea of what things might look like without that bill.
Take 20,000-40,000 immigrants a year with almost all of them integrating into the anglophone community and the vast majority learning little to no French at all. Since there would be no extra incentive to. Multiply that by 50 years.
Then take 2-3 offspring per immigrant, and have them attend English school in a proportion of 90-95%, with more or less bogus French as a second language classes in most cases. Multiply their annual numbers by 50 years too.
So even more anglophones with little command of or use for French right there.
Also, language transfers/assimilation from the francophone community also eroded the French speaking population a bit in those days.
So basically Montreal (city and metro) would be a majority English speaking area today with a decent-sized but withering francophone minority.
Francophones would still speak French but mainly just among themselves as few people who weren't purely of French Canadian origin would speak it or want to speak it.
The end result: Montreal as an oversized Ottawa.
The implications of this would be a much reduced or even vanished local film industry, TV industry, magazine industry, publishing industry, music industry, etc. Why would you replicate all of this in Montreal primarily in English when you already have it in Toronto (which has had the largest anglophone population in Canada by a wide margin for decades), and to some degree in LA and NYC too (also serving Canada).
The socio-cultural francophone element that is totally concentrated in Montreal today would likely either have decamped to another smaller city like Quebec City, or perhaps have died altogether without the oomph of a large metropolis to propel it.
So what you are saying is without all the language laws and language police to back them up your francophone culture would cease to exist. I'd be embarrassed if my culture was so weak and feeble thats what it took to keep it alive where even the mere presence of the word Hi is considered a threat to the cultures future.
So what you are saying is without all the language laws and language police to back them up your francophone culture would cease to exist. I'd be embarrassed if my culture was so weak and feeble thats what it took to keep it alive where even the mere presence of the word Hi is considered a threat to the cultures future.
I guess. Just like if you encased Michael Phelps' legs in cement, you could probably say that he "can't swim"!
The people who complain about Bill 101 incessantly (and behave accordingly in public) also help keep the separatists relevant and their grievance/menace flame alive.
In a sense, both groups feed off each other!
Yes yes they have a strangely symbiotic relationship - both feed off each other's flaming rhetoric to keep one another alive and relevant, while the rest of the world moves on.
Yes yes they have a strangely symbiotic relationship - both feed off each other's flaming rhetoric to keep one another alive and relevant, while the rest of the world moves on.
This. I always felt that to most in Montreal, the whole deal is a non-issue. Absolute waste of effort and tax money.
Whoa this thread sure has taken a new direction since that motion was passed! Someone ought to have started a new thread on this topic.
Everyone is making valid points here. Without Bill 101 for sure there would be a lapse in use of the French language in parts of Quebec and especially in Montreal (and maybe Gatineau). However, I don't think anglophones from the rest of Canada or the US would be moving to Montreal in droves even if the language law went away nor do I think we'll ever see the pre-1977 Montreal ever again so IMO any decline in French usage would have to be a small one. English is and will probably remain a popular second language in Greater Montreal however.
Out of this whole dispute, three points can be made:
1) English is a much wider understood language in North America than French (or even Spanish) and to remain commercially connected to the rest of North America, French Canadians engaging in commerce have to know it and be willing to speak it. Even Wilfrid Laurier understood this a century ago.
2) French language and culture are indispensable to Montreal because those are what gives it soul and character. I kind of liken the French language to Montreal as the Cantonese language is to Hong Kong, China.
3) The Parti-Quebecois wanted this motion passed primarily for political reasons, perhaps to drum up more support. It's a motion, not a law, and so is not legally binding but serves to remind the citizens of Montreal of their cultural civic obligations.
4) The PQ continuously picks on Montreal and for good reason because as the main financial and commercial center in the province, Montreal is the crown jewel of Quebec and must be representative of French Quebecois culture. Had this motion targeted Sherbrooke, I don't even think it would be news.
Having said all this, I do see some truth in Dejesus's argument that the PQ are somewhat authoritarian in their beliefs and choice of words. It's one thing to preserve French language and culture but to attempt to regulate how much English or any other language can be spoken on a daily basis reeks of authoritarianism, even totalitarianism. The former USSR and Maoist China had experimented with such mandates to control thought and speech and many of these mandates were rooted in deep anxiety and fear of change.
Whoa this thread sure has taken a new direction since that motion was passed! Someone ought to have started a new thread on this topic.
Everyone is making valid points here. Without Bill 101 for sure there would be a lapse in use of the French language in parts of Quebec and especially in Montreal (and maybe Gatineau). However, I don't think anglophones from the rest of Canada or the US would be moving to Montreal in droves even if the language law went away nor do I think we'll ever see the pre-1977 Montreal ever again so IMO any decline in French usage would have to be a small one. English is and will probably remain a popular second language in Greater Montreal however.
Out of this whole dispute, three points can be made:
1) English is a much wider understood language in North America than French (or even Spanish) and to remain commercially connected to the rest of North America, French Canadians engaging in commerce have to know it and be willing to speak it. Even Wilfrid Laurier understood this a century ago.
2) French language and culture are indispensable to Montreal because those are what gives it soul and character. I kind of liken the French language to Montreal as the Cantonese language is to Hong Kong, China.
3) The Parti-Quebecois wanted this motion passed primarily for political reasons, perhaps to drum up more support. It's a motion, not a law, and so is not legally binding but serves to remind the citizens of Montreal of their cultural civic obligations.
4) The PQ continuously picks on Montreal and for good reason because as the main financial and commercial center in the province, Montreal is the crown jewel of Quebec and must be representative of French Quebecois culture. Had this motion targeted Sherbrooke, I don't even think it would be news.
Having said all this, I do see some truth in Dejesus's argument that the PQ are somewhat authoritarian in their beliefs and choice of words. It's one thing to preserve French language and culture but to attempt to regulate how much English or any other language can be spoken on a daily basis reeks of authoritarianism, even totalitarianism. The former USSR and Maoist China had experimented with such mandates to control thought and speech and many of these mandates were rooted in deep anxiety and fear of change.
On the reverse - if one day say Chinese or Indian immigrants became the dominant populations in Toronto or NYC, I wouldn't at all surprised of those respective governments instituted a "no Chinese signage law" or "law for the preservation of Anglophone language and culture".
I totally understand PQ's motivation for bringing this up - 2018 is an election year and Couillard's Liberals are up for re-election. It's all a game to drum up support from the PQ base, to remind everyone why the PQ is still relevant today. Fortunately for Couillard, he didn't fall for it and instead went along with the motion even lending it Liberal support, because everyone knows that this is just an attempt to divide the voter base into "francophones" and the "angry anglos". As much I detest this kind of political circle jerk nonsense, I support PQ's motion and their repeated effort to protect francophone language and culture in Quebec. One can lose one's country or sovereignty, but when you lose your culture you have nothing.
So what you are saying is without all the language laws and language police to back them up your francophone culture would cease to exist. I'd be embarrassed if my culture was so weak and feeble thats what it took to keep it alive where even the mere presence of the word Hi is considered a threat to the cultures future.
There is nothing to be embarrassed about. There are a lot of nice things that can't prosper without some protection because nowadays most people only look at money/business and ignore everything else. If the forests are not protected, they will be destroyed sooner or later. If art is not supported and subsidized by the government, it will be tough for it to prosper too. Same with the French culture in North America - 8m people surrounded by 300M anglopones, do you think it is its own fault to be "so weak and feeble"?
Plus, people will shift to speaking English not because they appreciate the English culture or love Shakespeare and Dicksons. They do because it is the business language, the potential to make more money. In an era where Miley Cyrus is widely popular, I am not sure the Anglo North American culture is indeed that strong and sophisticated. It is more like contamination.
Yes, you want free English schools in Quebec, yet the Quebec government refuses to subsidize you because it is not their language. How reasonable of you! Can I ask for free French schools in New York or Boston? Why the hell do you want to live in Quebec if you have no plan to be part of their mainstream culture? Well it is still fine, but you can't ask for your own different demands to be met and funded.
So what you are saying is without all the language laws and language police to back them up your francophone culture would cease to exist. I'd be embarrassed if my culture was so weak and feeble thats what it took to keep it alive where even the mere presence of the word Hi is considered a threat to the cultures future.
Quote:
Originally Posted by botticelli
There is nothing to be embarrassed about. There are a lot of nice things that can't prosper without some protection because nowadays most people only look at money/business and ignore everything else. If the forests are not protected, they will be destroyed sooner or later. If art is not supported and subsidized by the government, it will be tough for it to prosper too. Same with the French culture in North America - 8m people surrounded by 300M anglopones, do you think it is its own fault to be "so weak and feeble"?
Hey jambo, how about the Canadian Content regulations? You know, where Canadian radio stations are forced to play something like 40% Canadian music? To protect the "Canadian culture"? Or what is it, 60% of TV programming has to be Canadian?
There is nothing to be embarrassed about. There are a lot of nice things that can't prosper without some protection because nowadays most people only look at money/business and ignore everything else. If the forests are not protected, they will be destroyed sooner or later. If art is not supported and subsidized by the government, it will be tough for it to prosper too. Same with the French culture in North America - 8m people surrounded by 300M anglopones, do you think it is its own fault to be "so weak and feeble"?
.
Especially when it doesn't even have its own (sic) country and a real border to delineate its territory.
As others have pointed out, Anglo-Canada has trouble establishing a cultural identity vis-Ã -vis the United States, and they have an international border between them.
Yeah, I have never been embarrassed by the level of uniqueness of the francophone culture of this part of the world. When you consider everything that it has had working against it...
What *has* embarrassed me is when I was younger and living in Ontario, and having foreign guests staying with me and them wanting to see a Canadian movie. We went to my local video store and asked for a specific title (I knew what I wanted), and the people in the store said dismissively: "Uhh, that's a Canadian movie - it must be in the foreign section!" And they were right! It was in the foreign section. I guess I should have been happy that they even had it there.
That was embarrassing.
Or travelling around the world and meeting people from all sorts of countries. And when you get to discussing the icons of your country's culture, traditions, etc., how often as a Canadian you have to mention that Canada "relies" on the U.S. for this, or copies the U.S. for that...
That was also embarrassing to me.
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