Food and dress are something Montreal can teach Canada.

And Montreal won't be underpopulated for long if Quebec and France work out their new labour agreement.

First Roman: Civilized decline can be so charming you don't notice it's about to accelerate into uncivilized decline.

Second Roman: Aye, but it was a very passable, dish of poutine.

Third Roman: You're right there Monsieur Lalonde

Fourth Roman: We are lucky. But if you try and tell the young people of today that they won't believe you.

All together: They won't!

I always hear how charming Quebec is, but also how much the hate Anglos. Why would I go there?

If they are going to serve me a meal with a side dish of contempt, they can stuff that dinner up their kitchen.

I like to go the USA or Alberta. People are gregarious, friendly, polite and don't make you feel like they are doing them a favor when you give them your business.

Anywhere east of Sask can go to hell. I have absolutely nothing in common with anyone past that line in the prairie. Hi Montana Hi Idaho Hi Washington, where the hells montreal? toronto? loser peg?

I don't think us Anglos are Quebec's biggest concern right now. Several times when flipping through channels and somehow stopping at CPAC, I've seen several programs of meetings in Quebec dealing with immigration, integration, cultural diversity and the central topic always seems to be Muslims.

It's ironic that Quebec has a large population of people expecting concessions to preserve their culture after the rest of Canada has been kissing their butts for decades.

I go to Montreal twice a week on business. The downtown is quite busy again and is making a real comeback. There's construction all over the place and all of the stores are occupiede, unlike in downtown Toronto. There are tons of people on the street and they seem happy. I'd say about half of them are conversing in English. There's no problem, at least in downtown Montreal, getting service in English. Montreal seems to be a city that is working despite provincial language policies. In fact, it works so well that the hard-core Nationalists in Quebec City and the boonies hate Montreal and used it as a whipping boy in the last provincial election.
Now, the suburbs are deeply ugly, but the blogger's posts about downtown being unpleasant is quite wrong. There are some beautiful old stone buildings in the core, the gorgeous old architecture of McGill, and the Sun Life building and other old office buildings. Yes, they're not head offices anymore, and for the right reasons, but they are still used.
My French is third-rate, but I have had way more grief about that in Ottawa than I've ever had in Montreal.

decline. could be the quebeckers themselves are not having children in sufficent numbers to replace themselves. this leads to more unwanted immigrants i.e. muslims. the gov has tried several programs and funding increases for quebecquois to have more kids. it's not working, just like in europe.

So called Western Canadian, if there is an award for dumb post of the month, I nominate yours of 2:28 am.
If you are in Saskatchewan and think you have more in common with the latte sipping crowd of Vancouver than fellow prairie folk in Manitoba, then I would have to assume that you've never been to either place, or anywhere outside of Saskatchewan for that matter.
Or, given that it was at 2:28 am on a Saturday night, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were pissed (the drunk, not the angry kind).

Yeah, fond memories: listening to the bombs going off in the 60's, late at night, or the one blowing off the front of a house at the end of my street! If it wasn't construction unions or some other union "expressing" themselves it was the FLQ marxists trying to oust les Anglos and the current crop of political thieves (biker gang, whatever) from office. I visited recently, after a 30 year abscence and the place was pleasent, I was treated like a tourist and the populace were very friendly, even visiting parts of the east end of town. However, the old grey place had a tatty look about it, akin to an aged pre WW I grande dame. The only place that I felt un-welcome was strolling along St Catherines St from Atwater to Guy. Might as well have been in downtown Damascus. These people are NOT friendly at all, no smiles, no reply to greetings, just a sullen bunch of dead beats. The locals should be worried.

" Quebec has the highest number of restaurants per capita of any jurisdiction in North America."

Well, if you live in a culture where business is done by passing brown paper envelopes stuffed with cash under a cafe tables you have to move around to different venues to break up your patterns. ;-)

Personally I think Montreal restaurants are over priced for the quality of the food (except the Chinese Dim Sum joints), the staff are surly and put their own tips on the bills and the whole restaurant gig there is totally over rated.

I go for the crafted beers and brew pubs...now there is where the Quebec brewing culture is advanced ;-)

I'll agree partly, Larry, the food rocks in Montreal. But the dress? Euro-trash wannabes strutting like heavily-cologned peacocks are not what the rest of the country should aspire to be.

With the exception of the traitors in Quebec city, and the "my shit don't stink" liberal voting crowd in Montreal, the people of Quebec are no different than the rest of us. Save your insults for the idiots who deserve them.

Mark Bourrie: "The downtown is quite busy again and is making a real comeback. There's construction all over the place..."

'Wonder what the construction's like? Is it costing the Canadian taxpayer a fortune, passed to the developer in a brown paper bag in all of those empty restaurants? Is it going to come crashing down, like the overpasses, in a few years time?

The problem with Quebec? Let me count the ways:

Sanctioned courruption at every level, done very charmingly, the Gallic way.

On the one hand, Quebecers stopped having babies (Justin Trudeau excepted, and on his father's birthday, no less). For years, the Quebec government has offered cash incentives for larger families, and on the other, Morgentaler and co. opened "a chain" of abortion clinics, sanctioned and welcomed by Quebecers. Heck, Morgentaler was a hero in Quebec. Can anyone else see the ludicrous irony in this? Gallic logic?

'Province went from being a cleric-ridden theocracy to a Godless, Marxist, leftist wasteland, all paid for by the rest of Canada.

The FLQ, Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Paul Desmarais, Gilles Duceppe, André
Boisclair, et al.

I used to like Quebec. I spent a summer there to improve my French when I was a teenager. I teach French. I think French is a great language and worthwhile learning.

But, dammit, I don't like Quebec's "we're better than the rest of you" and "you owe us" schtick and the fact that the rest of Canada IS PAYING FOR THIS NONSENSE.

Quebecers may be good cooks but they're lousy compatriots.

I'm just tired of way too many of the sky-high taxes my family is paying being siphoned off to Quebec to put their kids through university at half the price my daughters are paying, as we cinch in our belts and eat cake instead of caviar.

Quebecers may be great cooks but they're lousy compatriots.

Yukon said:"But the dress? Euro-trash wannabes strutting like heavily-cologned peacocks are not what the rest of the country should aspire to be."

ROTHFLMFAO :0 How frigging true...

....but fortunately this style has been counter-balanced by strutting heavily cologned, garishly bejeweled homeboy white trash rapper wannabe culture of the TO city core, North Van malls and the mall-culture of Edmonchuck. ;-)

Hey, WLMR, don't get me started on Toronto...that's ANOTHER TRAGIC STORY.

Hey, you guys - I'm a Montrealer and I love it.

jlc: I'm glad you like living and working in Montreal, on the rest of Canada's dime: You get about 7 cents of it to my 3.

Also, watch it, if you have to stop under an underpass. Apparently well over 50% of Quebec's overpasses are in need of repair and it's going to take 15 YEARS and BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to complete the job. ('Wonder who's going to foot THAT bill?} You could be dead by then.

Hey, if political, financial, and cultural corruption don't trouble your sleep, then of course you love living in Quebec. I could love a lot of things if I didn't have a conscience.

One should never confuse the great city of Montreal with the snobery and aloofness of Quebec City. Montreal is very cosmopolitan. If you have never visited there use the slightest excuse to go. You will have no problems being served in either official language. I've been there half a dozen times and look forward to going again. (I love the Habs!!!) Its true that Montreal suffered greatly with the election of the first PQ government but it is on the upswing and there is nothing better for Quebec and Canada than a strong and vibrant Montreal. Now Toronto, well that is a whole other story.

Downtown Toronto has vacant shops? That's news to me - and I live there.

It's quite obvious, the difference in construction between the two cities; Toronto is building something on every second street, while construction in Montreal (and Quebec) is minimal.

Montreal is better than a few years ago, when it had sunk into a deep silence, but, Quebec has some years to go to pick itself up. The ADQ is the best sign that Quebec is changing.

But remember, Montreal is not Quebec. It's an island unto itself; it is where almost 95% of all non-European immigrants to Quebec settle. As one Quebecer said to me - "Well, they like to be with their own kind'. Which goes to show that they define 'immigrants' as 'Others'.

Outside of Montreal - that's where you'll find the hostility or more likely, complete indifference and ignorance, to the whole anglophone world.
The focus is only on the francophone world.

That is also revealed by the fact that, in Quebec, students from ANY francophone country in the world (eg France, Belgium etc) can go to a Quebec university for the SAME LOW tuition as Quebec students. Remember, these universities are funded by massive grants from the ROC. So, any and all francophone students get the same LOW rate that Quebec students pay. But, a student from Ontario or anywhere else in Canada, must pay about 50% more. And a student from any non-francophone country, must pay 100% more. Hmmm.

As for costs and quality - eg, bridges - the high costs of business in Quebec, driven by the universal control of its mandatory unions (you have no choice; you must be a member of the union) - and the lack of free market competition, means that there's both a huge black market economy, and corruption and low quality construction.

So- they'll charge the govt for high quality materials but put in the lowest quality (as was found on those collapsed bridges). Inspections are done by 'friends of friends' - and money is passed under the table that way. This 'Quebec mode' is the normal way of doing business there.

Engineering and construction decisions are made according to local needs (incorrect road signs because the locals know the road isn't straight but is curved so who cares if the sign shows 'straight') (crossroads that are built at sharp right angles without taking into account requirement for curves on turns)...etc, etc.

However, with the ADQ and a focus on self-reliance and a competitive market economy, I think Quebec is moving itself out of Perpetual Victim and Dependency - to its own strengths. More power to it.

The problem, I think, is in Ontario. It hasn't realized that it was set up by the Liberals as, in a way, bonded to Quebec's image as Perpetual Victim. Ontario saw itself as Saving the Country by having no sense of its own needs, and no sense of the rest of Canada and instead, arguing only that Everything Should Go To Quebec.

So- Ontario moved into a Slave Role, without the power to say No. And without the power to develop a self-motivated economy. Over 50% of Ontario's economy is within govt services - and govt services such as health care, education, transportation are, as unionized, not focused on the services. They are focused on the employees of those services.

These unionized employess have one interest only - security, benefits, pensions, vacations - for themselves. They vote Liberal to maintain this focus on themselves.

The Ontario economy? Going nowhere. No entrepreneurs, no risk takers, just a concern for their govt jobs and no change. Multiculturalism has balkanized Ontario, which is the largest immigrant province, by setting up the new Ontarians into isolate, non-assimilating groups, dependent on the govt to 'live as themselves'.

So- the big problem in Canada, is Ontario. Quebec is well on the way to moving out of its 1970s dead end victimization. But Ontario has lost its role as the Saviour of Canada - and, balkanized and dependent on govt jobs - is in a mess.

batb, I guess they should be grateful people like you don't haven't had them lined up against a wall. Your conscience is propably saving them.

batb, I guess they should be grateful people like you haven't had them lined up against a wall. Your conscience is propably saving them.

"Hey, you guys - I'm a Montrealer and I love it."

LOL Some body has to adopt the place...it's all yours and you're welcome to it...with all the pretentious euro-trash who populate its over rated restaurant culture. ;-)

Gimme cottage country small towns and real folks any day.

I think I should clarify my comment...I love visiting Montreal. It's a blast, but the place just seems too *fake* for me to spend more than a few days. Take it with a grain of salt, though, as I'm a prairie boy who loved living in the Yukon. You know, where nobody cares how you're dressed, unless you're at risk of freezing.

Take the time to read ETs comments. They are bang on.
Ontario is a vortex of stupidity. I left there to come west in the late 70's always thinking I may return 'home' one day to retire among family and old friends.

Ain't gonna happen. I have encouraged my old friends and family to get the hell out of that growing gulag.

The Future of Canada is in the West ... end of story.

Yeah, well as I said earlier and a different Bob concurred, Toronto's a COMPLETELY different and TRAGIC story.

ET's comments are bang-on. Ontario sold its birthright for a bowl of pottage.

'Got sucked dry, never realizing what "the second son" was actually up to: Quebec culture intact and thriving while Ontario's British, largely Judeo-Christian, culture got slimed. Not realizing what was really happening vis a vis "multiculturalism"--that is, every culture is worthy or respect and government support and largesse except the British/J-C culture, nasty imperialists that we are/were (sarc/off), we were duped into a false sense of security.

Now that our culture is all but a shell and shadow of its former self, there arent' enough of us who actually know what's happened to care or to do anything proactive about it.

Yup, 'sold our birthright for a bowl of pottage. 'Not the first time this has happened in the history of the world...

There are many great eateries in Montreal... because the boys and girls spend so much time shopping and dressing up they never learned to cook? Or is it because apartments are so expensive the boys and girls still live with their parents and have to eat out to escape Mum's pot roast?

I think it is safe to say that the rest of Quebec looks at Montreal the same way the rest of Ontario looks at Toronto. The place our taxes go to die. I'm damn tired of paying for Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver with my obscene federal taxes. Cut em!

Lets see Dalton the Sly jack up the Ontario PST another 2%. Let's see that NDP moron Dave Miller in Trawnna boost up the local sales tax in the GTA another 2% on top of that. Let's have some more sky frickin' high property tax hikes. Let's have some more tax piled on top of the already ruinous taxes on small businesses (the ones who don't get a Special Deal from Dalton). Go for it boys, milk that cow!

As Montreal shriveled into the raisin it is from the Big Enchilada it was when I was a kid, so also let Toronto shrivel. Let the bastards ride their bike to work when it rains because the friggin' subway is broken, because Mayor Dave spent the money on beer and popcorn for the TTC unions.

Tax cut now please. Never too soon to ram through a big, hairy, across the board TAX CUT. Are you getting this Mr. Harper?

John West -- the future of Canada is the West but can it ever achieve it's place in the world with the east as a permanent ball and chain? Having been raised on the prairies it is surprising that the further east you go how the spirit of the West diminishes accordingly from I can to we can. I find it particularly interesting out here on the West Coast that every time there is a get together of all the boaties that half way through the evening the separation is complete, West groups and east groups, and it happens consistently. Generalizing for sure but there is definitely a different mentality.

Canada will come apart. Canada is not a real country anyway, so who cares? It had a chance of becoming one a hundred years ago, but it started to really fail in that endevour about 50 years ago.

I have a great sympathy for the Quebecois, and If I was one I would be a separatist. As someone who is a British North American, I am still a separatist. The sooner they leave the better. How will it change my life if they do? I have spent almost a year of my life In Quebec as a result of my military service and I like it there. How would that change if they weren't part of Canada? Would they stop me from skiing at Mont Tremblant, or going to the "ballet" in Montreal?

The only thing that would change is we might get a PM from somewhere other than Quebec more often than once every 50 years, and the single most important qualification for getting a federal civil service job would not be your "language profile".

Canada is nothing more than the political construct that the people who live in the northern half of North America use to rule themselves. There have been people living here for 20,000 odd years, "we" have been here for going on 500 years. Canada in its present form goes back about ten years, (the creation of Nunavut). Nfld, which has been settled for nearly 500 years has been part of Canada for 58 Years. BC, since 1873, Alberta since 1905.

A real country is a country that is made up of a people. A "people" can form a "nation" even if they haven't got a state.

Real countries like those of Europe are falling apart because the people who made the country are being outnumbered and assimilated into the new immigrant populations. Will France be France when it isn't populated by the French anymore? How about a England where the english are a minority group?

Given what we can see in other parts of the world Canada has not got a chance. What will the Chinese population of Canada be in 50 years,
or the south asian or muslim? How long do you think it will be before the Chinese Canadians are lobbying for home rule?There is already a federal political party (no doubt funded by Beijing) whose purpose is to look out for the interests of Chinese Canadians.

On of K Marx's main ideas was that the history of the world was the history of class conflict. He was wrong about that like he was wrong about everything. But it is one of the ideas that has put the world in the position it is in. It is way more accurate to say that the history of the world is the history of ethnic conflict. Given this, the western world is truly screwed. In 50 years I see A Canada that has broken up into, or is in the process of breaking up into self governing ethic enclaves.

Humans have a 100,000 years of living in self governing ethnic enclaves, we used to call then countries. Right now there is a huge, world wide tide of humanity moving from dirt poor, corrupt sh@#t holes to the western world. They are taking their culture with them, and it is that culture that made the countries that they are leaving into the sort of dumps that they don't want to live in.. When that happens Quebec and Canada will be nothing but a foot note in the history books.

...you know, the more I read the howling going on in here about how bad Ontario is, the more I have to ask, where do most of Canadians live?

There must be a reason.

I think the next decade will be an interesting time for Canada or what's left of it.

Once the old guard and boomers are off the scene we'll see who the new leaders are.

And to quote a famous line: 'we are all a product of our teaching'.

So what have our future leaders been learning.

Yukon is looking better every day. Well maybe Peace River...

I was just in Montreal for 2 weeks.

Montreal does have some great neighbourhoods and restaurants, but in some places it looks like it's falling apart. The concrete on the overpasses is cracking and looks like it's in rough shape. Rue St. Laurent is ripped apart in some sections, it has taken so long to fix that some businesses have shut down along the historic street.

Apparently they are trying to prevent people from driving downtown, so they are building a bunch of bike lanes downtown and taking out street lanes. The mass transit is already pretty packed so if many people just stopped driving the trains couldn't handle the load.

I wouldn't say that Montreal is dead yet, but it has likely seen better days.

If Mr. Harper is going to achieve his majority government, something most of us here agree is essential to the betterment of this country, it is going to be with the help of Quebec. We should not be bashing the good folks in Quebec (especially rural Quebec), we should join them in bashing Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

As irritating as "pure laine" Quebecois can be, their cultural assuredness has them far ahead of the rest of us in combatting politically correct multiculturalism.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e079254c-d071-4aa2-8da0-5dc7a4d77601

felis corpulentis: "...their [the Quebecois'] cultural assuredness has them far ahead of the rest of us in combatting politically correct multiculturalism."

For some reason, the cultural assuredness of the French in Quebec is OK and has been a State-sanctioned OK-ness for the last 30 or more years, whereas the cultural assuredness of British-heritage Canadians has been taboo. You know? DWEMS: Dead White European Males, Whites, Christians, British are all colonial imperialists, yada, yada, yada.

I refuse to be intimidated by this kind of thinking, but a whole lot of my British-heritage "compatriots" in Canada have been totally bullied into thinking that OUR culture is bad, whereas all other cultures are good.

It's a crock, of course, but for some reason, political correctness has sanctioned Vive le Quebec [Libre et Assure] whereas it's consigned those of us descended from Canada's British pioneers to the mutli-cultie battle cry, "Death to the Imperialist Brits!"

Ironic, isn't it? That political correctness has assured Quebec assuredness and yet has decimated British assuredness.

BATB,

I don't dispute what you are saying in regards to the "politically correct" suppression of Anglo-Celtic cultural assurance. It is a travesty that has been perpetrated on our British traditions and pride. I would also agree with you that much of this suppression is due to the attitudes and methods of the natural governing party and its supports. However, other institutions, outside this country have also added to this: the UN, the American left, and much of what passes for thought in the mother country herself. But we also have to remember that this couldn't have been visited upon us if we had been prepared to oppose it strongly.

And, yes, I also share your sense of irony with regard to the opposite impacts of pc in Quebec and ROC.

My post was merely to demonstrate that, however achieved, the cultural assuredness of the Quebecois is providing them a bulwark against undesirable cultural change; a bulwark which we non-Quebecois need to acquire quickly.

Point well taken, fc. You're right. We Brit-Celts let this happen by falling down and saying "Walk all over me."

With all due respect to the Brit laydown monkeys, I think it never occurred to the British majority in Canada that there would ever be a time when they/we were put in a position to have to "fight back." It never occurred to us that our culture would ever be under attack.

I suppose that the Quebecois, having always felt under some duress as a minority in Lower Canada, were in a perfect position to take up cultural arms when multi-culti political correctness reared its ugly head. They were prepared and forewarned. In fact, fighting back was their status quo, whereas the Brits' status quo was that we were "the party in power."

Of course, the pc mindset says, "How DARE you be 'the party in power?'" and that has been our downfall: We were taken by surprise, we were unprepared, we didn't know what our strengths were. I guess we always took them for granted.

But, sadly, a great deal has been lost.

Thanks for both of your thoughtful posts.