86 Replies to “Go, Already”

  4. My company does not do business in Quebec due to the language laws AND corruption. Company policy.

  6. “My company does not do business in Quebec due to the language laws AND corruption. Company policy.”
    Unwritten company policy, no doubt.

  8. The only thing we can do, since bilingualism is entrenched in the Constitution (by Trudeau’s Charter), is speak out, write about it, comment on it.
    Quebec, on the other hand, is strangling itself, since English is the language of commerce around the world. It is thus disabling its population’s ability to work anywhere but in Quebec.
    BUT, and we have to really shout this out, BUT…Quebec isn’t affected by its lack of economic growth. It relies on Canada and Canadian taxpayers, whom it loathes, to hand over billions each year.
    The federal government takes in from Quebec, according to the 2009 records from Stats Can, 39.6 billion in tax revenues (income, corporate, sales etc). However, it dispenses over 53 billion to Quebec, made up of the ‘equalization’ of 8 billion, plus funding for universities, roads, unemployment, health care, and so on. That’s an almost 14 billion shortfall, all given to Quebec courtesy of the hapless, hated, loathed, Canadian taxpayer.
    And, in addition, the Quebec educated class is heavily employed in federally funded institutions. These are not merely the universities, funded by the federal government – and there are 23 in Quebec and only 17 in Ontario despite Ontario having double the population.
    But there is also the massive federal bureaucracy in Montreal and Hull, all staffed by, ah, ‘bilingual’ Quebecers (try talking to one on the phone). And the head offices of various banks and other institutions located in Montreal, all enticed there by special tax and other rates. To employ Quebecers.
    What does this same Canadian taxpayer get in return? Hatred and contempt and demands for yet more and more and…

  9. If the people of Quebec vote for the PQ led by a dunderhead with racist policies other provinces in this country dare not adopt. We can say let them get the hell out and fly on their own, sadly they have no notion of doing so, their blackmail works, this Conservative government is still sucking up and pandering to their whining.

  10. Why are we wasting our time and effort on these Quebec ingrates? For god’s sake let them all go to hell and let the ROC get on with our lives.
    Oh, and if I have happened to hurt any Quebecois feelings…………. tough tittie.

  11. ET
    Yeah…”bilingual” in practice, means fluency in french (their version).
    I am fluent in “Provencial” (south of France), the working language of the Legion…but that doesn’t make the “bilingualism” grade for Quebec or Federal service.

  13. Liz J – you utterly ignore that it isn’t the Conservative government ‘pandering’ to Quebec.
    It’s IN THE Constitution!!! Bilingualism is in the Constitution, so, the federal government must provide its services in French, and the only people readily bilingual are those who have heard both languages from birth, daily: in the Montreal and Ottawa corridor. This has set up a closed elite mandarin class, filled with all its relatives, who function as the federal bureaucracy.
    Equalization is in the Constitution, and therefore, Quebec gets its 8 billion, twice that of any other province.
    And the federal govt, equally, is obliged to fund public universities, to fund roads and other major investments (rivers, bridges, dams); obliged to fund unemployment and other benefits. And so on.
    It has nothing to do with the will of the Conservative government; it’s either in the Constitution or it’s a federal law applicable to all provinces. The govt couldn’t reject funding roads in Quebec if it funds them in other provinces.
    That’s why Quebec ‘has it made’. It’s a kept society and there is little Canada can do about it. Other than do as we do now, more and more. Openly complain and talk about it. Openly confront Quebec with its one-sided unprincipled greed. Openly confront Quebec with its amoral hatred of Canadians and its insistence on constant handouts from those same Canadians.

  14. There is no such thing as “the rest of Canada” (ROC). This is a figment of our imagination (and that includes Québec nationalistes). There is only the Canada we have now, for better or worse.
    We are all far too dismissive about the unintended consequences of the ruptures to Canadian political, territorial and economic contiguity that the loss of Québec would cause.

  16. Well thank God, Angela Merkel is coming to Canada to chat up PM Stephen Harper.
    Maybe we can all start speaking German…
    It appears Marois is getting all excited with the old ‘divide and conquer’ mentality.
    “Tout soldat a dans son sac son batôn de maréchal.”
    “Every soldier has a marshall’s baton in his bag.”
    Cheers
    Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
    1st Saint Nicolaas Army
    Army Group “True North”

  17. In Matt Gurney’s column today in the National Post he opines how the PQ picking a fight with the Government of Canada is a win-win situation for them. While that may be true in Quebec, it is certainly not true in the ROC. In fact, there is nothing that would ensure the re-election of the Harper Conservatives faster than them telling Ms. Marois and her gang of extortionists to get stuffed.

  18. ET, PQ is the tail the wags the Canadian political dog, always has been, and will be until we the people demand a change of order.
    The time is coming. The current government in the province of Ontario is spending the province into the grave. In the long run, this will result in a population, and a power shift to the west. Ontario’s power and relevance is dwindling and will continue to.
    The joyride for PQ will not last forever. PQ does not even serve as a useful market for the west. Supply lines make more sense running north-south than east-west. I foresee escalating polarization – economically, and politically.
    I believe, given time, Ontario will collapse, and leave PQ isolated, funded by a more and more consolidated west. I cannot see the west that emerges tolerating the unlimited funding of a distant, petulant, and increasingly foreign population from which it gains nothing in exchange.
    Some here have opined that there will be dire consequences should PQ rupture from Canada. Perhaps so, but those are of a traumatic nature, not a bleeding from a thousand small cuts. I would rather face the trauma, respond, get it over with, and free myself from the bleating, the chiseling and complaining I have heard from PQ for my entire life.
    I am fatigued with PQ – on the scale of what is taking place in the world today, it is a tempest in a small bowl of poutine.
    Go, already. I have things to do.

  19. I find it funny when people call Quebec unilingual.
    Quebec may be unilingual on paper but anybody who lives in know that the reality on the ground is completely different.
    As a matter of fact, the french language is threatened in Montreal.
    I think anglophones have it too easy in Quebec. Most of them segregate themselves into anglophone institution and have very few contacts with francophone. They are arrogant, believe in their superiority always.

  20. JJM – there is most certainly a ROC if you are a Quebecois. Or should I say more accurately, the real situation is that there is: Quebec. And Canada.
    To a quebecois, the two are separate. There is no merger. There is not even a federalism which implies collaboration and collegiality. Instead, most quebecers feel that Quebec is entrapped by and within Canada. The majority of quebecois believe, firmly, that they pay more into the Canadian federation than they get out of it. You can show them the data tables, show them the statistics, and fiction trumps facts for them. They refuse to believe it.
    Therefore, the presumed logical desire of the separatistes is to separate and thus, with all this money, supposedly looted and taken by ‘Canada’, they consider that Quebec would explode in economic and intellectual might and strength.
    They are assisted in living within this fictional world precisely because they are embedded and cocooned within the economic and social institutions of Canada. This preserves them from having to rely, even for a minute, on themselves for fiscal, economic and infrastructural stability. And, because of constitutional bilingualism, they are assured of employment and power in the affairs of government.

  22. quebecois – what fictional world do you live in? The reality in Quebec is that it is unilingual; the only place that has any semblance of bilingualism is downtown Montreal and a smattering of the population in the Estrie. Period.
    Quebec’s language law is not ‘on paper’; its language police do not roam around handing out fines and taking people to court ‘on paper’. Companies are obliged to speak only French in the workplace and this isn’t ‘on paper’.
    As for arrogance and superiority, heh, that describes the average quebecois who, like you, denies the reality of language laws, and denies the constant denigration of anglophones and Canada by Quebec (see Marois’s latest statements).
    And denies the enormous sums of money coming from the Canadian taxpayer and considers that such a bounty is ‘the right’ of Quebec. How’s that for amoral and unprincipled greed? By what rights does Quebec insist on receiving over 14 billion a year, above and beyond what it contributes to the tax revenue? Well?
    Bouchard tried repeatedly to ‘wake up’ Quebec to its ‘economic sloth’ and its focus only on anglophone hostility, but, he met up with people like you, who refuse to think and are locked into a tenaciously held a priori set of bizarre opinions.

  24. ET:
    A little bit of denial of our money may give the guys like our favourite seperatiste a different viewpoint.
    I really like the Quebec guys who come to work out west. At least they’re working for their money.

  25. Let’s give Legault a chance (not that we’re voting, anyway).
    We have a great nation rising, according to PMSH, who is unimpeachable, IMO.

  28. I was in Beaupre (pardon the missing acute, svp) last summer and toured the Sept Chutes hydroelectric operation nearby. At the dam display, the two warning signs were interesting; the french one was clear and concise as to hazards in the area while the english one was so poorly phrased that it could be a legal issue if an injury ever happened. I informed Quebec Hydro and they said they did not control that display but would inform the operators. At least the lettering was the same size.

  29. It’s bad enough that we’re trapped into Constitutionally” having to prop up tribal and cultural nationalism in Quebec. We are now going to end up subsidizing more economic nationalism with Charest (terrified of the separatists) putting up a Billion dollars to fend off the Lowe’s offer for Rona Depot….hardly a “strategic” asset.
    “there’s no logic in propping up a chronically underperforming company in the name of cultural sovereignty, as if a U.S. company taking over Rona would deprive Quebecers of the nails and hammers they need to build homes.” –The FP
    The reality of what is going on here is a North American economy bumping up against the Quebec cocoon that will last only as long as the external propping up does; analogous to the tribal Islamists only lasting as long as we fund their “unethical oil”.

  30. “My Canada would happily NOT INCLUDE Quebec!”
    This pattern is repeating itself everywhere, it seems: the unproductive elements in the nations of the West are parasitic on the rest of us. Are they grateful for the largesse provided by the hard workers and high taxpayers? Not on your life. In fact, they think that we minions owe them exactly what they get.
    In Canada, Trudeau’s Charter (which gutted the British/Christian heritage of this country) guaranteed that our children would be indoctrinated with how entitled they are and about all their rights. So now, of course, when the left-wing educational establishment finds our schools full of bullies and barbarians, they’re trying, as a friend of mine once opined “to put cosmetics on a corpse”. Spoiled brats don’t decide to behave decently just because someone tells them to: as long as there’s no cultural foundation for altruistic behaviour, and when the brats know that there will be no consequences for their arrogance and that they’ll continue to be pandered to and bailed out, the fix is in.
    It’s interesting: it seems that all the countries of the West, no matter what their constitutions or legal precedents, have arrived at the same, dangerous pass: full of entitled bullies who expect something for nothing—or else. What would the common denominator be, from Scandinavia to the USA, to explain such a mass exodus from reality and responsibility? Hmmm . . . I think it would be turning our backs on our Judeo-Christian culture: one doesn’t have to actually be a Christian to honour the virtues of the Ten Commandments and “Love thy neighbour as thyself”. Of course, the folks in Quebec, like the French before them, turned their backs on the Christian faith with a vengeance. (No surprise that Quebec has the highest incidence of social dysfunction in the country.) Trying to “go it on our own”, with each one of us our own, little god, hasn’t worked out too well. And putting Humpty together again now is quite likely to be as unsuccessful as the first try.

  31. set you free, the quebecois who go out west are genuinely Canadian. Of Quebec background. Just as others are Canadian of, eg, Sask or Alb background. And with further family heritage behind those provincial connections such as German, Ukrainian, Asian and so on. And futher variables such as religion and language.
    I’m not talking about those people from Quebec who engage with others in Canada, but about those who reject any interaction with ‘anglophones’ whatsoever.
    The real distinction for these people is linguistic; you are either francophone or not. Period. They will, academically, collaborate with other francophones in other nations, but rarely, with non-francophones. Rarely.
    But this is not the case with others; for example, it’s very frequent to see teams of researchers from any European nation but France teamed up with other Europeans, with Asians, with Americans. All working on the same project.
    It’s the isolationism that is so stunning and the insistence, despite this rejection, of being funded by the despised ‘anglophones’.
    David Southam, I share your admiration of Harper. A great man.

  32. Quebecois NDP separatiste:
    Downtown Montreal is mostly English because that is where most of the real business in Quebec is done.
    International markets work mostly in English. I work in the software industry in Montreal and 95% of our customers are in the U.S. They don’t speak French – in fact, being forced to listen to our French-first voice messages really irritates them and it is stupid.
    I work in about 20 computer languages and guess what? They are all coded in English.
    I don’t know what cave you live in in the Laurentians, but here in the real world, most successful companies will do their business in Ensligh. This excludes the parisitic Quebec goverenment, of course.
    I am already researching where I will move if the PQ gets elected. I will not be happy to have to give up one of the best jobs I have had, but I will not give one penny of tax money to a PQ government.

  33. International markets work mostly in English. I work in the software industry in Montreal and 95% of our customers are in the U.S. They don’t speak French – in fact, being forced to listen to our French-first voice messages really irritates them and it is stupid.
    =======
    This is exactly the kind of comment that make anglophone so arrogant. They assume that because the customers are anglophones then the business must function entirely in English.
    Sony might sell millions of PS3 in the USA that doesn’t prevent if you work for Sony in Japan I can guarantee you that the language of work is Japanese.

  34. Posted by: Quebecois NDP separatiste at August 14, 2012 3:25 PM
    Post in French please.

  36. quebecois, I know that you are merely a morass of molecules and as such, have no brain and are unable to think, but couldn’t you try?
    English is the international language. Got that? It’s got nothing to do with any nation, nothing to do with ‘anglophone arrogance’ but with the FACT that the global economic and political realm requires, and I repeat, requires, a common international language. Centuries ago, it was Latin. Now, it is English. That’s just the way it is. Get over it.
    Therefore, if you are interacting with somone from Germany or Denmark or China, then, the common language is English. Got that?
    As for your working-in-Japan example, that’s false. The Japanese people quite readily work, amongst themselves, in Japanese. It’s the International Interactions that are in English. Try, try, even though you admit you have no mind, to understand.
    The difference is, that in Quebec, the government intrudes on your right to speak and use your own language. In a company of over 50 people, the Quebec government won’t allow the people to, for example, speak English. Or Korean. Or Chinese. Nope; they must speak French. Or else. That’s called totalitarianism.
    Quebec deliberately inhibits and makes it difficult for Quebecers to learn English; that means it’s hard for them to collaborate and work with other peoples in the world. How’s that for economic progress?

  37. Hydro Quebec is one of those Quebec business that function mostly in french and it doesn’t prevent the sales of millions of $ of electricity to the USA.
    The insistence of many software companies in Montreal to insist in an english-only language of work (no diversity) is pure narrow-mindless.

  38. I still say what we needed to do a long time ago was declare open season on the traitors and communists in the PQ.
    Oh, I agree, Kate. The sooner the pequistes join Trudeau, Levesque, Abbe Groulx and Judas Iscariot, the better. What I still can’t believe is that any loyal subject of the Queen of Canada would let them take one square inch of Lower Canada with them.
    If the little cowards want their miserable republic that badly, let them fight for it on the battlefield, if they dare. I don’t doubt any number of young strong Albertans and Ontarians will be more than happy to enlist just for the privilege of teaching some Montreal fairy what a man looks like, and how a man deals with traitors.

  39. Lets just part . Time-to allow Quebec to exit. Canada would be much richer , not only in monetary terms , but as a Nation . Quebec is the strange uncle, no one wants around anyway. Let them see if they can survive as a Nation in a sea of English without laws outside their own wee village.
    The ROC is sick of the shenanigans. The cost, the arrogance.The nonsense that goes with this soft bigotry. Alberta is sick of paying fools to people who figure money comes free because they are some type of super Nationality. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.

  40. Quebecios, that’s nice about the Hydro. Enjoy it. Too bad about the software companies. Maybe the narrow-minded pests will leave you in peace once PQ separates, and you can joyfully create new unilingual software companies ad infinitum. That’s what you want: separation, correct? It’s what I want as well. So we are agreed. Go. Bon voyage.

  41. “JJM – there is most certainly a ROC if you are a Quebecois. Or should I say more accurately, the real situation is that there is: Quebec. And Canada.”
    There is certainly a belief in an ROC, but that too is a figment of their nationalist imagination, based on a “two nations” model that has long passed.
    Anyway, I’m done. I see the loathsome “Dick Slater” and the clueless “Quebecois NDP separatiste” have shown up.
    Whenever the wingnuts and moonbats on each side of this deathless argument pop up, it’s a good sign that it’s time to move on.

  42. ET: Quebecois people are far far more bilingual than Japanese people. Did you know that?

  44. Ever seen a map of Quebec overlain with the territory included in the James Bay And Northern Quebec Agreement settlement. Doesn’t look good for Quebec if they separate from Canada. These Cree and Inuit will definitely not want to be part of Quebec. They know where the gravy train resides and it is not located in Quebec City. This would have devastating consequences for Quebec as all their Hydro Power is located in these areas, as well as most of their potential mineral wealth.

  45. Canada can not kick Quebec out of Confederation, but Quebec can kick Canada out. I think our best chance of getting rid of these arrogant french leeches is to support Marois and her valiant effort to go it alone. You go girl. Where do I send a contribution to help this noble cause ? QNS must have the adress in his favorites.

  46. Also nuke whatever city Quebecois NDP separatiste calls home. Its the only way to be sure.

  48. The great tragedy for the québécois – the separatist included – is that by refusing people the freedom to conduct their affairs in the language of their choosing they are essentially signing the death certificate for their culture. No one reading this has distant ancestors who could. Language is always in flux including the ones we choose to use. The quebecois nation is already a stunted entity that grows smaller and less productive by the day, all in the gain attempt to chain their identity to a language it that is dying worldwide. Legislating language use only accelerates the demise of that nation.

  49. And re my comment above, I speak as someone who is also a member of a dying nation: Newfoundland.
    To there and you will see nothing but nostalgia for things that happened before 1949. Nothing of quality has come from that nation since. Stubbornly clinging Language is not the cause of our demise bit rather stubbornly clinging to a make-work – jobs over profits attitude that has led us down a socialist, entitlement mineshaft that has driven out all of the talent and energy to other juristictions.

  50. Quebecois NPD Separatiste, 5:28p.m. —
    I think it’s great that Quebec is more bilingual than Japan — but that’s your choice, not ours. After all, on parle francais de temps en temps ici, et, aussi, quelque temps, nous parlerons l’anglais et le francais — dans la meme conversation! Quelle surprise! (I think that’s about right; please feel free to correct me where I’m wrong, here or below).
    Nobody really wants Quebec to leave Canada, IMO, but those of us who are linguistically challenged do find the complaining a bit tedious from time to time — particularly after Bill 101, le Chatre de la langue francaise, which, if I’m not mistaken, some members of the PQ said, “if we can do this within Canada, why do we need to separate?”
    So rather than vote NDP/NPD as a sort of half way point (nothing is more toxic in Anglophone-ville than Quebec voting NDP, by the way), why not come on board with us to build a great and prosperous country — with all the attendant responsibilities and benefits that flow from that?
    How about knocking off the bashing of English for a provincial election or two — even before the 1980 Referendum, Quebec had implicitly accepted the existing arrangements — and give M. Legault a chance?

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