seabee

English Canada will never be able to do as well as Québec in cultural industries because... they speak English; and so do the U.S., and since the U.S. offers bigger salaries, lower taxes, better prospects, more world-wide exposure, without having to learn a second language and without culture schock, English-canadian born talents, of which I'm sure there are many, move to the U.S. as soon as they have gained enough notoriety and forget about Canada.

How does English Canada differ from the U.S.? Both speak the same language, watch the same TV shows, movies, read the same magazines. There is no noticeable difference in their musics. Their respective government systems are quite parallel, except that Canada is stil stuck with medieval relics like monarchy and still needs to evolve to catch up with the U.S.; its differences in their laws and legal systems are a matter of details. Theirs foods and cuisine are similar. Their histories are so entertwined that any difference is either a matter of perspective, or very regional. Yet Canada claims its own sovereignty and independance from the U.S.! Don't you think Québec is far more different from the Rest of Canada than the latter is from the U.S.?

Treating 10-years old as adult criminal implies that they can assume full responsabiliy for their acts. By the same reasoning, age of consent for sexual behaviour should also be lowered to age 10.

As of noon today, Québec is already taking care of those people. So far, nobody has criticized this move, very possibly because it is seen as the right thing to do. And nobody, to my knowledge, has raised the issue of dual citizenship. And in the same vein, poll results reported by Radio-Canada this morning indicate that roughly 50% of the people of Canada agree with M. Harper's stand on Israel, but in Québec 68% disagree with him, which means that in the ROC, a clear majority supports him; reminescent of the conscription referendum results during the last World War.

Bang on! In fact, Charest's words could easily be interpreted as meaning; "Independance might be ok, but not yet; let's milk the ROC dry first." Should there be another referendum in Québec in the near future, Charest will presumably lead the "No" side; think about it.

Harper has said exactly what every independentist leader has been saying for decades. And the festivities organisers have always gone out of their way to make sure everyone who wants to is included, whatever the race, color, religion, cloth, political alligeance, language. The myth that the Québec Fête Nationale has been hijacked by "separatisss" is pure fabrication by hard-core anglo federalists to dissuade new immigrants from integrating into Québec society. Independantists are grateful to Harper for that statement. But Harper's refusal to recognise Québec as a nation has irked all Québécois, including Jean Charest: link He also made a short public speech in Beauce this afternoon, on the day of Fête Nationale; the media did point out, however, that there was not a single Québec flag in sight. He is shooting in his own goals.

To me, it became obvious during the first election campaign as a provincial liberal leader, which he lost through very subtle means, not at all visible for non-francophones. He carefully mis-used certain words and concepts which lead to the liberals defeat. After all, going from federal to provincial politics is often seen as a demotion. And then going from conservative to liberal is incredible; whatever forced him to make this unwanted career shift is responsible for Charest becoming overnight a closet separatist.

However, a case can be made that the president of the United States is also a nut bar, but he already has thousands of nuclear weapons and the missile capability to send them anywhere he wants. The United States is the only country which has used nuclear weapons against another country. Why wonder that other countries might want to try to neutralize a mass destruction attack on them by developing similar weapons.

If treaties signed in the 19th century are no longer valid, than, obviously those in the 18th century are even less valid. So, the 1763 Treaty of Paris in no longer valid; Canada still belongs to France, and the 1867 Constitutional act is no longer the law of the land. Learn french now.

Indeed! Several times I had the opportunity, in Montréal and in Québec (the city), to talk at length with First Nations people. We did not talk about conflictual issues; just about the characteristics of our respective nations. I was impressed in all cases by the warmth of these people, their kindness, their intelligence. They are definitely different nations, with different languages and hence different cultures, with different perspectives and values, different but no better and no worse than ours. They are friendly people, but they don't like being abused. Trying to assimilate them, for their own good, some say, is a crime against humanity. One would think that a country that boast being multicultural would know that.

This is correct. On the other hand, living on, or profiting from, illegally or illegitimately acquired property is illegal. If it cannot be proven that you were aware that the property in question was illegitimately acquired, then, it will only be seized from you. If on the other hand, it can be proven that you were aware, then you will be accused of complicity after the fact, a criminal offence in today's Canada. So if today you are living on a land that was not legitimately acquired and that you are aware of it, then it is your responsability.

Re; Nocrap and Margrace's postings. These postings are excellent and must be taken seriously. To the best of my knowledge, I have no First Nation blood; I was raised with all the Euro-American prejudices against NA. At Expo 67, I got my real first direct contact with First Nations; I was profoundly impressed and had to scrap my prejudices. For the last few years, I have spent a lot of time studying the history of the Colony of Canada (1608-1763), as much as possible from period texts. I can only agree with everything in these two posts. I have concentrated in the last 8 months the 1754-1763 Conquest of Canada, again from period documents. I was surprised to see how important the contribution of the First Nations was to the French and Canadians. Some of the First Nations warrior came from as far as what is now Winnipeg. And if Montcalm had listened to them, the outcome of that war might have been very different. As for the buffaloes, when the U.S. wanted to get rid of Plain Indians, whose culture was based on the buffalo for food, clothing, shelter, etc., rather than wage them a war, or perpetrate yet another direct genocide, they simply decided to eradicate the buffaloes. Not only did the U.S. government offer premiums to hunters who would kill buffaloes, but they called for hunters from everywhere in the world to come and join the extermination, with expenses partly or totally paid. These "Indians" were gradually forced to move north to what would become part of Canada. In Québec, many historians consider that the main differences between the Québécois culture and that of France are due to its Amerindian cultural heritage; some even consider the Québécois culture as being a métis one.

In Québec, all French-speaking commentators agree that Harper must apologize. Not only is it a breach of international diplomatic conventions, but it is an affront to all francophones. Maybe Harper does not care for Québec vote after all.

Why would it be a "doomsday" for Canada?

The impllication is that Québec must be kept dependant, and then blamed for being dependant. But it could also mean the Québec must be kept in a state of submission.

Who, exactly, are you refering to?

I advised no one to do or not to do anything! I just posted an information; period. I do not even have an opinion on the appropriatess of that particular post. Don't read intentions that are not there!

To Temegamy Scourge; I'm just a tad too busy to wade into this fascinating discussion, but I admire the way you enlighten this forum. Keep up the very good work. By the way, I am not sure that "ethnocentrist" is the best word to describe [anglo-canadian] racist opinions which are abudant in this forum. "Anglo-supremacist" might be more appropriate.

FYI; there is a message circultating (in French) on the Internet: In short, it asks bilinqual francophones to say they are unilingual french-speaking, otherwise funding for francophones will be reduced by half.

Indians don't pay taxes because according to federal law, they are minors; their signatures are legally worthless.

In Québec, the law that made French the official language was presented by then premier Robert Bourassa, leader of the Québec liberal party, in 1974, and is known as law 22. It was flawed in that it contained many legal ambiguities. A few years later, when the Parti Québécois was first elected, it clarified these ambiguities by law 101; if anything, it made it less strict and introduced several legal loopholes. No language, including English, is or was banned in either law 22 and law 101. In Québec, English is a mandatory course in all schools in the French school system, from grade 3 to 11.

Always has been? Nope! It had been French for a century and a half before the English violently took it over.

And if a bilingual english speaker demands service in English when the public servant he got did not speak English then that bilingual should be denied services unless HE uses the French that he knows well enough.

Québec "abuses" English rights by giving them their own school system, complete from kindergarden to post-graduate studies, with three English-speaking universities. Rather contradictory, don't you think?

Because of article 93 of the 1867 British North American constitutional act, school systems were based on religion (denomination) lines, not linguistic ones. As a consequence, in Québec, Catholic schools were, for the most part, French speaking, while Protestant schools were English speaking. Consequently, immigrants who were not catholics could not go to French-speaking schools, even if they spoke only French. Starting in 1976, French-speaking school board in Québec started accepting non-Catholic students, on the grounds that not doing so would be illegal discrimination based on religion, according to the Québec Charter of Rights and freedoms, article 10. This was reinforced by the 1982 federal Charter. Less than 10 years ago, there was a bi-lateral constitutional amendment, asked for by the Parti Québécois government with the unanimous approval of the Assemblée Nationale, replacing religion-based school systems with linguistic school systems. Since, integration of new immigrants into French-speaking Québec is the norm; this is now decried in English-speaking Canada as racism.