Quote:
Originally Posted by Landlocked
I think a lot of the negativity is also fueled by stories that come out of Quebec about how anglophones are treated and how Alberta is perceived. My favorite was a story that a poll in Quebec showed that over 50% of the population thought Quebec was supporting Alberta through transfer payments.
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All of those plus the separatism issue raised by someone else are popular justifications for the antagonism, but anti-French sentiment and policies in Western Canada go way back before anyone had ever heard of Quebec separatism, the PQ, Bill 101, etc.
There were lots of laws out West around the turn of the 20th century and in the first half of the 20th century that banned French in schools, courts and legislatures, and provinces forcibly switched over many existing francophone institutions to English in those years.
The KKK existed on the Prairies and harassed French Canadian Catholics, stirred up shit against them, and even burned down some of their institutions like colleges, etc.
All of this long before the rise of Quebec nationalism/separatism in the 1960s.
Things are much calmer and cool today.