Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[Nashe]

And in the summer, events are held at "Stade Moncton 2010 Stadium" which was rebranded to "Stade Croix-Bleue Medavie Stadium"

[Acajack]

The Moncton area might have the worst collection of arena, stadium and airport names in the world. Making the bilingual names mandatory and "unbreakable" is just so ugly and wonky.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Nashe

And in the summer, events are held at "Stade Moncton 2010 Stadium" which was rebranded to "Stade Croix-Bleue Medavie Stadium"

Yes, and since the stadium is conveniently on the UdeM campus, they have suddenly made the name non bilingual (when it should be the Stade Croix-Bleue Medavie Blue Cross Stadium).

The French name is actually quite a tongue twister for unsuspecting unilingual anglophones.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The Moncton area might have the worst collection of arena, stadium and airport names in the world. Making the bilingual names mandatory and "unbreakable" is just so ugly and wonky.

Are you referring to the Aeroport Internationale du Grand Moncton Romeo LeBlanc Greater Moncton International Airport???

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

What are the compromises though? People make a lot of noise about wedge issues like the religious symbols but as far as I know that went how the Quebec government wanted it to go, not how the Toronto Star wanted it (while most Canadians probably don't care). I'm not sure these petty debates could get more Canadian, with people passive-aggressively insulting each other while in the end Quebec can just invoke the notwithstanding clause but doesn't need to, it's all about nothing, the PM who says it is terrible is also from Quebec, etc.

International relations are not internal to Quebec and would not be independent of the USA. Canada is an American vassal and is already borderline size-wise on the international stage. Quebec would be able to live along the Quebec-Venezuela axis there depending on how much non-trivial independence (e.g. not just a different colour flag) people want.

Well, for starters yes Quebec may be able to keep its secularism laws, but it's still insane that a ton of city mayors outside Quebec have put municipal taxpayer money towards a court fight against a democratically-voted provincial law in another jurisdiction.

This is political Twilight Zone material.

Another example is the federal plan to increase immigration to 500,000 people a year, without any consideration of the practical and demographic context of a province like Quebec. (Demographics are always a touchy issue in Quebec.)

Justin Trudeau's response when questioned was that Quebec would be expected to take in 112,500 of them, which is exactly Quebec's percentage of Canada's population.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Yes, and since the stadium is conveniently on the UdeM campus, they have suddenly made the name non bilingual (when it should be the Stade Croix-Bleue Medavie Blue Cross Stadium).

The French name is actually quite a tongue twister for unsuspecting unilingual anglophones.

Croix-Bleue and MedaVie don't have English versions of their corporate names?

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Impossible - the main hockey arena in Moncton is already called the Centre Avenir Centre.

You guys write "centre" like the Brits? How odd. I thought Canada used US English spelling.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Croix-Bleue and MedaVie don't have English versions of their corporate names?

Medavie doesn't matter. The company's name is Medavie Blue Cross and the corporate HQ is in Moncton. UdeM however decided to ban "Blue Cross" from the name of the stadium, so it is officially the Stade Croix-Bleue Medavie.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

You guys write "centre" like the Brits? How odd. I thought Canada used US English spelling.

Our spelling conventions are UK English, not USA English.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Our spelling conventions are UK English, not USA English.

They're actually a mix, I'd say.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Our spelling conventions are UK English, not USA English.

^^And yet you drive on the right side of the road. What about ZIP codes? US (and French) style or UK style?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Well, for starters yes Quebec may be able to keep its secularism laws, but it's still insane that a ton of city mayors outside Quebec have put municipal taxpayer money towards a court fight against a democratically-voted provincial law in another jurisdiction.

This is political Twilight Zone material.

Another example is the federal plan to increase immigration to 500,000 people a year, without any consideration of the practical and demographic context of a province like Quebec. (Demographics are always a touchy issue in Quebec.)

Justin Trudeau's response when questioned was that Quebec would be expected to take in 112,500 of them, which is exactly Quebec's percentage of Canada's population.

Proposing separation to fix this seems like "fixing a watch using a sledgehammer".

I'm not sure Quebec would have solid controls on those sorts of donations even after separation and we will have to see what sort of staying power the immigration scheme or federal government have. We are in a very unstable period and have an ageing, disconnected federal government. I don't think it's as simple as this policy being extremely popular outside Quebec and extremely popular inside Quebec.

I'm skeptical in general of demographic extrapolation that goes many decades into the future.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

^^And yet you drive on the right side of the road. What about ZIP codes? US (and French) style or UK style?

UK style - a mix of letter and numbers, and, it's a "postal code", not a zip code.

And, we say zed God dammit, not zee like those Yankee revolutionaries to our south.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by begratto

Borders are pretty much irrelevant in business. For example, Alimentation Couche-Tard / Circle K / Mac's already has way more stores outside of Canada than in Canada. Borders don't prevent them from operating in Poland, Norway, etc. I don't see what how that would change if Quebec was idependant.

One thing people also don't understand is that those who want Quebec independence don't primarily want it because they think an independent Quebec will blow the ROC out of the water economically, or be another Luxembourg or Switzerland.

They want it because they want to manage their own affairs, whether they end up slightly poorer or slightly richer than the ROC doesn't really matter.

The realistic expectation that an independent Quebec would be in the top 20 or top 30 countries in terms of HDI is something they are perfectly OK with.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

Proposing separation to fix this seems like "fixing a watch using a sledgehammer".

I'm not sure Quebec would have solid controls on those sorts of donations even after separation and we will have to see what sort of staying power the immigration scheme or federal government have. We are in a very unstable period and have an ageing, disconnected federal government. I don't think it's as simple as this policy being extremely popular outside Quebec and extremely popular inside Quebec.

I'm skeptical in general of demographic extrapolation that goes many decades into the future.

These were just two examples pulled off the top of my head. It might not be at an intolerable level, but Canada in general (and especially the Quebec-Canada relationship) is somewhat dysfunctional in terms of its internal governance. It's always been like that to some degree but we're going through one of the rougher patches. It doesn't help to gloss things over.

EDIT: Regarding Bill 21 and the mayors' funding campaign, I suppose they could still contribute taxpayer money to some hypothetical court challenge, but the case wouldn't be going to the Supreme Court of Canada. (What they've done is already weird enough, so it's hard to imagine they do that in what would then be another country.)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Our spelling conventions are UK English, not USA English.

What Canadians spell like the British:

colour
humour
harbour
favour
centre
cheque
grey
defence

What Canadians spell like Americans:

tire
curb
cozy
plow
skeptical
authorize
program

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

What Canadians spell like the British:

colour
humour
harbour
favour
centre
cheque
grey
defence

What Canadians spell like Americans:

tire
curb
cozy
plow
skeptical
authorize
program

Based only on my own usage, I’d disagree re “sceptical”. Grey/gray and program/programme are toss-ups.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Based only on my own usage, I’d disagree re “sceptical”. Grey/gray and program/programme are toss-ups.

I don't live in Anglo-Canada anymore, though regardless I don't think I've ever read "sceptical" written by a Canadian, who wasn't perhaps originally from the UK.

"Sceptical" to me is a bit too close to the French "sceptique".

That said, as you say on the streets (as opposed to official Canadian spelling guides) there is a lot of looseness, and of course in addition to the toss-ups you mention, it's common to see stuff like "center" and "color" from average Canadians.

Though not so much in more official places like the names of buildings, newspapers or government publications. There the official Canadian spelling prevails.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

These were just two examples pulled off the top of my head. It might not be at an intolerable level, but Canada in general (and especially the Quebec-Canada relationship) is somewhat dysfunctional in terms of its internal governance. It's always been like that to some degree but we're going through one of the rougher patches. It doesn't help to gloss things over.

It is easy to focus on the problems and forget about the parts that quietly work. IMO, it's probably a bad sign if the pro-separation side can't immediately come up with some kind of clear point that's worth a material sacrifice (see Ukrainians for an example of major sacrifice in service of a higher goal to be West-aligned). What is a goal that requires separation and is worth a person in Quebec giving up 10% of their income? The 10% loss might not happen but it might (Brexit). If the argument for separation is that there are a bunch of nagging minor issues and it's all gonna be great after separation, well, that is basically Trumpian magical thinking.

For the record I have nothing against Quebec separation per se and I'm sympathetic to a lot of arguments made by Francophones in Quebec including about collective cultural preservation measures. But I think this can be fixed within Canada and that in the end we will likely move to a world with more mobility across larger areas and stronger trading blocs, so the real impact of Quebec being "sovereign" is likely to be much more nebulous than it would have been in the now dead postwar era. A lot of people have their head in the sand when it comes to international relations, with Europeans being some of the worst. It's fashionable for them to bash the USA for example while it turns out they have built a kind of US-backed retirement village in recent years with braindead military, industrial, and energy policy. Quebec is naturally inclined to take some inspiration from those politics.

I agree that there has been a dysfunctional aspect to Canadian politics. I don't suffer from JT derangement syndrome but I think they've been a weak government for the past few years (but were better around 2016). I also think that there's an SJW wing to Canadian politics that is internally inconsistent (we value diversity but will browbeat everyone who doesn't think exactly like us) and a net negative, but they probably hit their high water mark in 2021 or so and didn't accomplish much.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Based only on my own usage, I’d disagree re “sceptical”. Grey/gray and program/programme are toss-ups.

I actually constantly forget which one of grey/gray is US and which is UK and which Canada uses.

For program/programme I don't think I've ever seen "programme" in Canada...