Quebec, the French Language, and Quebecois Identity

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

When Jacques Parizeau launched the 2nd referendum, all polls showed very little support for independence. He had the courage to launch it anyway and develop his case. Like him or dislike him, but that's political courage. I have very little respect for politicians who cling to power and have no ideals or spine, only following the dominant opinion of the moment as expressed in polls, à la Angela Merkel, as if in our democracies if was now polls that decided things.

There's a balance to be had.

Read the room, but drive the narrative to an extent.

Parizeau was both the movement's biggest proponent and worst enemy. He got lucky with timing (the failure of Meech Lake, economically things were getting worse, people were angrier, and the wounds of the past were pretty fresh), and having Lucien Bouchard as the BQ leader was a huge asset.

But leader as manager is kind of a thing these days. I don't know if it is a cause or effect, but driving a goal almost seems anachronistic. I guess one needs to figure where the heck they're going before they commit to a path. The 'vision thing', as H.W. Bush put it. The vision is pretty foggy these days.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Acajack

For example, one of my kids' significant other is French. Very French. Like Michel Sardou Classic French. (See? Would many Anglo-Canadians get what that means?)

We can teach them.

(PS: Wait at least till the 29th second )

• Video Link

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

We can teach them.

(PS: Wait at least till the 29th second )

• Video Link

I was thinking more of this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC1QWTf1UBs

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

You should have played that one to see the reactions:

• Video Link

Haha, did not know that one.

Though I do know this:

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...dans+ma+bouche

And of course, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgS6bJsWFn4

And...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXwoMwjMcqA

In closing, here is its rather delicious Québécois "female" remake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s4Xa7ZwomA

[thurmas]

Duhaime drew a crowd of 3000 to the hall at centre videotron in Quebec City yesterday.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Duhaime drew a crowd of 3000 to the hall at centre videotron in Quebec City yesterday.

He certainly has motivated supporters. But his party will be lucky to win even 2 or 3 seats. My guess is that Duhaime will win the only seat for the party. It sort of reminds me of Mario Dumont and the ADQ back in 1994. What makes it harder for the PCQ is that they really aren't that much different from the CAQ overall.

Drawing a crowd of 3000 in Quebec City isn't amazing in my opinion because there is a lot of population within a close drive. And Montreal is only about 2.5 hours away.

[thurmas]

they might win beauce and 1 or 2 more

[lio45]

Not sure it’s in this thread that Acajack was pointing out that my vote (if I voted in Sherbrooke) could make a difference, but I just saw fresh polling data for the riding, the Liberals are in fifth place with 3.5%.

Charest still had the riding a mere decade ago. What a fall.

“96.5% of voting voters in the Sherbrooke riding (definitely not a hotbed of sovereigntism) are voting Not Liberal” is something most observers would never have imagined.

[MolsonExport]

^I totally could imagine it. Quebecois are the most fickle yet communal voters in the country. Eventually they will vote en masse for some political party, just to rub sand in some people's eyes, or just to test the waters. Delivering Quebec for Mulroney, for Trudeau Sr and Jr, for Jolly Gilles, for un Bon Jack, for Lazarus (err, Bouchard).

There may be no place in Canada where people go with whatever is blowing in the wind. This is not to say that some places don't vote monolithically (e.g., Alberta for Cons federally....they just never vote for other parties federally, so they are unlike Quebec).

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^I totally could imagine it. Quebecois are the most fickle yet communal voters in the country. Eventually they will vote en masse for some political party, just to rub sand in some people's eyes, or just to test the waters.

I admit that I find the Quebec way of doing things a bit strange. Parties spring up around a leader, and then die quickly afterward, as if they're cult of personality type things where there's no succession plan. People flock from one party to another every election.

This is usually the mark of a weak democracy, but Quebec is definitely not a weak democracy. The system may be weird to me, but it seems to work.

[thewave46]

The flavour-of-the-week thing is a relatively new phenomenon.

At a provincial level, it was a Parti Quebecois/Liberal Party of Quebec race since the 1970s. It was only recently that CAQ became a thing. We shall see how long their staying power is.

At a federal level, it was solid Liberal until the 1980s, then PCs until the 1990s until the Bloc Quebecois/Liberal Party duo in the 1990s and 2000s. The implosion of the BQ in 2011 was the trigger for the more fluid federal choices of the 2010s. Does it last, or does the BQ continue to regain steam?

The 2010s were the great oddity of upending the established order for Quebec politics.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I admit that I find the Quebec way of doing things a bit strange. Parties spring up around a leader, and then die quickly afterward, as if they're cult of personality type things where there's no succession plan. People flock from one party to another every election.

Same in France. Must be a Latin thing.

[harls]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Quebec is clearly a North American culture, but it's more of its own variant on it that a carbon copy that just happens to use French as opposed to English.

The Autoroute system, with the way they mimick the same colour (sorry color) and east-west, same shield crap with a tiny variant.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by harls

The Autoroute system, with the way they mimick the same colour (sorry color) and east-west, same shield crap with a tiny variant.

If you look closely there is actually a variant on the European motorway symbol in there as well.

So "hybrid" yet again!

[New Brisavoine]

^^It looks more North American than European, quite frankly, except for its name ("Autoroutes"). But then it's only natural since Québec is part of Canada. Isn't there a federal regulation mandating similar road signs across the entire federation?

If you want road signs like in France, you have to go to more recent former French colonies. For example here in Côte d'Ivoire (it could as well be somewhere in southern France, the road signage is absolutely identical).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

^^It looks more North American than European, quite frankly, except for its name ("Autoroutes"). But then it's only natural since Québec is part of Canada. Isn't there a federal regulation mandating similar road signs across the entire federation?

If you want road signs like in France, you have to go to more recent former French colonies. For example here in Côte d'Ivoire (it could as well be somewhere in southern France, the road signage is absolutely identical).

There are no nationally-imposed road signage standards in Canada, though the provinces do try and collaborate to have at least some uniformity. (They also copy a lot of what the US does.)

Quebec's signage is mostly North American in style, but the autoroute sign I was referring to is the first one here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=pann...h=525&dpr=1.65

It looks a lot like a US Interstate shield but with a variant on the European motorway symbol at the top in red. And of course the fleur-de-lis at the bottom.

Quebec also uses way more pictograms than any jurisdiction in North America.

There are a few French-style signage uses in Quebec, for example this one used in roundabouts (photo actually not too far from my house):

https://www.google.com/maps/place/62...!4d-75.6718958

[hipster duck]

^Those Autoroute highway shields were always some of my favourites.

The other American quirk is that the Autoroutes are numbered like the interstates: odd = north-south; even = east-west and with the numbers going up from south-to-north and west-to-east.

What's kind of cute is how the northernmost Autoroute (A-70 in Saguenay) and easternmost Autoroute (A-85) are numbered just in case they might one day build autoroutes further east and north. Like an A-90 from Rouyn-Noranda to Chibougamau, or something.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

This is usually the mark of a weak democracy, but Quebec is definitely not a weak democracy. The system may be weird to me, but it seems to work.

Newfoundland politics have a similar flavour. They don't constantly make new parties but they generate charismatic individual leaders like Danny Williams or Joey Smallwood. In AB they're always PC.

The standard explanations I see rely on tropes. In Quebec it must be due to Frenchness, in Newfoundland it's because they're small/poor, in AB it's oil wealth and rugged individualism. I wonder if it has more to do with potential wedge issues as mobilizing factors for the population, which can be culturally related but doesn't have to be (e.g. if Quebec had Alberta-style oil wealth or NL-style federal constraints their politics would take on a similar character, with French vs. English culture only affecting that a bit).

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by someone123

I wonder if it has more to do with potential wedge issues as mobilizing factors for the population, which can be culturally related but doesn't have to be

I would agree with that 100%

Any issue that is seen to be existential can lead to tribalism. In Quebec, it is French language and culture. In Alberta, it is the oil industry, and the struggle for provincial vs federal control of the resource. In Newfoundland, it is the fishery, and a romantic longing for the time when Newfoundland was an independent nation, therefore not feeling entirely Canadian.

These three provinces in particular are prone to tribalism.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

^Those Autoroute highway shields were always some of my favourites.

The other American quirk is that the Autoroutes are numbered like the interstates: odd = north-south; even = east-west and with the numbers going up from south-to-north and west-to-east.

What's kind of cute is how the northernmost Autoroute (A-70 in Saguenay) and easternmost Autoroute (A-85) are numbered just in case they might one day build autoroutes further east and north. Like an A-90 from Rouyn-Noranda to Chibougamau, or something.

The westernmost autoroute is A-5 which runs north from Gatineau near where I live.

This assumes that one day there could be a north-south autoroute 1 or 3, perhaps in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region. The main north south two-lane highway in that region is already the 101, in keeping with the highway numbering scheme: autoroute numbers are generally one or two digit numbers closely related to the secondary highways they are roughly parallel to. The A-5 follows a parallel route to the two-lane 105, for example.