[michou]

[QUOTE BY= h.f. wolff] <br /> I apologize, michou, for misspelling your name.<br /> <br /> My pregnant wife and I moved to Quebec in 1975, just before bill 101 was introduced as law. This law compelled children to undergo language tests prior to admittance to English speaking schools. Additionally, although I have most of my education in English, in Canada no less, this would not have been sufficient to gain admittence for my children to English schools. Fortunately my wife was educated in the U.K., and this was the only reason my sons were "permitted" to attend English schools. We still have the "license" signed by the then minister of education.<br /> <br /> The Olympic games were in 1976 and Quebeckers are just finishing paying for them. The stadium HAD to be a french design, right? Made of exposed concrete in your climate, right?<br /> <br /> I was engineer (licensed Ingineur) at one of the major engineering / fabricating firms in Quebec at that time, and we could have built the same design from steel, galvanized and painted, for less than one tenth of the price paid for concrete. But we were perceived as an "English" firm, and naturally we couldn't be considered for something french, right? (the 1000 or so shop and construction workers were primarily Quebecois! Nice people to a fault, and the main reason I learned some french).<br /> <br /> The part I detest is that Canadians wound up paying for it, even if not directly.<br /> <br /> Of course you wave off the points 1) to 7) I made earlier, because you are unable to counter with anything but hand-waving.<br /> <br /> The points I made were written up in the press and reported upon by tv. (except point 7). Perhaps not the most reliable of mediums, but, I lived in Quebec for 14 years, volunteered in the first referendum, and have at least a fair understanding of what is going on in Canada and Quebec. I had numerous discussions with separatists at my employers, and neighbours, some bright people among them, but intellectually dishonest. Would not supply answers to the hard question: "Who pays"?<br /> <br /> An old saying goes: "Money makes the world go round". And the very first step to independence is to show at least to your own people that you are capable of paying your bills, or at least answer: "WHAT IS THE PRICE OF SEPARATION"?<br /> <br /> And the Quebec separatists are not only unable or unwilling to do that, but advocate that it will be 'business as usual' after separation.<br /> <br /> The man / woman in the street, the poor souls who will wind up paying for the illusions of grandeur bandied about by the separatists, are left in a fog, additionally confused by the clear-as-mud question on the referendum ballot.<br /> <br /> Bon chance, michou, au revoir.<br /> <br /> H.F. Wolff[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> I've kept the entire text so everyone can read it. <br /> <br /> No need for apologies about the name. <br /> <br /> I also tried without any luck to enroll my daughter in an English school when she was 5 years old. I was even ready to sign a guarantee that it would only be for her kindergarten year. From past experiences, I knew that at that age, it takes a mere 6 months or less to grasp another language. Since all of my daughter's family on her father's side are English Canadians and unilinguals, I wanted her to learn the language quickly in order to better communicate with her cousins. But it was not possible. Work changes brought me to England instead and that is where she was schooled and learned her second language. But if not for the move to the UK, I would have found another way. My daughter is now 18 and for the past three years, has been actively learning her third language, Spanish. She is learning by hanging around a group of friends at school, young Argentinian immigrants. <br /> <br /> It is none of my business but maybe you should have sent your children to French school (unless they already spoke French ?). Learning another language at any age is always a plus, never a minus. I remember when I started my first day of junior high school in Virginia where my family had just moved to. My entire knowledge of English consisted of about 25 words, *'Fuck * probably being at the top of the list. Anyway, I didn't die, was not traumatized for life and I was a honor student by the end of my first year there. <br /> <br /> As for the rest of your comment, what are you expecting me to reply to exactly ? That greed and mismanagement exist in Québec, the same way it does in the rest of Canada ? In business, there is only one language, $$$ . <br /> You describe your problemed experiences in Québec as being a language one. After 14 years in Québec, surely yourself , your wife and kids are fluent in French. If not, then please don't come here, trying to tell me Québec and Québécers have a language issue, not when more than 40 % of them consider themselves to be bilingual. That Québécers would wish and choose to live, work, love and play using their mother tongue is certainly not an issue nor is it a problem.

[Dr Caleb]

[QUOTE BY= michou]Without you Dr. I would never have realized that being called michaud could be read as an insult, Michaud being a common family name in Québec. <br /> <br /> But looked at it this way, I think I'd rather be thought of as semi-hot than as a halved cabbage !!! LOLOLOL !!![/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> No problem. Chaulk it up to my lack of french. I tend to transliterate things. I thought he was trying to insult you, my mistake.<br /> <br /> I suppose semi-hot is better then. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/wink.gif' alt='Wink'><br /> <br /> BTW, you Herr Wolff, you forgot a [ /quote ] in your reply, which is why it didn't show up. I fixed it.

[h.f. wolff]

michou wrote:<br /> <br /> >>>You describe your problemed experiences in Québec as being a language one. <br /> <br /> I did NOT state that languge in Quebec was a problem for me or my family.<br /> <br /> It was the attitude and dishonesty of the Quebec intelligensa, civil service types, politicos, plus the high taxes, that gave me heart burn and are the reasons we left.<br /> <br /> I spent much time with francophone shop workers at construction and installation sites as supervising engineer. As I stated in an earlier post these people were friendly and courteous to a fault and were the main reason I learned some french.<br /> <br /> It is fact that some people learn a second or third language much easier than others and age has something to do with it also. My sons received french language instruction in school in Quebec, but we also took them to "heritage" language classes on Saturday mornings for 5 years.<br /> <br /> In conclusion I wish to reiterate that language was never an issue for us in Quebec as I have amply demonstrated.<br /> <br /> High taxes, illusions of grandeur, a general feeling of anglophones and allophones not welcome, etc. plus greener fields elsewhere finally provided the impetus to leave. We DO miss our friends and neighbours there and we visit regularly. They stay because the Quebec political shenanigans are not as important to them as they were to us. <br /> <br /> Interestingly two of the most die-hard anglophone families we got to know, one a neighbour and one a colleague, who were never going to move from Quebec because it was the "only place on earth suitable for living", now live in Vancouver and Ottawa respectively! <br /> <br /> H.F. Wolff<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />

[FurGaia]

<b>h.f.Wolff</b> writes: <i>When all is said and done, do I think that Quebec can exist as a separate country? The answer has to be yes, obviously. But, what kind of country would it be? What would be its standard of living? What role would it play in the international arena?</i><br /> <br /> In the end those are questions that have to be answered by Quebecers themselves (francophone and anglophone; those <i>de souche</i> and the neos) taking into account the question of the province’s First Nations. We cannot “be afraid” for them! <br /> <br /> The fact is that an independent Quebec will disrupt the rest of Canada (ROC) as well. Now if THAT is what we living in the ROC are afraid of, we should say so ... after we have figured out what it is that we are afraid of.<br /> <br /> Indeed it seems to me that the doom and gloom that we in the ROC threaten Quebec with (not to mention the guilt trip) as regards its struggle with the sovereignty issue is much too convenient. Perhaps it is time for us to turn the spotlight on ourselves! <a href="http://www.uni.ca/doran.html">The Americans have</a>!

[michou]

A very sensible comment from FurGaia. A comment as sensible as h.f. wolff’s when he wrote that no one could predict the outcome of it all. The author of the article you referred us to FurGaia, was also being sensible. He wrote and offered different scenarios and courses of actions to ponder on.<br /> <br /> But any which way we look at it, the Québec sovereigntist movement is and will always be disturbing because its accomplishment would mean enormous changes for Québec as it would for the rest of Canada. It would force the Canadian people, and Québécers, to stand before a looking glass and my hope is that if this ever comes to pass, the picture mirrored back will also be of sensible people. <br /> <br /> As for Harper, one thing Québécers and Canadians should do well to keep in mind about the man, he is a politician campaigning for votes for the next federal election. When he spoke in Montreal this week, that’s what that sucking sound we heard was about. But as h.f.wolff also wrote, there will always be some poor sob out there who falls for that kind of stuff. <br />

[The Saint]

[QUOTE BY= michou] [QUOTE BY= FurGaia] It seems that there is a press release from Harper's office that indicates that he now knows what Quebec wants. It reads: <br /> <br /> <b>"The truth is that Quebecers want neither the Liberal view of federalism nor the Bloc view of independence. " ....</b> [/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> This particular sentence by Harper really pissed me off. If Québécers do not aspire to independence, then why in the hell would they have voted in so many Bloc members to Canada’s parliament ?[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> They elect Bloc MPs to Ottawa and vote NO on referendums (honest ones at least). You know that michou.<br /> <br /> Considering Lucien Bouchard's latest stance on Quebec independance and Mario Dumonts endorsement of the PC party in the last election it is becoming all the more clear: most seperatist politicians do not take Quebec independance seriously. They threaten the rest of the country with seperation to extort more powers out of Ottawa they way an emotionally immature child threatens to run away from home if s/he do not get what they want. <br /> Seperatist politicans appeal to an emotionally driven people bereft of any rational thought on the consequences of seperation because appeals to the emotions always defeats appeals to the intellect. Living in Toronto I see urban MPs do the same thing to get the ethnic vote. Its what gets them elected. No Quebec politician worth his or her weight in salt in either the business or political spehers (oftentimes its the same thing) concretely belives in total indepedance for Qubec. Gilles Ducepe expects to draw a pension from Ottawa even as a citizen of an indepedant Quebec. Seperatist parties are a conveient conduit to channel the emotions of an irrational people so the business can continue because NO BUSINESS LEADER IN QUEBEC SUPPORTS TOTAL INDEPENDANCE FOR QUEBEC.<br /> <br /> The illusion of inevitable independance for Quebec is good enough for people like you michou to put your trust in them to achieve this goal if not now then at least make some progress towards it. Keep in mind who pays seperatist politicians salaries. In the public service its the Canadian taxpayer. Outside of this it's a business or a corporation who, as a community, do not, almost unanomously, support independance for Quebec. Not very many seperatist MPs and MPPs will return to the farm once they leave public life if any at all.

[Perturbed]

[QUOTE BY= The Saint] [QUOTE BY= michou] [QUOTE BY= FurGaia] It seems that there is a press release from Harper's office that indicates that he now knows what Quebec wants. It reads: <br /> <br /> <b>"The truth is that Quebecers want neither the Liberal view of federalism nor the Bloc view of independence. " ....</b> [/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> This particular sentence by Harper really pissed me off. If Québécers do not aspire to independence, then why in the hell would they have voted in so many Bloc members to Canada’s parliament ?[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> They elect Bloc MPs to Ottawa and vote NO on referendums (honest ones at least). You know that michou.<br /> <br /> Considering Lucien Bouchard's latest stance on Quebec independance and Mario Dumonts endorsement of the PC party in the last election it is becoming all the more clear: most seperatist politicians do not take Quebec independance seriously. They threaten the rest of the country with seperation to extort more powers out of Ottawa they way an emotionally immature child threatens to run away from home if s/he do not get what they want. <br /> Seperatist politicans appeal to an emotionally driven people bereft of any rational thought on the consequences of seperation because appeals to the emotions always defeats appeals to the intellect. Living in Toronto I see urban MPs do the same thing to get the ethnic vote. Its what gets them elected. No Quebec politician worth his or her weight in salt in either the business or political spehers (oftentimes its the same thing) concretely belives in total indepedance for Qubec. Gilles Ducepe expects to draw a pension from Ottawa even as a citizen of an indepedant Quebec. Seperatist parties are a conveient conduit to channel the emotions of an irrational people so the business can continue because NO BUSINESS LEADER IN QUEBEC SUPPORTS TOTAL INDEPENDANCE FOR QUEBEC.<br /> <br /> The illusion of inevitable independance for Quebec is good enough for people like you michou to put your trust in them to achieve this goal if not now then at least make some progress towards it. Keep in mind who pays seperatist politicians salaries. In the public service its the Canadian taxpayer. Outside of this it's a business or a corporation who, as a community, do not, almost unanomously, support independance for Quebec. Not very many seperatist MPs and MPPs will return to the farm once they leave public life if any at all.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> <br /> I bet if we simply called the wimps on their bluff they woudl fess up and give in.<br /> <br /> It is HIGH TIME for English Canada to reassert itself and escape multiculturalist brainwashing, and if the French keep trying to separate, let them ruin themselves. We don't need the whiners, as much as we may like them and humour them.