[PRCo] Re: PRCo] Re: Europa (Foreign Languages)

[Joshua Dunfield]

Fred Schneider wrote:
> And then we have 12 million people in Quebec and some others in New  
> Brunswick and Nova Scotia who would like to break away from Canada.    
> And if they do, then there is another group of Canadians in the  
> prairie provinces who think more like the USA to the south.   Crazy,  
> isn't it.

Quebec doesn't have 12 million people, much less 12 million
separatists; they got two chances to pass a referendum and
failed both times.

Language is certainly a political issue here (I moved to Montreal
a few weeks ago).  One of the former Parti Quebecois governments
even banned commercial signs in English.  Eventually it was struck
down by the courts, but they allowed a "reasonable compromise":
now French just has to be at least twice as big on signs.  And despite
having caused an exodus of English Canadians from Montreal in the '80s,
so that English is now definitely a minority language in the city,
the separatist politicians still rant and rave about how if they don't
do this, that and the other to support French (which really means
suppressing English), French will vanish instantly.  The latest threat
that will magically destroy French in Quebec is immigrants, who are
supposedly all learning English and not French.  There's no data
to back this up, but who needs facts?

-j.