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Quebec Gets More (English) Than They Bargained For

By Rebecca Pardo

Nelsonwhitebkrnd.jpgBy reducing the number of their non-French-speaking immigrants, Quebec thought they’d be getting more French-only-speaking immigrants. But it didn’t exactly work out that way. As it turns out, most French-speaking immigrants also speak English! And we know Quebec’s not exactly wild on English.
The Star calls it “Linguistic serendipity[...]The law of unintended consequences has struck again.”
In other words, Quebec’s all like “D’oh!” and we’re all like “HA-ha!”
Image from Arcane Gazebo.

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  • ramanan

    In other words, Quebec’s all like “D’oh!” and we’re all like “HA-ha!”
    Hells Yeah! Sucks to be nation of people trying to keep their language and culture alive in a country that isn’t particularly interested in any of that. If you can’t laugh at that, what can you laugh at? AMIRITE?!?

  • Gloria

    I’m pretty sure a province with residents who can speak more than one language is more valuable — in terms of labour, culture, etc. — than one with residents who laugh at the idea of knowing/learning a foreign language.

  • guest

    This does WHAT for Toronto, exactly, that would justify your smugness?
    - Jill

  • guest

    What in the heck does this have to do with Toronto? And, as for Quebec, you clearly haven’t the faintest clue. Stick to what you know, Torontoist — like, I don’t know, Toronto?

  • David Topping

    It must be really frustrating for you, guests, that one in every twenty articles is not perfectly about Toronto proper, and, instead, focuses on something that Torontonians are interested in and that does affect them (albeit less directly). I’m sure that your eyes could easily skim past this article if you found it out of place — it takes up only 400 pixels of precious screen-space.

  • guest

    Actually David, it’s frustrating to keep needing new kinds of logins to comment here, and more frustrating still to see empty-headed Quebec-bashing on a site manned by editors who once wanted me to write TO-ist articles FROM Quebec. I think you know well enough that my eyes could never skim past a post such as this, and also that impact is not dependent on pixel size.
    -Jill

  • guest

    Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, surely.

  • guest

    Yeah, this post is pretty clueless. I guess it’s easier to spin off a quick ha-ha-Québec joke rather than critically consider what this article is saying. And if only the stereotype were true! But the reality is that Québec doesn’t hate English at all, it just wants to ensure the viability of French. Québecois have realized that this stopped being an either/or proposition a long time ago, that’s why the government recently made English classes mandatory for all schoolchildren starting in the third grade.
    So bring on the multilingual immigrants! At least they don’t propagate this type of unhelpful us/them divisionism.

  • David Topping

    Hey Jill [Murray], didn’t realize it was you — really, this is a joke. It’s not intended to be a thorough examination of Quebec-Ontario tensions, but it’s also certainly not as inflammatory as it’s being made out to be.
    Also, I took French Immersion in grade school. Not a big fan of the conjugations, but that doesn’t mean I harbour a deep-seated resentment for Quebec (or its residents). I’d love it if there were a Montrealist(e), as you once suggested yourself. We could host dual staff get-togethers, and eat poutine together under the Olympic Stadium and gaze at les etoiles. It’d be nice.

  • guest

    I think it’s up to your readers to decide if they feel inflamed or not.
    But if the post is not inflamatory, then someone still really needs to get on here and fill us in on the background that makes it all make some kind of sense. If there is truly a joke to be enjoyed or a point to be made, half the post must be missing because it is not as clear as you seem to think it is.
    - Jill (Murray) (.) (com)

  • rek

    Gloria – Isn’t Quebec on the receiving end of equalization payments?
    Signed, a Torontonian who moved to Korea to become bilingual.

  • james a

    This post, and the decision to write it as a smug “hah-hah” are pretty much a perfect example of why the rest of Canada hates Toronto. :(
    Was there not a more tasteful way of approaching the story of Quebec struggling to protect what is truly a distinct but dwindling culture in North America? Or does that not matter to us ’cause we’re the center of the universe up here in these parts?

  • Gloria

    Learning a second language is always valuable, even if just cognitively, although it can be a job asset.
    Quebec is not the best off of provinces, but it doesn’t mean we should make fun of the concept of bilingualism, even “accidental.” I have a hard time believing Quebec thought they could wipe out English by encouraging French immigrants. Now they have residents who can speak the main working language, but also another one! I mean, wow, how many downsides are there to that?
    Anyone bilingual knows the hardest part is maintaining a language that isn’t the dominant tongue. That Quebec pushes French so hard shouldn’t be surprising. Most Quebecers will learn English one way or another because that’s pretty much the international standard nowadays. All the most fluent bilingual individuals I know are francophones first, not anglophones.
    The joke’s just stale, especially from anyone in a city that prides itself so much on diversity.
    Just for the record, I am bilingual (Cantonese), but my French sucks.

  • Gloria

    Jill: I think James has your answer there for you. This is a very Toronto post because it completely fulfils the stereotype the rest of Canada has of this city.

  • guest

    This article DOES affect many Torontonians.
    Specifically, it affects Toronto’s considerable share of the 250,000+ English Quebeckers who were driven out by Quebec’s blatantly racist policies aimed at asserting the rights of “les Québécois pur laine” over those of other ethnic groups.
    I’m one of those, and I left my birthplace when it became apparent that no matter how flawlessly I spoke French, I could not expect equal opportunities because of my English/Scottish blood.
    So “Ha-Ha!” indeed.

  • guest

    Hey guest(15), I’ve got the same English/Scottish (+Irish) blood as you and I know exactly what you mean, but as someone who recently returned to QC from TO, I’m finding things have changed A LOT over the last 11 years. History counts, but the reality of right now shouldn’t be ignored either. Quebec is (as usual) in flux.

  • Marc Lostracco

    I wish the rest of Canada celebrated our dual-language status better. There’s too much of an “us vs. them” attitude, and that’s too bad. I can’t see why stop signs can’t easily be the STOP/ARRÊT ones everywhere, for example (and yes, I realize the red octagon is standardized as STOP).
    I’m not saying 100% bilingualism in things like signage, but it would be nice to see a lot more of it, being an officially bilingual country and all. Plus, saying things like, “Tabernac! Now I’ll have to slip down to the dépanneur for more Pepsi!” is awesome.

  • Rebecca Pardo

    Actually, I think bilingualism is great. The “HA-ha!” was about the irony of Quebec getting more English speakers in their effort to get more French speakers, assuming that this wasn’t the intended result. The politics of language and ethnicity in Quebec are obviously complex; this post was not a serious comment on the politics, but a deliberate oversimplification.

  • guest

    “I’m not saying 100% bilingualism in things like signage, but it would be nice to see a lot more of it, being an officially bilingual country and all.”
    In Quebec, bilingual signs are, for the most part, illegal.
    Where they ARE permitted (in designated “ethnic” areas, and then only in cases of public safety and security), their use is closely monitored by l’Office de la langue francais to ensure that the Frnch on them appears first, above any other language and in much larger type.
    “I can’t see why stop signs can’t easily be the STOP/ARRÊT ones everywhere”
    In France, and all other Francophone countries and territories, the signs say “Stop” because that is the proper singular command of the French verb “stopper”. Quebec uses the word “Arret” (which is the noun for a place where things come to rest) just to be, well, pissy about it.

  • andrew

    I wonder what New Brunswickers, as citizens of a bilingual province, think about this. How does New Brunswick protect its French language culture?