[lbo-talk] Quebec separatism

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> Marvin Gandall wrote:
>
> >She will make a fine representative of Her Majesty. The Canadian
> >left has developed a new attachment to the monarchy since the
> >announcement.
>
> The controversy over whether they were closet separatists arose while
> we were visiting Quebec. What's happened since?
>
> So what about Quebec separatism in general? We were struck by the way
> signs and plaques referred to the "national" capital of Quebec City
> (and the dueling historical markers - vaguely pro-English stuff in
> two languages mounted by the Canadian gov't, and monolingual
> pro-French stuff from the Quebec gov, promoting an almost Balkan
> level of resentment over historical losses). And it seemed from
> touristic observation that even Montreal was a strikingkly
> non-"diverse" city - has Quebec nationalism kept out/driven out
> immigrants? What's the analysis/position of the Anglo Canadian left
> on Quebec?
>
> Doug
If anything, the culprit for lack of diversity in Quebec must be  
Canada's immigration policy, Canada's education policy, and (probably  
more importantly) the hegemony of the English language as the second  
language in many countries (after all, the British had more colonies  
than the French).

<blockquote>The study released today shows that the concerns first  
expressed by the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism  
in 1969 were founded: Francophones have generally not had their fair  
share of immigration to Canada. First, statistics show a significant  
disparity between the proportion of immigrants who know English and  
French when they come to Canada : 5% French-only speakers, as  
compared to 48% English-only speakers, 4% who can speak both official  
languages and 43% who speak neither. Once they have settled here,  
most immigrants adopt the English language. Some 83% use English,  
while 7% use French and 3% use both official languages. Second, the  
federal government has not been making any pro active effort to  
recruit French-speaking immigrants overseas. Most French-speaking  
immigrants to Canada settle in Quebec, with the province receiving  
some 84% of all immigrants who speak French only upon arrival and  
some 57% of all new arrivals who declared knowledge of both English  
and French.

Dr. Adam points out that Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has  
shown sensitivity to this issue. In fact, the new Immigration and  
Refugee Protection Act recognizes that immigration is to support "the  
commitment of the Government of Canada to enhance the vitality of the  
English and French linguistic minority communities in Canada." For  
the Commissioner, "while this is definitely a step in the right  
direction, there is still a lot of ground to cover to make this  
objective a reality."

<http://www.ocol-clo.gc.ca/archives/nr_cp/2002/2002-02-26_e.htm></ 
blockquote>

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>
* Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud- 
ahmadinejads-face.html>;  <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/chvez- 
congratulates-ahmadinejad.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/ 
2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>