Quebec: No!

From the BBC:

"Rebelling against Quebec's 'language police' "

The Canadian province of Quebec has seen a resurgence of its bitter language wars since Francophone nationalists returned to power last year. Now, some English speakers are rebelling against the "language police", reports Lorraine Mallinder. Quebec's ruling Parti Quebecois is pushing a new law through the provincial parliament that would further reduce the use of English in schools, hospitals and shops. As a result, many Anglophones fear they are being squeezed into insignificance. For Harry Schick, owner of a pastry shop in Pointe Claire, an English-speaking municipality west of Montreal, it is nothing new. His shop window, emblazoned with signs in 35 different languages, has attracted visits from what critics deride as the province's language police. Inspectors from L'Office quebecois de la langue francaise - the Quebec French language office - say the lettering of French signs should be three times bigger than that of other languages. But Schick, who has been taken to court and fined in the past, refuses to back down.  "Is a Francophone customer three times bigger than an Anglophone customer?" he asks.  "They deserve equal rights and equal billing. I want to take care of my customers in whatever language I can." Last week, he again sent inspectors packing - and they promised to return. Schick's case is the latest in a series of confrontations that have set social networks and talk radio shows abuzz.  In the so-called "pastagate" scandal, language inspectors attempted to strike the word "pasta" from the menu of a Montreal Italian restaurant. And in October, Montrealers were appalled by a man's report that a French-speaking paramedic had refused to speak English to him while treating his convulsing toddler. The public transport system has also been the scene of altercations between French-speaking staff and English-speaking passengers. Tensions are running high in a province that seemed to have struck a linguistic peace of sorts since the heady days of Quebec nationalism, periods marked by two failed referenda on independence in 1980 and 1995.

In the late 1970s, the first Parti Quebecois government passed a law establishing French as the official language of Quebec. The law mandated the use of French in the workplace and required immigrants from outside the province to attend Francophone schools.The proposed new law would further bolster French. Among other measures, it would deny official bilingual status to some municipalities and restrict entry to English-speaking post-secondary colleges and universities. Students who speak French, for example, would automatically be placed at the back of the admissions queue, a move Quebec nationalists say would protect English-speaking students. Critics, however, say this would marginalise English-speaking colleges.  Quebec minister Jean-Francois Lisee of the Parti Quebecois is tasked with building bridges to the province's embattled Anglophone population. He acknowledges that the "tough" measures will have to be toned down to win cross-party support. The new language bill is necessary in a country where the French language is under threat, he says. He believes that Canadian bilingualism, which became official federal policy in the late 1960s under the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau, is not working. According to Lisee, 50% of every new generation of French speakers from British Columbia to Ontario adopt English as a mother tongue. But Quebec's language laws have stemmed the Anglophone tide, he says.  Today, he says, 85% of children of immigrants to the province are schooled in French. But a number of elite institutions on both sides of the linguistic divide, including the Quebec Bar Association, the Human Rights Commission and the province's 48 post-secondary colleges, have come out against the proposed law, warning the changes will trample on individual rights. A February survey found that 42% of the province's English speakers are considering leaving the province.

^ Quebec needs to put it's big girl/big boy pants on and move on. It has become obsessed with discriminating against English and English speakers in the past several years. There was a time (up to the 1970s) that Quebec and the French language were discriminated against by the rest of Canada and they needed laws to protect their language rights. That time has come and gone. The government and officials in Quebec went from being discriminated against to doing the discriminating. That is a hue change that needs to be stopped. English and French are important for Quebec (and the rest of Canada.) English is the sole international language and is the most widely used language in: diplomacy, aviation, trade, tourism, and a wide range of other aspects. To simply overlook that fact makes a person just look plain dumb, as though they are isolated and living in a bubble from the rest of reality. If people in Quebec don't learn English (or are stopped from learning English) then they will be deprived of going out into the world and doing things the rest of us can do - they will only make the Quebec isolation bubble bigger. With that said, I still believe that French should be promoted - not only in Quebec, but the rest of Canada  - more than it already is. There should be incentives - not penalties - for people to learn and use French. The Supreme Court of Canada needs to step in and put a stop to the abusive tactics of the "language police" and to the overt discrimination of English-speakers within Quebec. By standing by and watching this happen they are in effect promoting it - the same way someone watching a crime being done and doing nothing is just as guilty as the one doing the crime. ^

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22408248