Quote:
Originally Posted by kwoldtimer
This is what always amazes me. It would never occur to me to speak other than English in dealing with a federal civil servant in Quebec. Ever. To switch from French to English at a bilingual border station is beyond my comprehension.
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FWIW, my pride << my objective to fill up my B-3 brokerage form myself and proceed to enter Canada as easily, quickly, and smoothly as possible with my Texan/Oklahoman cargo every time, so what occurs to me, mainly, is that I have to be as accomodating as possible to the person who has the power to let me through easily (which nearly always ends up being the case in both directions) or not. Language is secondary. Anything that I think has the tiniest chance of being considered smartass behavior by them is a big no-no.
I have never given them the slightest hint that I wished to switch to French at the Michigan/Ontario crossings, for that reason.
Québécois patriots would be disappointed to see me bend over like that on the language issue in Canada, but, that's business.
Edit: if I'm alone in my car, then that's different, I might entertain the idea of being slightly smartassish on the language front. But I have never yet had a chance to reenter at a ROC location without being in a less-simple-than-just-me-and-empty-vehicle situation.