Anglo-Canadians closer to the modern UK or French Canadians to modern France?

[Capsicum]

In terms of not just ancestry or language, but actual ties to the current, modern existing countries of the UK and France? Whether the ties are political, media, pop culture, physical travel or tourism, immigrating, emigrating or visiting families.

On the one hand, Anglo-Canada mostly focuses its gaze, its media and its travels on the US not on Britain itself (except for things like the Royal Family, the BBC which aren't super prominent in Canada over other Anglo nations anyways), but then again, French Canada going back to the separation of Quebec and Acadia from the old country, has diverged as much as Americans and British have from one another. Any re-vitalized links are pretty recent anyways between France and Quebec/French Canada.

[Architype]

The term "Anglo" in Canada seems to mean anyone in Canada who is not French Canadian, so the answer would be obvious. Anglo Canadians would not typically be closer to modern day UK because they are from many different ethnicities.

[SignalHillHiker]

All of Canada is more North American than European.

The extent to which European proximity matters varies from place to place.

The average English-speaker in Toronto is probably not going to be especially connected to the United Kingdom, and those who are may be connected it through their Indian heritage and cricket as much as anything else.

Quebec is probably the most uniformly close to Europe for linguistic reasons. It's the closest reasonable linguistic peer.

Here the British connection is still very strong. All of us have grandparents who drove on the left. Mrs. Brown's Boys is our equivalent of The Office in terms of which sections of society talks about it and how often. Coronation Street is, by far, the most popular non-news television program in Newfoundland. We eat pease pudding. The entire coastline of Newfoundland is alight on Guy Fawkes night. We have a military parade for Battle of Britain Day. Officially, we call it Armistice Day, not Remembrance Day. There are large British imports sections in the groceries. Even cardboard cutouts of the Queen to pose with:



So you can feel an institutional, conscious connection to England - but it's forced, it's tradition. It's not effortless, it's not contemporary. That unthinking, soul-to-soul connection is with Ireland. There isn't an accent or word here you can't find there. Our faces and surnames and folk songs and cuisine and music and sense of humour and emphasis on education and resentment and the diaspora... it's all identical. You can check just about any video from or about Newfoundland and at least one comment will be from an Irish person expressing amazement at how similar it all is.

Irish Times: The most Irish island in the world
The residents of Newfoundland don’t like being called ‘Newfies’ or Canadians, but you can call them Irish.
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-...orld-1.1538579

So, short answer is a flat, easy "NO!". But within that minority of European influence, some places have it strongly, others don't have it at all unless you keep it as foundational and shallow as "forks", "English", "voting", etc.

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Here the British connection is still very strong. All of us have grandparents who drove on the left. Mrs. Brown's Boys is our equivalent of The Office in terms of which sections of society talks about it and how often. Coronation Street is, by far, the most popular non-news television program in Newfoundland.

You sure about the driving on the left bit. Newfoundland switched in 1947 so any drivers would be almost 90 now.

Mrs. Brown's Boys is pretty low brow isn't it. Personally I can't stand it. Too slapstick based. If you want working class humour with a very UK perspective check out the Royle Family based in a location not too far from Dev's and the Rovers and Nick's Bistro and the Kabin.

I do like the Office UK but my all time favourite UK comedy is Alan Partridge and League of Gentlemen which was filmed less than 5 km from where I lived as a kid and the look of the towns are almost identical.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Proof Sheet

You sure about the driving on the left bit. Newfoundland switched in 1947 so any drivers would be almost 90 now.

BC and the Maritimes switched to left-side driving in the 1920's, so only a couple decades before Newfoundland.

Ontario and Quebec always drove on the right.

It would be interesting to see pictures of border crossings in BC or New Brunswick (into Maine or Quebec!) from 1920. I guess they were probably so small back then that it didn't matter much. For a while drivers also had to switch sides between NS and NB.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Proof Sheet

You sure about the driving on the left bit. Newfoundland switched in 1947 so any drivers would be almost 90 now.

Mrs. Brown's Boys is pretty low brow isn't it. Personally I can't stand it. Too slapstick based. If you want working class humour with a very UK perspective check out the Royle Family based in a location not too far from Dev's and the Rovers and Nick's Bistro and the Kabin.

I do like the Office UK but my all time favourite UK comedy is Alan Partridge and League of Gentlemen which was filmed less than 5 km from where I lived as a kid and the look of the towns are almost identical.

It is low brow, but they leave in the bloopers and that's amazing. And it's just so lovely to hear our expressions on television - they use "sure" the same way, they use "after" to form past tense. There's something really lovely and familiar about it. And they're all very entertaining people. His wife (plays his daughter on the show) is one of my favourite people on television. Her facial expressions crack me up.

• Video Link

Royle Family is great too - especially the idea of it where it's basically all just in that one room. "Who's that?" "Don't worry about it!" or whatever, etc.

Haven't seen any of the others. I can't stand The Office. I don't mind slow burners and stupid comedy, I love Ab Fab for example, but The Office just irritates me.

[isaidso]

They're both as foreign to Canadians as any other country regardless of what language we speak. We have as strong ties to France and the UK as other western countries would have. Canada may have British/French roots but those links eroded a very long time ago.

[niwell]

I personally feel a pretty close connection to England, but that's because my mom's family is from there. She only immigrated as a 10 year old.

Other than that I am into pretty much any global stuff. My current music playlist now has Canadian, American, British, Australian, French and South African stuff on it.

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by niwell

I personally feel a pretty close connection to England, but that's because my mom's family is from there. She only immigrated as a 10 year old.

Other than that I am into pretty much any global stuff. My current music playlist now has Canadian, American, British, Australian, French and South African stuff on it.

I came myself at that age from the UK with my parents. Even though I came as a child my sense of humour and sports interest is firmly based there. Playlist is all over as I think to consider that UK music is the best is a bit of a fallacy as the UK is where Simon Cowell and his assembly line approach to music came from along with a whole host of annoying boy/girl bands.

[SpongeG]

BC has some strong British ties still, compared to Alberta I find most people there have Ukranian ties.

I think people from France look at the french from Quebec as backwater hillbillies.

[big T]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

I think people from France look at the french from Quebec as backwater hillbillies.

That was somewhat true up until maybe a decade or so ago, but things have changed rapidly, in both directions. There is an even stronger shared culture now between the two, especially with the young generation. Virtually every francophone Quebecer 30 and under has been to university with French classmates, especially in Montreal and Quebec City.

I am French, but grew up sort of on the outskirts of the colonial empire, if you will. I regularly find that my born-and-raised québécois friends have more of a handle on French culture (pop culture especially) than I do.

In the other direction, Quebec and especially Montreal are currently enjoying an unprecedented level of hype in France. Anecdotically, both my younger cousins tell me virtually every classmate of theirs wanted to come here for university. One of my cousins did move here eventually, and about a dozen of her friends have come to visit in the past year, each prospecting for ways to find a job and settle here. It’s a really big thing nowadays.

[isaidso]

^^ Having lived in the Maritimes for 20 years, the UK has a far greater pull than it does in Quebec, Ontario, or the West. The Maritimes is heavily of anglo-saxon stock so it makes sense. In Toronto, it's just another country although the national media seems to be obsessed with the UK. They're totally out of step with most Canadians but oblivious to it all. I wasn't interested in what Ms. Markle's favourite bra is so I stopped watching 'Canadian' news networks almost entirely.

Originally Posted by big T

That was somewhat true up until maybe a decade or so ago, but things have changed rapidly, in both directions. There is an even stronger shared culture now between the two, especially with the young generation. Virtually every francophone Quebecer 30 and under has been to university with French classmates, especially in Montreal and Quebec City.

I am French, but grew up sort of on the outskirts of the colonial empire, if you will. I regularly find that my born-and-raised québécois friends have more of a handle on French culture (pop culture especially) than I do.

In the other direction, Quebec and especially Montreal are currently enjoying an unprecedented level of hype in France. Anecdotically, both my younger cousins tell me virtually every classmate of theirs wanted to come here for university. One of my cousins did move here eventually, and about a dozen of her friends have come to visit in the past year, each prospecting for ways to find a job and settle here. It’s a really big thing nowadays.

That's nice to hear. Quebec winter has long been a big negative in the eyes of the French. It seems they're finally looking past it. I've always understand the lure of Canada being an immigrant myself.

Canadian culture is rudderless in a sense. It's far less rigid than the culture in Europe so for many Canada is a very liberating experience. I'm from the UK originally. When I first moved here I found the culture fascinating and unnerving at the same time. There didn't seem to be any rules/accepted conventions about anything (compared to what I was used to). After a while I got over my unease and embraced it. For the French, they likely encounter the same feelings that I did. Some Europeans, of course, are horrified by it and head back across the pond within the year.

A final point. Quebec's strong economy and booming tech sector are probably accelerating the flow of people to that province. Does Quebec's economy get a lot of press in France?

[hipster duck]

I would think that Quebec has more ties to France than English Canada to the UK simply because France is the dominant cultural, geopolitical and economic powerhouse of the French-speaking world and the UK is no longer that for the English-speaking world.

Also, despite its size difference, I think Quebec may have more weight in the French-speaking world than English Canada does in the English-speaking world. Again, this is not because English Canada is a cultural backwater, but because the "First World Francophonie" is relatively small: France (and her overseas depts), Quebec + Francophone ROC, Wallonia, French Switzerland (combined population 75 million).

[lio45]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I would think that Quebec has more ties to France than English Canada to the UK simply because France is the dominant cultural, geopolitical and economic powerhouse of the French-speaking world and the UK is no longer that for the English-speaking world.

True, but then the question could be slightly reframed with UK + US as "modern foreign Anglo bloc" to compare to France as "modern foreign Franco bloc", and be just as valid/interesting.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I would think that Quebec has more ties to France than English Canada to the UK simply because France is the dominant cultural, geopolitical and economic powerhouse of the French-speaking world and the UK is no longer that for the English-speaking world.

Also, despite its size difference, I think Quebec may have more weight in the French-speaking world than English Canada does in the English-speaking world. Again, this is not because English Canada is a cultural backwater, but because the "First World Francophonie" is relatively small: France (and her overseas depts), Quebec + Francophone ROC, Wallonia, French Switzerland (combined population 75 million).

Quebec/French Canada is also France's only "human" colony, in the sense that it has lots of people of French origin still speaking the language and retaining at least a few traits of the old country.

The UK arguably has four countries like this: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and of course the U.S.

Getting to the OP, I am repeating myself from years ago but I find that the UK and French linkages are going in the opposite direction.

For a long time Anglo-Canada was way more linked to the UK than the Québécois were. We were totally off the French's radar until around the 1960s and even then things started off very slowly. But the linkages have grown rapidly ever since. At a similar to how the linkages between Anglo-Canada and the UK have decreased, with more or less equal parts of increased assertiveness of a Canadian identity and of course ever-growing cultural dovetailing with the U.S.

Just to give a very banal example, it's not uncommon for Quebec media these days to wish a happy national fête to "our French cousins" on July 14th. If you're paying attention to the media in Quebec on July 14th you can't NOT know that it is France's national holiday.

The anglo media in Canada do not do this for the UK. They also don't do this as systematically for the U.S. July 4 holiday either, although most Canadians are aware of it by virtue of being tuned in to U.S. media.

But for July 14, you don't have to be tuned in to French media to know about it - the Quebec media will let you know, don't worry.

Anyway, just one example. There are others.

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Quebec winter has long been a big negative in the eyes of the French.

Yes, in France, snow isn't really much of a long term occurrence where people live. In the mountains there is snow but not huge populations.

Last Christmas we were in Nice, France. A few days before Christmas itself we rented a car to go to a ski resort in the Alps. The initially standoffish lady at the car rental couldn't fathom anyone living in Canada. Her boyfriend had lived in Montreal for a year and had loved it and she visited him at Christmas time and basically stayed indoors all the time.

Stereotypical french moment. The car rental place opens at 9 am. My son and I show up at about 8:50 and the shutters are down and no sign of life inside. My son was with me if there were language issues as my french isn't perfect. At 8:59 the one person working at the car rental place shows up via one of those scooter things that looks like a skateboard with a folding handlebars.

https://target.scene7.com/is/image/T...=520&fmt=pjpeg

She rushes inside, lets us in, starts getting espresso ready and then comes out of the back office a few minutes later with an espresso and croissants for us.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by isaidso

A final point. Quebec's strong economy and booming tech sector are probably accelerating the flow of people to that province. Does Quebec's economy get a lot of press in France?

Yes it does. Increasingly so.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

BC has some strong British ties still, compared to Alberta I find most people there have Ukranian ties.

I think people from France look at the french from Quebec as backwater hillbillies.

Cruisin' for a bruisin'?

[Martin Mtl]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

I think people from France look at the french from Quebec as backwater hillbillies.

Isn’t it a cliche that pleases Quebec bashers in English Canada? I have many friends and collegues from France and I travel there often and I have never felt that kind of extreme prejudices. Hillbillies ? Really ? Frenchs are not that dumb.

[ErickMontreal]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

BC has some strong British ties still, compared to Alberta I find most people there have Ukranian ties.

I think people from France look at the french from Quebec as backwater hillbillies.

I have lived and visited some places in the ROC that have some strong ties to Alabama.

Everything is relative.