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Originally Posted by Acajack
Another interesting part of the story is that Lévesque and a few others in the PQ were so pissed off at the reaction of the ROC provinces, that the possibility of making the level of services provided to the anglo minority in Quebec ''equal'' to that provided to ROC francophones (effectively reducing English services significantly), until the ROC provinces relented and smartened up. But after some discussion the PQ caucus decided against it, because as someone in there said to the group: ''We can't treat our anglos like the ROC treats its francos. That would just be too mean!''
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 1overcosc
^ It just goes to show. A lot of people in the ROC go on and on about Quebec the totalitarian state destroying the English language blah blah blah, while Francophone rights in the ROC are traditionally very poor (still are in many cases, although Ontario has really stepped up in recent years at least at government level).
I've also heard that Levesque shut down some PQ radicals who wanted to gut the English school system entirely.
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For what it's worth, not everyone felt the way the politicians do. My mom was apparently rather angry when she heard that the other provinces didn't want to help protect the French language.
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Originally Posted by 1overcosc
Awesome news! The expansion of the French language school system in Ontario is nothing short of incredible. French public high schools were practically non-existent just a few decades ago.
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Good to see some of my early activism work has paid off somewhat.
Back in the Mike Harris days, they wanted to pretty much gut the French Immersion program (which I was a part of) in its entirety. So my mom, myself, and other parents and their child students began campaigning against program cuts, and enough attention and outcry was brought to bear that they mostly relented. Many schools were closed however, but at least the program survived, and began to surge once again albeit more recently.
It's good to see that some of what I helped to do as a kid has helped protect and grow the French language in Ontario.
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Originally Posted by 1overcosc
I read an article once that suggested the possibility of a Francophone university in Toronto. Although it's not where the Francophone population is concentrated presently, the hope was that by expanding the GTA's francophone institutions you can have new immigrants from Francophone Africa, Haiti, etc. assimilated to the Franco-Ontarian community instead of the anglophone majority.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
I am sure the Franco-Ontarian community would welcome any expansion of educational offerings in French, but logically a truly francophone university in Ontario should be in Ottawa. Or perhaps in Sudbury, since there is a latent sentiment in some Franco-Ontarian circles that institutions placed in Ottawa get flooded with Quebecers and Quebec-ified because of the proximity to the border.
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Pourquoi on n'a pas les deux? Why not both?