Quote:
Originally Posted by MolsonExport
There is some truth to the latter statement.
Let's also not forget that before the quiet revolution, the French Catholic church was also complicit in discouraging Francophones from management positions, deeming it to be "l'affaire des Anglais" (encouraging instead the clergy, medicine, and law, for anyone wanting to move up the social ladder).
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I meant to respond to this but got busy with other things.
Yes, it's said that there was a tacit agreement between the Catholic church and anglo business and political interests to keep French Canadians under control.
The church could therefore retain its role as a powerful societal force and anglos could continue to dominate Quebec (and by extension, Canada) socio-economically.
It's not a coincidence that French Canadians in Quebec (where they have the most demographic and political power) in the 1960s began to rebel against this double-whammy of subservience.
Rather (in)famously they began kicking organized religion to the curb and of course took political and legal steps to limit disproportionate minority anglo power (often exercised through the imposition of language) in all aspects of Quebec life.
When you think about it, contemporary stuff like Bill 21 and Bill 96 are new lines in the sand to keep these two traditional agents of subservience in check.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Architype
Of course I learned Canadian history, including the Battle of Abraham where the English won, but since that time the English have lost.
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While someone who allegedly cares a lot about Canadian unity probably should not bring up the Plains of Abraham in this type of discussion (not really helpful), you're right of course and even Lord Durham if you've heard of him was correct in his 1839 report when he said that French Canadians should be assimilated to English for the good of the country's unity.
"Two nations warring in the bosom of a single state." Ring a bell?
Anyway, even if he was probably bang-on, it's all ancient history and water under the bridge now.
For better or for worse we are at the point we are at now and it's almost certainly too late to suppress the francophone element (even via the subtlest erosion) of the country without seriously threatening the existence of the country itself.
Post-1763 Canada (Treaty of Paris ceding it from France to Britain) most certainly didn't set out to be like Switzerland, but through various accidents and twists of history we've basically ended up like a highly imperfect version of it.
Oh and BTW it's ridiculous to suggest that the English (well, "anglophones" today) have been on the losing end of Canada's history since the 1760s. They were the uncontested dominant group for almost 200 years, and it's only in the 1960s that the good life in Canada really started to be extended to other groups, starting with French Canadians, then with *some* ethnocultural minority groups, then other such groups, and now (ironically almost lastly) Indigenous peoples to some degree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Architype
Quebec's fabled oppressor-oppressed narrative and economic inequities were actually more ones of class differences, of economic realities, than of language differences. .
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As I said before (if you were paying attention), language was weaponized against French Canadians for a couple of centuries.
The most obvious example is that a skill they inherently possessed (knowledge of French) was deliberately made largely useless in the economic sphere, and a skill they had to acquire but the powerful minority inherently possessed (knowledge of English) was made essential.
This effectively made them like immigrants in their own country.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Architype
It's been a political wedge issue here because the political Quebecois have made it such, reinforcing questionable biased narratives,
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Francophones outside Quebec also have the same discourse, but you don't hear much about them because they have little power and visibility. It's far from being just a Québécois political class thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Architype
inflicting some harm on the ordinary English population historically living there, as well as more recent and more linguistically diverse immigrants. .
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Not sure why "more linguistically diverse immigrants" = "anglophones" if they're not already anglophones to begin with. I mean, I've been hearing this for years but have never been convinced of it.
Why would you
willingly move to Quebec if you have no interest in learning French and want to build a new life as an English-only speaking anglophone North American?
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