So are you an expert on Autochtones in Quebec? you need to be careful about trying to push this narrative.
Please be aware that the residential school tragedy never occurred in Quebec.
I would argue there are plenty of things that are absolutely American that are not at all consumerism that form an American culture that is unique from the cultures that blended into it.
And yes we have consumerism on top, because we have vast wealth and attract the worlds talent here. That leads to a concentration of consumption in the US just like within any population wealth and consumption are correlated.
Thatâs not what the Truth and Reconciliation report found.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-residential-schools-1.6053558
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Thatâs a pretty harsh criticism of Quebec culture. Surely there is much more than that?
I donât want to downplay what happened here, because itâs quite shameful, but letâs put things in perspective. Anglo Canada did this:
Across the country, more than 150,000 First Nations, MĂ©tis and Inuit children were forced to attend the government-run school system between the 1870s and 1997.
There were only 4 residential schools in Quebec and they operated for a very short period of time and as far as we know there werenât any children killed. How am I suppose to interpret this passage:
The Viens commission wrote that while efforts to extend the benefits of the welfare state to Quebecâs Indigenous communities were âwell-intentioned,â the process often involved further violence and cultural disruption.
So what this says is that the intentions werenât entirely âbadâ but abuse did happen. Do you know what? What happened at these schools happened everywhere in Quebec.
It is believed to be the largest case of child abuse in Canadian history outside of the Canadian Indian residential school system
The abuse that happened to french canadian kids was even worse than what happened to indigenous kids in Quebec. You can thank the catholic church for that.
It was shorter lived, but certainly did happen in Quebec too
The cross is somehow not a religious symbol thoughâŠ
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Maybe itâs the result of biased sampling, but in my visits to MontrĂ©al, I couldnât help but notice that many of the panhandlers / street people I encountered seemed visibly to be indigenous people, an experience different than Iâve had in other cities in eastern North America.
That, combined with my annoyance that a First Nations restaurant was obliged to use French terms for their dishes rather than their correct names, and the impacts Hydro-QuĂ©becâs dams have had on indigenous communities has fueled in my mind a certain negative view about QuĂ©becâs attitude towards its indigenous people.
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What are you referring to? Bill 21? Does it allow christian crosses?
I never claimed that Quebec hasnât done bad things to the first nations in Quebec, and I donât see the purpose of trying to claim that weâre better than anglo canada. Hydro Quebec is working hard to reach fair agreements with the first nations:
Thatâs a link from aptnnews which is a news network run by first nations so it is unbiased. Itâs important not to fall prey to exaggerations. You make it sound like weâre just stealing land or something. There are royalties involved, big ones. And first nations received 32B from the fed gov as part of reconciliation.
So Iâd like to know how this goes back to the culture discussion? Does the fact that Quebecois mistreated first nations mean they should not be allowed to follow a policy of cultural preservation and should follow the rest of Canada? The argument is that we need to open up the province to other cultures in order to âevolveâ but the first nations literally protect their culture even more than we do. So should the first nations âevolveâ as well?
As it stands right now, the first nations have all kinds of special privileges, laws, etc and they mostly live in remote reserves with limited interaction with the Quebecois population.
Secularism didnât seem to be a part of Quebec culture until the 1960s or 1970s. I struggle to see how thatâs a key part of Quebec culture that needs to be protected from multiculturalism.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/secularism-in-quebec
If anything, itâs pushback against abuses specifically by the Catholic Church and probably some anti-immigrant bigotry.
There is a lot of ignorance in this thread and bordering on Quebec Bashing. Yes, secularism is part of Quebec culture. Your use of the term âanti immigration bigotryâ is a matter of opinion from a prejudiced anglophone.
This is the reality in Quebec, you can continue to deny it if you wish.
lol you sound very Quebecoise there.
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Lol! Three old white guys talking about how theyâve seen very little anti-immigrant behaviour! Classic!
ETA: do they follow it up with a segment on how women no longer experience sexism in the workplace?
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Am I an expert? Of course not. This is the internet and as you know no one outside of Quebec knows a heck of a lot about it. the caution you offer me suggests you present that somehow in all of north america quebec was/is a haven for supporting indiginous peoples - color me skeptical. the contest for âwhich group of european settlers were 'bestâ to the indiginous tribes 1600-2000" i donât think wins a big ribbon for anyone.
Iâve said it sounds like the culture you enjoy and value is being either blended with some other element or confined to smaller space/relevance than it used and i understand how that is a loss to you. and the world - different cultures have unique qualities. I donât know how to preserve them bcâŠ
i believe there is almost no answer to the question âhow do we stop this erosion of relevance/uniformityâ that isnât flawed bc all the actions to stop marginalizing the existing group requires pre-emptive marginalization of the new groups. Immigration conditioned on rapid assimilation would likely not keep the population up enough to support all of the existing industry (thatâs a guess).
I donât think a person is bad or wrong for wanting to preserve their culture (with the conditions i made previously ). but in the modern industrialized world it would be hard to maintain the population without new people moving in. requiring the âright peopleâ I think is where things get tripped up.
So the discussion I appreciate and i didnât see how it started in this thread where the title has a veneer of awfulness. Iâm not accusing you of anything like the thread title brings.
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Cultures need to hide their shamefulness, deflecting to other culturesâ failings to make their culture feel better, superior even, relative to the other cultures.
I just think itâs somewhat ironic that the current QuĂ©becois government is somewhat oppressive in seeking to preserve a culture when that culture relies on a dramatic change from the cultures native to QuĂ©bec.
Things change as people change. People who argue to the contrary are hypocrites unless theyâre dwelling in lands native to their ancestors (and even thenâŠtheir ancestors probably migrated from elsewhere).
The book missed to present the problem of âCanadian identityâ and the Canadian multiculturalism policy. It doesnât develop enough the notion of âCanadian identity.â What does it really mean âBritish heritage and French factâ? The point of view presented in the volume comes from âEnglish speaking Canadiansâ and reflects whether ignorance or absence of will to recognize historically real fact of the eternal problem of scission between English and French Canada. Immigration as political arm has been used by federal government for more than 100 years and still used against French Canadians. Canadian immigration and multiculturalism policies were designed to flood French Quebec by successive waves of immigration. The objective has always been to weaken French culture and values and to prevent the sovereignty of Quebec and its possible separation from Canada. For example, in 1880 almost half of Manitobaâs population was French speaking, now they represent hardly 3%. This is the result of efforts of the federal government immigration policy. They encouraged English speaking immigrants mostly from Eastern Europe to settle in the Prairies giving to them lands and work tools, creating at the same time conflicts between natives and MĂ©tis whose lands were distributed with the colons. Quebecers eager to settle there had right to nothing. In this respect it would be interesting to mention the history of two famous rebellions of Louis Riel in 1870 and 1882 and his execution in 1885. It was a patriotic attempt to defend the rights of MĂ©tis and French speaking population in Manitoba and Saskatchewan facing hostile policy of Ottawa. But for a long time was largely ignored in âEnglish Canadaâ and Luis Riel was considered there till 1990s like a âtraitor of nation.â In 1906, still in Manitoba, an anti-French law was passed. It was forbidden to speak French in public, to have French schools, etc. Everything was done to make French leave or assimilate completely abandoning their language and origins. Another example of use of immigration as political arm against Quebec is 1981 and 1995 referendums about sovereignty of Quebec. The federal government feeling that Quebecers would vote for sovereignty of their province, decided to accelerate naturalization procedure of immigrants in Montreal just before referendum in 1995. The objective was to boost the number of pro-federal voters. Only in the month preceding the referendum, 50 thousand new citizens appeared in Montreal. The multiculturalism policy dates from 1970s when Trudeau decided to change political ground and to fight the scission between English and French Canada. During the years that followed, the Canadian immigration policy was designed to discourage French-speaking immigrants to settle in Quebec. The only choice they had was to install in the western Canada (Vancouver) with the right to move in other region only after three years of residence. These are the facts that were omitted from analysis in this book. Still I would recommend this book like a provocative âstarterâ for debates on a wide rage of problems related to immigration.
I understand that it all seems very draconian but you also need to put things in a historical perspective. Itâs the belief among many people here that English Canada is relentlessly trying to assimilate Quebec into the rest of Canada. So itâs not so much about resisting cultural change but resisting assimilation into English Canada. I would also avoid English Media all together when it comes to talking about Quebec. It is documented to be extremely biased. People in Quebec do not read or consume the same type of media as English Canada, so itâs like weâre living in different ideological realities.
This just shows you how silly and misinformed you are about Quebec and Montreal. The clip I showed you is from the Montreal Gazette. Lmao. I bet you have no idea why Iâm laughing at your post.