{"id":41176,"date":"2017-12-09T03:00:49","date_gmt":"2017-12-09T08:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=41176"},"modified":"2017-12-08T10:01:19","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T15:01:19","slug":"the-unique-culture-that-is-quebec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/12\/09\/the-unique-culture-that-is-quebec\/","title":{"rendered":"The unique culture that is Quebec"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Wells<\/a> on the latest blow struck in the never-ending battle against the English language in La Belle Province<\/em>:<\/p>\n

This is the thing about language politics in Montreal. It\u2019s a game with many participants but few spectators. It\u2019s addictive fun to play and unbearable to watch. If you\u2019re not arguing about the state of the fragile equilibrium \u2014 standoff? Cold war? \u2014 between the local francophone majority and the continental anglophone majority, then you\u2019re just living your life. And living your life is almost always very different<\/em> from whatever the current argument is about.<\/p>\n

The latest argument is so stupid I have avoided it for a week. Probably you have heard anyway. Quebec\u2019s National Assembly passed a unanimous resolution urging merchants to greet customers with a hearty \u201cbonjour!<\/em>\u201d<\/a> The unstated subtext was that they should stop there and not add an incriminating \u201cHi!\u201d in English. In fact, in the motion\u2019s original wording, as presented by the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois<\/em> leader Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Lis\u00e9e, it wasn\u2019t even unstated. The frequent use of \u201cBonjour<\/em>-hi\u201d by Montreal merchants was described as an \u201cirritant,\u201d until Quebec premier Philippe Couillard sat down with Lis\u00e9e and haggled over the motion, line by line, eventually removing the bit about \u201chi\u201d being an irritant.<\/p>\n

Thus amended \u2014 essentially, Say \u2018bonjour!\u2019 to customers, because the English language is\u2026 well, you know<\/em> \u2014 the motion was adapted unanimously by the National Assembly.<\/p>\n

Unanimous motions of the National Assembly are believed, by its members and by about three staffers at Le Devoir<\/em>, to carry a particular weight, because they mark occasions when the representatives of the Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois nation put aside their differences to speak with one voice in sacred defence of the besieged descendants of France on American soil. Unfortunately, the rush of passing such a motion must be intense to the point of addiction because for many years now, the members of the National Assembly have been passing so many that by now the effect is ruined.<\/p>\n

Here is a partial<\/em> list of unanimous motions going back to 1960<\/a>, including 15 so far this year alone. Five in November. On Nov. 14, the representatives of the Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois nation put aside their differences long enough to demand a share of federal subsidies for electric-car recharging stations proportional to Quebec\u2019s share of Canada-wide electric car sales. Come on. I\u2019m a big fan of the National Assembly, but these days, it\u2019s precisely at its most solemn moments that it\u2019s the biggest farce.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Wells on the latest blow struck in the never-ending battle against the English language in La Belle Province: This is the thing about language politics in Montreal. It\u2019s a game with many participants but few spectators. It\u2019s addictive fun to play and unbearable to watch. If you\u2019re not arguing about the state of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,28,53],"tags":[400,842,113],"class_list":["post-41176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-media","category-politics","tag-language","tag-partiquebecois","tag-quebec"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-aI8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41177,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41176\/revisions\/41177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}