Bands fear omission from national celebration due to their language

Câlice de tabarnak. :redangry:


Pas d'anglos à une fête de la Saint-Jean?
No English-speakers at a celebration of St. John the Baptist?

[Source: Cyberpresse.ca]
(So, yes, my source is entirely in French. I was unable to find an English article. If CBC News finely reports this, I’ll link to them.)

Quote :

La participation de deux groupes de musique à un spectacle de la Fête nationale a provoqué une telle controverse que les organisateurs craignent de devoir les retirer de la programmation. La raison: ils sont anglophones.

General translation: The participation of two musical groups at a show for the National Holiday of Québec has provoked such a controversy that the organisers fear they will have to remove them from the programming. The reason? The bands are English-speaking.


This whole thing is just a bunch of fail.


For those of you who are completely unfamiliar with Québec, La Fête nationale du Québec (also known as Fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste or, simply, la Saint-Jean) is the 24^th of June. Saint John the Baptist is the patron saint of Québécois so his saint day is very important. Even les Franco-Ontariens and les Franco-Manitobains celebrate it. (Though I couldn’t say whether les Acadiens do.)

A number of English Canadians are uncomfortable with this celebration because it does carry some political connotations due to a vast and nuanced history that I don’t particularly feel like going into here. French Québécois (such as myself) are mostly in favour of separating from Canada in order to have Québec be a country all of its own. Separation is a hot political topic within Canada and Québec and it is taken very seriously.

The two bands set to perform on June 23^rd (festivities in Montréal typically start the day before la Saint-Jean) were Lake of Stew and Bloodshot Bill. According to the article, both acts are from Montréal but are English-speaking, so a group has threatened to protest their performance if it is not cancelled.

This bothers me as it promotes the idea that all separatism is just a veil for bigotry when most separatists do not hold these ideas at all. This will only cause more ignorance and resentment toward our plight.

I didn't know there was a separatist thing going on in Quebec. So is it linked to language, or more cultural?

I'm not going to pretend to know much about the separatist movement besides that it exists (my step-father's family live in Québec), but that's pretty douchey.

ZoZo wrote:

I didn't know there was a separatist thing going on in Quebec. So is it linked to language, or more cultural?

I would say that it is a bit of both. I think that it has stayed very strong today because of the double-edged sword most Québécois face.

You see, during the late 1700s, the English won conquest over the French in North America. This resulted in New France (now Québec) being cut off from France for quite a while. This caused the Québécois to lose touch and now others see us as uneducated or not proper French.

Since around the 1950s onward, there has been a very strong movement to regain our identity, through language and culture. We want not only to preserve our language but to better familiarize others with it. This results in others in Canada referring to us as anti-Anglo and it doesn’t help that a lot of bigots have attached themselves to our cause and the English media tend to broadcast them as the majority.

Most separatists, like myself, don’t hate Canada or English-speakers. We’re just sort of trapped in an instance where we either protect our culture from assimilation by distancing ourselves from the problem, or we become seen as uneducated people who’ve lost touch with our culture.

That’s a gross over-simplification of a huge problem, but that’s about as succinctly as I can put it. I hope that helps.

It really does, thanks. I learned something today

Kremlin wrote:

Separation is a hot political topic within Canada and Québec and it is taken very seriously.

I'll just point out here that I don't think separatism is as much as a hot topic outside Quebec as you are making it out to be. Among Anglo-Canadians in Toronto, it doesn't make the papers and it doesn't get talked about much at cocktail parties. In fact, it's been almost a year since I last discussed it.

The most common opinion I heard is that it would be foolish for Quebec to secede because its economy isn't strong enough to support its robust social programs; most of the people who I've spoken to who support Quebec's independance do so because they don't want their taxes to subsidize a province that is unwilling to contribute to Canada's welfare. Whether or not Quebec has a distinct culture certainly figured into the debates, but not as much as the practical concerns of separation.

saeku wrote:

I'll just point out here that I don't think separatism is as much as a hot topic outside Quebec as you are making it out to be. Among Anglo-Canadians in Toronto, it doesn't make the papers and it doesn't get talked about much at cocktail parties. In fact, it's been almost a year since I last discussed it.

Yes, in social circles this is probably the case. I was referring more to inside the political arena. I should have been a little more exact.
I, too, am currently in southern Ontario and people do seem to bring it up a fair amount. But that may be because I'm French amongst English.

saeku wrote:

The most common opinion I heard is that it would be foolish for Quebec to secede because its economy isn't strong enough to support its robust social programs; most of the people who I've spoken to who support Quebec's independance do so because they don't want their taxes to subsidize a province that is unwilling to contribute to Canada's welfare. Whether or not Quebec has a distinct culture certainly figured into the debates, but not as much as the practical concerns of separation.

Thank you for bringing this up; it is important and very true. It would be foolish for Québec to attempt to become separate with the economy the way it is now and I certainly feel that Québec should strive for economic independence.

I neglected to mention this because of a desire to better explain the philosophy behind our movement in fear that it would be gazed at in an unflattering light, so I'm glad that a contrasting view was expressed.

It sounds similar to Puerto Rico, which depending on who you ask is either a colony or a state with the numbers filed off. We also have separatists that come off as douchebags, so they have been steadily losing influence since the 1950s.

In my international class, we talked about minorities in a big state. The general rule is, iirc, to give them lots of autonomy, not separation. Separation is the very last resort to be used only if the minorities in said part of the country are abused, killed ect. In other words, you apparently need a bloody civil war for separation to be even considered an option.

If said minorities are doing just fine under the current system, international organizations like the UN won't take you seriously. At least, that's how Puerto Rican seperatists get laughed out of the UN all the time. I'm guessing Québec gets its fare share of eyerolling too.