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If I want to work in the public sector and I'm kept out by prejudice, then yes, I have legitimate grievances. Good thing we have Dr. Khadir in the legislative house, for the prescription to that illness.
Turning back the clock is arguing that the historical discrimination against the franco-quebecers means the beginnings justifies the current ends.
The rest mentioned just now seems some kind of slippery slope I won't go near, understood given the wintry weather.
I would say enjoy the reunion with your cat but I'm allergic ... to thread drift.
Lagatta may have alluded to the reasons - not all of them discriminatory - that explain Anglo-Quebeckers, relative scarcity in the Quebec public service when she wrote:
"people from cultural communities not wanting to leave the communities that are a haven from and protection against racism, discrimination and misunderstanding"
It is a fact that Anglo-Quebeckers that haven't learned to speak French - or do very poorly and would rather speak English - find themselves at a disadvantage in a public service whose working language they have shunned. This, and reluctance to leave the safe privileged haven of Montreal when most PS jobs are in the mostly French-speaking Quebec City community, are the main reasons for the current underrepresentation of Anglos in the public service (although most freelance French-to-English translators I know are rolling in cash from Quebec gov't jobs!).
Which is why it is unfair to discuss Anglo-Quebeckers' situation in the same sentence as that of French-speaking or bilingual Quebeckers with the "wrong" skin colour or family name, who are unfairly discriminated against by the Quebec government and are not outside of the Quebec public service because of their own choices.
P.S.: The much better-funded federal public service doesn't let their lack of French keep them away from cushy jobs, I might add...
I'm an anglo Montrealer in an English haven (the west island), and I don't think anglophones are discriminated against. That may be because I live in an English haven, but we're in Quebec, people ought to and have to learn French to get any type of decent job, or to be able to function on a daily basis. Not evereyone you meet will speek both. I can hardly complain about being bilingual.
Apart from that, it's really great that Khadir got elected- congrats Lagatta, I'll bet you're jumping up and down !
I agree with Martin. My SO (a bilingual pure laine, like me) works as an anthropologist in a Health care research center in Quebec City and spends most of her time writing research papers to be published in academic journals... in English. Advanced skills in English are in short supply here, and the public sector hires.
In a more general sense, I take the 801 Metrobus every day from Limoilou to Saint-Foy and I see newly arrived Quebecers from Africa and Latin America every day. So, I think an anglo with a working knowledge of French could make it down highway 20.
But let's be realistic for a moment. My own personal 10+ years experience in New Brunswick (2 of them in a "french-only" civil service position in Fredericton) told me something about minorities in a "foreign" city. It's tough to move to a completely new city, with a different culture, leaving friends and relatives far behind. And there is the barrier of the host community you have to integrate. Tough challenges.
So I'm not surprised by the reluctance on the part of Acadians to move to their provincial capital to take these jobs. Many of them accept to live in Moncton, because of the culture and the critical mass of francophones, but sedate loyalist capital is quite another thing altogether. I could say the same thing about Montreal and Quebec City.
To conclude, I don't think there is a systematic bias against "les Anglais" in the Quebec public sector. There are other factors, including wages. work conditions and even ideology.
Have you considered that some anglos won't even bother to apply? Don't be too fast dismissing the argument: I know some friends of mine who would not consider applying in the Canadian public service for ideological reasons, while applying on any and all Quebec public service jobs, even if the salary is lower in the provincial government.
Source - [footnotes omitted]
Perhaps you were hoping I had stopped using an annoying tag line. You were wrong; you're reading it now. Why not email a moderator to demand that signature/tag lines be abolished forthwith?
"Why not email a moderator to demand that signature/tag lines be abolished forthwith?"
Done. Good idea.
Interesting question about where NDP militants worked this election. A lot did work for QS but a good number also worked for the Green's (specifically Peter McQueen in NDG and a few other candidates).
An organizer who I worked with on Anne Lagace-Dowson's campaign who was working for McQueen explained it this way:
1) A strategic alliance with the provincial greens is a good way to demonstrate that the federal green party is inferior to the NDP on the environment and a good way to poach green votes federally. (this is a logical thought to me)
2) In the federal campaign McQueen publically endorsed Anne, sent us his volunteers and worked for her election. Several other provincial greens (including one of the founders of the party, Daniel Breton, who ran for the NDP in Jean-le-Ber) also worked for the NDP.
While obviously many QS militants worked for the NDP as well, especially in places like Outremont, there was not the same movement from QS to support the NDP.
As an NDP militant who supports QS I think we need to make an effort to build better bridges between the parties so that we can work together more effectively in future.
Also, as tempting as a coalition or merger is, the problem is that the Greens highest support came in anglo and allophone ridings where QS' suport of sovereignty did not play well. A better idea might be a strategic arrangment to not run QS candidates in these ridings (where they got between 0-3%) in exchange for the greens not running candidates in the QS stronghold of Eastern Montreal.
There definitely needs to be talks though, the provincial greens here have alwayss been a much more radical, progressive party than their federal cousins and there is certainly common ground.
Has QS accomplished this without the aid of any local media on board?
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Here's a not-bad article about QS in the Globe and Mail, believe it or not:
Read the whole article.
Hi Lagatta! I've been away for a while but its nice to see you still around!
I was not aware QS pulled out in NDG. I was burned out from the federal election, trying to make up all the schoolwork I missed then and busy trying to impeach the corrupt, right wing Concordia Student Union Executive so I didn't do much work this time provincially.
What I was repeating was not my own perception, but that of a friend and influential NDP organizer when I asked him why he was working for the Greens and not QS.
In any case there is obvious common ground and I agree that the best option is an electoral alliance. Whatever hurt feelings may exist on either side need to be set aside and negotiations commenced sooner rather than later on the shape of such an alliance.
If I recall correctly there was a formal alliance of this sort between the UFP and Greens in 2003 where they did not run candidates against each other. (I may be thinking of the election prior to that)
As much as the PQ are a hollow, neo-liberal party like the rest, Amir's win will energize the SPQ-libre and threaten the left flank so long taken for granted. If this results in positive action on the part of the official opposition so much the better.
Despite the Liberal majority I feel as if the destruction of "Equipe Mario Dumont" (Suuuure they'll survive his departure) and emergence of QS may signal a resurgence of the left in what was once a strongly progressive province.
Here's to a workable arrangement with the greens and a party whose credibility can no longer be denied. I see more seats in our future!
Yeah, "Equipe Mario Dumont". Shades of Pauline Hanson's One Nation.
Though it's worth considering that ADQ's identity over its first decade or so was still a bit ambiguous and "searching" (and thanks to its leader, a bit youthfulesque)--it's only from about the 2003 election onward that it really started hitting the ugly retro-Duplessiste buttons...
I wouldn't speak too soon about the demise of the ADQ.
Globe & Mail: Outspoken Quebec mayor eyes ADQ leadership (12-10-08)
IMO, I think it would actually be a good thing if the ADQ hangs around, as long as it remains relatively marginal and not a threat to actually take power. They do represent a set of views and opinions held by a number of Quebecers, who deserve to have those views heard (albeit hopefully then rejected) in the legislature. Moreover, from the left perspective if the ADQ is still around demanding media coverage for its right-wing positions on the issues of the day, it will be more difficult for the media to deny equivalent coverage to QS on the left, since both parties now have representation in the legislature. And both the new ADQ leader AND the QS leader should now be included in the leadership debates next time around. Plus the ADQ could split the "conservative" vote with the Libs and/or the right wing of the PQ, allowing more progressive candidates to break through.
All that being said, it sure was nice to see the ADQ take their spanking on Monday.
Stéphane Gendron isn't that "media-savvy"... You have to be making serious mistakes to get dumped by Télévision Quatre-Saisons, Quebec's trash-TV station. Indeed, there must be enough outrageous statements by the man on record to feed his opponents' barbs for decades.
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Tag lines are trolling.
Yes, elected ADQ member Eric Caire has already expressed interest in becoming the Right's new poster boy.
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Tag lines are for trolling.
Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that the party would literally cease to exist overnight without Mario. That's obviously not the case.
My point was that Mario has long been the best thing going for this party and the main reason people voted for them. Without him I think it has nowhere to go but down, probably clinging to a few seats only in the next election. I could easily see QS winning more.
And Gendron is a buffoon, not at all polished in his racism like Mario.
And is "being on a par with the big 3" a standard that would have been appropriate? I don't think so. I don't live in Quebec, and acknowledge I speak as an outsider. But I would not expect the Sasktachewan media to give as much space/time in its coverage of a Saskatchewan provincial election as the media gives to the NDP and Sask Party. I wouldn't expect the PEI media to give as much space/time to the NDP and Green Party as it gives to the Liberals and Conservatives.
I expect there to be upset political parties about media coverage in every election -- that's par for the course in terms of parties' opinions of their share of the media coverage. But the QS got 3.6% of the vote in the last provincial election and 3.8% this time, and showed up in opinion polls regularly in the single-digit range. The media have to make judgment calls -- calls that I often think are wrong. But treating a party that had no seats in the National Assembly and single digit support in opinion polls on a par with the three parties in the Assembly would have been giving more space than was merited.
Did the QS get its fair share of support? Probably not. I saw a few stories on Le Telejournal on the occasions I watched -- but significantly less coverage of QS than for the leaders of the three parties in the Assembly. Now that QS is there, I would expect that future election coverage will give Amir Khadir more regular coverage. Time will tell.
Give them enough rope, I always say.
I will write to Khadir myself, without benefit of mis-representation, and post his reply. If any.
But I will also save my breath for getting through the frosty conditions *outside*.
1. (b) It should go without saying that such an anglo is at least sympathetic to franco-nationalism, if not sovereignty. There might be some of those out there beyond the babble board. It could happen.
2. (a) As per the comments below, there is still a call for advanced-level English, usually found among native speakers, even in some QC government bodies. No, I am not referring to Pauline Marois, poor old dear.
2. (b) There is a long way to go when it comes to QC government documents` translation from French to English; to wit, the debacle with the voter cards in the recent election.
3. While wages in the QC public service might be lower than such federal jobs, they are still higher (30% last time I checked) than such jobs in Ontario public service, for comparison.
4. Quebec City used to have a substantial anglophone community. What happened? The Quiet Revolution? Bill 101? Lack of opportunity due to discrimination? Serious replies only.
5. To sum up: All of these factors cannot explain an under-representation by a factor of 8:1. Anyway, It`s all the fault of us anglos, right? QED.
Denis Dion, a spokesman for the chief electoral officer, says the electoral chief is eyeing certain ways of ratcheting up voter interest including Sunday voting and introducing proportional representation.
"It is a fact that Anglo-Quebeckers that haven't learned to speak French - or do very poorly and would rather speak English - find themselves at a disadvantage in a public service whose working language they have shunned. "
That is bullshit. Nowadays, Anglo-Quebecers are just about the most fluently bilingual segment of the entire Canadian population. There is a whole new generation of Anglos in Quebec who speak and write perfect French and would be more than happy to take jobs with the Quebec government. I think that the Quebec gov't should take steps to bring in some employment equity programs so that the demographic makeup of the Quebec civil service reflects the demographic makeup of the province. If Anglos are 12% of the population of Quebec, there should be an affirmative action program to make sure that 12% of the Quebec civil service is anglo as well.
Here in Ontario, it amazes me what extraordinary lengths the provincial government goes to to provide services in French and to make sure that franco-Ontarians are well represented in the Ontario Public Service. It would be nice if Quebec would do the same.
"Anglo-Quebecers are just about the most fluently bilingual segment of the entire Canadian population"
Hmmm... I suggest you walk into two Montreal high school yards - one French, one English - and try to verify that hypothesis. Quebec Anglos are - on the average - more bilingual than Saskatchewan or PIE residents, but they are much less so than Montreal Francophones... and I especially don't think they should get 12% of public service jobs regardless of their degree of fluency in French.
I go to Montreal very frequently and what strikes me is how often I find myself in conversation in French for quite a while with someone who speaks French so perfectly that it takes quite a while before we realize that we are both anglophones. Its almost unheard for anyone anglophone in Qubec under the age of 35 not to be fluent in French because its common knowlegde that unless you are perfectly bilingual you won't even get a job as a barrista at Starbucks.
I agree that fluency in French should be a prerequisite to work for the Quebec civil service - but given that there are hundreds of thousands of anglophones and allophones in Quebec who speak and write French perfectly - there are more than enough of them to fill that 12% quota and to make the civil service of Quebec refect the makeup of the population.
The fact that non-francophones are so grossly underrepresented in the civil service in Quebec should be considered a disgrace to the province and there should be a royal commission to investigate what to do about this sad state of affairs.
I was at work out on the ferry when the results came in, so belated congrats to Amir Khadir. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of the transformation of Quebec, and it offers hope to others in other places.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly