Sunday, October 28, 2007

What's up Quebec? You used to be cool.

One of my few regrets is that I never really took advantage of Trudeau's vision and learned to speak French. I say this because I have often, in my uninformed past, mused about moving my family to La Belle province. Quebec seemed like such a hip and progressive place, a socially liberal mecca. Almost like a little piece of Europe in the middle of Canada. $7 a day daycare, strong union and labour movements, multi-cultural ism that was not only happening but also working. A province that was not afraid to trade and engage with America, but was unwilling to bow to her. Sophisticated, worldly, cigarette-smoking intellectuals who hate war and love sex. A group that skewed Canadian public opinion further to the left than it otherwise would be. Stephen Harper himself said it when he talked about how if you took Quebec out of the polls, 50% of Canadians were all for sending Canadian troops to Iraq. 50%!! These morons never got their way for one reason, Quebec.
It seemed that Canada needed Quebec. A province always on the right (left) side of every issue. A place with no time for the backward ideas espoused by so many Western Canadian and American right-wing troglodytes. Sure they wanted to separate from Canada, but I figured this was only because they felt Canada was holding them back from becoming the socialist utopia they would become if it wasn't for Conservative English Canada. Hell, even their own Conservative party was made up of Red Tories, much closer in ideology to Joe Clark than Stephen Harper. The leader of the Separatists was a coke-snorting homosexual so they couldn't be all bad. Boy was I wrong!
It turns out the Bloc is made up of two wings. The social liberals I mentioned are there, but they all live in Montreal. The rest of the Bloc seems to be made up of rural, French-Catholic nationalists who not only hate the rest of Canada, but are intolerant of Muslims and Jews too. Many of these people decided they were going to support Mario Dumont and his merry band of racist assholes in the provincial election. And even worse, support Stephen Harper federally. They know Harper won't let them separate but they know he will give them more and more provincial power or "autonomy" as they see it.
The people of Herouxvilles are the perfect example of what is wrong with Quebec. The town council's "code of conduct" for minorities introduced last winter was ridiculously racist and embarrassing to any Canadian who values tolerance. It didn't however lead to much outrage. Instead people seemed to nod their heads and start talking about "reasonable accommodations" and how they have gone too far. (The Globe and Mail have an excellent comment editorial in the Saturday, October 27th edition regarding this issue.)
There seems to be a big backlash against Muslims and multi-cultural ism. The French just elected immigrant-bashing, George Bush-loving, right-wing dickhead Nicolas Sarkozy. The Dutch, too, have hardened their attitudes on immigration. Hell, I even raise one eyebrow in a condescending manner towards our Liberal friends in Ontario who just elected a government almost exclusively based on one issue, funding for faith-based schools. Were you against funding for faith-based schools because it's wrong for all faiths? Which it is. Or did you not want Muslim schools getting money? I hope it is the former. Heir Harper has not failed to notice and exploit this issue inserting into the throne speech his plan to pass a law making sure Muslim women could not vote while wearing a veil. Muslim women, by the way, were not looking for this privilege.
Are we living in crazy world? Federalists in Quebec voting for Stephen Harper. Separatists who don't want to create a European-style welfare state, but instead want to go back to 1940 where everyone was white and the priest was the highest authority. The last thing provinces need is more autonomy or more rights. I live in Manitoba. Without the intervention of a powerful central government in Ottawa and the Charter, the half-wit rednecks who make up this province would soon turn it into Alabama without the southern charm. In spite of this silliness going on out East, a big majority of Quebecers are against the war in Afghanistan and for Kyoto. But by supporting Harper as the federalist option, and weakening the Liberals, they are sure to give Harper the chance to continue his never ending war and his dance on the grave of Kyoto.
The biggest irony of all this is that while Quebecers seem to be taking stupid pills, Albertans who have been dumb enough to vote Conservative since 1971 on the other hand seem to be getting smarter. The provincial government's decision to raise royalties was way overdue. It's not nearly enough, but at least Albertans are making the oil companies take them out to dinner before they fuck them up the ass now. So wake up Quebec, there is a culture war and"tabernac" the good guys need you.

5 comments:

Deno said...

"The Militant Liberal
Take their guns and beat them with their bibles"

wow!

The statement above proves that your tolerance of Christians make you no different then the Jew and Muslium haters.

People like you are just the opposite side of the same coin, they hate Jews and Muslism while you hate Christians.

Again, hypocrite!

Deno

Anonymous said...

I've always loved the term tolerance, as in to Tolerate something, not to accept. If we look at it through it's meaning it really gives credit to what this town proposed, we "tolerate" some peoples existance, doesn't mean we have to like it, I believe you people need to begin useing the term "Acceptance" it's the politically correct thing to do. Either way ban religion and we are one step closer to fixing the world. then we need everyone to mate until we are all brownish-tanish coloured, then it's so much for ethnicity....theirs a couple more issues but well I havn't taken the time to think of answers for them yet.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

I will answer your questions: You ask, what happened to Quebec, it used to be progressive and very tolerant?

In a nutshell, what happened is that we fought 50 years to achieve that level of tolerance and we won't loose it by tolerating intolerance from (few) immigrants who have not been educated to be as tolerant as we are. Of course it has been presented in the ROC as Quebec trying to impose a mono-catholic culture on its immigrant. This could not be further from the truth, obviously, since Quebec is one of the most militant anti-catholic region of the world.

The reason Quebec has become so tolerant is because it is become fiercely anti-clerical. If you noticed, all of the "reasonable accommodation" issues were about resistance to re-insert religion in the state. All accommodations towards ethnic groups, homosexuals, handicapped person are all supported heavily by the population.

The herouxville mayor is not catholic at all. He is anti-clerical. He makes joked about God during is interviews saying that God "reasonably" accommodated Quebec by being less demanding on the people, surely your God could accommodate you too. And things like that.

But I can truly understand why outsiders to Quebec will believe we oppose "reasonable accommodations" on the grounds of xenophobia, because it is opposed in their countries on the same grounds.

Not in Quebec however. Monoculturalism is shifting left. Think about it, if you succeeded in creating a free and equal society for all minority groups, would you tolerate that Muslims trow infidels out of a public building to pray,for example? You would not tolerate that behavior from Quebeckers so why should you tolerate it from immigrants.

Tolerance cannot tolerate intolerance. This is how everyone I know sees the issue. (Of course there are always some vocal catholics who will try to push their agency - a fraction of the 10% who still attend church - but they are a minuscule group only and should be treated as such)

I spoke at the reasonable accommodations and everyone there said things reasonable, tolerant and open minded. One guy horded racist talks and he was the only one mentioned in the media. The ROC media loves to bash Quebec.

Unknown said...

I understand that you are pro-multiculturalism but Quebec is inter-culturalist. I think Quebec holds a more solid position. The argument goes as follows:

Multiculturalism's official policy is to help minorities preserve their culture. Technically, this is best achieved by mass ghettorization and cutting communities off from each other. Think about it, if communities are not allowed to interact with each other, they are guaranteed to preserve themselves indefinitely. Of course you say that its much better if cultures share their way of life as this will enrich all cultures. I will say that you are right which is what Quebec does with inter-culturalism. Instead of financing the construction of chruches, mosquees or private schools for various minorities, Quebec invest in integrating immigrants to Canadians society, giving them languages classes, sponsoring multicultural festivals, building a metro stop station in the gay village and promoting it nationally to increase tourism to this village, etc. The money goes at a very different place depending of whether you sponsor multiculturalism or interculturalism.

Also, I believe multiculturalism works best when the population itself does not genuinely hold it to be true at a personal level. I believe it is a convenient state policy but not a personal way of life. If you think multiculturalism can be practiced individually, then you believe all cultures are worthy of promotion. Consider this; is a culture that believes all cultures should be promoted better or worse than a culture who doesn't? If you support multiculturalism then you must answer that a culture who believes all culture should be promoted is superior to one who doesn't. However, here is the catch: you are promoting a culture over others by doing so.

So, by accepting that multiculturalism is a better than monomulticulism, you effectively limit all culture who aren't multiculturalist. And therefore, you should support a model of integration for your immigrants/population that tries to sell them the idea of the validity of multiculturalism. But outch! As soon as you do that, you leave multiculturalism and enter the realm of inter-culturalism.

Because multiculturalism must assert is own superiority to other culture, it necessarily becomes self-contradictory and logically unsolvable. Multiculturalism is a unsustainable philosophical statement.