Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!grand!rwwetmore
From: rwwetmore@grand.waterloo.edu (Ross Wetmore)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Canada: one, two (or many) cultures?
Message-ID: <28034@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Date: 28 Jul 89 07:53:45 GMT
References: <3190@uwovax.uwo.ca> <1989Jul27.092203.16418@xenitec.uucp> <28025@watmath.waterloo.edu> <1728@eric.mpr.ca>
Sender: daemon@watmath.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: rwwetmore@grand.waterloo.edu (Ross Wetmore)
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Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
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In article <1728@eric.mpr.ca> durham@handel.UUCP (Paul Durham) writes:
>The right of French-Canadians to their own language and institutions has
>been officially recognized since 1763. To compare the French-Canadian
>nation ( and I use this word without any connotation of sovereignty ) with
>immigrant groups shows a lack of understanding which is all too common
>among English-Canadians.
>P. Durham
  Would you be happy if I added another minority culture to the list, ie one 
that also shares the same rights to preeminence as the French. This group 
also has shown itself quite mature about living with the rest of the country 
including all the more recent arrivals such as Ukranians, Italians, Chinese, 
East Indians and many more. In fact they just finished a recent 'cultural 
festival' in Cambridge though sadly the local newspaper showed its lack of 
cultural sensitivity by referring to the participants as men in skirts.

  To make the above claim about the 'French-Canadian nation' and use it as
a justification for current persecution by Quebec of its minority cultures
shows a lack of more than understanding, no? Perhaps you could clarify for
me how the rights of French-Canadians to their own institutions, grants them
the right to abolish such rights for others.

  But perhaps the lack of understanding of those rights to which you allude 
is to be found amongst many Canadians, of all race, colour, language or other
ethnic origin, and not merely English-Canadians, a rather diminishing minority
any more in spite of England's supposed domination of this country.

-Michel J. Tremblay) writes:
>However after the british occupation of our country (+- eastern Canada) 
>things got bad for the French Canadians: seizure of land and goods, 
>political prisonners, restricted civil rights, imposition of a foreign 
>judiciary system, cutoff of relations with France, etc.
  Now which of M. Durham or M. Tremblay is confused about the resolution of 
the French and Indian wars in 1763.

>For all these reasons, a lots of Que'bequois and French Canadians are not 
>proud of been Canadians and dont want to be Canadians.
  Luckily lots is not a majority, no matter how bad a name the vocal few
might give their countrymen.
  But unfortuantely, the bad feelings a few can stir up can still poison
the atmosphere for any mature cooperative relationship. More especially
so in a peer conscious group such as adolescents which have not the depth
of experience to recognize and temper such emotional outbursts.

>For us, going back to our country mean Independence of Que'bec, unless 
>Canada acknowledge the fact that we are not just 'yet an other culture' 
>in the English-speaking Canadian melting-pot but a Distinct Society with 
>more constitutional power.
  Perhaps the raw attempt to gain political power through blackmail voiced
by such statements is a measure of the true understanding about what the
'cultural' concerns are all about.

Ross W. Wetmore                 | rwwetmore@water.NetNorth
University of Waterloo          | rwwetmore@math.Uwaterloo.ca
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(519) 885-1211 ext 4719         |   !watmath!rwwetmore