Path: utzoo!lsuc!sickkids!dptcdc!tmsoft!ead
From: ead@tmsoft.uucp (Elizabeth Doucette)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Canada: Minority rights
Message-ID: <1989Aug5.143058.22388@tmsoft.uucp>
Date: 5 Aug 89 14:30:58 GMT
References: <632@philmtl.philips.ca> <262@ccu.UManitoba.CA>
Reply-To: ead@tmsoft.UUCP (Elizabeth Doucette)
Followup-To: can.general
Distribution: can
Organization: EAD MoneyHealth Inc, Toronto, Canada
Lines: 61

In article <262@ccu.UManitoba.CA> ndonald@ccu.UManitoba.CA (Nick
Donaldson) writes: 

>In article <632@philmtl.philips.ca> tremblay@philmtl.philips.ca
(Michel J. Tremblay) writes: 

>>Many individuals on the net are claiming that rights are denied
>>to minorities in Que'bec. This is false.

>In my opinion, many Canadians get the image of Quebec ignoring minority
>rights because of the sign issue. Regardless of what the situation in Quebec
>is, most people see it as, correct me if I'm wrong, Quebec not allowing english
>signs to be visible on store fronts. This is just the image that many people
>have, regardless of the facts. At least, many of the people I have talked to
>see it this way. Anyone care to comments?
>-- 
>        Nick Donaldson
>Internet: Ndonald@Ccu.UManitoba.CA or Ccm.UManitoba.CA
>BITNET:   Ndonald@UOfMCC
>If I know then, what I knew now, it wouldn't make any difference.

Quebec ignores minority rights in many ways but the sign issue
resulted in some major news stories.  Perhaps that is what others
remember. 

For example, when I lived in Quebec, and after I moved, the media had
several stories of citizens refusing to put up French bilingual signs.
There was a lot of emotion over this issue.  Also regarding signs, and
I remember thinking that this made Quebec sound like a communist
country, citizens were encouraged to call the police (or
government agency, I can't remember which), and report a company that
had an English only sign or a sign that didn't have French as the
larger print.

What was happening at that time that caused a lot of emotion?  For
one, the government started to put pressure on radio stations.  
There is one station that was/is very popular in Montreal.  It was
a bilingual station.  By that I mean that the announcers and D.J.'s
were bilingual.  This was really special and they played a lot of
Canadian music, French and English.  A listener had the best of all
kinds of music and language.  Now the CRTC license that this station
had was for English radio.  No listener ever complained.  The station
encouraged an understanding between the two languages.  Well, a French
station complained.  They knew their ratings would go up if the other
station were English only.  Legally, the French station was within its
rights but it really upset the listeners, when the station was forced
to broadcast English only.  I lived there while this happened. 

Quebec decided to not allow distribution of major movies into Quebec
unless Quebec was allowed distribution rights elsewhere.  They were
talking about movies with French language versions.  As it happened, I
believe, Quebec decided to exempt the U.S., but not the rest of
Canada.  This was going on when I lived there.  I think that Quebec
had a good marketing tactic by suggesting the above.  But by exempting
the U.S. it turns into an afront against the rest of Canada, in my
opinion.

There are other examples, but I just wanted to answer your request for
comments. 

Elizabeth