Montreal top five lists, continued.

[dzuunmod]

I (we?) continue to approach the one-year mark, since I left Montreal, and so we continue to count down top five Montreal-related lists.

Tonight's lists, top five things I don't miss about Montreal. And from here on out, we'll actually count down, not up:

5. Humidity - Oh my god, is Montreal humid. And so gross in the summer. There's nothing much

Comments

[wendykh]

I've never understood how people see language tension here.
And yeah, people always look at me weird when I say that.
I find speaking French first pretty much solves any tensions.

YMMV of course. I also realize I'm someone who had relationships with almost exclusively francophones and who has kids in French school so maybe I do not know.

[dzuunmod]

You've never been asked to speak English, before, when you started in French with someone? And gotten a condescending sneer from someone for even trying?

Lucky.

[wendykh]

No, never have actually. I've always gotten a "wow thank you for trying" look.

This may also have to do with it being plainly obvious from my (french) accent that I am NOT Canadian by birth. I imagine they have much more tolerance for someone like me than someone who say, grew up in Beaconsfield and just never bothered.

[dzuunmod]

Could be, but either way, I doubt I'll ever see unilingual francos treated elsewhere in Canada the way I saw certain unilingual anglos (my parents among them) treated in Montreal.

[bee_york]

I agree sooooooooooooooooooooo much with everything you said about Montreal, I don't have enough o's to fit in that "soooooooooooo". lol ;)

[dzuunmod]

Heh. There are good things coming about Montreal, I promise! But it's not all sunshine and roses, is all! :)

[bee_york]

But it's not all sunshine and roses, is all!

That's exactly it. As much as I love my city, it's nooooowhere near perfect and a huge pet peeve of mine about this place is...well, everything you just wrote about, lol.
In fact, I just re-read this post and was like, wtf, *I* could have written this! (Except it would sound more childish and have emoticons everywhere, but you get the idea, haha.) GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!! XD

[raccoonbonapart]

I agree that language politics are awkward, and for awhile I was under the impression that my franco grandparents weren't discriminated against when they moved from Quebec to Ontario. My father, however, has informed me that this notion was incorrect. My dad's name is Claude, pronounced the French way, but when he went to elementary school, the school told my grandparents that his name would now be pronounced like "Clod," the English way. So my dad was "Clod" for years and really hated it, and started correcting people when he was an adult so he could go by the French pronunciation again. He gets really bitter and angry now when people call him "Clod."

All this to say that you feel that the language issues are settled where you are now, but I wonder if the francos there feel the same way?

[dzuunmod]

Frankly, the francophones who are here comprise less than 5% of the population, and they are provided with a full range of federal services in French, and a significant range of territorial (provincial) services in French.

Where else in the world does less than 5% of the population get that?

Mind you, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just a costly and difficult thing, for the rest of the population. Most of the francophones here work for the federal government, or are here as a result of someone (a spouse) being employed by le fédérale. I can think of about 5 languages that it makes more sense to provide services for in Yukon before French.

But here we are, providing all these services in French.

[raccoonbonapart]

Does this cause tension between the French and English though? Does the tension make the French feel as unwelcome as, say, an anglo in Quebec? ;)

[dzuunmod]

Touché! There's certainly a segment of the population that's resentful of the French fact in the Yukon, but I think that's bound to happen pretty much anywhere you don't have a completely homogenous population. So, in other words, anywhere.

The point though for me is that in the Yukon, it's government and institutions that do their best to make life as easy as possible for francophones in a lot of ways, while in Quebec, government and institutions often work against anglos.

Like, I work in the French Language Services Directorate. Our mandate is to provide government services to francophones in the territory, and in practice, another part of what we do is to agitate for better service to them, and for more funding for programs that will benefit francophones.

Can you even conceive of such a department existing to serve anglos in Quebec?

[bee_york]

I think it takes growing up as an anglo in Montreal to truly understand the tension. People from elsewhere who come here seem to have a very different experience.

I agree so, so, so much.

[sabatoa]

I love reading through the comments on a post like this. It's so educational.