Quebec nation debate could be re-opened in Liberal race

[MarchHare]

When I went to school in Riverview, we had kids that did not speak a word of english.

Wow, that's crazy. When I was in high school in the late 90s, I knew people from all over the province. None of the native French speakers of that generation -- whether they were from Moncton, Bathurst, Bouctouche, Caraquet, Shediac, Grand Falls, or anywhere else -- were unilingual.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Wow, that's crazy. When I was in high school in the late 90s, I knew people from all over the province. None of the native French speakers of that generation -- whether they were from Moncton, Bathurst, Bouctouche, Caraquet, Shediac, Grand Falls, or anywhere else -- were unilingual.

it's how the sides for King of the Hill were picked.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

What are you basing that on? Many Acadians speak English in the workplace (or have a call center job where they're expected to communicate to callers in either language), but their primary language (i.e. the language they speak at home with friends/family) is French.

I admit, I have no statistics to back this up. I'm basing this primarily on my personal experience of living in Nova Scotia and being a former member of the Canadian Coast Guard in Dartmouth, where I met many people of Acadian origin. Also my wife's family on her father's side is of Acadian origin and rarely do they speak "Acadian".... as a matter of fact its been so long that he has conversed in the Acadian dialect that he admits that he has a difficult time doing so.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Rerun

I admit, I have no statistics to back this up. I'm basing this primarily on my personal experience of living in Nova Scotia and being a former member of the Canadian Coast Guard in Dartmouth, where I met many people of Acadian origin. Also my wife's family on her father's side is of Acadian origin and rarely do they speak "Acadian".... as a matter of fact its been so long that he has conversed in the Acadian dialect that he admits that he has a difficult time doing so.

Your experience in Nova Scotia would be very different from New Brunswick (where the majority of French-speaking Acadians live). Nova Scotia is a unilingual English province whereas New Brunswick is officially bilingual where both English and French have total equality of status.

Overall, native English-speakers outnumber Francophones in NB by about a 2:1 margin, but there are areas in the province, particularly in the north, where French is the dominant language. The Moncton area has about a 50-50 split between languages.

[Edit] According to StatsCan, French-speakers make up 33% of the population in New Brunswick but only 4% of the population of Nova Scotia as of the 2006 census.

[flamesfever]

I believe it's time we stopped pumping money into Quebec. I have relatives there and they plainly admit their threat to separate is simply based on getting what they want i.e. money.

The money is meant to equalize services throughout the country which obviously, as far a childcare and tuitions are concerned, is not happening.

I remember an accountant friend, back in the mid 70's, being extremely upset at the amount of money going into Quebec from the rest of Canada. And to think 35 years later we are still doing the same thing.