The Old Stock

It is strange that Quebec, a primarily French speaking province with laws and policies in place to protect the language rights of French Quebecers, that there is a large influx of non-French migrants, and once the migrants arrive, they prefer to speak English rather than French. This is causing a clear conflict between those who stress the primacy of French in Quebec’s value system and the various groups who refuse to abide by the rules set out to protect the French language.

More than ever, there is a need for clear rules to outline the extent of cultural and religious accommodation. “We believe that general rules must be adopted to avoid numerous exceptions, and piecemeal and arbitrary decisions," states Yohanna Loucheur, stressing the importance of putting in place rules that would facilitate social conduct within Quebec.

A major concern presented within this article is the profile given of the native English community within Quebec, which as been steadily declining. It is feared if the discussions become too narrow, it may pit “old-stock” Quebecers against everyone else, which could damage an already falling population. The migrants moving into Quebec who refuse to speak French are seen as a threat to the Franco population.

This article brings up an extremely interesting and relevant point about reasonable accommodation that no other news source examined has so far, due to the framing of the media, since it discusses the Muslim and Jewish communities and their demands in depth, but this article brings up the important fact that it is the Protestant communities that make the most demands, because they are a less visible minority, as examined by Sociologist Yao Assogba.

Assogba continues to state “considering the history of Quebec and the current context, I think it should be secular, where demonstrations of religion should be prohibited in the public place”.

It seems strange that people who migrate to Quebec do not wish to speak French, there are plenty of other English speaking provinces to migrate to, why choose Quebec if one doesn’t wish to conform to the cultural standards? One wouldn’t move to Germany and expect people to speak to them in English, they would expect them to speak German.