Historical anti-semitism in Quebec schools

While it's true that anti-jewish prejudice was common in English Canada decades ago, I have no evidence that the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was on the curriculum there.

It was in Quebec, tho.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DsBtAAAAMAAJ&dq=protocols+esther+delisle&q=protocols+&pgis=1

The Kyle Wozniak file

http://rabble.ca/babble/central-canada/bureaucratic-bs-could-force-montrealer-english-school

If Canadian federal-jurisdiction workplaces are strictly federal, then it should be hands off from provincial interference. Unless of course, the interference is for a principle you support, like the prima facie-tiousness of French in Quebec.

But federalism, like democracy, is a series of checks and balances. Schools are a provincial jurisdiction under the Constitution of Canada. Educational rights in the official languages are enumerated there. The so-called Canada clause, where access to English schools in Quebec is granted, was whittled down by federal-provincial wrangling all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Thomas Mulcair of the federal NDP is a former Quebec provincial cabinet minister, and a putative federal one. His comments and insight on Quebec are germane and welcome at any time.

But Kyle Wozniak's father's presence or absence is not germane in this case. His educational history and Kyle's mother's rights are.

Now you care about Kyle's education. Kyle's mother presumably went to French school in Quebec, but since she didn't move anywhere, she has a presumptive right to schooling her child in English.

The majority and the minority both will have to suffer along with the political types' endless appeal to insecurity. Recall Proposition 08 against gay marriage in California (please). Minority rights balanced against those of the majority are another price we all owe each other.

Maybe Woody Allen would be as hard-pressed to satirize Quebec as Mordecai Richler was: just present the facts and no one will believe it's not a put-on.

"Extending 101 [to CEGEPS] is nonsensical"

http://www.themetropolitain.ca/articles/view/710

.. In 2000, the Larose Commission on the State and Future of the French language ...reviewed the idea of extending Bill 101 limits on English eligibility to the CEGEP level. The arguments and statistics then were much the same as they are today. Unanimously, we did not carry the idea forward ...

While the proposal – if ever adopted – may satisfy a few into a false sense of security over the French language, it fails to address a far greater menace to the use of French at home and in the workplace. And that menace is not the English-speaking community or the English language, but rather the quality of French that is taught in Quebec schools regardless of whether those schools teach in French or English ...

... the percentage of allophones had reached an overall majority of enrolment in the French system’s primary and secondary levels on the island of Montreal. The Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste likened it to the “Louisianisation” of Quebec ...

Many factors weigh in on a young adult’s choice of which CEGEP to attend, some substantive, some trivial. The ultimate choice may not just be a question of language, but also proximity, curricula and other considerations particular to each student regardless of linguistic background ...

And let’s not forget that this proposal would also apply to francophone students who likely will be less than amused at having their rights stripped from them in a misguided attempt to restrict the rights of allophones ...

Chantal Hebert: "Language law to face foe from within"

http://tinyurl.com/ygtm7af

...While the Bill 104 debate has focused on immigrant parents, the reality is that some francophone parents had also been using the private school loophole to get their children into the English school system.

Their numbers may be small but they are part of a larger trend that increasingly sees French-speaking parents aspire to more effective English-language training for their children.

In the future, the competing aspirations of Quebec francophones are more likely to erode the consensus that underlies Bill 101 than the House of Commons or even the Supreme Court.

The quality of French is strained. By the French.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/language+limits+CEGEP+choice/2168964/story.html

... Anglophone students, after years of French in primary and secondary school, study more French in CEGEP, and the great majority of them emerge effectively bilingual. Many francophones naturally want the same advantage ...

The best thing Quebec's self-declared defenders of French could do for its continued survival is to ensure that it is taught well in primary and secondary schools - including English ones ...

The real language scandal is how poorly too many of the province's French-language school graduates speak and write French, one of the world's most elegant languages ...

Vaillancourt hones skills with NHLers

Give 'em enough ice time ... they'll hang the education system in Quebec.

http://tinyurl.com/c2sqmq

The academic rigors that accompany a Harvard education were even more of a challenge for Vaillancourt. She attended the Pomfret School in Connecticut for two years before enrolling, simply to enhance her English language skills.

"It was pretty much a struggle my first year here,” she said. “I’ve always been right around 85 percent [as a student]. It’s gotten better every year. I went to a public high school in Quebec, and we would have English once a week for an hour, so I knew my verbs and tenses.

Some of my teammates are so impressive in the classroom, some as pre-med students.”