From: vgleblanc@violet.uwaterloo.ca (Victor G. LeBlanc)
Subject: Re: Legalized Discrimination in Quebec
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 15:13:50 GMT

I wasn't going to get involved in this, but what the hay!

In article <Bz97n1.DC8@ireq.hydro.qc.ca> beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Denis Beauregard) writes:
>In article <12DEC92.14087944.0063@UNBVM1.CSD.UNB.CA> O2NY <O2NY@UNB.CA> writes:
>>Well Denis, for you, I checked. My roomates father is on the parent
>>teachers association for the french school board here in NB. I asked
>>him about French students having english textbooks. Do you what his
>>answer was?!
>
>First, you said of the 30% of bilingual NBers, most were of English
>mother tongue while it was shown later this was false.
>
>Then you said that the % of francos in NB was very far from the 40% I
>gave (I think you said some 10%) while the figure was 30%.
>
>You said that only one town was franco in majority but forget to say that
>4 counties were French in majority too.
>
>This time, you invented someone?  You give no name, no place, no school
>year.

 I am a product of the French schooling system of NB.  I went to French
public school for 12 years and to the Universite' de Moncton for 4 years.
I can assure you that at least from 1973 until 1985, all textbooks
which I used (except for English classes of course) were written in
French.

 When I arrived at the U de M is the first time I used an English textbook
for a non-English course, but this was merely because of a lack of low-priced
specialized textbooks in French (although I noticed recently that
some pretty good Calculus books are being written in French).  

>
>>He laughed! Yes, for a full minute he laughed. Then he said how stupid
>>it would be to have french school and english textbooks. He informed
>
>So, until the 1960's, the NBers were stupid?  They actually had that
>situation according to L'Actualite special report on Grande Acadie.
>
>>me that ALL french schools have 100% french textbooks, as english is
>>not allowed in the schools. They also have extensive school librairies
>>containing, yes, you guessed it, FRENCH books! As a matter of fact a
>
>extensive school libraries?  I dont believe you.

Well Denis, I hate to disappoint you here, but I always had access to
a wide variety of books in my school libraries, ranging from the
French classics (Voltaire, Moliere...) to modern Canadian classics
(Gabrielle Roy, Gratien Gelinas...), as well as French encyclopedias.
As a matter of fact, our library facilities at the Polyvalente Mathieu-
Martin were good enough to train our "Genies en Herbe" team (the
French counterpart of "Reach for the Top") to a National Title in 1985
(of which I was a proud member :-) ), beating 4 of the BEST quebecois
teams along the way!  (In fact, if I remember correctly, it was also
a French NB team that won the National Title in 1984, Polyvalente
Louis-Joseph Robichaud I believe...)


>
>>school bus driver for the french school district recently got
>>suspended for playing an english radio station on the drive home! So
>>there you have it French schools have entirely french everything in NB.
>
>Too good to be true.

It is true.  In fact, I personally know the driver in question! 

[stuff deleted because of a cranky newsserver]

>-- 
>  \_\    Denis Beauregard  *  internet:beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca
> /   \   Ge'ne'alogiste des familles : Beauregard/Jarret/Jarest/Vincent
>J   __>  Un Que'bec renouvele' dans une Ame'rique renove'e
>\_.-===  Ope'rateur de "Racines du Que'bec" (514) 922-9636 BBS/Genealogie

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/ Victor G. LeBlanc               In the immortal words of Abraham on the    / 
/ Dept. of Applied Mathematics    mountain: "Now God, let me get this        /
/ University of Waterloo,         straight.  They get to keep the oil and    /
/ Waterloo, Ont. Canada           the land, and we get to cut the tip off    /
/ vgleblanc@violet.waterloo.edu   our WHAT???"  - Milton Berle               /
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