From: thood@corvus.matrox.com (Thomas Hood)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Access to English schools
Date: 1 Sep 92 17:52:21 GMT
Distribution: can
Organization: Matrox Ltd.

The following is probably worth reading.

steven@spxtech.qc.ca (Steve Potter) writes:

>From article <1992Aug31.223510.20377@pandora.matrox.com>, by thood@corvus.matrox.com (Thomas Hood):
>> I hope you will admit, Steve, that freedom of choice for all immigrants
>> is something that Quebec and Canada are not bound to allow, and something
>> that is never likely to be allowed.
>  One can advocate an ethically and morally desirable position to
>  illustrate one's lack of support for an ethically and morally
>  undesirable one. Whether or not one believes it is politically
>  viable.

One "can."  But, if you admit that the goal is unachievable, then your
"illustrations" are at best irrelevant, at worst irritants which,
by provoking your opposition, undermine your own real interests.

Freedom of choice for immigrants was eliminated in 1974 (Bill 22) and
will never be restored.  Since immigrants enter Quebec by invitation,
they have no grounds for demanding freedom of choice except for the
principle of "equality of individual citizens" which is specifically
denied by the French Language Charter because it allowed too many
immigrants to choose English schools and thus threatened the francophone
majority with a loss of influence that francophones did not accept.

Freedom of choice is nice.  However, the French Fact is also nice,
and the majority of Quebecers believes the latter is more important
than the former.  Seeing them in conflict, they made their choice.
While I am suspicious of government involvement in these areas,
I find it hard to deny the nationalist claim that anglos would do
the same if the roles were reversed.

Principles and rights that conflict with the prime directive of
preserving a French-speaking society are explicitly denied and
no liberal-rights messiah is going to come down and pass judgement
on Quebec's francophones.  Anglos will have to come to terms with
this: this isn't the United States, where individual rights are
guaranteed in the constitution but collective rights are omitted.
It's Canada, where individual rights are traditional, enshrined only
recently and rather ham-handedly by Trudeau in the 1982 constitution
in a process that may yet result in the destruction of the country, and
Canada, where collective rights were enshrined in the constitution
of 1867 because it was a matter of great concern to the representatives
of two strong cultures trying to accomodate each other in what was
left of British North America.  Fighting on the grounds of liberal
rights, you will lose in Quebec.

Quebec is not the best place to seek a liberal-rights utopia
because, of all western countries, it has spent the least time in
the modern era: perhaps two decades. For the same reason, it does not
idolize objectivity: its concerns are articulated subjectively, and it
is this subjectivity that anglophones as modernists misinterpret
as bad faith, disguising hostile intentions.  The subjectivity can
be self-serving, but it can also be sympathetic.

More to the point, there's nothing Anglos can do about it except get
used to it.  So, please drop your advocacy of freedom of choice for
immigrants and pay your attention to the real interest of the
English-speaking community in protecting its school system.  There
is no doubt that the system is declining due to a drop in enrollment,
and that this drop is due in part to unfair and unnecessary restrictions.
Francophones and even nationalists not being monsters, and you not
being a maudit Anglo-Saxon colonialiste, you should be able to convince
the majority of Quebecers to relax the rules.

You are right when you say the Chambers report is a good start.  It is
also probably a good finish, because francophones have to be sure that
Quebec will not return to the "bad old days" of their mythology, or they
will react in a way you won't like.

-----------------

Liberalism: A political philosophy based on belief in progress, the
      essential goodness of man, and the autonomy of the individual
      and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties
      [certainly not to be confused with the Liberal Party of Quebec -TH]
Mythology: A body of myths
Myth: A usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that
      serves to unfold part of the world view of a people [...]
Modernity: The ensemble of social structures, ideologies, and related
      phenomena having their genesis in and being particular to the modern
      era.
Prime directive: [Wasn't the term coined in a Star Trek episode?]
Unfair: Discriminates against the English-speaking community usu. on grounds
      such as "they're not a minority like the others -- they're dominators!"
Unnecessary: The numbers are too small to threaten francophone predominance.

--
Thomas Hood                                                    thood@matrox.com
Montreal
Newsgroups: can.politics