Talk:Anti-Quebec sentiment/Archive 1

message: [moved from main article]
Maybe someone authorized should make this section a separate page...
The expression "pure laine" in French literally means 'pure wool'.  In Quebec, it refers to someone of old French Canadian heritage, descendent of the French settlers of New France (1534-1763).  It is a mix reference to the label seen on wool clothes and to the Patron Saint of Quebec and French Canadians, Saint John the Baptist, who was a sheep hearder.
Jan Wong criticized its use, though it is equivalent to the expressions "corn bred" or "All-American" and more often used as a tongue-in-cheek rather than a claim of ethnic purity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.68.175.172 (talk • contribs) 
:Do you have a reference on the link with Saint John the Baptist? Also, I will point out that you, like anyone, are "authorized" to write on Wikipedia and create new article, such is the beauty of Wikipedia. One only needs to follow the Wikipedia policies and guidelines. --Liberlogos 03:59, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pure laine 

message: Lance6968, what you commit "is the formal fallacy referred to as" ad nauseam, because you repeat excessively the same false accusations over and over (ad infinitum), especially concerning anti-semitism, and because your hateful diatribe frankly brings one to nausea. If I used your dishonest logic, I would say that this fallacy was attributed to Goebbels, Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin, therefor implying a similarity with you, but this would commit your second fallacy, reductio ad Hitlerum. Your comments have also gained the merit of ad hominem, notably on Ray Conologue. You furthermore take the comments of others, present your own biased interpretation of them and use it to come to the distorted conclusion that it "proves your point", committing the straw man argument. You seem to use latin logical fallacy phrases and tangled sentences to make an appeal to intellectualism and prestige, in a twisted form of appeal to authority. You have used hasty generalization, as exposed here. You commit sophism and you are also violating Wikipedia:Assume good faith, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Civility, and by riddling User:67.68.175.127 with blame, as you are, for not signing, you transgress Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers (at the moment this is written, this user has not yet registered and has six edits, all here). This is not Wikipedian, or civilized, behaviour. --Liberlogos 09:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re:Lance6968: Latin logical fallacy extravaganza 

message: How many examples does one need?  Surely examples should be by prominent people such as Richler, Francis, and prominent politicians such as  Mowat, Klien, etc.  I'm not saying that the ones I've tried to delete aren't true - but are they important?  And what's with the stubs.  Simply mention them earlier (though I can't say I've ever heard of any of these people) - and if necessary add a section when there is text.  Why keep stubs in the text, with absolutely no text? Nfitz 06:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Would we delete examples of anti-semitism (again, not a direct comparison between the two) because they were perpetrated by non-prominent people? The article states that these are things called anti-Quebec by people; which is correct, they were called that way. It shows the argument of the people who say there is a trend. If we must, a mention that a writer is not prominent (we'd have to find the correct phrasing) could be added to such people. Also, if the writers are not prominent, the controversies are. --Liberlogos 06:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One could mention a list of items by non-prominent people, but having article-length sub-sections for each non-prominent person seems overkill to me.  And I'm unsure why semitism or anti-semitism is relevent, and requires any mention in this article at all?  I've never heard any connection between "bashing Quebec" and anti-semitism ... or pro-semitism! Nfitz 16:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: No one seems to object, so I'm removing the stubs. Nfitz 22:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples 

message: Wouldn't Criticism of Quebec be a more well-rounded title, and less POV?  It gets 4,140 results at google.ca compared to 660 for "Quebec bashing" Nfitz 06:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that would be an improvement, although it's still a bit strange because it's so general (i.e., not about one specific topic). I typed in Criticism of the United States (in three different ways), and there is no article like that. Normally such an article would be specific to a topic, not an entire geography/province/country. Deet 13:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why shouldn't bashing of Quebec be justified?  We bash the USA all the time, and it's quite justified! :-).  Perhaps this is my problem then ... the article seems to be collecting all the unjustified criticism about Quebec (though the unjustification is in the view of the beholder).  Why shouldn't the article not be a collection of both the justified and unjustifed criticism.  There are other precedent Criticism of Microsoft is one (and they are bigger than most nations!) Nfitz 16:55, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is more closely related to Anti-Americanism, Anti-Canadianism, and Francophobia than criticism of a business. Kevlar67 00:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't know if you've noticed but the English Wikipedia has TONS of articles on topics imported from other languages.  No reason why this should offer any special challenges.Kevlar67 00:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  No reason at all - in fact it's great.  And I'm not unconvinced that this article shouldn't be here; however my attempts to do anything other than superficial changes have been rebuffed ... I can't even remove all those emtpy stubs without getting reverted.  If people are willing to work together to make the article better, it should stay; but if people are going to object to the removal of even the most trivial example (and I'm thinking Howard Stern here ... who probably doesn't even know where Quebec is ...) then perhaps it needs to go.  The other issue is what to call the article; there is definitely a perception within Quebec that they are being bashed; but the perception elsewhere is that they are bashed no more than anyone else is ... so is Quebec Bashing the correct title?  To balance out the article, there needs to be some discussion of whether this bashing is real, or just perceived ... though Quebecers don't seem to have any motivation to investigate this - and it's such a non-issue elsewhere in Canada that it's unlikely anyones really looked into it.  In my experience, the French population in Quebec does seem hyper-sensitive to criticism at an insitutional level; be it of the government, society in general, or even when criticism targets particular insitutions ... remember the backlash after the Anglophone media went after the Montreal police force for their failures in the massacre at UdM in the 1980s ... though in retrospect, with the great success of the police at Dawson, under the new operating procedures brought in as a result of the UdM massacre, it appears that the media comments were justified ... my point here is there seem to be sacred cows in Quebec society, that the Francophone media tends to avoid, but the English media will tackle head on ... and this perhaps is the cause of much of the perception of bashing ... though how one discusses this in the article without starting original research is beyond me! Nfitz 21:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article name 

message: I object to removing them. Sorry for forgetting to comment. The article is not complete without those sections: therefor, the readers will know that the portrait is not complete. It helps editors and invites collaboration. Why do you think the template exists? Why do you ojject to the stubs so much? --Liberlogos 23:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stubs 

message: Doing an advanced search asking for the exact phrase of Quebec bashing alone, we now get 727 hits (www.google.ca) -- Mathieugp 12:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hit count going up 

message: BY THE WAY: Wikipedia's Deletion policy explicitely states, under "Problem articles where deletion may not be needed", that if an article is "biased or has lots of POV", the solution is to "list on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention". People who support deletion: find a better reason. POVs, even when there are a lot of them, are not a valid reason to suggest deletion. I think this should close the issue. 
Who wants to remove the tag? -- Mathieugp 22:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The first time, I checked the talk page and saw no explanation, so I thought it was a newbie that didn't know how bias templates work, or someone that just wanted to put sand in the gears for slanted reasons, so I removed it. I later checked the histories and found to my surprise that you seemed to write your section about the dispute about at the same time as you added the template, which seems to indicate an error or computer problem on my side, which is a shame. The second time, you had already explained your objections in more than one post and I came to the conclusion that there was not a single NPOV issue raised, to which you agreed, and that this template was not the one appropriate. --Liberlogos 08:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Which is exactly why it shouldn't have been you removing the NPOV template - certainly not so quickly. Nfitz 23:05, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion process not justified 

message: I keep saying this article needs to be distilled - but it seems to me we have dilution happening instead!  At the rate we are going, there needs to be a subarticle - Examples of Quebec-bashing Nfitz 23:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Length 

message: Just to let all contributors know I am working on two articles, one on Affaire Michaud, the other on the Controverse Delisle-Richler Both are incomplete, but once they are in better shape, they will be translated to English and eventually moved to Michaud Affair and Delisle-Richler Controversy. 
Many other cases listed in this article could have their own pages like that. -- Mathieugp 22:14, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taking the time to do it right 

message: I am for this article being kept, and I am not a fan of Don Cherry, but I think that one of the improvements would be to delete the Don Cherry section.  Unless I am mistaken, he's   expressed prejudice against and has insulted Québécois and European NHL players.  I don't think he's ever "bashed" Quebec society as a whole.  I would say Cherry is certainly prejudiced, arguably racist, but not a Quebec basher.  Quebec bashing, in my opinion is to denigrate Quebec as a society, usually claiming it is significantly more racist and segregated than the rest of North America, and even sometimes claiming that it is inherently so (because of cultural traits and the history of French Canadians).  70.50.2.80 02:19, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a common misconception. This is not an article that judges what is "Quebec bashing", it enumerates what has been popularily called "Quebec bashing" (note the quotation marks). I have for example put in a section for the Late Night with Conan O'Brien (with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) controversy even if I don't exactely agree that it was "Quebec bashing", but it's not up to me to judge, it is to the reader. "Quebec bashing" is understood as Quebecois "bashing". --Liberlogos 08:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you to a point, but not completely. We have to watch out for potential hyperbole. Sometimes people will make accusations that aren't entirely accurate, so we should watch out for that. Peregrine981 16:34, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree and I understand that some people use the term Quebec Bashing more widely than others, but there is definitely a qualitative difference between on one hand Jan Wong and Diane Francis (intellectuals, journalist, who try to make a case against Quebec as a society, with its history, laws and traditions), and, on the other hand, entertainers such as Don Cherry and O'Brien (or more accurately, his scripters) who have just insulted Quebecers for one reason or another, whether punctually or repeatedly.  At the very least, I think the article should distinguish between these two uses of the term.  This is what, I believe, has made some people vote against the article, arguing it is incoherent.  As a Quebecer, I strongly feel that we need this article on Wikipedia, but we're not doing anybody a favor by letting it be such a hotchpotch, and I can see how someone who has not been in touch with the phenomenon can question the relevence of the article in its current state.  We're also allowing certain people to say "see, Quebec Bashing is non sense"  132.212.92.162 19:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Don Cherry

message: Can we all agree that the article is getting longer and longer and is already too long? How are we going to break up the article? Should we follow the previous suggestion and make an "examples of quebec bashing" page, or make seperate sub pages for each example? I'm in favour of  the "examples" page. Peregrine981 16:32, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm in favor of at least splitting the examples in two categories (see the Don Cherry section above).  Personally, I wouldn't give Cherry, Howard Stern or the Late Nite Show their own sections.  I'd just add a section about "other attacks on Quebec or Quebecers", and mention these incidents, saying that some people consider these to also be cases of Quebec Bashing.  Currently, I think the article lacks focus on Diane Francis, Jan Wong, Barbara Kay and Mordechai Richler, who have attacked Quebec as a society.  Cases like Lafferty and Lawrence Martin, I guess, fall in between.  132.212.92.162 19:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree to moving example cases to their own pages, especially the long Jan Wong and Barbary Kay ones. I also agree that there is a distinction to be made between the opinion makers of the Canadian press that are participating first hand to the political war against the Quebec sovereignty movement no matter what the collateral damages might be on Quebec as a whole and like you say "entertainers" who just surf the wave of popular prejudice against anything "French" be it from France or America. -- Mathieugp 20:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mordecai et al... 

message: According to my source, beyond two solitudes by Donald Smith, Richler did apologize for the PQ song incident and admitted to it being an "embarassing gaffe". Does anyone object to changing the text to reflect this? Peregrine981 01:51, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What does Donald Smith say exactly? Who did he apologize to? I was under the impression he admitted to this error in his book Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!. -- Mathieugp 02:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Richler apology

message: On September 30 I placed a citation request at the end of the opening sentence in which a definition of "Quebec bashing" is provided. There has been considerable discussion as to what exactly is meant by "Quebec bashing", both on this page    and as part of the AfD nomination . As stated in numerous discussions, it would seem that there is no definition of the term provided outside of this article - meaning that the definition is the creation of Wikipedians. In my opininion, the creation of a definition - and subsequent attempts at reaching a consensus (which does not appear to be forthcoming) around which an article might be built - amounts to original research.
My citation request has twice been removed and replaced with a reference in which two individuals claim that Quebec has been criticized unfairly in the English-language media, including that of the United States.  . As previously stated  (see 20:15, 30 September 2006), this reference fails to address the expressed purpose of the citation request. That Quebec - or any other political entity, has on occasion been criticized unfairly in international media has not been in dispute. Therefore, I question the re-appearance of a citation that in no way provides a definition of the term. Assuming good faith I will leave it in place, and will return my citation request. Victoriagirl 16:45, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The citation was placed back because IT was removed. The citation answered not the question of the definition BUT the question of whether it is used for *international* defamation. Bu putting it after the word "international", both that citation and the citation request can be displayed. Yes, you are right to assume good faith; it *was* in good faith. --Liberlogos 22:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure what you mean by "The citation was placed back because IT was removed" ... surely that balances out, doesn't it?  Trust me, I am assuming good faith ... Nfitz 23:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To be fair, the reference that replaced my citation request (twice) was originally intended to answer my query concerning the definition, just as my exchange with Mathieugp indicates  (see - 20:15, 30 September 2006 & 20:58, 30 September 2006). Again, that Quebec has been criticized on the world stage has never been challenged - nor has the fact that the term "Quebec bashing" is in use. These issues, the latter having four references, provide just two examples of the needless references plaguing this article. I note, without surprise, that today we hit triple digits.Victoriagirl 01:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To BE fair, *I* put it there! I KNOW WHY I PUT it there. --Liberlogos 10:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In which case, I will apologize. I quite obviously misunderstood the discussion cited. I will assume that my citation requests were removed in error.Victoriagirl 16:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition citation

message: I think you should seriously consider archiving any old discussion. It's 140 kb long. That's huge. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk) 03:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought about it but not now, the first discussion is not finished. --Liberlogos 10:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive?

message: I'm not sure I follow the point of this paragraph as it relates to the article.  Surely it isn't suggested that the Mayor of Westmount was engaging in Quebec bashing simply because he expressed concern at having his largely anglophone municipality amalgamated into the greater (largely francophone) urban entity of Montreal?  Were there actual defamatory or unsubstantiated  allegations against francophone Quebec society that accompanied his remarks? It can't be 'bashing' just because Group B expresses a desire to preserve its culture against a fear of assimilation by Group A.  I am also perplexed at the inclusion of the reported comments of Mr. Landry in response as they seem to represent a highly offensive attack (counterattack?) against anglophones using very derogatory references. Is the substance of this paragraph true?  If so, I suggest that it doesn't really belong in this article (unless I'm missing something), but in some other article on anglophobia or anti-English Canadian sentiment or whatever. If the statements attributed to Mr. Landry are not true, then the whole paragraph should be jettisoned, IMHO.  I know it's off the topic of the article, but it's disheartening that intelligent citizens of one of the world's great modern states are reduced to quibbling over who has said the nastiest things about whom.Corlyon 02:21, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it doesn't belong there and I removed it. It's off-topic anyway since the article focuses on the media. The only reference has no link and I cannot find the article, so I cannot verify the information. --Liberlogos 19:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I, too, agree that the Westmount section was off-topic. However, it does speak to the issue of definition. That the actions of the City of Westmount - a creation that can in no way be considered part of "the media" - were considered "Quebec bashing"  by the Bernard Landry (as reported in an article Rhéal Séguin), provides yet another example as to why, I believe, the definition is far too narrow. Victoriagirl 23:43, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The premier of Quebec publically, and in the media, denounced the entire city for Quebec-bashing. If that doesn't belong in an article about Quebec bashing, I don't know what does. Off line references are just as valid as online refs, according to wikipedia policy. I think that focusing this article exclusively on the media is too limiting. Why limit it so artificially? Peregrine981 18:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe Peregrine981 is correct. Bernard Landry's accusations that the City of Westmount engaged in "Quebec bashing" are only made off-topic by the much disputed definition put forth by this very article - a definition that, despite the good efforts of many, remains unreferenced.Victoriagirl 23:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm going to put westmount back in, failing any further objections, and will (time permitting) begin to work on expanding this article to encompass Quebec bashing outside the media. Peregrine981 04:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to prove here. Since this page (and wikipedia) seems to have settled on media exposure as a reliable test for notability, surely this incident which was covered by the media counts as an example here. I didn't make this up, Bernard Landry did. Peregrine981 15:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There was no concencus to put it back, only one person who seemed to partially change their mind. "In the media" means the "Quebec bashing" should be done *through* the media, with the media. --Liberlogos 02:49, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it wrong to discard a section simply because it doesn't fall in line with the unreferenced definition of "Quebec bashing" provided by the article. The cited use of "Quebec bashing" by Bernard Landry (and, by extension, Rhéal Séguin) quite clearly indicates that the definition currently provided is incorrect. That said, we are now faced with an article that, in part at least, negates the definition. Until a reference for the definition can be found, I'm afraid this article is like a house of cards. Victoriagirl 03:14, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

text: With all due respect we had about as much consensus to put it back as there was to take it out. I agree with Victoriagirl. The current definition is clearly lacking as this example proves. I am not making this up, there were articles on this topic on Vigile, but they can't be displayed now due to technical problems. I am in favour of expanding this article to encompass ALL instances of Quebec bashing, which I would define as actions or opinions which denigrate Quebec or Quebecers. This is sufficiently broad not to need a source in my opinion. I don't really know where we're going to find a more "official" definition of the term. Peregrine981 03:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Westmount

message: It would also be worth adding a section on the portrayal of First Nations issues vis-à-vis Quebec; for example, the fact that the Oka Crisis was at one time portrayed by some media as a Quebec-specific phenomenon brought on by "uniquely" poor treatment of First Nations people within Quebec society as a whole, whereas incidents in English Canada (Dudley George, Caledonia, Kashechewan, etc.) are often portrayed as isolated occurences which don't speak to any kind of larger social issue. Bearcat 03:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a brief starter paragraph on First Nations issues; we're obviously going to need to expand it with viable sources. Bearcat 04:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Aboriginal issues

message: I put a fact tag on the assertion in the section about Diane Francis that patriotism implies nationalism because: 
#I don't think that is necessarily implied in common usage – Orwell drew a famous distinction between the two, for example.
#As far as I can make out, Francis is neither a Canadian patriot nor a Canadian nationalist. John FitzGerald 15:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Patriotism and nationalism 

message: Is Robert Scully's $200,000 backhander from the government as part of the sponsorship scandal worth mentioning? It does show the kind of company he kept. John FitzGerald 02:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scully 

message: I've added a lot of fact tags. I agree with many of the tagged assertions, if not most, but I think they need to be attested. I also noticed that some of the attested statements are attested by secondary sources only, so I'll be having a look at them eventually. John FitzGerald 03:10, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fact tags 

message: I find the Mediation Cabal decision about the use of vigile.net as a source incomprehensible for the reasons expressed by mathieugp in the discussion. Since comparisons to trials have been made in discussing this issue, I'll note that it's like convicting someone of robbing a bank because he had money in his pocket. John FitzGerald
I also don't see how the decision justifies the removal of links just completed. The decision says removal would be justified if copyright was violated. No one has shown that it was. John FitzGerald 17:39, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If M Frappier has indeed sought and secured permissions, why is it these permissions and associated copyrights are not acknowledged? This is more than common courtesy, it is a requirement by at least some (if not all) of the media outlets involved. I encourage those interested in the respective policies concerning the reuse of these materials to contact The Washington Post, The Gazette, Le Devoir, La Presse, Le Droit, L'actualité, The National Post. Victoriagirl 17:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Incidentally, vigile.net links to the article about the threat to sue them. I suspect if sued they'll defend their right to reproduce. I don't think they should have it, but I've been wrong before. John FitzGerald 19:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

text: This seems to suggest that whether vigile.net is within its rights is up to a court to decide. On the whole I'd say if they haven't been sued yet the copyright holders must not be very confident of their chances of winning, but the laws appear to be very vague. Unless we can establish that vigile.net has permission we're probably best to leave it out. If it were up to me I'd assume that the failure of anyone to sue vigile.net (even after threateningto) implies that its use is fair use, but I realize many here don't find that persuasive. John FitzGerald 21:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mediation Cabal