User talk:Laval

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Hello, Laval, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question and then place {{helpme}} after the question on your talk page. Again, welcome!  -SpuriousQ (talk) 09:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

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[edit] Passer le flambeau

A few years ago, I started contributing to the English language Wikipedia with one idea in mind: making Quebec known to English speakers world wide. I wrote all kinds of articles almost all to myself and made significant contributions of many others: Timeline of Quebec history, Constitutional history of Canada, Constitutional debate in Canada, Politics of Quebec, Charter of the French Language, Language demographics of Quebec, Legal dispute over Quebec's language policy, Fête nationale du Québec, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society, Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, Aboriginal peoples in Quebec etc. etc.

I wasted an incredible amount of time arguing with unreasonable people whose primary sources of information were those corporate media waging war against imaginary Quebec nationalist monsters nobody has ever met in person. About a year ago, I gave up my English edits on Quebec a little to work on French language articles instead. I realized that it was best to be patient, to first write high quality articles, properly sourced and annoted, in my native language and translate them over to English after. That BS will be written in English on Quebec meanwhile is unfortunate, but luckily Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source yet. ;-) We have plenty of time to fix it all up between now and the day Wikipedia will be recognized as a reliable source of factual and neutral information.

But maybe you have more virtue than I do...

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to my brouillons and diagrammes and abandon you to User:SoulScanner ... ;-) -- Mathieugp 06:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quebec bashing

The original title was Quebec bashing. Various attempts at getting the article deleted or classified as OR were evaded in great controversy. The article was written by Liberlogos (someone I know personally) to cover the specific subject of what in Quebec we call "le Quebec bashing", that is the constant misrepresentation of Quebec in primarily the English language media of Canada and by extention the rest of the English-speaking world. The subject Liberlogos wanted to cover was not really all Anti-Quebec sentiments, altough that would deserve a long article to itself of course. What he wanted to cover was nicely covered already by Jean-François Lisée in Dans l'oeil de l'aigle and was the cause for Normand Lester's Le livre noir du Canada anglais. Liberlogos has abadonned the article to its faith and he no longer cares if it gets deleted or not. In trying to save the article from degeneration, we found an excellent source to complement the subject in Maryse Potvin's "Some Racist Slips about Quebec in English Canada Between 1995 and 1998", in Canadian Ethnic Studies, volume XXXII, issue 2, 2000, pages 1-26. Maryse Potvin's analysis is in fact retaken very liberally by Normand Lester in his books however with less of a scientific tone.

To rename the article, I suggested many things and in the end I was advocating Perceived bias in the representation of Quebec society in English language media. I thought this would be acceptable and give room to neutral treatment of the subject.

To be quite frank, I think the best thing you and I can do for knowledge on Quebec and knowledge in general is to patiently write quality articles on subjects that we master well or that we know we master more than those who have already contributed to an existing article. And do not do as I did, that is start hundreds of articles that ended up sitting unfinished in my draft pages! :-)

Are you familiar with the subject of language demographics by any chance? I could really use some help getting this article in shape and publishable:

fr:Utilisateur:Mathieugp/Brouillons/Démographie linguistique du Québec

It is a complete rewrite of the one that already exists which I also mostly wrote myself but is full of outdated information and even contains some errors. I would then translate it to English of course and finally there would be one solid source of information in that language on that subject in a very visible corner of the Internet. -- Mathieugp 17:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bigotry

At Talk:Controversy over criticism of Quebec society you accuse me and my fellow contributors to that article of bigotry. However, you fail to specify any bigoted statements in the article. You also have failed to answer my previous reasonable question about your implication that criticism of Quebec is motivated by anti-Quebec sentiment. If you are unwilling to substantiate your accusations, remove them, since, without substantiation, they are clearly contrary to Wikipedia policy on abuse. John FitzGerald 20:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply, and I'll take your use of the word 'friend' at face value. However, I don't see much difference between saying someone is a bigot and saying he is pro-bigotry. I also fail entirely to see how the title of the article supports bigotry. If you want evidence of my good will, check the discussions on my talk page about Esther Delisle. That was anti-Quebec-nationalist propaganda when I ran across it, and I helped fix it.
As you can also see from the discussion at Talk:Controversy over criticism of Quebec society, I also preferred the original title. I went along with the change simply as a useful compromise which would allow us to move on to more important things. However, the article seems to be stagnating now, and a large part of the reason is attempts from people of all opinions about the issue to demonize those who disagree with them.
If you think I support bigotry, show me the bigotry I'm supporting. John FitzGerald 12:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again for the prompt reply. Sure, criticism of Quebec nationalism needn't be Quebec-bashing, but the crap in Esther Delisle was. As for who identifies themselves as English Canadians, I do and so do the many English Canadians I know. Why wouldn't we identify ourselves as that? That's what we are. Finally, sure it's possible to find examples of bigotry on this site, but I want to know where the bigotry is in Controversy over criticism of Quebec society. Honestly, I am open to the possibility that some of that content is bigoted. I honestly do not understand how the title itself promotes bigotry, but I am open to arguments that it does. I have learned over my long life that even I can be wrong (hell, I voted for the Ontario NDP in 1990).

Incidentally, I also believe that the English press is indeed madly engaged in mystifying the whole issue of Quebec sovereignty. However, the Jan Wongs of the English Canadian press are few and far between; the problem is the myriad of well-meaning federalists who know nothing about Quebec (most of them can't speak French) but think their good intentions are enough to win Quebec over – which is how you get pathetic spectacles like all those federalists being shipped to Quebec to wave flags at the big rally in 1995. It's as if the flags were magic, eh, and would make the Yes side disappear. On the other hand, the Quebec media play a role in mystifying the issue, too. They have almost no interest in English Canada, and publish wildly inaccurate articles about it – I remember, for example, le Journal de Montréal publishing an article about how Eric Lindros was as big a hero in English Canada as Elijah Harper was, when in fact neither was a hero in English Canada (a lot of English-Canadians supported Meech). And of course, we must remember that the press represents corporate ideas and not English Canada's. And that fewer and fewer English Canadians are paying attention to it.

Whatever. You can, of course, do what you want (within the limits prescribed by Wikipedia). I've been told worse things than that I'm pro-bigotry and survived. You'll survive Controversy over criticism of Quebec society, too. Trust me – I survived Nixon (and in 1968 I sure as hell thought there was a good chance I wouldn't). John FitzGerald 01:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

P. S. I forgot you may consider my name to be British, so your point about people identifying as English Canadians may not seem answered. Anyway, people of all origins consider themselves English Canadians and it should be obvious to anyone that they routinely speak of English Canada. The concept of the Rest of Canada (ROC) had to be invented because the dimwit federalists who dominate the English Canadian press couldn't tolerate the idea that a province with a large francophone population could legitimately be considered a part of English Canada. I tell you, I live in Ontario and I think French should be an official language here, but Ontario is English Canada all the way through. It was founded as English Canada. John FitzGerald 02:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

P.P.S. I should clarify more. My name is Irish (originally Norman, but that's another issue). That a person with an Irish name ( a first-generation Canadian, to boot) considers himself an English Canadian pretty well disproves your null hypothesis. You seem to be under the impression that we use English Canadian as an ethnic category. However, in English Canada it designates a Canadian who speaks English as his or her official language. John FitzGerald 13:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi again. Our dispute over the use of English Canadian comes down to conclusions we have drawn from our own experiences, but it is true that I have friends of several ethnic origins who call themselves English Canadians. Anyway, as I said, I'm not British, and I consider myself English Canadian.
I also disagree that the media are "a reflection of the societies they claim to represent," unless by that you meant that they are a reflection of societies in which control of the media is restricted to friends of the government. In any other sense, Fox News is quite clearly not a reflection of American society (which did vote for the Democrats last time out and has now decided that Iraq thing wasn't such a great idea after all) but of the political needs of Rupert Murdoch (who has to please the Republican party which changed the rules to allow him and the other media barons to build media empires). CanWest Global is another example – it reflects the interests of the Aspers and of their buddies in government.
As an English Canadian, I see almost nothing in Canadian media that reflects the society in which I live. Conspicuously absent from the Canadian media are the opinions of ordinary people – for example, during the 1993 referendum campaign the opinions of ordinary Canadians of either official language were shut out of the English media. Their coverage consisted of the opinions of people in positions of authority. One of the priorities of people in authority is of course to keep Quebec fighting with the Canadian government – there are a lot of careers to be made out of that industry.
As for English Canadian society being ethnic obsessed, we don't have our knickers in a twist because someone took ham out of his pea soup. But as I said, I think part of the reason that both English and French Canadians get the idea that the speakers of the other language are ethnic obsessed is the failure of the media to represent the beliefs of most Canadians from either group. John FitzGerald 15:33, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Election

I gather there's not a lot of support in Quebec for the idea that Monday night's election results might be good for the sovereignty movement. But, as someone commenting on today's editorial at le Devoir said, sovereignty is bigger than the PQ. I just have this wacky idea that the ADQ's rise to power could force the federalists into a real discussion of sovereignty (which the entire country needs). Like you and like a lot of people I suppose we should wait and see what the ADQ's really up to, but it seems wrong to me to look on this as necessarily a blow to sovereignty. What do you think?

Incidentally, the newspaper coverage in Toronto has been disgraceful. Both the Star and the Globe said Charest "staved off" the ADQ, as if they were repelling barbarians from the gates of Rome. but then, Toronto journalists are largely stupid. The rest of the English press seems to have done a better job, though. Even Mike Doofus did some reasonable coverage last night. John FitzGerald 20:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the information; you certainly gave me a much better idea of what's going on than the press has. It gives me hope, too – I think a real discussion of sovereignty and of federalism would be of benefit to the entire country. The Toronto media seem to have initially taken the line of "Thank god, separatism is dead!" I cannot express too low an opinion of the Toronto media these days. In particular the Globe has stopped showing any interest in reporting – it chiefly recycles press releases. Over the past week the Star has published two articles, one by Pierre Martin at U de M saying flat out that separatism is dead, and another by André Pratte saying no one should assume separatism is dead. They're the true national English newspaper, so the issue is still being presented as a battle between federalists and separatists. The idea that both approaches arise from real issues which it might be possible to deal with in a variety of ways seems to be lost on journalists. Chantal Hébert's only contribution to the Star so far has been about the role of Harper's fiscal policies in Charest's defeat.
I see "Anti-Quebec sentiment" is now the title of the article. I should emphasize that my complaints about that decision on the talk page are directed at the way in which the decision was made – by fiat, basically, but presented as an expression of the general will. I can live with the new title. Mathieugp's proposal to reference scholarly articles is what the article needs, so if i get the time I hope to be able to help out with that. As I mention on the talk page, I would like to see the general overlooking of Quebec by the English media included in the article, as well as the sort of prejudicial thinking which is slipped into commentary without arousing too many suspicions – the representation of the federal budget as a sop to Quebec, for example. That does more damage to Quebec (and Canada) than anything Jan Wong ever wrote. John FitzGerald 13:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Semiprotection

I think that you just need to ask an admin. I am not certain. If you talk to an admin (like User:Adam Bishop), can you ask him to check if User:SoulScanner is not a sockpuppet of User:A. Lafontaine aka User:DW. -- Mathieugp 19:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Québécois (disambiguation)

The word Québécois is not often used in the sense of "Quebec French". I wrote "to emphasize its distinctness from French French" because writing "Quebec French" is already enough to distinguish it, and "Québécois" adds additional emphasis. At least in French, there is often the idea of "Québécois" being a distinct language, for example when Léandre Bergeron wrote the Dictionnaire de la langue québécoise. In that case, the idea was that it was separate with equal status to Continental French. Others may use the term and consider "Québécois" separate but with lower status. Generally speaking, though, this is marginal and the phrases "Canadian French" and "Quebec French" predominate. Joeldl 09:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Québécois

Hello, I am contacting all non-anonymous editors who participated in the debate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Québécois. It has been very difficult achieving consensus on the appropriate scope of the article, and the use of the word Québécois in a series of articles proposed by one editor. I am requesting input at Talk:Québécois. Joeldl 23:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English-speaking Quebecer

I think the removal of the infobox should be discussed on the talk page. Compare African American (there are of course also people of African descent outside the U.S.) Even if an ethnic group goes beyond a single country or jurisdiction, it is acceptable to identify the members of the group in a certain country/jurisdiction as an ethnic group. Of course, English-speaking Quebecers are not strictly speaking an ethnic group within Quebec, but they are a linguistic/cultural one, especially by a mother tongue definition. I think this is not clear-cut, so I'm going to restore the infobox for now. Joeldl 04:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Belgian people

I've looked at the edit history for this article, and found that you were the editor who created this as a separate article. Whilst I don't dispute a potentially worthwhile article is possible, the current revision is trivial, and is completely covered at Demographics of Belgium. I'm an inclusionist by nature and try to make a point of not nominating for AfD unless the original creator agrees an article serves no purpose, and therefore await your response. BeL1EveR 23:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)