Fallacy: An argument, or apparent argument, which professes to be
decisive of the matter at issue, while in reality it is not; a sophism. The
point of an argument is to give reasons in support of some conclusion. An argument
commits a fallacy when the reasons offered do not, in fact, support the
conclusion. This is independent of whether or not a conclusion is true or
false. For example, it is true that some cats are black, but it will never be
true that they are black because Oceania is a continent. In this case, the fact
that Oceania is a continent, a true assertion, cannot be the reason why some
cats are black, another true assertion.
Sophism: Deliberately invalid argument displaying ingenuity in
reasoning in the hope of deceiving someone.
Myth: A fallacy that sticks around for a long time.
1. Quebecers rejected separation on two referendums and by doing so
indicated that they clearly wish to stay in Canada.
Quebecers rejected propositions
for constitutional changes by referendum on three occasions: at the 1980
referendum on Sovereignty-Association, the 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown
Accord and the 1995 referendum on Sovereignty with partnership. The 1992
referendum was initiated by the federal government of Canada, while the other
two were initiated by the government of Québec. To find out the details on
these, read the Constitutional saga page. There never was a referendum on the
status quo, only a few polls with (unfortunately) vague questions most of the time.
The most reliable polls seem to indicate that at best 20% of Quebecers are
satisfied with the Canadian federation in its current shape. There is roughly
80% of the population that is not satisfied with the 1982/1867 constitution.
This 80% (6 million people) is divided between those who wish to reform the
federation (nationalist-federalists) and those who want Quebec to leave the
federation and be a sovereign country (sovereignists). Both sides have so far
failed to gather a majority of the vote at decisive moments. About one half (of
the 80% who wish for a change) wants to give more autonomy to Québec within the
Canadian framework through profound constitutional changes, the other half
doesn't believe that any such transformations within the current regime could
bring justice and equality to Québec and consequently opt for independence. It
is a fallacy to claim that Quebecers have expressed a strong wish to
"stay" in Canada, because people who voted No are not necessarily
people who wish for no constitutional change.
Here's how the logic works: A
bicycle is green. A group of people want to paint it red, another want to
paint it blue and the remainder, a minority, want to leave it as it is. A
majority is dissatisfied with the green color of the bicycle. A referendum is
passed. The question is: "Do you want to paint the bicycle in blue?".
40% vote Yes and 60% vote No. Therefore, a majority does not want to paint the
bicycle in blue. However, this does not mean that a majority wants the bicycle
to remain green! Quebecers have expressed their division between the options of
constitutional reforms and independence (red and blue in the analogy). Read the
information on Indirect Rule to learn about methods used by colonial regimes to
divide the opinion of conquered masses. Québec's national issue is as of today
still unresolved.
2. Canada is a bilingual country.
First, "being a bilingual
country" is a vague statement. What is true is that since 1968, the
federal government defines Canada as a bilingual country in the sense that its
administration pretends to offer equivalent services in both English and
French, according to the preference of the citizen and where the number of
speakers justifies the expense. 9 out of 10 provinces in Canada have a solid
English-speaking majority. The exception to this rule is Québec, where about
80% of the population is French-speaking. According to Statistics Canada, 85%
of the total French-speaking population of Canada resides in Québec. This
normally leads people to think that Canada is bilingual in the sense that part
of the country is English-speaking while another part is French-speaking. That
is not what the federal government claims and in fact denies this geographic
reality because this would imply a recognition the province of Quebec's unique
character as a predominantly French-speaking society.
There is an interesting paradox
between the linguistic realities of Canada and Quebec and their respective
language policies. On one hand, Canada presents itself to the world as a bilingual
nation (whatever that is supposed to mean) while in reality it is very much an
English-speaking nation-state which contains an anglicized French-speaking
province. On the other hand, while Quebec presents itself to the world as a
French-speaking non-sovereign nation, it is in fact the most bilingual part of
Canada. To understand how this came to be, we invite you to read the History
section of this site. Here is an overview:
For many generations, Francophone
Quebecers born under the Dominion flag dreamed of a beautiful idealized
bilingual and bi-national Canada because they saw the "confederation"
of 1867 as a pact between two nations: the Canadiens (later Canadiens-français)
and the "British Canadians" (eventually the "Canadians"
alone). They demanded institutional bilingualism (bilingual currency, bilingual
public administration, sometimes even bilingual schools) and most importantly,
bilingualism throughout the federation just like in Québec.
In the 1960s, a new generation of
Québec leaders finally abandoned this idea for many reasons. We recommend that
you read on the Quiet Revolution to try fully understand the analysis of the
situation that was made back then. One of the most important reasons for the
rejection of bilingualism in Quebec can be understood by reading the statistics
published by the 1962 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Bi-nationalism
(Laurendeau-Dunton). The socioeconomic picture of the Francophone communities
of Canada was disastrous. For the first time, Quebecers got a clear picture of
the use of the English and French languages inside Québec and inside the rest
of Canada. Since the 1970s, successive Québec governments, federalist or
sovereignist, support the idea that Québec should be as French-speaking as
English Canada is English-speaking. Ironically, it is around that time that
English Canada began idealizing institutional bilingualism.
- Laws against French in Canada
- Policy of bilingualism at the Federal level
- Québec's Charter of the French Language
- The failure of Institutional bilingualism
3. Québec's economy is not strong enough for independence.
Before the 1960s, Québec was your
typical British colony. Just like in India or Australia, the economy was mainly
in the hands of loyal British subjects and was primarily based on the
exploitation of natural resources (and workers). This is no longer the case in
Ontario, Québec and to a lesser extent, in Alberta and British Columbia.
Ontario and Québec have diversified post-industrial economies. Have a look at
the economy of Ontario on the Government of Ontario's website. Also, read the
sections dedicated to statistics and Québec's economy. It might also be useful
to remind people that many former colonies declared independence under
substantially more difficult circumstances.
4. Hundreds of businesses and hundreds of thousands of qualified
English-speaking workers have left Québec because of the rise of separatism in
Quebec.
Since the beginning of the
industrialization of America, migrations from rural areas or declining cities
to booming regions and cities is a well studies phenomenon. You can read a
great book entitled Grapes of Wrath on the depopulation of Oklahoma in the
United States. Montreal was the metropolis of English Canada from the late
1800s to the end of the Second World War, at the expense of Toronto, the
largest city in Ontario. There has always been a great mobility of workers
within Canada from the moment they were English-speaking. The same goes for the
United States. It can be observed that within a booming city like Calgary for
example, a great number of people are from the other Canadian provinces to the
point that, together with the immigrants, they form the majority. The
interprovincial migration of French-speaking Quebecers is a very different
story. Indeed, to them, leaving Québec really felt (and still feels) like
moving to another country. In fact, between the 1850s and the 1940s, no less
than 900 000 Canadiens-français left Québec for jobs in the United States
because of the political situation and its consequences in their home country.
(See Laws against French in Canada.)
The case we are concerned with,
the interprovincial migration of English-speaking workers from English Montreal
to Ontario, can be rightfully studied in this context. The economic decline of
(English) Montreal in favour of Toronto began a few decades before the rise of
modern Québec. We recommend you read the book Remembrance of grandeur: the
Anglo-Protestant elite of Montreal, 1900-1950 by Margaret W. Westley to learn
about this. The exile of Anglophones in the 1970s and 1980s is an overly
exaggerated myth. It is a fact that during this period a large number of
people, mostly Anglophones, but also Francophones, moved out of Québec.
Most of the time, they settled in other Canadian cities where English is the
language of the majority, unlike in today's Montréal. The role played by
Québec's rising pro-independence movement in this is marginal compared with the
socio-economic transformations that occurred in Québec before and during the Quiet
revolution. During the modernization of Québec society, the French-speaking
majority reconquered its own economy and that obviously caused monolingual
Anglophones to leave for places where they would not feel like immigrants by
being forced to learn French in what they considered to be their own country.
(Something Quebecers know very much about since the British Conquest.) The
irresponsible and demagogic English-Canadian media, which propagated fear of
the evil separatists amongst Anglophones undoubtedly contributed to the exile
more than Francophones affirmative actions. The presence of Trudeau's soldiers
in Montréal during the 1970 October Crisis surely did not help. As for the
hundreds of businesses owned by Anglo-American interests that moved out of
Québec, they were replaced by other ones owned by Quebecers. That is called
decolonization. This phenomenon has be studies in all parts of the world
conquered by the British, the French, the Spanish and the Portuguese.
5. Québec is not a good place to invest money. It is a politically
unstable zone.
Canada is a politically unstable
country. It will remain so until a) its constitution is reformed to recognize
Québec as an equal nation or b) Québec becomes an independent country. Despite
this, in recent years, foreign investments have grown faster in Québec than in
other parts of Canada. Read the section dedicated to statistics on this site.
6. Québec is not a nation.
Québec is a nation in the
sociological and political meaning of the word. In the English language, nation
comes from Old French nation which itself comes from Latin nation which means
"to be born". This word is unfortunately vague for it can designate
different ideas or concepts. Nation can mean a people or a nationality which is
a human group who shares some or all of the following attributes: customs,
culture, religion, institutions, language and history. That's the definition of
the United Nations at least. Another definition is that of the political
nation, a human group that is politically organized under a single government,
i.e. the government represents the whole people. These two definitions are not
in contradiction with each other; as a matter of fact, they often complement
one another: you typically have a nation (people) under a national government
(state) for example.
Another meaning of the word nation
in English is an independent country. Often, people will say that Québec is not
a nation, meaning that it is not an independent country and in fact is just a
province, a federated state. They are absolutely right on this. That is
precisely why there is an independence movement in Québec.
7. The French language currently is and always has been well protected
by Canadian and British laws.
Please read Laws against French.
The French language is alive and (fairly) well in only one place in North
America, in Québec where French is the language of the majority. The relative
security and stability of Québec French is directly attributable to Quebecers'
will to protect their national language and resist the consequences of Québec's
position inside Canada.
8. Francophones were never threatened by assimilation in Canada.
The francophones of Canada belong
to two distinct populations: the Acadiens and the Canadiens. The Acadian
population was deported by the British government in the middle of the 18th
century. It was hoped that by dispersing them in the other 13 colonies they
would eventually assimilate in order to survive. To escape the deportation,
many Acadians sought refuge in Québec, then known as Canada. Between 1755 and
1763, over 10,000 Acadian civilians, 75% of the total population, were
deported. These events occurred in the middle of the French and Indian War and
are considered to be among of the worst war crimes of North American history.
You can read more on this subject in our section dedicated to history.
The Canadiens did not experience
deportation. After the Conquest of 1759, there were about 70,000 inhabitants in
Canada (modern day Québec). The British authorities believed that this
population would be gradually assimilated under the pressure of British
immigration from the neighbouring colonies and Great Britain. Summarizing the
evolution of the Canadian political system, which directly conditioned the
linguistic evolution of the country, is almost impossible. Rather, we will
again invite you to visit the section dedicated to history and follow the
amazing story of these 70,000 men and women. What we can say in a few words
however is that if the assimilation attempts were ultimately unsuccessful in
Québec, it is solely attributable to Quebecers' will to survive.
9. The Anglophone minority of Québec is oppressed.
The English-speaking community of
Québec is arguably the most well-treated "minority" in the world. If the Francophones of Canada had been
given the same rights as Anglophones, the entire history of the federation
would have been different. One important detail is that even though the
Anglophones are technically a "minority" in Québec, they are the
majority in every other province, which means that the Canadian federation as a
whole is largely English-speaking despite Ottawa's symbolic bilingualism.
Anglophones are a linguistic majority inside Canada. It is Francophones who
constitution the only linguistic minority among the two "official
language" communities. The Québec government recognizes Anglophones'
linguistic rights inside the Charter of the French language. The Québec
government also finances a complete English language educational system from
kindergarten to University. Québec Anglophones rarely get to feel like they are
part of a minority; rather they often see Francophones as the minority (of
Canada).
Mentalities evolve: today, a good
number of Québec Anglophones also speak French as a second language and have no
difficulty accepting the fact that French is the legitimate public language of
this unique part of the world.
10. Quebecers are not an oppressed people and never suffered from the
colonization of their country.
The consequences of British
colonization in Canada were disastrous for the Québec people and even more
disastrous for all Aboriginal nations. Discrimination of all kinds, social
exclusion, collective as well as individual impoverishment, exile etc.
Quebecers' resistance to assimilation and political oppression is a great
lesson of courage for all small nations on Earth.
11. The French of Canada have no national culture of their own.
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
12. If Québec separates, it will isolate itself from the rest of North
America and the world.
With the status of an independent
nation, Québec will have a seat at the United Nations and every other
international body where only nations are allowed to sit. By opening a real
network of embassies throughout the world, Québec will be more present on the
international scene and will build strong and everlasting links with all parts of
the world. With full control over its economic, social, cultural policies, and
the power to sign its own treaties, the rest of the world will know Québec and
Québec will know the rest of the world more than ever in the past. Really, we
feel this follows from the simplest and most down to earth logic there ever
was. How did people start thinking otherwise? Or should we say, who could have
propagated such a non-logical idea in the population?
