Asking all English Canadians

[Kuciwalker]

Frankly, I don't care about Quebec's culture, etc. I just don't take their complaints at face value.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Plains of Abraham
Quebec Act

Know those, but not the rest (except Trudeau)

KrazyHorse is right in that a truly informed discussion of Cdn/quebec politics requires knowledge of the items he listed (although the tone was a tad harsh I think...). Personally I'm glad to see you have an interest in the ongoing experiment called Canada.

Anyway, a large part of my dislike of the Quebecois comes from my visit there. They didn't strike me as particularly nice or welcoming to anyone else, even though I did everything in (badly accented) French. I also saw a lot of even open racism against the Amerindians there (we visited a reservation).

I too have had bad experiences in Quebec but I've also experienced rudeness in Toronto and just last summer I had the priviledge of experiencing the american brand of rudeness at Lake Placid. Are all Quebecers, Torontonians and Americans rude? Of course not. In fact many will tell you francophones can be a very generous and welcoming people.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Anyway, a large part of my dislike of the Quebecois comes from my visit there. They didn't strike me as particularly nice or welcoming to anyone else, even though I did everything in (badly accented) French. I also saw a lot of even open racism against the Amerindians there (we visited a reservation).

That surprises me, we are generally warm and welcoming to strangers. I think you may have just experienced uncourteous reactions due to a rising anti-Americanism during the Bush admin.

Also the racism against Amerindians is probably not worse than in other places. Where was the reservation you visited? those near the American borders are notorious for smuggling drugs and weapons, and the mafia there is actually so powerful that provinvial police won't go. This might explain the resentment you've seen.

Next time you go there you should tell me, I can be nice even with morons like you.

[Asher]

Originally posted by notyoueither
It's already there. If you want more, lobby the Feds to mandate more, better info.

Dietary information is not really there.

Take your average can of coke.

Can you tell from the can how many calories it has? How much sugar it has? How much fat it has?

All it lists on it is integredients, which isn't dietary information as far as I'm concerned.

About 1/3 of the can is the French "Coca Cola", which is almost completely identical to the English one (except the French one says "Classique" instead...). That space would best be served with a traditional dietary table thing...

[Fake Boris]

Stop being a moron, you can have both. It's not French that's preventing dietary information from being printed, it's the law that's too soft.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Also the racism against Amerindians is probably not worse than in other places. Where was the reservation you visited? those near the American borders are notorious for smuggling drugs and weapons, and the mafia there is actually so powerful that provinvial police won't go. This might explain the resentment you've seen.

Well, here's an example: we went through a museum of early Quebec history, and all of the stuff was really slanted towards the "the Indians were barbarians, we're the civilized people" end of the spectrum. It was really surprising, since our textbooks tend to give a pretty frank admission of the genocide we inflicted.

[Asher]

I too have had bad experiences in Quebec but I've also experienced rudeness in Toronto and just last summer I had the priviledge of experiencing the american brand of rudeness at Lake Placid. Are all Quebecers, Torontonians and Americans rude? Of course not. In fact many will tell you francophones can be a very generous and welcoming people.

The problem is, yes most Americans are rude, and yes most Torontians are rude, too.

But even more French/Quebec-people are rude to me, in my experiences.

One of my most vivid memories of Europe (with my American school mamy years ago), is how the clerk in a French convenience store pretended he couldn't speak English and was shouting at us in French and trying to rip everyone off majorly. Only 2 people out of the 20 on the trip spoke some French (everyone else was from the Spanish class, me and this other girl took French...), and he didn't know that -- he assumed we were all "dumb" Americans.

I said in probably broken, but understandable French, that I understand math, I understood the value of francs, and I know how much we should be paying. It was only then that he stopped screwing around.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Asher

The problem is, yes most Americans are rude, and yes most Torontians are rude, too.

But even more French/Quebec-people are rude to me, in my experiences.

One of my most vivid memories of Europe (with my American school mamy years ago), is how the clerk in a French convenience store pretended he couldn't speak English and was shouting at us in French and trying to rip everyone off majorly. Only 2 people out of the 20 on the trip spoke some French (everyone else was from the Spanish class, me and this other girl took French...), and he didn't know that -- he assumed we were all "dumb" Americans.

I said in probably broken, but understandable French, that I understand math, I understood the value of francs, and I know how much we should be paying. It was only then that he stopped screwing around.

That's not a problem with french people being rude. It's a problem with you being american.

(luckily you're also Canadian, so you could get out of the situation)

[Kuciwalker]

nm

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Asher

Dietary information is not really there.

Take your average can of coke.

Can you tell from the can how many calories it has? How much sugar it has? How much fat it has?

All it lists on it is integredients, which isn't dietary information as far as I'm concerned.

About 1/3 of the can is the French "Coca Cola", which is almost completely identical to the English one (except the French one says "Classique" instead...). That space would best be served with a traditional dietary table thing...

Different products have different requirements (all subject to the all important regulations). Again, as I mentioned earlier these regs are currently under review. The new labels will be rolled out over the next few years.

This point is moot however. The lack of nutritional info is in no way b/c of bilingual product labels. Any package large enough to require product info can find space for both nutrition and french (and sometimes additional languages where markets warrant it).

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Stop being a moron, you can have both. It's not French that's preventing dietary information from being printed, it's the law that's too soft.

Space is finite, and since the French requirement is patently ridiculous outside of New Brunswick and Quebec, it should not apply at all.

I don't want both -- I don't want things in English provinces to be required to have French on them. It's wasteful and it's unnecessary.

[Kuciwalker]

Why not just copy the American labels?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Why not just copy the American labels?

And while we're at it, get the American recipe for Dr. Pepper. The Canadian one sucks.

[Kuciwalker]

Really, this seems to have all the important stuff on it - why reinvent the wheel?

random food label from google image search:

[Asher]

That's exactly what I want, Kuci.

Of course, with the current laws, we'll need two of those -- one in French and one in English.

Good luck fitting two of those onto a can of Coke without removing the French branding.