Wednesday, October 22, 2003

POLITICS OF LANGUAGE II

This issue I wrote on below seems to be gaining more and more attention in the national media as a result of the possibility of Mike Harris running for the leadership of the Conservative Party. In today's Toronto Star Chantal Hebert weighs in with her opinion on the matter.

Like Simpson she focuses more on language but does admit Paul Wells' argument that Quebecers seem unwilling to vote for a non-Quebec prime minister saying:

"Ever since Quebecers have been on the federal ballot, Quebec has never given a leader from elsewhere in Canada the time of day. Even Joe Clark, whose federal-provincial outlook was more in sync with the province than that of his Liberal competitors, still got the cold shoulder."

The root problem here seems to be that Canada was founded on the idea of an equal partnership between two cultures at a time when those two cultures were basically equal (in population, political influence etc.) and there was a willingness to treat them so. Today the two groups are much more unbalanced, particularly in terms of population. A significant portion of English Canada is willing to reach out to Quebec because they feel that's part of being Canadian. Quebec seems less willing to do so. Perhaps that is part of being Canadian as well, but in the future will English Canada continue to take on the majority of the outreach and compromise to make Canada work? I hope so but I think I'm more idealistic on this topic than most.

Posted by Matthew @ 2:27 p.m.