[rayiner]

I don’t see anything about “racism” in 3 and 4. The first is about excluding religious symbols from public, which is what France does, and is an extremely left-wing notion. Certainly not what folks in “Georgia” would do. And the second is about mandatory French education. Explain to me where the “racism” is.

[angry_octet]

But Catholic religious symbols are not excluded -- they're everywhere, but it's called 'history' and 'culture'. The lengths CSDM builders go to to leave a giant crucifix on a school building undisturbed even when demolishing the rest are truly noteworthy.

[magic-chicken]

The crucifix was removed from Quebec National Assembly a few years ago https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/crucifix-removed-nat...

[goosedragons]

They literally didn't mention anything about the National Assembly.

[magic-chicken]

The point is that the crucifix was removed from the most symbolic place it could be removed from. If thats not a strong, consistent signal that Quebec wants religions out of the public institutions, then what is?

[goosedragons]

Removing the rest of them? Changing the names of all the places named after Catholic Saints? Not having the municipality put up Christmas decorations every year? You know, actually taking action to do that?

They only took down the cross in the National Assembly after backlash and calls of hypocrisy. Originally Legault wanted it to stay up. That alone says to me how BS the whole thing is.

[rayiner]

> Changing the names of all the places named after Catholic Saints? Not having the municipality put up Christmas decorations every year?

But that stuff really is "history and culture" rather than "public endorsement of religion."

People in my home country would never tolerate foreign Christians coming in and demanding that the state stop celebrating Eid or changing place names. People are entitled to their heritage, and shouldn’t have to erase it to accommodate newcomers.

[magic-chicken]

The process to remove religions from public institutions started 50-70 years ago. It's a process, and its going to take a long time, as there is 400 years of history to deal with. Saying that the whole process is BS because there was some hesitation, or because there are still streets named after catholic Saints is just a logical fallacy.

[magic-chicken]

About religon: you are correct, it's not racism, it's a different approach to multi-culturalism. The problem is, the ROC is intolerant and only consider that one valid approach to multi-culturalism exists: their own. Anything else is "racist".

[qwedf]

Because:

[3] exclusively targets non-Christian symbols and came after a campaign of primarily non-city folk freaking out because immigrants are different - most infamously Herouxville where the town published a manifesto warning immigrants against "stoning and burning women. It included, too, an explanation of the importance of Christmas trees." [1]. The Catholic symbology remains in the officialdom - see the giant cross that sits atop Montreal, and the crosses that were never removed from the public schools, or many provincial offices. Not to mention it's OK to wear a crucifix.

[4] goes way beyond education. Montreal is a functionally bilingual city and those of us from here speak "franglais", a mix of the two and have no issue switching. This new law massively restricts access to: education, medicare, legal services, to name a few in the official language of your choice. It even gives powers to the language police to, for example, raid a law or medical office, get access to confidential documents to ensure you are only being served in French [2]. I live in a nation with 2 official languages in a city where the majority of people are bilingual and happy to serve in either language- and Quebec just effectively made one of those languages illegal. How is this is not discrimination?

Georgia-Atlanta is an analogy. The rural areas are 99% white, unilingual francophone - a group who genuinely believe bilingualism and multiculturalism is a problem - Montreal's two key, unique strengths and defining characteristics. If we had representation by population, these would be non-issues but because the rural areas are heavily weighted, the ruling CAQ has a supermajority after winning only 37% of the vote.[3]

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/herouxville-quebec-r...

[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-96-explained-1....

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Quebec_general_election

[rayiner]

You’re grafting an Americanism onto Canadian politics and it doesn’t fit. White folks in Georgia may discriminate against Black folks in Georgia even though the two groups share a culture and language. That’s racism.

A distinct cultural group seeking to avoid cultural or linguistic change created by an influx of outsiders isn’t “racism.” It’s a human right for distinct ethnocultural groups to seek political autonomy on that basis: https://unpo.org/article/4957. Quebec is by its very nature a province for French speaking descendants of French immigrants to Canada. Québécois are perfectly entitled to say it should stay that way. It’s alien to modern Anglo notions of multiculturalism, but that doesn’t make it “racism.”

[qwedf]

In no case am I grafting Americanism onto Canadian politics. I'm using an analogy to illustrate to non-Canadians how outsiders (nationalist extremists from the ROQ) are able to impose their values and views on the multicultural, multilingual city of Montreal and it has systematically strangled the city since 1976.

Or do you have another explanation for the population , capital, and cultural flight that occurred over the 80s 90s that we have never recovered from?

[rayiner]

Reducing all conflicts between different cultural groups to “racism” is an Americanism. “Racism” is a specific concept that explains why, for example, British Americans in Georgia might feel more affinity for German Americans in Indiana than more culturally similar Black Americans in Georgia.

That’s not what’s happening in Quebec. It’s not like rural Quebecois are welcoming of Anglo Canadians either. They simply oppose multiculturalism, just like China or Japan or France itself.

[qwedf]

Racism plays a major role here [1,2], and it's certainly a motivation for Bill 21 at least. Remember, this is the ultimate culmination of a village writing a handbook for immigrants that included not eating babies, like they do in their home country [3].

Bill 96 is a direct violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so you're right it's not racist, just a denial of my guaranteed rights as a Canadian Citizen. Ignoring First Nations, of course, many of whom speak neither French nor English. If you do count them, then Bill 96 can also be considered racist

[1] https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/two-thirds-of-qu...

[2] https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-coroner-feels-joyce-echaq...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/world/canada/canada-herou...

[jpambrun]

Religion is not race and the law targets Christian religious symbols as well.

[ozmodiar]

It tends to be discriminatory towards Sihks, Muslims and Orthodox Jews, who all have head coverings as important religious garb, basically excluding them from government jobs.

[magic-chicken]

I understand how it can be perceived this way. However, did you look at Quebec history? You will find that Quebec was very religious until 50-70 years ago. Education was provided by members of catholic institutions. At that point in time, teachers were wearing their religious uniform. Quebec made the decision to re-take ownership of the education system and to get the religions out of there. In the beginning, religious people were still providing the educuation, but they were asked to stop wearing religious symbols.

The current movement is a continuity of the work that was started 50-70 years ago to get religious symbols out of public institutions, and in that sense, it's coherent.

[realusername]

I'd argue that it's the opposite, there's are a lot of discriminations against Québec from the english side, it's very apparent online and it's a bit shocking to watch to be honest.

Those discriminations for sure helping the independence movement.

[goosedragons]

Besides criticism of laws like Bill 96 and 21 what discrimination is there? I don't think most English Canadians really care what Quebec and Quebecers do unless their pushing bad discriminatory laws. I think you'd see the same push back from the rest of Canada if Alberta decided to implement similar policies.

[realusername]

Most people? Sure I agree. But you can't really deny the degrading statements online, I've seen very harsh words against them and surveys against discrimination in Québec are showing a growing feeling of discrimination.