Game over? New language law puts Quebec's video game industry at risk | Hacker News Reader

Game over? New language law puts Quebec's video game industry at risk

cbc.ca

29 pointsmyth_drannon28 comments

One part of the law stipulates that immigrants who have been in Quebec for six months or more will only be able to access most government services in French.

It's fascinating that Canada has such a reputation for being more progressive than their southern neighbors but I can't imagine any US state passing a law saying immigrants aren't allowed to access government services in Spanish. Cultural protection is brain cancer.

Quebec is it's own thing. It even has a different legal system than the rest of Canada.

How in practice does this work? Does the government website ask for proof of how long you've been in the province and then refuse to redirect to the English version of the site? What government services are so critical to a young workforce that this is such a deterrent? Are we talking healthcare and if so how exactly will this work - will doctors be required to speak French after verifying that the person's been in the province longer than 6 months?

That's the point. Quebec doesn't want to be Canada.

A better example would be if Texas had preserved its Native/Hispanic culture and resisted Anglo intrusion, and maintained pressure for independence.

Nah a better example would be… Louisiana if it had resisted “Anglo intrusion”.

> That's the point. Quebec doesn't want to be Canada.

Quebecer here. That's not true. Lots of people here do not want Quebec to leave Canada, nor want these laws. Sure, french language protection is important, but the currently elected regional gov is responsible for those laws, not the whole of Quebec. Trust me, a signifiant portion of the population dislike those laws too.

The independance movement is probably the weakest it's ever been in 50 years. If anything, this situation is like a perfect representation of that shift: instead of any grand national vision or message, we are relegated to passing bullshit pandering laws to stroke the ubiquitous québécois "slack-nationalism" and pretend we are still doing something(tm). Anything more political than that would be unimaginable in 2022 Québec.

The days of visionary superprojects, state building and grand leaders are long gone. So we circle back to panicking over store clerks saying bonjour/hi instead of... bonjour, and preserving french by refusing to provide important services to freshly arrived immigrants. That sure will help them integrate into the local culture!

Petit peuple indeed!

Never move to France :D

They often compare Canada to Europe and this is definitely another match.

There's nothing strange about accessing administrative services only in a country's (or state) language, that's how it's done in the overwhelming majority of places. I say that as someone who have been resident in foreign countries for half a decade. It's simply way too costly to translate everything in hundreds of languages.

Also from a social point of view, how someone who doesn't speak the language is supposed to integrate or blend into the host society? I've seen people with almost no or no Japanese skills for example living there for years, and while they seemed to be able to live their live, I wouldn't exchange our place for a second, as even basic proficiency is a total game changer.

Japan is probably an outliar in that respect. They may never integrate but does not necessarily mean they are totally unliveable without language proficiency.

Most road signs are accompanied by English, as with most of government documents. While people's reaction to non-Japanese speaking people may vary, many will try their best English to help you out.

To be honest it is difficult even with Japanese language skills for "foreigners" to fully integrate in Japanese society. It is not necessarily a bad thing as you can live without putting up with many of social expectations as Japanese.

The country's language isn't just French though. Yes, the province is French and I'm all for protecting the French language, but this particular law is pure pandering to the massive quebecois nationalist wing.

Your argument does not even make sense, considering that Québec managed to translate and provide services in English to those who need it for decades now. That law has just been passed so it's actually going to require more effort to suddenly put in place a policy that actively discriminates against immigrants than to just do nothing. Remember, this is not going to apply for "native" English quebecers or anglo-canadians. How is that more efficient, and how isn't that blatantly xenophobic?

Also, the irony here is that the RoC has to basically keep providing (or at least pretend to keep) services in both languages, and I as a French speaker can request services in French even in a completely anglo region of say, ontario and I'd be legally entitled to do so. At a federal and provincial level. But Québec should be allowed to blatantly refuse government services because we don't feel like it anymore?

We are trying to get our cake and eat it too here.

And it's not like this policy is even going to do anything. The key to preserve the language is to make sure the children are taught French, not force some poor middle aged immigrant parents to avoid interacting with their government because they can't learn a foreign language in 6 month. Again, this entire thing is pure pandering

> can request services in French even in a completely anglo region of say, ontario and I'd be legally entitled to do so. At a federal and provincial level.

Ontario and the feds could just vote similar laws.

My understanding is that anyone among the feds trying that would just lose their next elections but at the province level it seems doable.

That depends on how the Supreme court sees the situation. We don't have a very coherent constitutional framework so everything is very fuzzy.

I wouldn't be surprised if legault went as far as to use the non withstanding clause if it came to that (Québec did that in the past, and there would be almost 0 backlash since he'd be "standing for our language/standing against the anglo feds"). Actually that would probably be the best thing that could happen to Legault,and would make the nationalist pandering extremely effective.

That "implicit" threat is the reason why the qc government has been able to basically ignore charter rights when it comes to language. That's why for example, children with non anglocanadian parents cannot get an English education until college. Any attempt to strike that down judicially, even if successful, will just lead to invoking the clause and a surge of nationalist sentiment. Though that policy in particular is probably what saved french and kept it relevant, so its hard to argue against the results.

I wouldn't say that the same power dynamic applies to Ontario at all. Even if they were to pull back on bilinguism, they'd certainly get slapped in court and not push further. Because there's no real political capital to gain in invoking the clause for an issue like bilinguism in anglocanada.

It is strange when you're forcing it after a time limit. If a Chinese immigrant in Quebec visits a doctor that speaks Mandarin can the doctor speak to the patient in Mandarin after six months? With this law it's not really clear that this is allowed.

Why should someone have to struggle to understand a medical diagnosis in a foreign language when they can probably barely hold a basic conversation after six months?

> There's nothing strange about accessing administrative services only in a country's (or state) language

Canada's officially bilingual, and in every province they have to offer services in both languages. All banks and major institutions will also offer services in both languages, at least when reaching for customer support online/phone.

Now think about it: most of Canada has to offer French because of Quebec. But Quebec don't want to offer English?

Also consider that there is a separatist movement in Quebec.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement#Current_...> may expand your imagination a bit.

"It's fascinating that Canada has such a reputation for being more progressive than their southern neighbors"

CANADA is....Quebec isn't. It's Canada's Florida, just with crappier weather, and more cheese curds.

> but I can't imagine any US state passing a law saying immigrants aren't allowed to access government services in Spanish.

That would run afoul of a lot of state and federal laws that stipulates the government has an obligation to render services in an "accessible" way (including language-wise), and potentially the constitution itself.

I'm not sure Canada has precedents like that.

Yeah, Quebec is really extreme on many things. I know they wanna protect the language, but there's a lot of things that are just not available there (or restricted) because of different legislations that some services don't want to/can't deal with.

And I think the part you quoted is related to the immigration process, as in: when you immigrate to Canada, you either go through the regular program, in which you state that you don't wanna live in Quebec (at least it was like that a few years ago), or you go through Quebec's specific immigration process.

Of course, after you actually immigrate and are living here, there's nothing preventing you from moving from one province to another, so I guess that's why Quebec is doing this sh*t.

source: I immigrated 4 years ago and researched all options I had to come here.

This is self disruption. It is important to keep in mind that Montreal used to be the big economic power in Canada before Quebecoise nationalists started this and Toronto quickly picked up the slack and grew faster and surpassed Montreal.

Yes, but nationalists hate multi-lingual, multi-cultural Montreal and will be happy if it goes further down.

exactly. They put this hate above reason.

Does this mean that Ontario, BC, and company get to put English-first laws into place?

They can.

Unless Quebec's laws end up getting overturned by the Supreme Court, just like in the US, then yeah they could.

It's been attempted before [0].

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/richmond-sig...

The new religious and language laws violate their own constitution’s discrimination clauses and were passed with the notwithstanding clause already triggered. I thought language rights were not subject to notwithstanding and we’ll see how court challenges go. I have not paid close attention as my personal solution was leaving Quebec to minimize risk.

Good place if you’re fluent in French or single and willing to learn. Not so good otherwise.

> single and willing to learn

Do you say this because of the time commitment in learning french or because Montreal is a fun city to be single?

In a way, both. Odds are, if you settle down it will be with a francophone so there’s no problems with what schools kids can attend (if they appear). The problem with non-single, non-French is that the partner can’t easily work and any kids must attend French school.

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