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Comment by abeille | Hacker News Reader

To put things into perspectives, let’s remember that anglophones in Québec, which represent about 10% of the population, have 3 universities, one of which is McGill, and have there theaters and artists, newspapers and tv shows. Many live in Montréal all there life without knowing a word of French, since it is possible to find almost everywhere someone that speaks English. By constrast, it is less and less easy to live only in French in Montréal, since it is not always possible to find someone that speaks French.

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The reality in Montréal is that most people are bilingual. Outside older folks, unilingual French speakers are much rarer than unilingual English speakers, which are structurally preserved via the institutions you described. For instance, English-only schooling from first grade to university is available to them, but not to French-speaking households or immigrants. IMHO, it's a disservice to this population. I've had colleague born in Québec deciding to leave because they felt insecure about their professional abilities in French

English is associated with money (historically from colonial forces, and now foreign capital). Montréal, the metropolis, is an island that was unified as a city. Rich English-speaking borough lobbied in 2006 to become independent entities to control their regulations, policies and taxes. This includes the West Island (Dorval, Pointe-Claire, Beaconsfield), and even the very central Westmount near McGill. Nowadays, poor neighborhoods and their french names are erased by condo promoters: Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve is HOMA, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce is NDG, Ville-Mont-Royal is TMR, Pointe-Saint-Charles/ Le Sud-Ouest is Griffin Town

ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boroughs_of_Montreal

> By constrast, it is less and less easy to live only in French in Montréal, since it is not always possible to find someone that speaks French.

Sorry you went to a restaurant in chinatown that didn't speak french. I hope you can recover safely from that experience. Meanwhile, this is the truth of living in Quebec as an allophone: https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/article505933.html

If you read the article you posted, she faced discrimination because she was indigenous. Nowhere in the article was the language she spoke ever mentioned. It’s pretty disingenuous to use this to push a political viewpoint.

She died because she didn't speak french and the staff laughed at her rather than try to communicate with her. If you think racism in Quebec doesn't have a connection with language, you are dangerously misinformed.

Did you actually read the article? Because I did.

The case was well reported in media and they basically all agree that it’s a symptom of systemic racism against Indigenous people in Canada. The hospital staff thought she was on welfare based on her ethnicity in this case, or straight out “bet” on the patient’s blood level in another case in BC the same year. She would have got the same treatment even if she spoke French.

> If you think racism in Quebec doesn’t have a connection with language

Where have I said this? Not everything is about the language though.

I am well read on this case.

> She would have got the same treatment even if she spoke French.

This is simply untrue and I would be happy to hear a source for your position. It happens to allophones and white presenting anglophones:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/anglophone-accuses-fre...

Feel free to have the last word. My last word is leaving Quebec and never coming back.

I mean, if you read the entire story and all the horrific incidents happening to Indigenous people across the country and still made it about yourself, not much I can say about it.

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