Anglophone people in Quebec. How do you feel you are being?

Question

treated ? Overall ?
Curious...from a francophone living in an anglophone province.

Oh boy !!! THAT is bad alright !!

Answer 1

I was born in Montreal and lived there for my first 11 tears, but now live in Toronto .I go back from time to time and I see the respect going down hill .When you are outside of Montreal or Quebec , you are treated like second class citizens ,even in hotels. I guess they don't see that fighting for languege rights didn't work so well in Rwanda and Bosnia.

Answer 2

I frequent Montreal in the areas of Westmount, Lasalle, West Island, St. Laurent, and Downtown. I actually live north of the city (Laurentians).

Other than a few drunk idiots downtown that might yell at you if they hear you speaking English with friends, there has not been any major problems lately.

I remember one French guy a few years ago who was giving the poor guy at the Harvey's restaurant a hard time because he could not say cornichons instead of pickles. He held up the line and made a big stink about it when this was probably the only job this guy was able to get and he was working for minimum wage.

I hear that in the more rural regions (Lac St. Jean, Saguenay, Baie-Comeau, Sept-Iles) their is not as much need for knowledge of English, and so they "expect" you to speak French. You may see more language issues out there. Just look at the way the votes went in the last Quebec election.

The routine I usually encounter is that you "try" to speak French first, and then when they see you are having problems, they will resort to English (or broken English) and you both make yourselves understood halfway between the languages ;-)

Answer 3

I've worked in different areas in the province of Quebec in the last 10 years and the farther you got from the big centres the more likely it was that people would not speak english until they saw the colour of your money when visiting stores etc. I also found that there were two groups. Those who had experienced life outside their small community who would speak english and those who had not ever left their small worlds and were opposed to speaking english or even hearing it spoken. I did note that if I asked them to speak english or if they could speak english (in french) they were more receptive to the idea. I can speak a terrible version of French and I have no idea what they are saying back but if I made a small effort then so did they in many cases.

Answer 4

Well I skipped town (Montreal to Switzerland) almost six years ago, but it had nothing to do with my treatment as an anglophone.

My then-boyfriend and I were once yelled at for speaking English (just to each other) on St-Denis Street, but that incident was only memorable for its utter incongruity. When I go to a store, and especially when I worked in one, I usually assumed I should speak French, and if I had a hard time getting my point across, generally the other person would have no problem switching to English.

Answer 5

I lived and worked in rural Quebec for a year, and I will NEVER go back. My first day there I was refused service at a gas station and a grocery store. Full of hateful, bigoted scumbags. I was routinely pulled over and harrassed by those franco-trash pigs they call police for no other reason than having an out of province license plate. My car was vandalized, and I was attacked twice. The first time they beat the living sh*t out of me, so I bought a 12 inch hunting knife. Things went very differently the second time. By that time I decided that it was time to get the f*ck outta Dodge. I'm sure the entire province isn't like that, but that's how it was where I was, and it put a very bad taste in my mouth.

Answer 6

I hate to complain,but I will anyway. I'm a good little assimilator but at times I feel that the Quebecois think so very differently from the rest of Canada that it's a little hard to feel at home,even after 20 years. I am fairly fluent in French.
My hubby is totally bilingual AND grew up back east with an Anglo mom and a Quebecois father and he finds it hard to assimilate culturally. Most of his friends are pure laine but,for instance, their sense of humour is totally different.
I do feel though that most people treat me fairly well. No ones ever been out right mean.

Answer 7

How are you treated? Which province? I don't live in Canada but will visit Quebec one of these days. How will a tourist not speaking french be treated?