It often seems people who demand equality really desire to
be more equal, as did the piggies in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. This occurred to me while driving through eastern
Canada. Leaving the no-longer-so-good U S of A (I’m in the apparent minority who
believe the “Party of Lincoln” has evolved into the “Party of Hitlerjungend”)
at Sault Ste. Marie, we headed toward Montreal. It had been many years since
I’d been to Ontario. I was quite surprised to find the Trans-Canada Highway was
still only a two-lane ribbon of asphalt (with regular passing lanes) though it
broadens near major municipalities. I quickly became aware the highway signage
was in English and French, which surprised me not at all.
At the turn of the last century, Canada created the territory
of Nunavut, essentially turning over political control of one-fifth of the
country’s land, a chunk of real estate larger than Alaska, to the indigenous
Inuit. A country that would do that would have no problem dictating road
signage be in French and English to satisfy the Quebecois, the Francophone
population.
What did surprise me was entering Quebec and finding all
English signage gone, something that would piss me off if I were a resident of
Ontario. More interesting, perhaps, was the denial or perhaps the neglect of
the province’s own history. Communities settled by the English and later taken
over by the French haven’t gone so far as to deface the English words carved
into the stone of public buildings, as the Copts did to Egyptian hieroglyphics,
at least as far up as they could reach without a ladder.
Some local historians aren’t so much revisionist as moronic.
How many century-old buildings have a history that reaches back to only 1937,
for instance? They do exist in southern Quebec. While this behavior doesn’t
reach the enormity of the destruction of the Buddahs of Bamiyan, I find it
reprehensible.
Of course, a sizable number of Quebec’s population want
secession and their own country, but the French tend to be better lovers than
fighters—it’s been a long time since Napoleon. One might argue the French won
WWII as a member of the allied forces, but that is stretching it. How many
French units stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day? Then again how many wars
has the US won since 1945? My guess is about the same number as the French have.
Maybe in the end Quebec will become an independent country
and designate French as the only official language, as does France and Monaco
in Europe, which will make Quebec one of fourteen countries to recognize French
as the only official language, joining several island nations such as Haiti and
Madagascar and a handful of African countries.
