Re: [A-List] Dave Zirin on Tookie Williams/Robin Philpot compares EC/Québec aboriginal policy

["Jim Yarker" <sjy_estrien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby@xxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: The A-List <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: The A-List <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [A-List] Dave Zirin on Tookie Williams/Robin Philpot compares
> EC/Québec aboriginal policy
> Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 17:14:12 -0500

most of the baloney you post here is a variation on previous straw dog-type
arguments, "positions" you pull out of your wazoo and then "assign" to me,
etc, and which I've refuted here:
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2005w42/msg00035.htm

However, a few odds and ends:

> Where Jim gets the idea that a lawyer who stands up for the Kanien'keháka
> people's right of self-determination is *opposing* sovereignty would be
> very hard to understand,

Not if you're functionally literate in English, in which case it would be
abundantly clear that I meant the analysis was hostile to Québec acceding to
sovereignty/independence from Canada.

> These nations still have far less power than any given province, and
> accoridng to the law, that's the current status of Québec.

And so the Stainsby answer, perversely, is to support arguments to
constitutionally straitjacket Québec - along *any* hypothetical territory -
into staying in the Canadian state, which bears the overwhelming
preponderance of historical and current responsibility for the plight of
First Nations.  Yeah, good one.  In any case, not as an "endorsement" from
me but rather by way of illustrating that the situation is sometimes a bit
more complicated than your stilted presentation suggests, especially in
territorial terms:
http://www.vigile.net/ds-societe/docs2/02-10-19-mg-cris.html

> Local by-laws can be passed regarding traffic through to language use
> (unless Québec, as Coon Come points out, wishes to force French upon them),

I thought you stooped pretty low with your bigoted assumption that the
Mailloux affair was somehow a profound reflection on the Québec independence
movement and "national pyche," but dredging up a favourite bigoted canard,
worthy of a demagogic 3rd rate English Canadian talkradio crank, about the
"forcing" of French on non-francophones in Québec is plumbing the same kind
of depths.  I wondered if maybe I'd hit you too hard over the Mailloux shit
but now I see I choked up too much on the bat.  Let's get down to cases here
Macdonald Stainsby and if you have to put a neopreme stamp on your forehead
to remind you of this every morning then allez-y.  Aboriginal language
communities in Québec are *exempt* from Bill 101, La chartre de la langue
française.  Capiche?  And aboriginal people in the province who have lost
their indigenous language and become anglophones - typically through
*Canada's* state-abetted language attrition policies like failing to provide
schooling in the aboriginal language in question, or schooling children from
Rupert's Land or the Mohawk nation in English for example - also have access
to the English language schooling system and can qualify for full exemption
from Bill 101.  What about non-aboriginal Québec anglophones born in Québec?
They can attend public English language schools and have always been able
to, even when public schooling in French was effectively banned in several
English Canadian provinces, and they have their own free-standing
schoolboards, something long denied francophones in Canada outside Québec.

What about Canadian anglophones outside Québec who come to Québec?  They too
have access to public education in English, including access to an
historically and ethnically privileged and proportionately much better
financed anglophone university system, such as the one settler Stainsby
attends.


> The double standards Jim speaks of have no bounds. I mention that Bombarier
> and SNC Lavalin are Québecois corporations, and I am told by the arbiter of
> who is and isn't a "real Québecker"

No you were told that Québec's business class, incl said corporations,
oppose sovereignty, and that Charest doesn't stand for nothing but is an
important representative of a powerful federalist and corporate elite here.
And btw, if Canada's helping Uncle Sam effect regime change in Haiti, a
country whose languages are French and a French-based Creole, the
instrumentality of favouring "n"go's and corporations with strong
francophone personnel is obvious.  Just as, hypothetically, if Canada were
to effect regime change in Jamaica, whose languages are English and an
English-based Creole, the instrumentality of "English" "n"go's and
corporations would be.  Using this as part of some overarching argument that
Québec independence from Canada is reactionary is as dumb as using the
Mailloux shit.  And btw, Bombardier is a publicly traded corporation (on the
*Toronto* bourse) which is "owned" by shitloads of people, and a huge
recepient of federal welfare.

> > Re: the north of Québec only came under Québec's administration in 1963.
> > That's the Quiet Revolution Era Philpot refers to.  Québec began public
> > instruction in Inuktituk 10 years before it began anywhere else in Canada.
> >  A study in the 80's found a more than 90% retention rate of household
> > indigenous language use among Québec Inuit, and less than 40% among
> > Labrador Inuit.
>
> Jim is right about the presevation of traditional language here, however
> that has less to do with the policies of Québec than it does the fact that
> they are surrounded by French on the ground and English over the radio (in
> part) and when in Québec, there is a large tendency to maintain traditional
> languages because it is the only one that is truly a lowest common
> denominator.

Well we can read Macdonald Stainsby or we can read the author of the study,
Jean-Philippe Chartrand of Carleton University ("Survival and Adaptation of
the Inuit Ethnic Identity") who noted that not only was Inuktituk faring
better in Québec than in Labrador but it was faring better in Québec than in
the rest of Canada altogether, where Inuktituk was on the decline.  Use of
Inuktituk progressed in Québec b/w 1971 and 1981 while it declined
*everywhere else*, and *the author* of the study concluded that among the
reasons for this was the fact that Québec began public instruction in
Inuktituk in the *1960's* viz. the Quiet Revolution period, just like
Philpot said, and thus 10 yrs before the rest of Canada.  But he's got a
French sounding name so maybe he's just another settler state stooge.  And
studies as late as 2003 I believe still found this, comparing even Nunavut
to Nunavik (the latter being set up as an administrative entity long before
Nunavut was).  Similar political and institutional explanations have been
offered for why the Cri language is faring better in Québec than elsewhere,
namely, the institution of supported formal and public education in the
language.  See Billy Diamond (former Cri grand chief) on the Cri school
boards, on the setting up of the Cri language commission in Québec, etc.
Diamond, btw, didn't hesitate to name René Lévesque as Québec's finest
leader in his estimation, didn't hide his affection for him.  (See
L'Actualité, « Je suis un Cribécois », sometime in '99 or '00 I think - I'm
going from memory).

The idea of English-oriented Natives hearing English radio and walled in by
Francophones as a factor in language preservation wouldn't explain the
results of the study comparing Ontario and Québec in various respects.  The
Ontario reserves were, in general, more remote, which would favour
indigenous language retention *if there was institutional support for it.*
Take for example the Innu regions of Québec (Saguenay and Côte-Nord) where
in fact the European lingua franca of the aboriginal communities is French,
not English.  These are francophone aboriginals, not the historically more
anglophone Cri and Inuit.  Why wouldn't readily available French media be
causing language attrition and francisation?  But the Betsiamite community
showed 98% rate of household indigenous language retention.  Maliotenam
showed 93%.  There was an almost 2-fold difference in retention rates
separating the Québec and Ontario results.

Instead of saying Philpot presents the situation of First Nations in Québec
as a "success story" - which he doesn't - you should read him first.