Well, it's not fair to write off a city or culture just because of one person. That person could've been from Toronto, or Texas, or Berlin, Shanghai, etc etc.

Yep.

My country speaks the language I was born to speak....oh, wait.....nevermind.

Isn't the ability to speak French a requirement for for 50% of immigrants to Canada? Or is that urban legend in the lower 50 states??

The foot long hot dog!

Freedom of speech,
Freedom to bear arms,
Freedom to practice religion,

just so, and we continue to do so
I got that without the smiley face or anything
It is because I am a conservative so I am smart instead of just acting like I am
we do
oooh, irony, is that on purpose or are you just naturally funny

Americans are the most generous people there are, that is what I am most proud of...

People are still willing to risk life and limb to come here, beacon of opportunity and freedom man. Our wines are at least as good as the French, beer and sausage as good as the Germans. See, we stole them. The US takes the best of everywhere and concentrates it in one place, though it concentrates a lot of the bad too, two edged sword

Wow, I've never heard that one before, but it's not even close to being true, in fact it's one of the dumber misconceptions I've heard come out of the US. How could you possibly enforce such a rule? Immigrants to Canada can (and do) speak whatever language they want to. The only language restrictions on immigrants is that those that immigrate to the province of Quebec must enroll their kids in a French school.

Of course not a rule what you need to speak in your day-to-day life - just a skill set that is a requirement for a certain percentage of immigrants.

Not that dumb a notion when you consider the legal wrangling over language up there..SmileWavy

I read something, somewhere....

There's no "legal wrangling" over language in Canada. There was in Quebec a number of years ago when bill 101 was brought in, but that was years ago. We've had 2 official languages since 1982, and that's that. There are cultural differences that are sometimes based on language, but that's a completely different ballgame.

To immigrate as a skilled worker or professional, you need a "knowledge" of English or French, but there's no quota as to which you need to know.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/index.asp

edit: note: this is for immigrants, not refugees - big difference.

So you're claiming I'm all that because I asked your socialist buddy "Then why aren't you living there?[Germany]"

Ya know, the best part of Freedom of Speech is, the sensitive idiots make themselves known with ease. :)

From the same web-site. I was not that far off the mark:

"Quebec-selected skilled workers: Who can apply The Government of Canada and the Quebec government have an agreement that allows Quebec to select immigrants who best meet its immigration needs.

Under the Canada-Quebec Accord on Immigration, Quebec establishes its own immigration requirements and selects immigrants who will adapt well to living in Quebec.

If you want to come to Canada as a Quebec-selected skilled worker, you must first apply to the Quebec government for a certificate of selection (Certificat de sélection du Québec), the official document that shows that the Government of Quebec has accepted you for immigration to its province. Visit the website of the Quebec ministry that handles immigration for more information on how to obtain a certificate. You will find a link in the Related Links section at the bottom of this page.

Quebec-selected skilled workers are not assessed on the six selection factors of the Federal Skilled Workers Program."

I doubt this program was set up to boost the number of native Cantonese, Urdu and Swahilli speakers!:D

Agreed with the first bit. There is no legal wrangling over language in Canada. It is officially a bilingual country.

Of course relatively few people actually speak French. The last statistic I read put this at about 12 per cent - but I could be wrong. More people in Canada actually speak a dialect from China or India - than speak French.

Although a professional immigrant must in theory have some knowledge of English or French, there are two problems with this. First, the minimum language requirement is really very low. Second, most immigrants today come not as professionals but as (a) relatives of existing immigrants or (b) so called investors. For these two categories the even very minimal language requirements are largely ignored.

For those American interested in this - there is a fundamental distinction between Canadian and US immigration policy. US policy has always had 'assimilation' as its goal. That the immigrant actually "becomes" American in some existential way. This has never been the goal in Canada. Canadian immigration policy has always recognized immigrant communities as being distinct. Buzzwords like "vertical mosaic" and "patchwork quilt communities" were coined to describe the Canadian approach, and while this served Canada very well for quite some time - the flaws in the Canadian approach are increasingly apparent as certain ethnic communities keep growing and become increasingly insular and unwilling to behave as Canadians are "expected" to behave. This will become an increasingly sensitive topic in parts of Canada with large immigrant communities in future.

Sorry for the thread hi-jack.

....That, and it makes the truly farking a-holes really obvious. ;-)

Yup...and the majority of people from Quebec speak both language...They have to...because there's not a lot of thing you can do in Canada (and ROW) if you don't speak English...

I live here...Montreal...And the peoples you talking about is a minority...a BIG minority...

I used to work for the largest employer in Quebec and spent a lot of time in Montreal. Have to agree with Syl here that very few people there are like this.

My French is very limited but have never had a problem in Montreal or even Quebec City because of this. Its a lot worse in many parts of Miami if you cannot speak Spanish.

Jeeze I didn't mean for my comments about Quebec to derail this thread. But while it's derailed.... Joe you should come up for the Montreal GP!

Gaijan, there's no doubt that reading between the lines of that paints a picture that they'd like you to speak french, but there's no 50% rule or anything like that, especially for the rest of the country. Sorry if I'm getting my back up a bit - common American misconceptions about Canada drive a lot of us nuts.

Syl, there's no doubt that it's a very small minority. The English-French tension is only one of the reasons I left, though it did leave a sour taste in my mouth. Try getting health care in Montreal with an Ontario health card. While I understand that health care is provincially administered, it's a federal right under the Charter, and all Canadians are entitled to it, no matter where they are in the country. The only place in the entire city that wouldn't clam right up as soon as they saw my Ontario health card was the McGill health unit and Mtl Jewish General. All the CLSC and other hospitals turned us away, even when offered cash. What really pissed me off were the few people that suddenly pretended they didn't speak English, just to get us to leave.

Definitely the opportunity to do what you actually studied in school and make money. I have some really smart friends in other countries who can't even find work unless they settle for something they don't really want to do. If luck = being prepared for the opportunity, well, I'm certainly lucky. I guess all of us are.

OK, I'm with you there. The whole quebec bureaucracy is very skewed, even in Montreal. I had an aweful time with health care when I lived there too. And just recently, I had to deal with the SAAQ (Quebec DMV) to get an $800 tax refund for my mercedes I bought there. Was supposed to take 2-6 weeks, took 5 months. You just can't deal with them in English. They simply refuse, they will transfer you over and over, often mid-sentence. Theprovincial gov't service for anglos is really appalling. I think it's Quebec's way of punishing the Montreal Anglos.