Eldergays, tell me about when Montréal was the preeminent Canadian city

I'm curious to hear some accounts on this subject....

The 1996 referendum really put an end to the era of Montreal as *the* Canadian city. The fear of what would happen should Quebec become a country sent everyone running for the hills. There is still such anger from the French over the idea that *gasp* people have the right to speak English. That's why there's "language police" running around targeting English businesses.

Was there more harmony in the 50s to the 80s?

Bump

Ugh. Buffalo on the St Lawrence.

It was tres chic

Before the 1960s, Montreal was a very conservative, very Catholic city. A couple of politicians tried to bring the province of Quebec and the city of Montreal into the 20th century. The high point was Expo '67.

However, Quebec nationalism brought a stop to that progress. Anglophone businesses and professionals fled Quebec -- and Montreal in particular -- for the confines of English speaking Ontario and Toronto

Montreal is a shit hole covers with cheese curds and gravy. Toronto is THE city of Canada

Beaucoup des gars est gaies et salope!

R6

Toronto sucks and the whole country knows it.

Voulez vous couchez avec moi, ce soir?

Vachon cakes!

English speakers who lived there make it sound like nirvana. They hated learning another language. Toronto was probably a stuffy shit hole even, then.

I went to France and the language sounded so beautiful. Then on SiriusXM I listened to the Canadian French speaking stations. It sounded awful even sort of trashy. I know it's a different type of French with English influences but still. Can someone out there explain to me what I was hearing?

I lived there in 67 and 68 starting when I was 4. I still remember living on the Plateau. Things got dicey for anglos in 68, and my parents stopped going to Montreal even thought they mainly spoke French.. In fact, most of my family moved back to Moncton looking for work after 68.. I remember my dad telling me the economy crashed in Montreal in the late 60s and early 70s. I remember mailboxes blowing up and being afraid of them. The FLQ are to blame for destroying Montreal as a world class city. When my dad was dying in 2007, I watched a lot of Quebec films with him. Gaz Bar Blues and C.R.A.Z.Y. were ones I didn’t expect him to like, but he loved them. C.R.A.Z.Y. reminds me of my extended family.

R12 - it’s Québécois. Or Joual. I’m proud the fucking Parisians can’t understand me. I listen to hockey in French on Sirius Influence Franco. It’s awesome.

Remember when Mordecai Richler compared Canadian cities to rooms in a house? All I can recall is that Montréal would be the salon, Toronto the home office, Vancouver the kids' playroom, and Edmonton the boiler room.

(Edmontonians were less than delighted.)

I had the most interesting conversation with a guy at an old folks' home last weekend. He was the mayor of a NY town on the PQ border in the late 70s to mid 80s. Around the time of the sovereignty referendum, he said there was a large concern about people crossing the border into his town with extremely large sums of cash stuffed into bags, suitcases, and in one case he mentioned, "a trailer full of cash and coins" pulled up to a bank. I'm guessing customs rules were more lax then.

I thought Montreal was Canada's premier city until the first separatist provincial government was elected in the 1970s (Rene Levesque of the Parti Quebec). Big corporations were worried that they might be stranded in an independent Quebec so they started relocating their headquarters to Toronto. But maybe the separatist movement was prominent even earlier eg. Charles de Gaulle's "Vive le Quebec libre" speech.

I thought I heard one CBC broadcaster, probably a baby boomer, say that he went to high school in Montreal but now class reunions are held in Toronto because so many of his former classmates have relocated there.

And they lost their ball team!

Montréal has never been the same since the Great Lesbian Exodus of 2007. Circular saws and tablecloths left to rust. Truly a tragedy.

Montreal was amazing before it turned into a racist and bigoted shithole. They hate Anglophones. You won't even get offered services in English, they just refuse to answer you. Fuck that shithole. I'd much rather take "boring" Toronto, at least that city is welcoming to Anglophones. The language police truly was the downfall of Montreal. No wonder why most English speakers fled the city.

People who love Montreal = French Canadian or Not Canadian. It's made out of concrete and feces.

Lived in Montreal for 25 years. Beautiful city but in the end the weather, the language police and separatist movement wore me down. It was a relief to leave.

Still the best strippers!

probably "amazing" for English speakers. Given that they went to Toronto--the dullest place imaginable doen't say much for what they brought to the table besides money.

Is the "language police" thing still happening?

The Language Police is still a thing in la belle province. Last year they actually fought an Italian restaurant over their use of the word PASTA.

BUMP

It was never a chic historical city. It's the same bland urban center with sprawling squares that most North American cities are.

I grew up in Upstate NY and we would go to Montreal or Toronto to experience a real city. I thought Montreal in the 70's was really cool, way better than Toronto. We stayed at the Queen Elizabeth and went to underground malls. I was very young so what did I know?

I think they simply call the QE the Fairmont now.

That sort of stuff turns me off going.

I was there recently and people would either start speaking in English or easily switch when it was evident I did not speak English.

Seems like some Montreal v Toronto dispute being played out here.

[Quote]You won't even get offered services in English, they just refuse to answer you.

Well, in the rest of Canada, and also the United States, you must know English (or sometimes Spanish) to get services. The Quebecois want to apply that same standard for the French language in Quebec.

Hey R20, I'll bet you were amazing before you turned into a racist and bigoted shitheel. God forbid you would be expected to say a word en francais lest you self-destruct. The scales have been adjusted since the days when you could expect reflexive deference from francophones. With your mentality, I should expect to move to Toronto to live whilst speaking French exclusively. Why not? It's so cosmopolitan, n'est-ce pas? I love Richler's metaphor: Montreal remains the salon, and the most pleasant room in the house called Canada.

Which room in the house that is Canada has the best WiFi?

[quote]Well, in the rest of Canada, and also the United States, you must know English (or sometimes Spanish) to get services. The Quebecois want to apply that same standard for the French language in Quebec.

It's more comparable to Wisconsin demanding everyone speak German.

[quote]With your mentality, I should expect to move to Toronto to live whilst speaking French exclusively. Why not? It's so cosmopolitan, n'est-ce pas?

Honey, you absolutely CAN move to Quebec and speak French (or Urdu, Arabic, Cantonese) and receive French language services there. But you can't just speak whatever language you want in Quebec.

And it's becoming increasingly clear that when they say they only want French speakers, that's a dog-whistle way of saying 'No Brown Folk'.

When I was studying French in Montreal during the early 2000s, one of my teachers explained that the French language law was necessary, otherwise, the francophone youth would start to speak English over French, and the immigrants would never even bother learning French. She believed that the law was the only way to ensure the survival of the French language in Quebec, and also have it be as respected as English is.

I personally feel that Quebec, or Montreal at least, should follow the Amsterdam model - have its citizens become bilingual to compete with the English-speaking economy, and continue speaking French when English isn't necessary. Despite their bilingualism, the Dutch haven't abandoned their native language at all.

It used to be a cosmopolitan city - the Beaver Club (a restaurant/supper club) in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, now a Fairmont, was considered one of the best places to eat in Canada - a reputation it retained for years. The English speakers had the money, the French had the numbers. When PQ when Francophone, the province got hollowed out by the Anglophone exodus.

Now it's increasingly a shithole where the locals can speak their own language to each other in an echo chamber because no one else in Canada pays much attention to them. Quebec runs it's own "mini embassies" in 28 cities around the world but seemed not to understand (or perhaps by now they do and that's why they've dialed back the separatist rhetoric...) that if push came to shove and the Quebecois left Canada, other countries would have to choose whether they wanted to do business with [italic]la Belle Province[/italic] or the rest of Canada. Something tells me it wouldn't be with Quebec where they don't want to talk to them unless they speak French.

"When PQ WENT Francophone"

A lot of brown people speak French

Yet the government in Quebec wants to cut immigration -- not simply ask immigrants to speak French.

[quote] I love Richler's metaphor: Montreal remains the salon, and the most pleasant room in the house called Canada.

Ancient history. No longer true.

[quote]the Beaver Club (a restaurant/supper club) in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel... was considered one of the best places to eat in Canada

Sounds like my kind of joint.

It's the best city in Canada

It's definitely the best city in Canada. If it were only a question of money, it would be Toronto. If it were only a question of beauty (and relatively mild weather) it would be Vancouver. But any assessment of the city's charm gets caught up in the hard feelings and heresay that have accrued in the back and forth between Francophones and Anglophones. It's the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. culture wars between liberals and conservatives. You'd think to read some of the posting here that Montreal is a hotbed of ethnic strife riven by non-stop tension. That is not the city I know. I first arrived as a student at McGill in the 1980s and I've been returning a few times a year since then. Most people are friendly and mellow. As a tourist, you won't need French to get along, but your attempt to speak at least a bit of it will be appreciated as opposed to the haughty dismissal you might encounter in Paris or the Cote D'Azur. In my experience, the second they sense you are struggling, they will switch to English. The populace is pragmatic and francophones and especially younger bilingual anglophones generally get along. Quebecois like Americans and their american culture and dollars. But it you intend to live there, I'd highly recommend learning French and also gaining some Quebecois cultural literacy (i.e., watch the TV shows and movies, listen to the songs, learn some of the history, read the french language press and literature). You shouldn't expect to move to the only jurisdiction on the North American continent with a francophone majority, then complain about how oppressed and rejected you are when you can't be bothered to learn the local lingua-franca.

R46 "You shouldn't expect to move to the only jurisdiction on the North American continent with a francophone majority, then complain about how oppressed and rejected you are when you can't be bothered to learn the local lingua-franca."

I think most people find this problem doesn't arise much - not many non-Canadian people move there and the province attempts to decrease the number of immigrants admitted yearly. As for other Canadians moving there? [italic]Non[/italic]. Net out-migration every year; year-in and year-out. That, and a birthrate below replacement levels spells trouble:

Interprovincial migration in Quebec

Years In-migrants Out-migrants Net migration

2007 / 2008 20,102 31,784 -11,682

2008 / 2009 20,307 27,726 -7,419

2009 / 2010 21,048 24,306 -3,258

2010 / 2011 19,884 24,647 -4,763

2011 / 2012 20,179 27,094 -6,915

2012 / 2013 16,879 27,310 -10,431

2013 / 2014 16,536 30,848 -14,312

2014 / 2015 16,611 32,753 -16,142

2015 / 2016 19,259 30,377 -11,118

2016 / 2017 22,007 32,766 -10,759

[quote]"You shouldn't expect to move to the only jurisdiction on the North American continent with a francophone majority, then complain about how oppressed and rejected you are when you can't be bothered to learn the local lingua-franca."

Quebec actually used to be bilingual. Until the French speakers ethnically cleansed the English ones out.

Both Ontario and Quebec have the worst provincial governments in Canada.

Quebec has the most right-wing subdivisional legislature in North America.

Le drama!

Nadia in Montréal, 1976: