Old55
Oh, I almost forgot.  Have a good one.  

I've got a good one, but I think it ran away from home since I wasn't letting it out enough...

bitflipper
Random thoughts on Canada, from a lower-48 perspective...
 
Quebec is a major market for my software, something I can only pull off with the help of a Montreal-based company we partner with. But keeping up with their demands requires effort disproportionate to the size of the customer base. I can't even escape it here. They keep sending me more translation requests via email, each marked "Urgent". It's often something quite trivial, where the difference between the English and French spelling is a single trailing character, nothing to impede a user's understanding of the message.
 
In any other country in the world, save perhaps France, software users are content with English prompts. In the 80's I attempted to enlist help for a German translation of the software I was working on back then. My German counterparts in Frankfurt said it wasn't worth the bother, that nobody cared.
 
It should be noted that eastern, central and western Canada have quite distinct personalities, just as those regions do in the U.S. Saskatchewan reminds me of Alaska, a place where "characters" are not only tolerated but expected. Alberta is home to rugged individualists, a lot like its neighbor Montana. Also has a similar number of alcoholics. But most of my time in Canada has been spent in B.C., which might as well be a suburb of Seattle, such are the similarities. B.C. doesn't feel like a foreign country. Texas does. Alabama does. Sometimes, even Southern California does. Boston, most definitely. But B.C. feels like home. At least, as long as I don't attempt to follow local politics.
 
Curiously, packaging and signage are required to be in both English and French, and in the same font size. Even when the English and French words are the same! Odd, because if there is an unofficial second language in B.C. it's Chinese, not French. And when I go to Quebec, I notice that the same requirements don't seem to be enforced there. They don't even use international signs consistently, such as the circle with a bar to indicate "do not enter". Don't ask me how I found that one out.
 
My friend JP (Jean-Paul, natch) explained some of the curious dichotomy that is Quebec. Apparently, long ago the city of Montreal was divided into English- and French-speaking sectors, lines that represented socioeconomic delineation that were not to be crossed. The English section had the nicest homes, the wealthiest families. If you were a French-speaker chances were an English-speaker was your boss or owned the company you worked for. A lot of class resentment built up, and over time the English-speakers began to migrate away from Montreal, replaced by newly upwardly-mobile French-speakers. They've been gradually taking over the city ever since. Or re-taking it, depending on your perspective. But they still have a chip on their collective shoulder.
 
Today it's a schizophrenic city. If you greet someone with "good morning" they effortlessly switch to English - at least within the service industries I deal with. But even if English is a prerequisite for employment, say in a hotel, an emploer faces a fine if you don't offer an employment application in French. JP says some agitators actually apply for jobs they have no interest in, just so they can turn the companies in if they're handed an English form.
 
My experience has been that the French-speakers are much more tolerant once they find out I'm American, and not one of those snobs from the other side of town. Unlike most of the rest of the world beyond North America, where I tell them I'm Canadian.

That's an extremely interesting series of random thoughts, Bit!
 
 
I'm quite happy to be able to discuss that and hear other people's views on the subject. As I said, there's no way I can have a rational discussion with people back home. Out here in the US, understandably, it's a topic for a restricted audience. The best discussions I've had were with touring musicians form the US and with the man who rents us the house, who's from BC. We have dinner with them every time they come to Vegas. Lovely people from BC.
 
I remember not that long ago a friend of ours in Quebec wanted to buy the Office suite in english. Now, back there, in order to offer something that's in English, you need to provide the French alternative first. Seems harmless enough, until you realize that not only do you need to offer a the French version in its own separate box, but the English DVD must be bilingual English + French.
 
Officially, you cannot sell something in Quebec that is English only - or English/Spanish or whatever. And that doesn't mean a simple language option in the program itself - the box, the DVD, the manual... Everything must be in French too. Officially. It's not always enforced, though in the case of Office, we've seen supplies suddenly going Out of Stock never to be available again.
 
What it means, as Bit pointed out, is that manufacturers need to create a version of their product that is adapted to Quebec only. Because, where else are you going to sell English/French versions? For any US based company, the obvious option is English/Spanish. As a result, some products may not be available or not as widely available.
 
One thing that lots of people, even Canadians and Quebecers, don't quite grasp - Canada as a whole is bilingual, but the only OFFICIAL language in Quebec is French, as per the Official Language Act of 1974. Meaning that English is no more the "official second language" than Cantonese or Klingon.
 
How other provinces and the Canadian government decide to treat the French minorities in the rest of the country, I couldn't tell. Quebecers tend to be obsessed with their own history and identity, and to act like drama queens.
 
For exemple, on June 24th, French speaking Canadians all across the country used to celebrate La St. Jean Baptiste. But when nationalism started taking over, Quebecers declared that the province's national holiday was on June 24th, to coincide with that. I know quite a few French speaking Canadians who didn't quite forgive us for bogarting the holiday and making it all about Quebec.
 
Your observations about class resentment are 100% accurate. That stigmata runs very deep. Quebecers are a lot like those people who think that being offended means that you're right. They lost their war, so they painted themselves as the humble, good guys who fell victims of the bad guys, so that now, they can be proud because they've been oppressed.
 
They're obsessed with their roots and the fact that their ancestors survived - conveniently ignoring that every nation on the planet "survived", that most of them conquered and was conquered in the past - and the fact that they took this land off the hands of the natives. They talk of their "culture" as if in a few hundred years, their contribution had reached the level of the Greeks' or the Germans'.
 
It ain't pretty.

craigb

Rain
Quebecers are a lot like those people who think that being offended means that you're right. They lost their war, so they painted themselves as the humble, good guys who fell victims of the bad guys, so that now, they can be proud because they've been oppressed.

 
Sounds French to me! 
 

I've recently come to realize that Quebecers and French have a lot more than I (or they) thought in common.
 
But, see, we Quebecers hate French too - we tend to think of ourselves as simpler, more down to earth and honest people. More real and better, humble decent people with a good heart. 
 
That being said, we don't only hate French people - we also hate Brits, Canadians, Americans and even internally - people from Quebec hate people from Montreal, but both agree that the rest of the province consists of dumb peasants.
 
I say we, but you get my drift...

My friend JP actually emigrated to Quebec from France. He said even he's sometimes treated like an unwelcome alien, but I also sense a smidgin of snootiness in his attitude, too. Like when he explains the "proper" way to form a phrase versus how they say it Quebec. Sadly, if I were to release my product in France, I'd have to make a separate language translation, as they'd scoff at my French-Canadian translations.
 
Meanwhile, 99% of my users who don't speak English as their primary language speak either Spanish or Tagalog at home. None of them are emailing me daily to complain that some obscure SQL Server error message is in English. (Actually, most of those messages require a second level of translation anyway, from the native geekspeak.)
 
Rain, maybe you can explain why many of my contacts in Montreal who do speak English do so in an unintelligible accent. We rely on email for communication because I can't understand them, although I'm generally pretty good deciphering thick accents (English is my wife's third language, many of my tech buddies are Taiwanese, and in a pinch I can even speak some Texan.) I have other contacts in Montreal who speak American English so well you'd never know they were French-Canadian if not for the fact that their names cannot be typed on my keyboard.

I had another cringe moment today - this one was truly pathetic and I'm not even sure why I cringed but I did. I was on the bus and someone's cellphone rang. The ringtone was Vivaldi's "Spring" from the Four Seasons. A minute or so later, as I was thinking of something else, I absent mindedly began to whistle the same tune. I have no idea why that was slightly embarrassing but somehow it was. 

craigb

sharke
I had another cringe moment today - this one was truly pathetic and I'm not even sure why I cringed but I did. I was on the bus and someone's cellphone rang. The ringtone was Vivaldi's "Spring" from the Four Seasons. A minute or so later, as I was thinking of something else, I absent mindedly began to whistle the same tune. I have no idea why that was slightly embarrassing but somehow it was. 

It would have been far worse if their ring tone sucked and you still started whistling it.  (I love Vivaldi's Four Seasons!)

I think I did the same thing years ago with the stock Nokia ringtone. Yes it was far worse. 

Great whistler, but if you watch that with the volume muted he looks like he's having the worst case of gas evah!