A Rant From a Tete Carre

Having lived in Korea for a year, I became accustomed to being treated like I didn't quite belong. Whether it was the blond hair or the blue eyes that gave me away I'll never know, but it didn't take long for this treatment to get old. True, it bought me plenty of attention, discounts and over-the-top service, but there are days when you just want to blend in. Now in Montreal, surrounded by the French speaking majority, the same feeling of unease is setting in.

The developments of the reasonable accommodation hearings have become as common a topic as the weather, and slightly more heated. With PQ leader Pauline Maurois's recent proposal of a Quebec citizenship card, I feel ill at ease. This card would require new immigrants to sign a contract agreeing to conform to our culture and to learn French within three years. Apparently this ridiculous proposal has now been expanded to new arrivals from other parts of Canada.

Seven years in this province have shown me that no matter how fluent you are in French, if your last name is not Gagnon, Lefebvre or Levesque you will never be fully accepted. Despite having two Anglophone parents, I was lucky enough to be registered in a French immersion school. Having learned French at school, I never picked up on the joual (Québec slang). Some of my teachers were Québécois, others were French, resulting in an accent that was neither Anglo, Québécois or French. A little confused, one might say. Upon return to Montreal, I confused both the Régie de l'assurance santé (Health board) and the Société d'automobile (Automobile association) when I turned up and requested a Quebec drivers license and health care card. Speaking in French at the Régie de l'assurance santé, they were completely confused when I told them I needed to renew my health care care but had been gone for nineteen years. The women asked if I had been in France or Belgium. When I told her I had been in Alberta all this time, she was shocked. Such experiences have proven to me that my French is pretty good. I still try to challenge myself to improve it- my written French is far from perfect and I try to make an effort to push myself to learn more.

For every time I've been mistaken for a foreign francophone, there have also been times when someone has gone out of their way to point out that my French is different from theirs and I should be ashamed. Serving a large table in my days at the restaurant du Vieux-Port, one man turned to me and asked where I was from. Before I could answer, he said your accent is not quite québécois. I explained that I was born in Quebec, but raised in Alberta and learned French at school. "Ahhh, that's what it is! An Anglophone accent!" he said, both of us knowing full well that if he really thought I was Anglophone, there would not have been a need to ask. He knows full well what an Anglophone accent sounds like. Not to mention the fact that I was there a year and a half and the management always addressed me in French. A few weeks before I left, they heard me speaking English and it was only then that they realized I was English. The other day at school, I got really angry. I was sitting at the lunch table talking to the homeroom teacher whose class I had just taught. I was telling her how terribly our English class had gone and how her students had shown no respect for me whatsoever. After we finished ranting about her class, I asked her who was sitting beside her. I taught for three months at this school last year, so I know most of the teachers. But there was someone new sitting next to her. She introduced us and the woman asked if I was replacing the English teacher. I said yes and she announced that she knew I was English from my accent. I wanted to scream, "That's not how you knew I was English! You knew I was English because I've been sitting here talking about my terrible English class for ten minutes!" I shot the other English teacher a look and she was clearly holding back as well. An unwritten rule at this school prevents the English teachers from speaking in English in the lunchroom. Whether that is because of the school full of separatists working there (who are not anti-anglo, but anti-Canada), or because they feel uncomfortable not understanding what is being said, I've never been sure. What I am sure of is how frustrating it is to have someone speak to you so condescendingly about the quality of your second language when you know damn well that they couldn't get out ten words in English. Of course, such condescension is reserved for those Anglophones who do speak French very well. There would be no point in making such a comment to someone who does have a pronounced English accent, after all, they already know they sound English.

To those outside Quebec, these may sound like petty frustrations. I once thought so too. But the longer I spend here, the more disillusioned I become. The discussion about maintaining the French language is getting not only old, but ridiculous. Saku Koivu and the Montreal Canadiens were attacked this week for introducing the team in English at the home opener. Coming from Finland, Koivu's French is minimal and he was attacked, raising a debate about whether or not players for the Canadiens should be required to learn French to be on the team. How could he spend twelve years here and not speak French? Perhaps he was a bit busy overcoming cancer to attend his language lessons. While the rest of the world is struggling to learn English, Quebec is struggling to keep it out. They ignore the fact that the international language of business is English and the vast majority of their population is unemployable anywhere else in the country, if not the world. I am embarrassed for Quebec, determined to remain unilingual. It will be a rude awakening when they realize that the basis for the reasonable accomodation debates is a reality. The immigrant population will take over. They will take over the economy because they will be the only ones that can communicate with the outside world and understand the reality of the global economy. The more I think about it, the more I want to pack my bags and move to BC.