Frosh week like whatever

August 25, 2008
6 Myths about McGill and Concordia

So here you are. You’ve left New Jersey or Bangalore behind, came to Montreal, McGill and Concordia and you are now ready to explore your new home and indulge in your new life of freedom and very loose drinking laws.

During your stay in Québec you will be expected to ingest quite enormous quantities of cheese, fries, gravy, beer and bullshit about your new home, all of which could quite understandably make you sick to your stomach if you are not careful.

Lucky for you, you’ve found the AngryFrenchGuide, the voice of reason and truth about Québec who will help you see through the fog of dinsinformation and closet francophobia that you might come accross in the streets of Montreal.

To start you off, here are a few myths about McGill and Concordia universities that you should be weary of:

1. McGill is Montreal’s only world-class university.

Although it has often claimed to have more international students than any other university in Canada and even though half of those “international” students live only a few hours down highway 15/87 in the United States, McGill only managed to attract 400 more students on a visa than l’Université de Montréal (the big yellow building that kind of looks like a mosque on top of Mount-Royal).

In 2006 McGill had 5549 sinternational students while UdM, with it’s affiliated engineering and business schools, Polytechnique and HEC, had 5130. Every single one of those had to take an airplane to get here. Who’s world-class now?

2. Québec needs McGill and Concordia to attract young upwardly mobile students from abroad.

What is this? 1998? You guys need to get with the program.

According to the British Council, the demand for a Western English language education by international students is falling fast, especially in Asia. In 2005 4 out of 5 UK universities recorded a drop in foreign students, as sharp as 50% in the case of students from China.

Most countries in the World have adapted to the reality that English is the global language. People are learning English at home, now. They don’t need to come to Canada and the West anymore. The British Council’s conclusion: “The recent decline in international students studying in the main English-speaking countries is unlikely to reverse.”

The latest numbers from McGill tell us that although international admissions were stable this year, admissions from China, Japan, Mexico and Latin America all were down.

3. English is still the global language. There will always be a demand for an English education.

India’s outsourcing business is in crisis because it doesn’t have enough multilingual staff. They need German, Chinese and Spanish-speaking staff to get new lucrative markets. It started outsourcing the English-language business to more inexpensive places like Viet Nam, Guatemala and the State of Georgia (not the country, the US state). English is no longer a high value skill. Anyone can speak English.

The word on the street is multilinguism. You can’t graduate from Montreal’s French-language universities without a high proficiency in English. You can very easily spend four years at Concordia without learning a word of French, which makes you unemployable in Québec, and just another unilingual English-speaker in that big multilingual world out there. Maybe you can get work at that Indian call-center in Atlanta?

4. I’ve heard about you AFG, you’re one of those bitter separatists trying to wipe English out of Montreal.

There are exactly 744 430 English-speaking people in Québec, not even 10% of the population. Nevertheless Québec has three English-language universities that receive 27% of the government higher education funding, including 33% of the research budgets.

The rest of Canada has exactly ONE French university and it doesn’t have enough money to have a medical school.

You’re welcome.

5. Yeah, but Montreal’s English universities help offset the “brain drain” in Québec.

Actually, if it wasn’t for Montreal’s Anglo universities, Québec would be in a “brain gain” situation. 70% of English-speaking students leave after earning a Ph.D. Every year, wilst Québec is in the middle of a doctor shortage crisis, more than 50% of doctors trained by McGill leave the province.

Québec’s French universities can train more fluently English-speaking doctors and engineers than McGill and Concordia at a fraction of the cost. McGill and Concordia are just not good investments.

6. Fuck you AFG! English Montreal built McGill and Concordia and you separatists don’t have any business telling us who and what we should teach!

Actually, McGill and Concordia have received between a quarter and a third of all the higher education budgets of Québec for the last 40 years. They were built by the Québec people and belong to the Québec people. If the people of Québec decide they need Concordia to train people to work in Tagalog, that’s what Concordia’s should do.

So there you have it. French-speaking North Americans (3% of the continents population) are subsidizing the education of English-speaking North Americans (90% of the population). Pay attention in your PoliSci class when the teacher will describe neo-colonial systems. You just might hear things that sound like this post.

But it’s cool, don’t worry about it. You’ve got time. Take those four years, learn some French, explore the east, make some friends and join the good fight.

And remember, don’t go back home without having that poutine. It helps keep everything down.

Un système néo-colonial

J'en ai appris l'existence par La Presse de ce matin. Combien d'argent dépensé pour cette institution ennemie; combien pour leurs hôpitaux ?

Just over a week ago, as things seemed to be simmering in the wake of Hérouxville headlines, Parti Québecois leader Pauline Marois dropped Bill 195 into the National Assembly-a bill proposing that Quebec issue its own citizenship. Not to supersede Canadian citizenship, just to complement it in order to unify Francophones and Anglophones. To establish a clearly defined "we".

That and it would require all new Quebeckers to learn French within three years of immigration or suffer the consequences.

Quebec citizenship as described in Bill 195 would by its very nature create two tiers of Quebec immigrants. There would be the loyal patriotes, those who fell in line with Quebec language, culture and broader identity, and then there would be those who failed to assimilate. The former group would be entitled to full social benefits and respect, while the latter would be barred from holding public office at any level, raising funds for political parties or petitioning the National Assembly for redress of a grievance. PQ language critic Pierre Curzi stated recently in a radio interview with shock-jockey Gilles Proulx that a sovereign Quebec could and would strip unilingual Anglophones (specifically West Islanders) of their voting rights, but has since retracted his comments. In other countries, similar policies have also been known as "apartheid," but Marois (doubtless concerned with the term coming across as a little un-sexy) has gone with the name "identity act" instead.

But I'm not here to talk about neo-fascism. I've chosen to speak instead on the content of Bill 195. Clearly, this bill is geared towards assimilating foreign nationals into Quebec culture, but setting these kinds of standards and imposing consequences for failure to adhere to them does indeed beg the question: Would many Quebeckers even qualify for Quebec citizenship?

Foremost, citizenship would require Quebeckers to have solid working knowledge of French. Already the alarm bells are ringing. Though it's unclear how many Quebec adults are functionally illiterate, most surveys and studies place the figure between 20 and 25 per cent. This means that one of every four or five Quebeckers cannot read or write beyond an eighth grade level. Even for the lucky three-quarters, the language being spoken here is a distant, bastardized cousin of its European ancestor. Would Marois insist that immigrants learn local idioms such as "icitte" or "m'ah-te dire," use personal pronouns such as "moé" and "twoié," or refer to automobiles as "chars" or "minounes"? There are a few mentions in Bill 195 of revitalizing the promotion of strong spoken and written French in the Quebec curriculum, which would be commendable if it weren't for the fact that Pierre Elliott Trudeau has been touting the necessity of "re-learning French" since the late 1960s. But of course, Quebeckers took all that with a grain of salt because Trudeau was a traitor and a deserter.

There's also this stretch of Bill 195 (one of my personal favourites), about how Quebec citizens must pledge allegiance to the Quebec constitution, which doesn't exist yet, but will soon in order to free us from the shackles of the imperialistic Canadian Charter that has been keeping us down for a quarter-century. Interesting indeed, given that Quebec's provincial government has never recognized Canada's 1982 Constitution Act but still blissfully enjoys all the rights and freedoms it provides. So much for practicing what you preach.

Regarding Bill 195's provisions for the teaching of Quebec history and culture, I doubt the majority of native Quebeckers know in what year the Battle of the Plains of Abraham took place, where the first French settlement was located or who the first provincial premier was. As for Quebec culture, just read up on Céline Dion, Les Boys and Le Bonhomme Carnaval and you'll have all your bases covered.

Bill 101 has inadvertently cheated a generation of Francophone kids from a place in an increasingly globalized job market that values bilingualism and has little to no use for folks who can't speak their mother tongue properly. The sad truth, and what Marois fails to realize, is that Quebeckers need to fulfill the requirements of Bill 195 more than immigrants do.

Quebec's apartheid politics, Ben Lemieux, The McGill Tribune, 30 octobre 2007

L’université McGill pratique-t-elle la censure ?

— Je suis limogé.

— Pourquoi ? Quelle raison ont-ils donnée ?

— Aucune. Juste un appel officiel : « Vos services ne sont plus requis. » Je ne pourrai plus aller à l’école.

— Il doit y avoir une raison. Peut-être qu’ils te la diront. Va à l’école et demande.

— Je ne peux pas le faire. De toute façon, qui sait ce qu’ils ont dit de moi aux enfants ?

— Bizarre. N’aurais-tu pas une idée ? Quelque chose que tu aurais fait ou dit ?

— Je ne me suis pas bien entendu avec le personnel. Ils ne m’approuvent pas. Je ne suis pas toujours l’horaire ; et nous avons de la joie dans ma classe et ils ne l’apprécient pas.

Le dialogue est tiré du film de François Truffaut Fahrenheit 451 inspiré par le roman « dystopique » de Ray Bradbury. C’est le récit d’une société qui interdit la pensée originale et le livre ; tous les livres y sont brûlés systématiquement. Il n’est pas étonnant qu’un enseignant stimulant n’y trouve pas sa place. La scène qui suit le dialogue montre un délateur en train de jeter une dénonciation dans une boîte aux lettres réservée à ceux qui veulent trahir des amis et des voisins soupçonnés de posséder des livres.

Malheureusement, ce dialogue n’est plus un fruit d’imagination. Il décrit ce qui, en fait, est arrivé au Dr Norman Cornett de la faculté des sciences religieuses de l’université McGill, à Montréal, le 31 mai 2007. Après presque 15 ans d’enseignement dévoué, mais sans le bénéfice de la permanence, il est limogé par le doyen Barry Lévy, quelques minutes avant que ce dernier ne parte pour une année sabbatique. Les cours du Dr Cornett prévus pour les semestres d’été, d’automne et d’hiver sont annulés, et McGill demande qu’il vide son bureau et coupe tout contact avec l’université.

Il est évident que le Dr Cornett n’a rien d’un enseignant orthodoxe. Il provoque la pensée originale en impliquant les étudiants dans de vrais débats avec des vedettes du monde politique, universitaire, cinématographique, artistique et médical : les anciens premiers ministres Paul Martin et Lucien Bouchard, l’ambassadeur David Berger et le politicien conservateur Preston Manning, le rabbin Reuven Poupko et l’historien Gérard Bouchard ont défilé dans ses classes.

Les sessions de dialogue qu’organise le Dr Cornett exigent non seulement de l’objectivité et de la préparation, mais également beaucoup de travail de la part des étudiants, qui lisent des livres et des articles et soumettent au professeur des réponses écrites afin de pouvoir participer aux débats. De nombreux étudiants considèrent que le cours du Dr Cornett est le meilleur, et le plus exigeant, de tous ceux qu’ils ont suivi à McGill.

Les professeurs ne savent souvent pas comment enseignent leurs collègues : ils n’assistent pas à leurs cours et doivent se fier à des renseignements indirects. Or, cette fois-ci, nous le savons : nous avons tous participé au cours du Dr Cornett et l’avons observé en action.

La façon avec laquelle l’université McGill a traité le Dr Cornett est exceptionnelle et semble enfreindre ses propres règlements. Elle devrait avoir de bonnes raisons pour agir ainsi. Pourtant, l’administration universitaire maintient un silence absolu à l’égard de ce limogeage, ce qui ne fait que répandre des soupçons et des rumeurs quant à ses motivations.

Certains croient que le Dr Cornett a subi ce revers pour avoir encouragé des débats sur des sujets controversés tels que le refus de soldats israéliens de faire leur service dans les territoires occupés et la question de l’opposition juive au sionisme. D’autres disent qu’il s’agit de mécènes influents qui exigent le départ du Dr Cornett avant de reprendre leurs contributions à cette université. Il y a même des rumeurs selon lesquelles les administrateurs de McGill auraient envoyé des mouchards assister aux cours du Dr Cornett.

On soupçonne donc des restrictions de la liberté académique et un traitement inéquitable, ce qui fait de cette université respectable une scène pour le film Fahrenheit 451. Le quotidien The Gazette l’a évoqué dans un article paru le 2 juin dernier. Un groupe de cinéastes a publié une lettre ouverte le 15 juin où ils protestent contre le limogeage du Dr Cornett. Quelque 680 étudiants, professeurs et autres citoyens ont signé une pétition en ligne en faveur du Dr Cornett (www.petitiononline.com/RELG345/petition.html). Des collègues se mobilisent dans plusieurs universités du monde et semblent loin de vouloir abandonner le Dr Cornett à son sort.

L’université McGill a tout intérêt à expliquer les mesures exceptionnelles qu’elle a prises. Rappelons que les universités ne sont pas des corporations hiérarchiques où l’on peut faire obéir aux ordres en réduisant les employés au silence. Tôt ou tard, quelqu’un parmi nos collègues professeurs ou parmi les administrateurs lèvera le voile sur cette affaire et, en le faisant, causera un préjudice à la réputation de McGill.

Il se peut qu’il n’y ait aucun complot et que l’ancien doyen ait simplement ignoré les règlements sans consulter l’administration, ce qui ne serait pas étonnant à la veille de son départ. Il est dans l’intérêt évident de l’université McGill d’expliquer cet épisode étonnant ou bien de présenter ses excuses au Dr Cornett et de lui demander de reprendre son enseignement. Toutes les universités canadiennes ne peuvent que bénéficier d’une telle démarche de la part de McGill.

***

Yakov Rabkin, Historien à l’Université de Montréal

Peter Leuprecht, Directeur de l’Institut d’études internationales à l’Université du Québec à Montréal et ancien doyen de la faculté de droit à l’université McGill

Julius Grey, Avocat qui a souvent enseigné le droit public à l’université McGill

Gilles Bibeau, Anthropologue à l’Université de Montréal

L’université McGill pratique-t-elle la censure ?, Collectif, Le Devoir, mercredi 11 juillet 2007

La valeur de McGill University

Une salle de classe adjacente au bureau où je travaille sert pour des classes d'été, ici un programme d'études supérieures commun pour israéliens et palestiniens. Voici ce qu'ils ont pu apprendre sur notre belle patrie par la professeur:

-Les français qui viennent ici préfèrent parler en anglais tellement notre français est horrible. Elle même est 'techniquement' bilingue, ayant vécu toute sa vie ici, mais elle a appris "le vrai français" et ne peut converser avec les québécois (nommés 'them').

-la loi 101 est une aberration, et les 'francophones' n'en veulent pas.

-et j'en passe.

Les québécois n'existent pas à McGill, sont au pire une nuisance qui finira bien par disparaitre. Je me rappelle encore l'incrédulité d'une collègue (born and raised here, unable to speak french) quant à notre consommation de produits culturels québécois (you actually watch tv in french ?)


Sans trop de rapport, de la revue New Left Review, (2001), qu'on ne peut taxer de colonialiste, et pourtant:

The legacy of Groulx is now an extremely difficult one for Québécois nationalism. He was a very important figure for those now in their 60s and 70s, but younger generations care little for him, especially with recent controversies about the extent of his anti-Semitism.²¹ Jacques Parizeau’s infamous comment on the night of the 1995 referendum—that ‘money and the ethnic vote’ (sic) (an equation perhaps implicitly anti-Semitic (sic)) doomed the result—was widely and heatedly repudiated in the province, and Parizeau resigned as Premier the next day; but the lingering remnants of an earlier xenophobia continue to haunt Québécois nationalism.<sup>22

21</sup> This is detailed (sic) at excruciating length by Esther Delisle, The Traitor and the Jew: Anti-Semitism and Extremist Right-wing Nationalism in French Canada from 1929 to 1939, trans. Madeleine Hébert, Montreal and Toronto 1993. Mordecai Richler relied on Delisle’s research for his caustic remarks on the xenophobic quality of Québécois nationalism in Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!: Requiem for a Divided Country, Toronto 1992, which elicited considerable uproar. Richler’s opinions are widely shared in anglophone Quebec.

²² Most dramatically in the recent ‘affaire Michaud’ concerning a long-time PQ activist, Yves Michaud, who developed an unsavoury obsession with the opposition of Jewish voters to the PQ and its national project. The controversy contributed to the resignation of Lucien Bouchard, who had succeeded Parizeau as Premier, when it became apparent that many in the PQ resented the extraordinary steps the Premier took to condemn Michaud (sic).


Autre non-lien:

Delimax

On the evening of a bitter ice storm in downtown Montreal, a surivor of the holocaust incarcerates his French Canadian and her Nationalist boyfriend to teach them the meaning of persecution. The lesson goes awry.


Et du Macleans de mars: Le Deadbeat