BetterMost Community Blogs > My "Great White North"
The English Canadian Olympics
Sheriff Roland:
They're a week late and only angry by half, but the 'Olympic Network' is finally talking about the gaff of the Opening Ceremony ...
Opening ceremony reignites bilingualism debate
http://www.ctvolympics.ca/news-centre/newsid=47481.html
Games CEO John Furlong, an Anglophone, faced personal criticism for his almost-totally English speech at the Opening Ceremony and has defended the Games' bilingualism.
...
French is both an official language of Canada and the Olympic Games, but there was only one French song performed, and certainly international viewers with little knowledge of Canada could be forgiven for thinking Aboriginal culture dwarfs French culture in this country.
...
Adele Mercier, a professor of philosophy specializing in language at Queen's University, says that the Opening Ceremony did an excellent and "respectful" job at highlighting the diversity of Canada. However, she says it made a significant misstep by treating French as "just another subculture" and not as one of Canada's founding nations.
"As a representation of the ideals of Canada, I thought it was great," Mercier told CTV.ca in an interview. "I think the problem is that the French were treated . . . as just another subculture that Canada has, that we are all happily tolerating.
"This is irksome for official and historical reasons...It strikes a chord among French Canada because French Canadians have a historical memory...the first colonists' approach to French Canadians was to try to assimilate us and this was almost as good a representation of the fact that it has succeeded."
Promises of improving the french content for the Closing Ceremonies won't repair the damage done. As a francophone born, raise and living my entire life outside of the province Québec, I feel I have been ignored, a voice just pissing in the wind. Unless Québec reacts, apparently I'm just an old dotting fool.
Sheriff Roland:
I understand that this is just a reader's comment, but it's worth sharing:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Speak+both+languages/2584718/story.html
Speak both languages
"If the Olympics had been in Quebec City and this had been the case, I doubt very much that these critics would have been as accepting of the dominance of one official language over the other official language."
Imagine the furour if the CEO of the "Québec" Olympics had used as little english as the Vancouver Game's CEO used french.
And the outrage of having experienced a single anglo song at the Opening Ceremony where about a dozen numbers were performed ... and just tagging it as the last song before the end of the show.
I don't usually listen to talk radio, but my favourite radio station (AM740) has a two hour phone in talk show 5 days a week. On the first Monday after the Opening Ceremony, callers were actually complaining that there had been to much French at the Games.
Disgusting ...
Sheriff Roland:
And from Calgary ... another reader's comment ...
C'est la vie
http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/C'est+la+vie/2591118/story.html
I have to think that the official languages commissioner wasting money to investigate the lack of French in the opening ceremony is one of those things that makes anglophone Canadians furious about what Quebec deems fair. There was a whole song in French. If that is not enough French content (along with one of two official languages being French) then what is? This is Vancouver's Games. Not Montreal's.
Is there any wonder that I don't stop reacting?
oilgun:
--- Quote from: Sheriff Roland on February 21, 2010, 08:37:30 am ---And from Calgary ... another reader's comment ...
C'est la vie
http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/C'est+la+vie/2591118/story.html
I have to think that the official languages commissioner wasting money to investigate the lack of French in the opening ceremony is one of those things that makes anglophone Canadians furious about what Quebec deems fair. There was a whole song in French. If that is not enough French content (along with one of two official languages being French) then what is? This is Vancouver's Games. Not Montreal's.
Is there any wonder that I don't stop reacting?
--- End quote ---
The Calgary Herald of course. Is it any wonder we view Albertans as rednecks?
And there I thought the Games were Canada's. But then, considering how badly received they are internationally, Vancouver can have them.
There was a poll on MSN asking if the amount of French at the Olympics is Not enough, Just Right or Too Much! (Exclamation point included). You can just imagine which choice was ahead by an overwhelming margin. I can't find the poll now, they probably dropped it out of embarrassment.
oilgun:
Even conservative columnist Lysiane Gagnon was offended:
The big snub tarnishes Quebec gold
Many Quebeckers watched the Olympic opening ceremonies with pride. And then they realized they weren't invited to the party
Two things are missing from the Winter Games: snow (a useful ingredient for winter sports) and French (the other language of an officially bilingual country).
No one expected Vancouver, where French is far less spoken than, say, Mandarin, Punjabi or even Tagalog, to put on a bilingual face. But the city and local organizers of the Games made a tremendous effort to accommodate French speakers. Quebec reporters were happily surprised to be greeted in French at the airport.
“I don't remember another Olympics where French was as prominent,” wrote La Presse columnist Pierre Foglia. “The biographies of the athletes, the schedule of the events and explanations about them, everything is in excellent French. In fact, at the two sites [I went to], we've had more French than English.”
It went wrong with the opening ceremonies, which were a blatant insult to francophones – the first people of Canada of European origin whose descendants still form a quarter of the Canadian population. As Prime Minister Stephen Harper likes to say, Canada as we know it was born in French.
The Vancouver Organizing Committee, which had more than six years to prepare for the Games, subcontracted the conception of the opening ceremonies to an Australian artistic director. And no one at VANOC seemed to notice that the show virtually excluded any reference to Canada's French culture, even though VANOC had been criticized a year ago for having mounted a basically unilingual event to mark the beginning of the countdown to the Games.
Continues: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-big-snub-tarnishes-quebec-gold/article1475096/
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