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Nearly two decades into the 21st Century, it has become clear the world has limited resources and the last area of expansion is the oceans.

Ah, the exclusivity of our times — surely, nothing like this has ever happened before. Except around Newfoundland:

After the War of American Independence the new United States demanded, as part of the peace settlement, continuation of the fishing rights they had enjoyed in North Atlantic waters as British colonies. Great Britain at the end of the War was not in a position to resist American demands and the Treaty of Versailles in 1783 accorded United States inhabitants equal rights with British subjects to fish in the waters of British North America, including Newfoundland.

Unfortunately, Canada is just as bad. This would be especially true if you were a US citizen. They claim to go through "great pains to anonymize domestic communications" (which is likely not true) making all foreign (ie. US) communications fair game.

Canada will also never refuse an extradition request to the US, or any of it's allies. A special circumstance is made for "political refugees" but I'd be completely surprised if some bullshit trumped up terrorism charges couldn't override that.

So, US companies need to look elsewhere to harbor their data. And I say this as a somewhat less-proud Canadian citizen than I was a decade ago.

While I do agree that some of the Quebec language laws are a bit over the top and end up having stupid results, I feel like I must correct and question assertions made in your post in the following paragraph:

And if people in government has what is deemed an inadequate level of french, the government pays for one-on-one french lessons INSTEAD of for doing your job, and instead of for french classes with other people learning it or instead of for a government billet in a french-speaking area where you can learn the language through immersion.

Living in Ottawa, I have several government working friends who have been provided with government funded French language education (and paid for doing so), and none of them have had the privilege of one-on-one lessons: they all attended group-based French language classes, and they were required to pass in order to continue on in their roles.

I don't see how this is much different than your employer investing in job training, and I'm not opposed to it. Furthermore, the vast majority of this occurs in the Ottawa area, I'd suspect, and as most of the population here speaks French, you'd be hard pressed to find a much more immersive environment.

If anyone here is interested, here's an article written up about Quebec and their language laws: The Language Laws of Quebec

There was a time in Quebec, pre-1960's, when the Catholic church ran things, leading eventually to the province's "dark ages" under Maurice Duplessis. What followed, the quiet revolution, was a complete rejection of the church's authority.

The original poster was correct - the federal gov't (the poster refers to Canada - not US) doesn't have the right under the constitution to force provincial governments to charge any form of sales tax.

Federal governments hold power over local governments by making it worth their while.
"Gee, local-government-A, you sure like that education grant, don't ya?"
"Yes, it's great for getting the citizens to be well educated and productive in life."
"That's great. By the way, we want you to teach creationism alongside evolution in your classrooms."
"You can't make us."
"I guess you're right. I guess we'd better leave. Oh, and, let's pick up those grants on the way out..."
"No, wait, I think we could find a compromise..."

Won't ever happen in Canada. Where a province doesn't want to participate in a federal program, they can "opt out" and take the cash. http://www2.marianopolis.edu/quebechistory/reading s/opting.htm

Opting out can take two forms:

1. . a province can assume responsibility for financing and administering a program which in the other parts of Canada would be carried out by the federal government; to assure that the contracting-out province or its citizens are not financially penalised, the federal government pays to that province compensating sums of money either directly or through tax abatements; or
2. . a province may receive a fiscal compensation instead of the federal contribution to a program through a conditional grant arrangement.

Most of [Canada] is [bilingual]. Except Quebec. There is only one official language there: French.

They can pull these shenanigans because they did not sign our constitution.

>I won't try to argue about the language police. If you break the law and don't want to pay the small fine, then too bad.

So, even though the laws are totally unethical, because the results of breaking them aren't too serious (in your opinion), it doesn't matter?

What if we were to fine people $50 for practicing Falun Gong in public? That'd be ok because the fine is petty, right?

>It's hard for a canadian or american to understand

Bingo. I always knew people from Quebec didn't believe themselves to be Canadian.

You know what? I just hope to hell the BQ gets this separation over with. When you are forced to learn English because Canada and the US (your ONLY local trading partners) won't speak French, you'll understand the word "co-operation". Your province, and the BQ, have been reminded on serveral occasions, that Quebec would be unable to sustain it's first world status without trade with the rest of the world (especially Canada and the US).

>We're a province whose the official language is French, but we're lost in a sea of english speaking people.

You don't even realise how insulting that is, do you?

How about this one, for Germany:

"We're a country where the official race is Aryan, but we're lost in a sea of Jews"

Good Lord.

>Also, don't bring the Bloc into it, beside being a seperatist, its a left group that many people, english people, outside Quebec would vote for if they had candidates outside Quebec and dropped the seperatist part.

Why shouldn't I? About 85% of your people support the Bloc (I'm too lazy to do the math, look up the provincial numbers at Elections Canada yourself -- they're probably higher). The Bloc's objective is to remove Quebec from Canada at any cost. The numbers are official.

>We could say the same of the Prairies, who voted about 80%+ Conservative. Should we hate them too because they don't vote Liberals?

Does the Conservative party want to separate the Praries from Canada? Do they force people to speak languages they don't choose too? Are they going to voilate the very foundation of the country, it's Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

Hell no.

>You see, people gather in communities.

Hitler called them "ghettos". Use the right terms. [I really don't give a shit about Godwin at this point -- You're using the EXACT type of terminology you'd find in "Mein Kampf"]

>We, the french speaking people living in a greater english Canada, band together and try to defend our common interests, whatever they are, because we believe some of the laws and politics are not for our best interests.

WHAT LAWS AND POLITICS? WTF? What the hell laws are preventing a French person from celebrating their language and culture outside of Quebec?

The fact you are a Xenophobic race of people is saddening, and is the very reason your culture cannot survive. If you aren't willing to spread out and teach through example why the Quebecois culture is so very valid, then nobody will ever understand. If you continue to make your province one where anyone from outside that wishes to revel in it's culture cannot without feeling like an outsider, nobody will understand.

It's up to YOUR province to make the first step. We've left the door WIDE OPEN.

>Then, english people living among us band together in small english communities for exactly the same motives.

They're AFRAID of you! Or have you forgotten the FLQ?

Here are the conditions that the ruling authorities must fulfil in order to save the life of the representative of the ancient racist and colonialist British system.

>You cannot say, without being biased, that it's different.

WTF? Within the lifetimes of most people using slashdot, representatives of YOUR culture KIDNAPPED, KILLED, AND

The attack was against individuals, the government is only involved as a means to that end. This is a case of government using over-broad legislation to hack together charges against someone where older statute would do (but maybe not set as big of an example). This is a great illustration of the danger in bad law, bad administrators of the law, and the erosion of freedoms in the name of national security... except there is no national security issue here, only the erosion of freedoms.

Canadians have lived with this fear for some time thanks to the War Measures Act, especially after Pierre Idiot Trudeau's invocation in the 1970s in response to Quebec separatist terrorism:

Although strong, the provisions of the War Measures' Act are necessary to meet a crisis such as war. Evidently, a democratic state must be able to take all necessary steps to protect itself and to act quickly under crisis situations. Such was the argument made by Pierre Trudeau during the October Crisis of 1970. However, the Act allows for invocation of these strong measures even in times of peace, in particular when there would be an "apprehended" insurrection. In this instance, there is clearly a need for reform as the invocation of such measures can easily lead to clear violations of our most basic freedoms and rights as was shown in several instances in Canadian history