16:49 on 2012/06/20 Reply  

• ant6n 16:54 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  Are STM people allowed to not sell tickets to people if they don’t like the language that they speak – even if they understand them, and if they don’t have to speak that language themselves?

• Josh 16:58 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  ant6n: How would anyone know whether a particular STM employee understands another language or not?

  I think in general in HR (in Montreal and anywhere else), unless it’s in the job description that a particular position must be held by someone bilingual or with certain language competencies, you can’t oblige the person in that job to speak another language.

  In other words, you can’t really say that someone in a position that hasn’t been designated bilingual must speak another language *if they understand it*.

• Josh 17:13 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  Also I’m surprised at your stance in that last paragraph, Kate. The case could just as easily be made that it’s important to recognize one’s own hardheadedness when it starts to dawn that one might be cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

• ant6n 17:24 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  @Josh
  When you sell tickets, you don’t have to speak. You just have to sell a ticket. And it should be clear that somebody wants a ticket, even without understanding their words. If I give you a five at a ticket booth and say something in swahili, what do you think I want? So I wonder whether STM people are really allowed to be jerks to people, if they know exactly what people want, because of their own personal nationalist politics being allowed in the work place.

  In most places in the world, where one doesn’t understand the language, one will be able to buy a subway ticket by somehow muddling through, even if direct language communication isn’t established. But in Montreal that’s sometimes not possible, because some STM people refuse service if they hear anything resembling English. It’s pretty petty, and if you are new to the city, you’ll remember treatment like that for a long time.

  (People who work at a booth in metro stations should be required to have that lowest ability of English where they are able to sell tickets to tourists – the attitudes that some of these people display towards foreigners makes Montreal look unnecessarily bad)

• jeather 17:30 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  It looks like the tightening up means ‘Home Depot’ will have to call themselves ‘quincaillerie Home Depot’ and ‘Starbucks’ will have to be ‘cafe Starbucks’ etc, which strikes me as pretty much unobjectionable.

  (I have heard on fairly good authority that Target isn’t getting into Quebec yet because they are unable to come to an agreement about an appropriate name to use here.)

• Kate 17:41 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  I remember a little incident a few years ago. It was deep wintertime, quite late at night. I was taking the 144 bus from its terminus at Cabot Square up to the Plateau.

  An old man came to the bus door and asked the driver something about his route, but he spoke English. The driver spoke to him in French, which the man clearly didn’t understand. I was about to get up and try to help, when the driver snarled at the old man, slammed the door in his face, and gunned the bus up Atwater, leaving the old man standing there in the snow. I’m sure that showed him.

  Another anecdote: taking the 55 bus one evening from its terminus in Old Montreal, a couple got aboard – they were clearly young northern European tourists, speaking some English, no French, short of change and not clear about the process for buying tickets or paying fares. The driver, a woman, was surly with them in French and was just ordering them off the bus when I went over and gave them two tickets. (This was when there were still ticket strips.) I think the driver felt I’d unfairly short-circuited the lesson she was trying to give – which I had – but they looked so tired.

  Still, the use of the French language has to be enforced. You can’t go easy on tourists – they need to understand they have come to a francophone city. If they can’t figure out how to get around, too bad for them – they can go somewhere else. The STM could start by axing the English side of their website, for starters – talk about undermining the crusade.

  You have to see the logic here: if you make things cushy for English-language tourists, you’re also making them easy for anglophones who live here, as a side effect. That’s the beginning of a slippery slope.

• TiGuy 17:56 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  Kate, les anecdotes que vous relatez font état d’un comportement tout à fait inacceptable que l’on constate trop souvent parmi les chauffeurs et changeurs de la STM. C’est inacceptable et ça donne la fausse impression que les Montréalais sommes des abrutis intolérants. Quelle honte ! Et honte à vous de cautionner cette attitude.

• ant6n 17:58 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  From a European perspective, that doesn’t make any sense. We are living in a more globalizing world, and English is the lingua Franca. If you go to any Scandinavian country, or any Benelux country or Baltic country, do you think the the people there will say “only my local language!”? (note that a lot of these countries have much smaller language groups, and just by the numbers they should be much more in danger)

  But it’s not only that — it’s one thing to not want to speak English. It’s completely another to treat people like shit because they speak English – especially when you can never be sure where this English speaking person is from, or whether English it is even their first language. Treating people respectfully and attempting to help them even without ever saying something in English is not exactly making it ‘cushy’ for English speakers.

  A third dimension of the problem is that the language issue is never going to be resolved by treating each other like shit, and wanting to teach each other ‘lessons’. And newcomers who speak some English but are treated badly by French, how much desire do you think they will have to integrate into that majority with an apparent minority complex? (I’m not saying that’s the culture at large, but that’s the perception you’ll have after only a couple of bad incidents)

  (Incidentally, I could also remark a counter-anecdote of some old anglophone woman entering a bus and saying something, the bus driver replying. The only words that were loud enough for me to hear where when she then responded somewhat loudly and rudely “English, please!”, as if annoyed that the bus driver would dare speak to her in French.)

• Kate 18:08 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  I can also tell a different counter-example story about being on the 11 bus one time, and overhearing a bus driver giving quite detailed directions to some tourists in English to help them find their way around Mount Royal park.

  That raises kind of an interesting point: is the STM part of the city’s tourism kit? If it is, does the rule about French only actually make sense? Could it be relaxed in summertime, for example – at least allowing English announcements to be made from June till August? (The STM’s position, which I saw restated somewhere recently, is that strictly only crucial passenger safety instructions can be given in English – anything else, announcements of delays and so on, have to be French only.)

  Or is that another slippery slope?

• ant6n 18:15 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  The stm is absolutely part of the tourism kit – just look at the 747, and the flyer, and how you pay for it (8$ day pass if you don’t have a monthly pass). There are also tickets specifically targeted at tourists, like the 3 day pass.

• Ian 19:30 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  I agreee that the STM should be considered touristique and all that, but the unions will never allow a bilingual clause. The drivers and ticket takers know that they aren’t mandated for being nice to customers. Truth be told, I have seen many friendly, helpful STM workers, and many that are absolute shitbags. Essentially, they are a cross-section of our society – being bilingual and/or friendly is “c’est pas ma job”. To change this, however, is to confront a very powerful union.

• Jack 19:40 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  This story in Le Devoir is just a channel changer, the OQLF knows that is going to be zealously reminded by international trademark agreements that they can not legally do squat. As for our Columbian friend, he is about to find out what living in Montreal is like when you push the wrong language button, call your agent Miguel you are about to be moved.I truly hope I am wrong but what about tomorrows J de M do you think they might be framing this story right now?

• Marc 20:13 on 2012/06/20 Permalink

  I’m sure that this player will ask to be traded to another team and will be pleased as punch to never set foot here again.

• Faiz Imam 00:57 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  This situation also has a strong racial component. non french speaking visible minorities get more of this “french only” BS than white(looking) people.

  Celebrity conflicts like this should put much more light on the situation and foster discussion, though generally most do not take public transit. for example some mixture of an astronomical income and avoiding public crowds keeps pretty much all the habs out of public transit.

  But the Impact are a mixed bag. While somewhat famous(and growing) most players have a very low salary(Montano makes $44,000 and 13 out of 27 players make under $55,000)

  And many players of all salary levels have been seen taking the metro to games and practice, so I expect more of this to come.

• Faiz Imam 01:01 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  Also, the statement “Montano’s claims have not been independently confirmed by anyone else.”

  is not entirely accurate. His teammate Hassoun Camara(French national) was with him and corroborated the story. Why(or if) he didn’t interject and resolve the issue was not made clear in anything i’ve read.

• Kevin 07:30 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  Meanwhile in the south of France last week, I heard many people talking with tourists in English (a second language for most people involved) and spotted English signs, not just on shops, but actual billboards on the highway.

  I, of course, never uttered a word in English :P

  As for the STM, can we just fire all the fucktards who don’t realize they have to be nice to the public? And if we can’t, just take every action allowable within the constraints of the law so they quit.

• jeather 07:58 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  And when I was in France, I kept running into tourists from eastern Europe yelling “Speak English!” and a lot of . . . pushback.

• Michel 08:34 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  When (allegedly) refused the ticket, Montano dropped to the ground, clutching his ankle, screaming out in pain. A stretcher was called in, but he miraculously got better.

• Ephraim 08:49 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  Common courtesy. It seems to have run it’s course.

• Carrie 09:09 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  “You have to see the logic here: if you make things cushy for English-language tourists, you’re also making them easy for anglophones who live here, as a side effect. That’s the beginning of a slippery slope.” I cannot believe I just read that. Because being helpful, not to mention just decent, is simply out of the question in any other language but French here in Quebec.

• Kate 09:38 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  Michel: heh heh.

• Hamza 10:49 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  I hated the stm for not speaking english once but i’ve found they’ve slackened in that policy recently. This I surmise is because they were forced to stop being a purlaine-only cartel and opened up employment to the generation of immigrants raised under bill 101.

  [hai.]

• Hamza 10:53 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  I’m still only about 50% on my French but i’m taking classes this summer to become to finally get fluent. wanted to mention also that i attended westmount high (english-only) and learned nothing from my fifty minutes of french class four times a week. All my french i learned from making Francophone friends.

• Kate 11:24 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  Hamza, nobody learns any viable French here in English schools. I went to an English high school and our teachers were jokes:
  grade 8: nice Algerian woman, she would arrive in class, plunk down a pile of Tintin and Astérix books and let us read them while she read novels. I learned useful vocabulary words like sanglier, marmite and cervoise.
  grade 9: nice but weak Hungarian man – students used to play card games in the back of class, roll cigarettes and tease him more or less gently. I heard that later he came up against some meaner students and had a breakdown.
  grade 10: French teacher made me cry because I didn’t do well on a test.
  grade 11: had to quickly learn to conjugate a lot of verbs for the provincial exam. Passed. Couldn’t speak hardly a damn word in the street, but I got my credit.

  Only later, from living and working in Montreal as an adult, did I learn to actually speak the language around us.

• Kevin 11:36 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  @Kate @Hamza
  Oh, that’s seriously out of date. When I was in school in the ’80s French was being taught as if it was a dead language — excessive emphasis on verb conjugation and proper pronunciation that meant I couldn’t understand my next-door neighbour.

  Now the french teachers in English schools are actually from Quebec (at least, all I’ve come across) and they don’t worry so much about the language’s impossible spelling as much as they do communication.

  I can’t believe that people actually get by in this province with less than 4 hours a week in the other language (whichever it is).

• Robert H 14:40 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  Uh, Kevin…
  “…the language’s [French] impossible spelling…”

  I’m sure francophones have a wonderful time learning to pronounce English as flawlessly as they’re/there/their anglophone countrymen, not to mention all the ease with witch/which they learn to rite/right/write, nevermind, spell it. :-)

• Kevin 20:24 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  @Robert H
  English may be messy, but Is generally sensible. While French has adults compete in international spelling bees…

• mare 22:42 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  English is only sensible to native speakers.

  See also:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

• Kate 23:22 on 2012/06/21 Permalink

  English spelling is an inconsistent mess, but attempts to rationalize it are infinitely worse. Have a look at the second half of this page.

• Robert H 05:18 on 2012/06/22 Permalink

  Hah hah…TOUCHÉ!

• Jack 09:54 on 2012/06/22 Permalink

  @ Kate my Sec.4 French teacher learned his French in a Seminary in Brooklyn, beat that.

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