My intent is to create a debate! That's all. Who knows, I MAY be wrong! Show me where I am wrong and I will be eternally grateful!  But let me forewarn you, I have had literally hundreds, if not a thousand discussions on this particular subject, and NOBODY, but nobody has yet convinced me that I am wrong. In any democratic nation as soon as it can be proven that the law does discriminate in substantitive ways, it must be repealed or amended or something!  Because democracy as understood by all modern western democratic people cannot be discriminatory. All that is required is for US, the non-separatist people of Quebec, is to refuse to be labeled or stigmatized in this way!!!! We are Quebeckers!! Point final!

Remember always that:Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs,even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much: because they live in that grey twilight of mediocrity that knows neither victory nor defeat. The battle begins with terminolgy and language, and we can't afford to ignore it. However, I think that I prefer the french version of "Quebecker" i.e. "Quebecoeur" for its obvious connotations

Ok Ok !!  My stuff. Get comfy. A drink and a cig. And let it happen!!! Pleasssse!!!

Let me recount a short story about an observation I made some twenty years ago, when I first confronted the term "anglophone," printed in that stalwart defender of "anglophone rights," the Montreal Gazette! (The English Language Daily?) Amused, I commented to some friends that the separatist "project" was, at last, finished. They had just made a really big mistake! I believed that the term "anglophone" like the loathsome, derogatory, discriminator term nigger, used by ignorants to describe people of colour in the U.S.A.,and which was just then becoming "discriminatory language" in the U.S.A., would be judged much the same way by the majority of enlightened people in North America. The similarities in the terms are obvious. Both are labels imposed by one culture on another without consultation or consent.

Both labels led to a "caste system" in allegedly democratic nations.

Both labels were actually voluntarily employed in self-identification by the disadvantaged group. Actually the term anglophone meets the criteria for discriminatory language established by democratic societies around the world.

 The  media fallout from such a story (i.e. anglo=ethnic slur) would no doubt reveal to the world just what separatists really were, and the "culture" they represent! The ensuing debate would educate all Canadians as to exactly what these labels meant! All would be well. I was wrong!

 It never happened! There was no debate in the media!. The damage done to individuals, in Quebec, will become more and more apparent, as people on all sides have less and less to lose. I am sure the Gazette will continue with its own 'angle on anglos' and continue winning awards of excellence!

 Forget the Gazette, I said, and patiently waited.. No doubt someone would eventually point out the fact that stigmatizing of this sort is not acceptable!  I knew that people were to be "asked" what their names were, not told!

If Albertans belong in Alberta, and Nova Scotians in Nova Scotia, where do "Anglos" belong? Why do the same media people who refer to us here as "Anglos" call us "ex-Quebecker, the moment we hit the 401, and not "ex-Anglos"? Why is it the only time we hear our own names and the province we live in, in the same breath, are when we leave? Albeit, reconditioned, i.e., "EX-Quebecker."

Why were anglophones further subdivided into anglos' and allos'? The term "Anglophone," as used currently by the media, to describe the English -speaking people of Quebec, I find repugnant and insulting, ignorant and insensitive!  Neither my father, my family, my friends, nor my community ever told me I was an "anglophone". To them I was, what I remain today, an English - speaking -Quebecker, and we, Quebeckers, are Canadians. I am not an "anglophone." I am not a Québécois. I am a Quebecker. Or, if you want a "media friendly" French term, a "Quebeckeur." (Quebecoeur)

 Up until very recently, the English in Quebec, or English people anywhere for that matter, did not use this term "anglophone" to describe themselves, because the word simply did not exist in the English language.  This term "anglophone," a political word, comes into our language, not from the common people of Quebec, where, as is usual in civilized societies, through social interactions and mutual acceptance, such terms "find" their way into common parlance, but "springs" from a political body, which coined and applied, via discriminatory laws, to a community of hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers, without their consultation or consent, the stigma "Anglo."

 The subsequent acceptance and usage of this "political label" by a basically ignorant and cowardly English media, and consequently, a shocked English - speaking community, set in motion events which would irreparably damage and/or destroy the lives of some half million people, living in Quebec, Canada.

 The term "anglophone" denies English - speaking Quebeckers: Legitimacy as Quebeckers:  For thirty years the mind-set of "Anglos" has been one of an enfeebled, abandoned, betrayed, humiliated, fearful community of appeasers, thanks mostly to the efforts of the Quebec Liberal Party and the Montreal Gazette, along with the national press and lets not forget successive federal governments.

 But a new understanding of our misery is rapidly coalescing. We have seen the enemy and he is us. As long as we are anglophones, we can never be Quebeckers!  There are those who say that Anglos are paranoid. That there is no real threat to the Anglo community. To them I say"Three Hundred Thousand Gone!" And still counting. No, we are not "paranoid" in Quebec, the fear is real, the reasons for the fear are real. We are not "paranoid" in Quebec. We are "annoyed" in Quebec, and that new found emotion is in a very rapid state of flux.

 Convincing a "majority" of "Anglophones" (Fifty per cent plus one, sounds right) that they  are, in actual fact, "Quebeckers," seems to me, to be a reasonably obtainable, social/political objective. We "must" take back our "IDENTITY" We are Canadians in the world. We are Quebeckers in Canada.

 As the term anglophone, to best describe "English-Quebeckers," was conceived in the Franco-culture, and introduced into the English language by French-speaking separatists, just what are the more involved, subtle meanings of anglophone? Do "Les Peuples" collectively think anglophones are   benevolent, friendly, warm, compassionate, helpful, equal-status citizens in Quebec?  Are we the "give you the shirt off their backs" kind of folks? Are anglophones part of "nous" in the minds of its Quebecois? Do francophones   "like and respect" anglophones?

 No matter what they think of anglophones, or choose to call us, if we as English-Quebeckers adopt and use their term we have tacitly agreed with their definition, their understanding of us. If we accept and use their term we must, from their point of view, and rightly so, both understand and concur with them in their perceptions and evaluations of us, anglophones.

 When I am  referred to as an anglo you tell me that I am no longer an English-speaking Quebecker living in Canada! I am now an anglophone, a minority. I am now a part of a "labeled group" belonging in no specific Canadian province, but lucky enough to speak English and thus;free' to live, work, love, laugh, and be happy; anywhere across this great, expansive land of ours, from coast to coast. North to South. Anywhere. Anywhere at all. Anywhere but home. Anywhere but Quebec.