Talk:Jacques Parizeau

Contents

1 Dubious Items 1.1 Education of Parizeau's children 2 Debates 2.1 Prime Minister or Premier? 3 Premier ministre de l'Alberta=

Dubious Items

Education of Parizeau's children

This sentence was deleted without any reason stated. I thought it would be best placed here:

Parizeau used his wealth to educate his children in private schools, bypassing the restrictions of Bill 101.

Is this true? I have no idea. handisnak 04:22, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I have removed the phrase "used his wealth". This seems self-evident: one cannot pay for private schools with charm and eloquence. [And Mr. "Money and the Ethnic Vote" certainly couldn't pay with charm.] Inserting a reference to wealth here seems to be POV and unnecessary. Ground Zero 13:10, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

This sentence was added by now hard banned user DW/Angelique who kept adding all kinds of really biased opinions on all Quebec-related articles. As far as I know, Parizeau had his children educated in a French language private school. Also, going to French language public school does not prevent learning English as a second language (I am the proof of that). The thing about going around Bill 101 makes no sense. I suggest we remove it completely as it goes against the NPOV policy. -- Mathieugp 15:30, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is a hard call. The provenance of the comment argues in favour of removing it. But it would be better to have some evidence that they were educated in a French-language school as the basis for removing it than to remove it because we don't like the person who put it in. If it is true that he sent his children to an English-laguage private school, then it is a relelvant comment because it seems to be hypocritical: "I won't let you put your kids in English education because you're poor, but I have money for private schools so I'm going to." I think the best way to resolve this is to find out whther Angelique's statement is true or not. Ground Zero 15:56, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Vigile.net (http://www.vigile.net/ds-langue/docs/02-3-12-np.html) has a National Post editorial that says:

Both Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard, the two most-recent past premiers of Quebec, sent their children to pricey English-instruction private schools. But what of less affluent parents?

So, until we can find something to contradict that, we should let it stand. Ground Zero 16:07, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Debates

Prime Minister or Premier?

This comment is mostly directed at Liberlogos:

I don't feel it's appropriate to call Quebec premiers 'prime ministers' in English, simply because this is not accepted usage. I have never seen any major news organization (e.g. CBC, the Globe and Mail, CTV, the Montreal Gazette) use 'prime minister' to refer to the Quebec premier.

Even the English version of the Quebec Government website (http://www.gouv.qc.ca/Index_en.html) gives 'Premier' as the translation of 'premier ministre'.

If you wish to support your usage, please provide some references. Thanks. --Saforrest 02:09, Jun 30, 2004 (UTC)

I've done a more exhaustive search of the Quebec government site, and the one instance of 'Prime Minister' with Jean Charest I could find was the title of this biography (http://www.premier.gouv.qc.ca/general/biographie/biographie_en.htm). However, since he is referred to as 'Premier' in the biography text, I strongly suspect that the title was just a accidental translation of 'premier ministre' as 'prime minister'. --Saforrest 02:20, Jun 30, 2004 (UTC)

Click this link to see one of the many instances where Priminister of Quebec is written on www.gouv.qc.ca:

Google advanced search - gouv.qc.ca - Prime Minister of Quebec (http://www.google.ca/search?as_q=prime+minister+of+quebec&num=10&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&btnG=Recherche+Google&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=gouv.qc.ca)

There are 441 results. The official language of Quebec is French and the Québec State (l'État Québécois) and Administration uses vocabulary that is often closer to the French and American terms rather than British terms. For this reason, you will see "Prime Minister" as the translation of Premier Ministre, but I do not believe there is an actual policy on this. That is what we would need to find out to know what the official term should be. For now, I believe that it is not clear and it appears it depends on the government in power. Probably, the term "Prime Minister of Quebec" started appearing during the 1960s state modernization. -- Mathieugp 05:16, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree that official policy should settle the matter, and it does not appear such policy exists. With a little more Google searching, I see it is apparently more common to refer to the Quebec premier as a 'prime minister' than I had thought. I suspect this usage is somewhat associated with a sovereigntist position, was encouraged by the PQ alongside their frequent habit of naming things 'National ...', and was also played down when the Charest Liberals came to office. (This CBC article (http://www.tv.cbc.ca/newsinreview/feb99/quebec/intro.htm) supports this interpretation.) This explains why there appear to be many more instances of 'Prime Minister Bernard Landry' than 'Prime Minister Jean Charest'.

I still prefer 'Premier' as it avoids any federal/provincial confusion, but I'm willing to acknowledge that either is correct. --Saforrest 17:18, Jun 30, 2004 (UTC)

Golly, a comment "mostly directed" at me! What an honor. :P As one can see, "I" am not alone to believe this term is arguably applicable. On this subject, first of all, I would like to thank Mathieugp; most of what I would have liked to say was said by him, and maybe better than I would have. I believe that, in the Canadian system, to which Quebec is indeed subject, the use of premier is colloquial. In fact, First Minister is also applicable to all heads of government. Since Quebecers tend to have this tendency of speaking that peculiar language called French, it can be difficult to find out what the heck is exactly their view on the use of an English term. Adding to the examples brought above, I would like to point out that, in the ONF (Quebec's National Film Board) documentary Le Mouton Noir, Jacques Godbout (not especially known for being a hardliner) presents his interview with Robert Bourassa by speaking of a friend he met in Collège Brébeuf and tells that He is our Prime Minister. So, indeed, I believe premier is unfairly diminishing for this function, but I can acknowledge its legitimate use, and as I stand to say that Prime Minister is as much or more legitimate. Thanks. --Liberlogos 21:46, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Whether it is legitimate in some sense or not is not the deciding factor. First, we have to have a uniform style on Wikipedia. Premier is the dominant expression already on Wikpedia, so we should stick with it unless there are other issues, such as NPOV, at stake.

Second, when there are two competing styles, the current local usage should be the one Wikpedia uses. The expression prime minister of Quebec is instinctively known to be the wrong idiom by the English-speaking minority in Quebec. When the English media in Quebec and anglophone Quebeckers start to favour prime minister, then Wikipedia should make the switch. Wikipedia, to be NPOV, must be on the trailing edge of such transitions, not on the leading edge of a non-existent trend.

It's a fact that the English-speaking minority in Quebec (media included) has a strong bias against expressions, such as prime minister of Quebec, that convey Quebec's distinguising traits... so basing Wikipedia on their methods or style is basing Wikipedia on a very strong POV. Like Liberlogos states below, let the real and widespread local usage (not the colonialist usage) be the deciding factor on this issue. Tremblay 14:44, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As for Jacques Godbout (I must confess that I do not know his work, so please correct me if I'm wrong) I assume English is his second language. It is not uncommon for second language speakers to make this kind of mistake of idiom.--Indefatigable 22:11, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Godbout is a fluently bilingual. Another movie of his, Traître ou Patriote, has him speak a perfect english with journalist Josh Freed. I do suggest you get to know his interesting work. Bernard Landry insisted on that term. And they're not the only ones. I'm not saying you're totally wrong, I'm listening to you and I'm happy we're discussing this, but I'm giving some information about the other side of the medal. About the importance of the local use... Well, I couldn't agree more. I hope some Canadians do think of that next time they say terms like separatist, french-canadian, province or other utterly obsolete, even prone to be insulting terms for Quebec (french-canadian has been dead and berried for four decades, to the satisfaction of most of us, let it rest in peace). But I don't see why the english-speaking compatriots of Quebec should be the only legitimate representatives of the local use. It still sounds, you know, a little colonialist to think that. I don't know if I'd give sole representation of a culture to the protestants of Ulster about Ireland, to the Arabs of Jerusalem about the Jewish people, to the pied-noir about Algeria... I'd think the same for Canada and its Quebec dispora: I'd listen to the majority also before judging what is legitimate. Finally, I do agree that Wikipedia should not push non-existent practise. At the same time, I'm not convinced 441 occurences in an official source is akin to non-existence. I'd like to hear Mathieugp's opinion, another major contributor to this page and pages of related subjects. --Liberlogos 04:20, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Although it is not a local use, I would like to add this example. While in Britain, Bernard Landry was reffered by the press as Prime Minister. An angry Canadian Briton wrote a letter to one of the newspapers about it. The newspaper stated something similar to what I wrote in my first post: they understood the use of Premier as a *custom* of Canadians and their use of Prime Minister was not partisan for Quebec sovereignty. I also don't think the existence of two terms for one function should necessarily command the suppression of one in Wikipedia. In a text, the President of the United States of America will be given his full representative name first, and this will throughout the text, for the benefit of the prose and its readability, be alternated with President, President of the United States, Commander in Chief, the Chief of State, Leader of the Nation, the American President, etc. In the same way, I thought that the proper standard could be to use the Prime Minister designation (with a link to the page of the function, where the names are addressed) in the heading description and alter with Premier and other terms throughout the text. --Liberlogos 15:32, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the info on Jacques Gobout. The articles here on his documentaries have intrigued me (thank you for your major work on the articles), and I do intend to see them if I ever get the chance. Nevertheless I still maintain that it is the idioms of Quebec anglophones that determine correct Quebec English, not the idioms of thoroughly bilingual francophones, and not the idioms in unofficial translations of government documents. I don't see this a colonial attitude, but merely a defence of minority rights and respect for minority language groups. Similarly, the idioms of Greek-speakers in Quebec determine correct Quebec Greek. Just as some francophones resist anglicismes, Quebec anglophones (who, rightly or wrongly, see themselves as a threatened minority) resist prime minister of Quebec as a francism. The fact that the use of prime minister can sometimes spark loud protest, while the use of premier causes only a few murmurs from Bernard Landry, demonstrates that premier is the much more neutral term.--Indefatigable 17:27, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That fact can hardly demonstrate a NPOV because it can also be attributed to the susceptibility to "loud protest" of some... Tremblay 17:48, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In order to settle the matter- Google search in English for: "prime minister of Quebec" 1,330 hits "premier of Quebec" 34,100 hits If someone has access to a CBC style guide, this should supply another point of view on the usage.--Blkshrt 19:30, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Premier ministre de l'Alberta=

To clarify something, in French we say Premier ministre for all first ministers, provincial and federal. The distinction that is made between the provincial parliaments and the federal one in Canadian English is simply non-existent in Quebec French. At no point in history did Quebec consider the Parliament of the Dominion to be some sort of an imperial power above its head (the Parliament of London was more than enough). However, the politicians who pushed for the creation of the federal level of government certainly did everthing they could to make provincial politicians share this view, using all the political and economic powers they had at their disposal. They were largely successful in Englishs-speaking Canada, but a lot less in French-speaking Canada.

Certainly, the view that the federal parliament is the creation of the provinces and that it should not have any more powers than the ones explicitely defined in the constitution is shared by many people in the Anglophone provinces (not to mention in the US where such thought is almost consensual with regards to their own federal state). -- Mathieugp 21:24, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)