Talk about obnoxious...

[Occhidiangela]

That was in a country that values and promulgates assimilation.  :)  I hear a multitude of languages spoken every day, here.  And I am not seeing any hatred expressed over it.
Perhaps.  You live in your ivory tower and I get mine.  :)  I do live in a highly multicultural city - more so than any other in the world.  There just are not enough of any particular one to allow for that 'death to the others' mentality.  They are all either very small minorities or part of one big concept - a Canada that embraces tolerance.  Guess which one they all seem to be choosing?   
Nice try on the button pressing, Pete.  :)  But you are betraying a woeful ignorance of what is going on in that Quebec independence movement.  It ain't about language.  It is all about getting more money out of the Federal government, and it has been so for a long time.    The French language has been merely a lever in the age-old game of power juggling.  The Separatists actually do not like multi-culturalism, because it erodes their 'special status' and hence the credibility of their claims for 'more'.
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Got it, on the 'victim status' and "Other People's Money" approach, we have plenty of that here in the Lower Forty Eight.

The issue in Quebec may not ALL be about language, I'll trust your reporting on that, but the conflict is partly about language, just as the reconquista attempts down here in the Nueces Strip is partly about language, since language is an extremely important element of cultural and group identity, and group identity drives some politics.

See Hugo Chavez and his recent decision to purchase armaments from Spain. See also the special relationship between the US and the UK, "even though we are separated by a common language," per Churchill. ;) The politics of language is, in my experience, used to separate and Balkanize. The French are a particularly arrogant in that regard, in NATO and in their chauvinistic, Francophone efforts internationally. I am not sure how much that thread of French character is present in Quebec, if it is indeed present. My colleagues in the Canadian forces seemd to think it was present in spades. That is anecdotal, to be sure. A dozen oro so Naval officers and Air Force officers make for a narrow sample size. :whistling:

The Dutch are a notable exception, not the rule, in the "learn five languages by the time we leave high school" model of development. Me, I think it is a great model, but in that regard my voice is in the minority.

Put in a somewhat different light, about 15% of the planet's speaks Chinese. Should the Chinese beadmonished to stop teaching their own language, since it is anti-assimilationist to do so and they are behaving as arrogant chauvinists? ;)

I think not. Eight hundred pound gorilla's are notoriously uncooperative.

Occhi