2012-01-13

Separatist sentiment rises in Canada: demographics or social mood?

Graeme Hamilton: As Montreal’s demographics shift, anti-anglophone sentiments make a comeback
Yves-Thomas Dorval, president of Quebec’s largest employers group, was in his car the Sunday before Christmas when the head of the nationalist Société St-Jean-Baptiste came on the radio urging a boycott of the National Bank. Move your mortgages and cut up your credit cards, Mario Beaulieu advised. The crime committed by the Montreal-headquartered bank? Hiring a unilingual anglophone as vice-president responsible for information technology.
How are demographics playing a role? Is it another baby boom that fueled the earlier rise in separatist feelings in Quebec? No, it's the exact opposite:
But the tension can be seen as a reaction to demographic trends that show no sign of reversing. A low birth rate, the flight of francophone families to suburbs off the island of Montreal and an influx of immigrants have combined to produce a steady decrease in the proportion of francophones living in the city.
If populations become separatist/imposing when they grow, and they also behave that way when they shrink, perhaps there's another factor at play? It is social mood that drives the feeling of conflict and separation, but it is the demographic reality that forms the basis of action. As I've written before, social mood expresses itself where there are fault lines in society, established political movements, needs for reform, etc. The danger with this demographic related conflict is that it is all over the Western world. Buchanan's Suicide of a Superpower is heavily based on demographics, growing conflict in Europe is based on native versus immigrant demographics and now a similar situation exists in Canada.

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