Some have love for, and attachment to, the rest of Canada
Re: “Sovereignty is about joining together, not rejection” (Opinion, Sept. 15)
Hugo Chavarie might mean well, but he has forgotten one very important factor in many Quebecers’ negative reaction to the idea of independence: the love and attachment so many of us have to Canada and other Canadians.
Born of an anglophone father and a francophone mother, I have been bilingual and bicultural all my life, though my mother tongue is French and all my education was in French.
It has been my good fortune to visit every Canadian province and the Yukon. Two of my daughters live in B.C. and have been involved in school and recreational activities promoting French. There are four-year waiting lists for some Frenchimmersion schools in the Vancouver area.
From our golden summer holidays in P.E.I. with our young family, to frequent trips to the wonderful Stratford and Shaw festivals in Ontario and driving through the beautiful Prairies, what we mostly encountered were nice people who had the same preoccupations and hopes we did.
As Mr. Chavarie says: Neither the French nor the English were the first in Canada.
It is unfortunate that Rilke’s poem on two solitudes has so often been taken out of context or used in a negative way.
This is from the poem: “Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.”
That is what we Quebecers should all do: reach out to one and another and to those outside our province, and, perhaps, also remember the near-million francophones outside Quebec. Lise Howard-Payette Pointe-Claire