On 17/07/2011 1:01 PM, Janet Wilder wrote:



>
> We get French-speaking Canadians here in the winter. The New Brunswick
> people are lovely, the Quebecois are earning themselves a reputation
> among locals and other winter Texans and it isn't a nice reputation at
> that.


There are lots of people around here with French roots and they tend to
dislike Quebecers. We had one guy working with us who was our bilingual
guy. He was born and raised in New Brunswick and he hated Quebers, as
did a friend of mine who was born in Quebec but raised here in Ontario.

>
> One group of Quebecois at an RV park (my friend was working there when
> it happened so I know it's true) demanded that the manager close the
> single swimming pool to non-French speaking campers one day a week. The
> manager agreed as long as they stayed out of the pool for the other 6.

Good for him.

>
>
> Perhaps if the province gave residents lessons on how to be a good
> tourist in the US, non-French speaking Americans would be more forgiving
> when we travel there. Presently, I think most of us see it as "attitude"


They don't even make good visitors in their own province. My son worked
in an upscale hotel in Old Montreal when he first moved there. One day
there were a couple women there who were complaining to each other about
how disgraceful it was that they did not have French person on the
desk. Sure his French was not great, but he had only recently moved
there and was learning. He is now fluently bilingual. Next thing you
know, they are asking him for favors. Yeah, like he is going to forget
how they had been insulting him a few minutes earlier.
>

>
> I can't just be me, because a few years ago the Province of Quebec was
> running ads on New York TV stations that were aimed at marketing how
> "friendly" they were. IF they weren't trying to clean up their
> reputation they why the "friendliness" oriented ads?

Some people think that if you spend enough money on advertising it will
make them forget reality. I had to wonder when I saw some posters for
VIA rail and the trip from Calgary to Vancouver. I had just returned a
trip to the west coast and had taken that rail trip. The scenery was
incredible but I have nothing good to say about the food or the service,
We were ran into several unscheduled stops to delay the trip.
Basically, there treated us like they treated us like we passengers
were a major inconvenience for them. If they had just treated us better
on the trip they would not have had to spend money on advertising.