Bientot Montréal

I came to Montreal a little over a year ago.  At first, I thought it would be like France, great food, polite people and friendliness.  Oh, what a shock.  After some months, I started to notice the discrimination between the English Canadians and the Francophones (people born in Quebec).  Then I started to notice that all of us who were not born in Quebec were unwelcome here.  Not only that but there was a lot of hostility directed against us.  The French themselves don't stay here very long.  They find Toronto is more welcoming.  In view of the fact that I am Irish and half of the Quebecers are descended from the Irish, I was surprised that I was discriminated against also.  I speak French well (I don't write it well) but my French was learnt in France, a language not well understood by the Quebecois.  We don't understand their language either which infuriates the Quebecois.  It's not our fault, we just learnt a different French.  Everyone in Montreal lives in a ghetto of their own culture.  There is no mixing.  Those of us from Europe who are used to have friends from everywhere are stuck with our own cultures and can't socialize out.  There don't seem to be any laws upheld.  The police - I don't want to comment on what I think of them.  Landlords do what they like to their tenants.  There doesn't seem to be any recourse and if there is, it takes years to get to the tribunal, from what I'm told.  It's easier just to move away.

This was once a booming City but a Separatist Group took over which drove most of the businesses out to Toronto and most of the people also including the young university graduates both Quebecois and English Canadian.  It's on it's knees now and my French friends are going, so are my Spanish and any Middle Eastern people who can get out.  I'm leaving also.  I'll have been here two years.

This have been my experience of Montréal.

Montreal R.I.P.

I did the same sourire.

I began my installation in Montréal and after 3 years and half I decided to move to Ottawa, and had the feeling that it's a different Canada that I found-out.

Know I cross the river to Hull just in front of Ottawa and the parliament hill, and still feeling better than Montréal.

my moto is ''there is no failure excepting in no longer trying''

Abdel

Is there anyone here in Montreal from England?  Sometimes, I feel homesick and would like to relapse in our own 'jargon' for a while.

sourire

If your husband if Quebecois, you shouldn't have any problem having a social life.  The Quebecois all mix with each other, pretty well exclusively, so surely your husband knows lots of people.

What area do you live in?

sourire