Quebec vs Alberta?

One of the things that has struck me the most, is how similar everyone is.

If you took a farmer from Quebec and Alberta and sat them down together for a discussion, you would find they have the same hopes, dreams, goals, views, disappointments and obstacles.

You would find the same thing would happen with almost anybody you picked out of a small town, large town, countryside etc. but not the city.

See, what I have found is the people from the cities are their own little groups, and most of these groups get along well with people from other cities. They have their own outlooks, views, goals and challenges.

While a large number of these folks would fit in well, with those in rural Canada, it’s the rest that we seems to hear about.

That portion of people that have different view point from the rest of Canada, seem to be what the media focuses on. And that difference, is what stirs up emotions, conflicts and sells their “news”. Since the media does this on the East Coast, Quebec, the Prairies and everywhere else, and we have a language barrier of English vs French, this tends to create even more friction and divide.

See, all of the rural Quebecers that I have talked to, with my limited French, would love Alberta oil vs imports from other countries. Propane, sure, they will take more of that as well. How about payment transfers? Most people don’t even realize how much Alberta sends here, things like that are not discussed by the media. The media gives people the information that the media wants them to have, the information that we need, or should have, well, that doesn’t “sell”

How about the language? Rural Quebecers that I have interacted with all seem to speak different amounts of English, it’s one of the things that I found very interesting. While a number are not comfortable speaking English, probably due to not actually speaking it that much in every day life, most have no problem doing their best, and in our conversations, we stumble our way through, them with their best English, and me with my best French.

In all these discussions, over the last 7+yrs only once, did I run into someone who seemed to get offended at me trying to speaking broken French, and it was in the Montreal airport.

So if you read something bad or something that your dislike about Quebec, or something about Alberta, or anywhere else, ask who is really pushing it.

Could it be that if we really sat down, we’d find out it’s the media, or government that we should be mad at, not each other.

- By Darren Cole