Celine Dion & Quebec Canada - The English-Speaking Canadian's Perspective

A difficult relationship exists between English and French-speaking Canadians. It can be seen in the way that each perceives international singer Celine Dion. To English-speaking Canadians she epitomizes the Quebecois. Canada is a relatively accepting country - after all, we're a very multicultural society. So I'm not sure why so many English speakers have such a derogatory opinion of native Quebecers.

English-speaking Canada (ESC) tends to find Celion Dion "embarrassing." If we were American, we'd be celebrating the fact that "one of our own" is acknowledged as being the world's best "pop" singer and performer. But no, not us ESCers.

While we might acknowledge that French-Canadians are the most social, best looking, highest cultured, most sexual and fashionable of Canadians (when administered truth serum and under oath), we don't like them because they're "show offs."

I just watched a new biography on Celine Dion, this evening. It was very well done. It gave me new insight as to why I have such a difficult relationship to her.

There are two reasons.

Celine Dion's accent is hard on the ears. It's just plain UGLY. It's has none of the purity of Parisian French. It's Quebecois French. In the rest of Canada, we call it FROG language. French-Canadians speak through their nostrils. Imagine pinching your nasal passage and then pronouncing "wah, wah, wah." That's what they sound like to us.

I can hear hear Celine's Quebecois accent in her mostly lovely singing voice. It really upsets me and makes me wonder if the rest of the world is deaf. (Can't you hear it too?)

But I think the worst thing that offends my ECS sensibilities is that she is SO confident. To be that confident is okay for Americans. It's not okay for Canadians. We're not allowed to be that in-your-face about it. It's improper. Celine is so super-confident, so perfectly honest, so real and without any apparent guile it just seems...un-Canadian. And please, most Canadians wouldn't admit to visiting Las Vegas, nevermind living there.



ECSers have built our national identity on self-flagellation. We criticize ourselves, our politicans, government, economics, culture and talent incessantly. We're never good enough, and we're proud of it - but quietly proud. Our greatest sense of national unity comes from a Molson Canadian beer commercial called "I am Canadian." Our identity is created not out of an existential self-determinism, but out of what we are not. We're not American.

The Quebecois aren't American either. They're a weird hybrid of Parisian self-importance and...some permutation of Canadian culture.

Let me end with our theme song, which summarizes much better than our national anthem does, what we're all aboot about:

Hey.
I'm not a lumberjack,
or a fur trader...
and I don't live in an igloo
or eat blubber, or own a dogsled...
and I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada,
although I'm certain they're really, really nice.

I have a Prime Minister,
not a President.
I speak English and French,
NOT American.
and I pronouce it ABOUT,
NOT A BOOT.

I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
I believe in peace keeping, NOT policing.
DIVERSITY, NOT assimilation,
AND THAT THE BEAVER IS A TRULY PROUD AND NOBLE ANIMAL.
A TOQUE IS A HAT,
A CHESTERFIELD IS A COUCH,
AND IT IS PRONOUCED 'ZED' NOT 'ZEE', 'ZED'!

CANADA IS THE SECOND LARGEST LANDMASS!
THE FIRST NATION OF HOCKEY!
AND THE BEST PART OF NORTH AMERICA!

MY NAME IS JOE!
AND I AM CANADIAN!