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I have noticed that up until maybe the late 1960s, if an American or other non-Canadian company wanted to set up a branch office in Canada, they did so in Montreal. Nowadays, it seems like any company setting up a Canadian office does so in Toronto, or to a lesser extent maybe Ottawa or Vancouver. I have a couple guesses- mainly that because Quebec has such strict Francophone rules that it makes it unnecessarily complex to set up an office in Montreal. Maybe Ontario has tax benefits for setting up shop in that province? Maybe "overseas" offices in Quebec implied solidarity with the PQ, which might be undesirable? Anyone have any factual input on this?
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# ? Mar 14, 2015 08:17 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 13:23 |
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two forty posted:I have a couple guesses- mainly that because Quebec has such strict Francophone rules that it makes it unnecessarily complex to set up an office in Montreal. This is the big one. Of course, at the time, there was also the distinct possibility that Quebec was going to vote to separate from Canada, which meant a lot of Anglophones left the province. Of course, high on the list of Francophone grievances was that the business world was largely English, so when the English hosed off, a lot of significant businesses followed.
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# ? Mar 14, 2015 17:57 |
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What business in their right mind would want to set up a major office there, jumping through whatever hoops to conduct work in French, when they have the entire rest of the country to choose from? The OQLF is loving insane and only getting worse: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/news/quebec-language-laws/
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# ? Mar 15, 2015 11:03 |
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Large business isn't very down with the idea of a separatist party. In the leadup to the 1970 election the separatist PQ was enjoying a pretty decent advantage until the "Brinks Coup" where the National Trust Bank told the media that they had loaded all their bullion into armoured trucks and were shipping it to Toronto. The pictures of those trucks, published in every newspaper, are credited with allowing the liberals to win that year. In 1976, the first PQ government was elected, and a lot of Anglos (and businesses) flipped their poo poo and moved to Toronto, fearing a successful separation referendum, anglophone pogroms and whatever else. Also there was the fact that the PQ has traditionally been Unionist social democrat leaning, so corporations were probably quite worried about being made to pay higher corporate tax rates on their earnings. Ultimately, this was kind of an overreaction, but we still see property prices dip anytime there's talk of a referendum or the PQ winning an election, as otherwise rational Anglos freak the gently caress out and tell themselves that this time the PQ will break with past history and declare a Quebec reich. Or something like that.
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# ? Mar 15, 2015 15:36 |
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Scudworth posted:What business in their right mind would want to set up a major office there, jumping through whatever hoops to conduct work in French, when they have the entire rest of the country to choose from? I'm also given to understand that the legal system is fairly different from the rest of Canada, even in areas that do not relate to language at all.
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# ? Mar 15, 2015 16:30 |
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The Quebec legal code is indeed different, being based on French legal code instead of English legal codes, but that has been true for far longer than the PQ has been in power and businesses have been in flight.
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# ? Mar 15, 2015 16:48 |
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PT6A posted:This is the big one. Of course, at the time, there was also the distinct possibility that Quebec was going to vote to separate from Canada, which meant a lot of Anglophones left the province. Of course, high on the list of Francophone grievances was that the business world was largely English, so when the English hosed off, a lot of significant businesses followed. Quebec and Montreal from the 60's to the 90's is a case study in schadenfreude. They were the 4th or 5th richest city on the continent and then collapsed completely thanks to their own rhetoric and entirely self-imposed foolishness. Pook Good Mook fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Mar 16, 2015 |
# ? Mar 16, 2015 03:13 |
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Pook Good Mook posted:Quebec and Montreal from the 60's to the 90's is a case study in schadenfreude. They were the 4th or 5th richest city in the continent and then collapsed completely thanks to their own rhetoric and entirely self-imposed foolishness. Well, I think a lot of people forget that they did have some legitimate grievances. They just went (and continue to go) entirely too far with it. Making sure printed packaging and drug dosing information is printed in French? That makes good sense. Passing a law that retail employees must speak French to a customer before switching to English, insisting that a pub's historical Guinness posters be taken down because they aren't bilingual, or saying that a Chinese restaurant must have its French sign larger than any Chinese letters? loving retarded.
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# ? Mar 16, 2015 03:23 |
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The quiet revolution and all the attempts to refendum but also the fact that Ontario in the 90s under Harris enticed with a lot of tax cuts and subsidies as well as having better infrastructure and closer promixity to more vital and key American markets
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 07:37 |
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FLQ scared away big business. French is an irrelevant language but the Quebecois keep obssesing over a lost cause. Regional language is already hybridized. Summation: gently caress the bloc quebecois it's all pride
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# ? Apr 29, 2015 07:49 |
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inferior steak seasoning means wining and dining execs is a giant pain in the rear end.
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# ? Apr 29, 2015 14:00 |
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two forty posted:I have noticed that up until maybe the late 1960s, if an American or other non-Canadian company wanted to set up a branch office in Canada, they did so in Montreal. Nowadays, it seems like any company setting up a Canadian office does so in Toronto, or to a lesser extent maybe Ottawa or Vancouver. The French language. Edit ^^ The perceived influence of separatists, and the possibility they'd get what they wanted, did not help in the mid 1970s. ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 00:51 on May 2, 2015 |
# ? May 2, 2015 00:46 |
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PT6A posted:Well, I think a lot of people forget that they did have some legitimate grievances. They just went (and continue to go) entirely too far with it. Making sure printed packaging and drug dosing information is printed in French? That makes good sense. Passing a law that retail employees must speak French to a customer before switching to English, insisting that a pub's historical Guinness posters be taken down because they aren't bilingual, or saying that a Chinese restaurant must have its French sign larger than any Chinese letters? loving retarded. Who thought that was a good idea, or even an issue worth taking a stand on
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# ? May 2, 2015 08:17 |
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Nine of Eight posted:The Quebec legal code is indeed different, being based on French legal code instead of English legal codes, but that has been true for far longer than the PQ has been in power and businesses have been in flight. Also this is true of Louisiana as well, and I've never heard of US businesses complaining about it...
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# ? May 2, 2015 09:44 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 13:23 |
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french is a poo poo tier romance language. portugese or catalan is where it's at. too bad the french used their natural talent at ethnic cleansing to remove all the catalan/occitan speakers from their country
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# ? May 5, 2015 05:48 |