by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

For a while I was Welsh. I needed a reason to explain my inability to do math or get up in the morning. So I sought it in my patrilineal genetic-ethnic heritage. I learned that the Welsh share a lilting speech patterns and a strong dislike of Celts toting bagpipes. That works for me. So I became Welsh for a while. But I felt like a fraud.

So I became Icelandic, as my mother's mother came from that bleak place populated by kidnapped Irish princesses of yore. Then I noticed that Scandinavians, while very nice people, have a bad habit of laughing at their own non-stop stream of unfunny jokes.

I needed a replacement ethnic identity. I thought it over. I am English and I live in Quebec. Therefore I'm an Anglo-Quebecer. Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, big industrialists who smoked cigars while watching Irish workers lay bricks. Yup, that all sounds like me. So now I stand in arm-linked solidarity with people like Dick Pound, Davey Hilton and Mutsumi Takahashi.

We English in la belle province have a unique culture based on shared values such as opposing separatism, disliking all things Toronto and never tuning into our local CBC programming.

This assertion might seem dull as dirt, but has explosive implications. Because if indeed Anglo-Quebec is a minority culture, then it needs to be nourished, protected and encouraged.

The prevailing view in Quebec has been that the English population is just a fact to be accepted and tolerated. We're considered an offshoot of Planet Anglo, some sort of Yanks who took the wrong exit and now ride shotgun on the great journey of the French in North America.

So are we English-speakers a delicate, rare and unique species of orchids growing in the great swamp of Quebec? Or are we just a branch plant of the giant international American behemoth?

Longtime McGill philosophy prof Charles Taylor, who now teaches at Northwestern, has rarely backed off from of such issues. The prof, who once described Bill 101 as "a product of mass neurosis," reversed his viewpoint with a now-famous essay "The Politics of Recognition." In it he argued, in much longer sentences and more complicated terminology, that French Quebec merits preferential legal treatment due to its status as an imperiled minority culture.

But journalist Andy Lamey, who now lives in Toronto, employed Taylor's own logic to launch a blistering attack on the essay. If French Quebec deserves protection as a minority in Canada, then English Quebec also deserves to be protected and nourished as a minority in Quebec, he argued.

I e-mailed Taylor asking about Lamey's counterargument. "Terrible nonsense," Taylor writes. "It's depressing to see that someone as close to our situation as Toronto still can't distinguish issues about second-language promotion from issues about what the primary language is going to be."

Lamey, in turn, describes Taylor's defence as "a shockingly weak reply." "By Taylor's own account, everyone needs their cultural identity to be recognized, but in practice Taylor thinks one culture should be legally recognized above all others," says Lamey.

I recently tried Lamey's we're-a-minority-too-so-lay-off argument on a Quebec nationalist named Alexis from the Plateau, who had written to gently question my lack of admiration for "Quebec's sovereignist aspirations." Our civil debate (well, he was civil anyway) saw many points and counterpoints raised until I asserted that anglos are a minority in Quebec, thus should be protected too. He finally had no answer. I guess I won the debate. Being an Anglo-Quebecer might be more trouble than being Icelandic or Welsh, but it's also more interesting.

* * *

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

It's time again to plug the bilingual theatre course I co-host along with Robin Nish. Every Wednesday night until spring about a dozen of us attend plays - some English, some French - and gather periodically at the Thomas More Institute on Atwater to discuss it all. It's a good time. Call 935-9585.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca