[MrRoundtree]

And our 4 potential contenders are: Scotland, Catalonia, Quebec, and the Basque countries.

Scotland from the UK
Catalonia from Spain
Quebec from Canada
Basque Countries from France and Spain

I will give my input about Quebec and give a brief description of the province, I will first start with Montreal and then talk about the rest of the province in other posts:







Montreal: Without a doubt, with 3.5 millions citizens, Montreal is the most populated city in Quebec and also the cultural and artistic capital of Canada. It could have been the economic center (it was until the first referendum) if not for the the anglo companies (CP, CN, Banque Royale..) fear of separation, these companies moved to Toronto who then became the economic center of Canada. However, Montreal still remain one of the most visited city in Canada, maybe the most popular with tourists.

What is particular: Montreal is probably the only city in the western world with Brussels where 2 languages are equally spoken in businesses or can be heard in the city. While Brussel has Flemish and French Montreal has french and english. I work downtown nowadays but come from outside the island where french is preliminary spoken and downtown, I most often discuss in english or hear english being spoken. At my job, almost everyone's mother tongue is english.

The english speakers are more often than not suspicious about french canadians and vice-versa but it more often result in peaceful conversations and laughs than fights. It is true though that most businesses which have an english administration will be more encline to hire from the english universities of Montreal and french applicants will have a rougher selection.

Universities: A very important aspect of Montreal is its universities. Montreal has 4, Mcgill and Concordia where the material is taught in english, Université de Montréal and UQAM where the material is taught in french..I will give a brief overview of the uni:

Mcgill: The Harvard of the north they say, it has a prestigious medicine and law school, has an engineering faculty and a ok business school. Graduating from Harvard will get you recognized everywhere in Canada and even in the US, it is also well known in the UK and in middle-east/asian countries. This university doesn't really have a campus but it's somewhat located north of downtown and the buildings have an Harry Potter architecture style which makes it pretty unique.

Université de Montréal: The equivalent of Mcgill, has a medicine school, the only pharmacy school in Montreal, the most prestigious engineering school of Quebec and one of the hardest in Canada (École Polytechnique de Montréal) and one of the most recognized businees school in the world (HEC Montreal). Not as prestigious because it is not an anglo-first school but still attracts many many students from France, from Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon and Tunisia. Is well recognized internationally and has a lot of double-diplomas opportunities with prestigious schools in EUrope (ETH Zurich, École Polytechnique de Lausanne, École Polytechnique X de Paris...). It is on the other side of the mountain and everything around it is related to the university. Lot of interfaculties parties.

UQAM: Don't know much about this school but those who don't get accepted in UDM usually go there, it is cheaper and called the people university for good reasons. Still, it has some very good programs and is located at the end of St-Denis street.

Concordia: Ditto with Mcgill, not as prestigious..attracts mostly the immigrant population of Montreal ( Portuguese, asians, persians...)..very good businees school and engineering program.

ETS: École de technologie supérieure, another engineering school, not sure if its associated with UQAM. Don't bother going there the male population is ASTONISHLY high.

To recap, the student population of Montreal is really high and you will more often than not run into young students/women in the streets which is very pleasant for the sight. The quality of the girls seem very high because of that aspect.


What else to say: The immigrant population of montreal is fairly high, I will give a quick overview of each neighbour, with what to find and what's interesting in each:

Outremont: Big jewish population, prices of the houses is very high, rich people live there. Not much to say but it looks nice.

Cote-des-neiges: Université de Montréal is located there with l'Oratoire. Huge french canadian student population, lots of vietnamiese and haitians immigrants. The bar la Maisonnée is always packed with students on thursday and wednesday nights singing karaoke in huge groups.

Plateau Mont-Royal: If you want to pick up french girls from France this is the place to go , it has nice bohemian feeling to it, which may attract the frenchies I say..very hipsterish. Lots of awesome bars on Mont-Royal. Try out Taverne St-Sacrement, le Barouf, le Rachel Rachel, le Edgard Hypertaverne... an excellent restaurant named le Filet is located there.

Quartier Latin: Mostly Rue St-Denis down Sherbrooke all the way to St-Catherine: Lots of restaurants in this area, very fun during summer, not as much during winter. Very nice to have a beer at the terraces in St-Sulpice, le St-Bock, la Distrillerie and Pub St-Elizabeth.
Mme Lee is a new one that is very popular with young professionnals.

Rue St-Laurent: The main party street of Montreal, all clubs are located there mostly. Can't say much more than the provided datasheets, try Korova, Mckibbins, l'Appartement 220, Rouge, Buena Notte and a lot mroe. More in depth descriptions in the datasheets provided by others.


Villeray/Rosemeont: Lot of young professionnals move there as it is cheap, it's a new neighbourhood on the rise with lot of bars opening recently. Try out Miss Villeray, always a good place to pick up young professionnals. New bars are called le Huit Clos and le St-Edouard.

Le vieux port: Most beautiful area of Montreal but very expensive, perfect place to daygame tourists or to go out at night and meet tourists! I don't know much about the bars there but there's a very good area open in summer called Terraces Bonsecours. I only went there during a university party so I don't remember much! There's also la Queue Leu Leu to pickup 18 years old chicks and Philemon/Santos are also great bars.

Old Montreal: Only one thing to say, go to bar le Confessionnal there, quality is good , other than that very nice area of the city!





Downtown: Everything is centered around the Bell Center, which is where you will catch Montreal canadians hockey games. Rue Crescent is the main attraction. Again, it is worth visiting Cavalli close to the Maisonneuve, Deville, Pub Winston Churchill..I don't know much about downtown tbh mostly Concordia and Mcgill students go out there. Near ETS, there's one of the biggest night club with a huge scene with DJ`s playing, it's called New City Gas but it is very expensive if you don't buy your ticket in advance. Still my favorite place in Montreal, I heard it's easy to pickup there but everytime I went I was with a groupe of friends and we were just having a blast dancing to the DJ`s music.

Westmount/Atwater: Rich, very rich, nicest houses of Montreal. The Anglo population lives there.

Laval: Shitty Island north of Montreal, don't go there. Lots of persians/ lebanese live there. Only good for the centropolis, good place to take a date but you need a car

Notre-Dame-de Grace: Portugueses and poor students of COncordia live there.



Montreal is very fun to visit during summer as it has a lot of festivals. Try to hit up during the Jazz Festival, the F1 Grand Prix, the Franco-folies and the Just for Laugh festival. The biggest one is the Osheaga Music Festival. During winter, nothing beats the Igloofest, an electronic festival outside in January at minus 30.

Hockey: As most know, hockey is religion here. Montreal had 24 Stanley Cups and is one of the most decorated professionnal sports team. If you want to meet girls/make good friends, it is mandatory to learn a thing or 2 about hockey, watch hockey games at pubs and attend a game at the Bell Center. Watch out it can be really expensive though.



Music: It is important to know which bands are from Montreal. Arcade Fire, one of the most popular indie rock bands, is from Montreal. Indie rock is very popular here.

Food: Local food includes Poutine, Smoke Meat Sandwiches...if there's a restaurant I highly recommend for any tourist (a bit pricey) it would be Au Pied de Cochon, it is traditionnal Quebecois meals prepared by a french canadian chef that ahd a lot of experience as a chef in France, so everything is prepared with ''extra finesse'' behold the mighty Poutine au foie gras, all the different type of sausages, boudin (blood sausages) meat pie, the majestic tartars and more.. Montreal has an awesome restaurant scene, I would suggest reading Gmanifesto datasheet for more details.

Beer: Montreal is probably the city in North America with the highest number of micro-breweries. People drink beers, it is cheap and sold in every grocery store and department store contrary to the rest of Canada. Also, micro-breweries visit Polytechnique once a year to sell beers in the cafeteria and it just become a massive beerfest. Other hard liquors and wine are sold in government-ran stores and are highly taxed, like in Sweden. We are indded a beer drinking nation. Try out St-Ambroise stout and cream ale beer, it is soft but still very enjoyable.

Every bar/club close at 3:00 am but there have been talk of closing everything (well clubs at least) at 5:00 am to not have people wait for the metro and fight outside or drive drunk.



All in all, Montreal is a great place to live, study and work. But if we go back to the main point, Montreal is struggling because of Quebec. There has been ideas of letting Montreal become a city-state, independant of Quebec and Canada (more on it there: http://www.montrealcitystate.ca/index_en.html), it is of my opinion though that Quebec would need Montreal to survive as a country and vice-vera. I would like to elaborate more in later posts...I feel like i'm done with the presentation. Lastly, I already made this post few months ag about the french canadian girls but I feel I need to present them again:

Quote:

As a french Montrealer myself, I find that it is a very social circle driven scene but it is possible to pull the occasional one night stand as long as you got game, looks and can flirt, speak a bit of french. They are pretty independant and everyone that lived in Quebec for a while will know that it is a matriarchal province and that most of the time the girl will choose with whom she wants to fuck/ be with and not the contrary. Generally speaking, girls and women have more power than men in Quebec. They will also expect you to make the first move and pay drinks, they are conservative in that sense but don't like to be treated as inferiors, gallanterie is especially not expected. Outside Montreal, girls are really friendly and more open. I don't know much about Quebec city but it is well known that Saguenay is a region with an higher percentage of girls than guys and it is easy to pull off. But it's also the region where most people don't speak english.

Most Quebecoises are afraid or don't like foreigners when they come to Montreal. Hell, Montrealers who are ethnically anglo, moroccans, lebanese, asian or any other minority will have next to no chance with a true Quebecoise from the suburbs unless that minority was raised in the suburbs surrounded only with french canadians. And they need that distinct Quebecois accent.

For those interested, I know for a fact that someone from the UK or Australia would kill in Montreal, lots of my girl friends told me that they love the british accent and the surfer's, adventurous vibe that they get from Australians.


Canadians from Ontario and other part of the country would have an hard time though, probably the same with anyone from the US outside Californians. French Canadians are taught since elementary school that english Canada is bad, that they tried to abuse us for so long...and most of America is generally viewed as the same.

But still, it would be easy to pull off if you hit the gym and look super fit, hockey-player like (and yes, french canadian girls generally loves hockey players), can speak a few words of french and can isolate her from her friends. Athletic feats are highly revered.

Finally, the most important caracteristic to pull off is humor! Humor is part of our culture ( Just for laugh is from Montreal). Tons of average guys acheive great success with humor alone. Being outgoing and making the girl laugh is the easiest way to any Quebecoise pants!

So we can say, french canadians girls are not like French girls from France at all! Culture and knowledge is not that important for them, lot of them don't smoke. Don't mix both (lot of french from France come to study or move to Montreal since 3-4 years)

Never forget, Montreal is a pub city fist and foremost and not a club city. It is the closest thing to a European city in North America.

After presenting Montreal, more to come in the next posts (PART 2) about independance and the rest of Quebec..!

[Patriarch]

Awesome post man, I was thinking about making a similar topic later. I have a hard-on for new countries being formed/Balkanized, and the topic is extremely interesting to me. It's also interesting to think what Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas would look like without colonialism.

[Jura]

Yeah solid post man; lots of good info.

[Sp5]

Montreal's a great place that will be less great if it breaks away from Canada. All you have to do is look at this debate over the "Charter of Values" - pettiness will rule, and the bureaucratic tyranny about using English will increase. I walked by a rally in favor of this Charter when I was in Montreal a couple of months ago - the crowd looked old, white, fat and angry.

I read somewhere, maybe here, that Montreal lost a lot of financial and other business to Toronto over the last 40 years because of the uncertainty caused by separatism. Seems like common sense to me.

The big winner could be the USA, which might pick up a few provinces from a divided Canada.

Same thing with the other separatist movements - what's the sense of splitting off when you're all in the same EU boat anyways? All you're doing is decreasing economies of scale by having to maintain separate armed forces, diplomatic and immigration and border control.

[Patriarch]

(01-15-2014 03:45 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  

Montreal's a great place that will be less great if it breaks away from Canada. All you have to do is look at this debate over the "Charter of Values" - pettiness will rule, and the bureaucratic tyranny about using English will increase. I walked by a rally in favor of this Charter when I was in Montreal a couple of months ago - the crowd looked old, white, fat and angry.

I read somewhere, maybe here, that Montreal lost a lot of financial and other business to Toronto over the last 40 years because of the uncertainty caused by separatism. Seems like common sense to me.

The big winner could be the USA, which might pick up a few provinces from a divided Canada.

Same thing with the other separatist movements - what's the sense of splitting off when you're all in the same EU boat anyways? All you're doing is decreasing economies of scale by having to maintain separate armed forces, diplomatic and immigration and border control.

I think the US may have missed the boat on annexing Canada back in 1812. And if we had, we would have most likely established Quebec as its own country all the same. Can you imagine that happening now? Or imagine the reverse, and Canadians deciding they'd like to have Alaska or Maine after the next US presidential election.