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I am trying to get information about this holiday. Ihave read about a feast. What is eaten at such a feast? Alby

  • Heh heh heh, at the feast that I know of we only drink beer, a lot of it. Red Star
  • Haha, this article is a bit lacking on what REALLY happens on St. Jean Baptiste, after having speat my summer in Montreal, everyone essentially gets the day off to drink, and in Copious amounts, in the parks, in the streets, and in their homes, it's a great holiday, much better than Canada day.
  • BEER. The Saint-Jean is a celebration of beer. And stuff. Mostly beer. But stuff too!

July 1st renewal of rental agreements in Québec

From the article: There is also a law in Quebec which stipulates that July 1st is the day for yearly renewal of property rental agreements. Really? I don't see any mention of july first in the Code civil du québec (See articles 1941 to 1946 which deal with renewal). Am I missing something?

You are correct. The current civil code no longer prescribes any particular period of the year for the renewal. Read this for a possible explanation :

Reject the Koolaid Blog celebrates the fete today with a short tribute as a link to this is irrelevant, unencylopedic and is simply an attempt to a) get people to go to the blog in question or b) encourage negative feelings towards French Quebecers because of her negative experience as an Anglo-Quebecer on the Saint-Jean-Baptiste. It has been removed a few times I believe but Tearfree keeps putting it back in. - TheJF

I do not consider my experience as an Anglo Quebecer negative at all. I love Quebec. That's why I live here. This is a humour piece about Quebec and, as such, is perfectly appropriate for today and the next few days. After that, I agree with you that it becomes irrelevant. Why don't you just add your comments instead of constantly removing this piece? Tearfree

Okay everybody, take it easy.

I humbly recommend that everyone take a break from the reverting. I already see one breach of the 3 revert rule here, but have no intention of reporting it as long as the reverting stops. I recommend that the people involved in the brewing edit war take a break from editing this article for a while and let other people sort it out. - Che Nuevara: Join the Revolution 00:58, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can live with that evenif I never thought of Che as being one to compromise. Tearfree

Thank you, Tearfree. I have no knowledge of the subject, so I'm not here to sort out the factual confusion -- I just don't want to see anyone get blocked.
By the way, it's a great help to everyone if you sign your posts with a link to your userpage and the datestamp. All you have to do is type ~~~~ at the end of your message, and the wikicode takes care of the rest. - Che Nuevara: Join the Revolution 01:18, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Copying what I said on Che Nuevara's talk page, I would like to point out the problem with Tearfree's external link to her blog: Wikipedia:External_links, Links to normally avoid, Line 12: Blogs, social networking sites (such as MySpace) and forums should generally not be linked to. Although there are exceptions, such as when the article is about, or closely related to, the website itself, or if the website is of particularly high standard.
Tearfree's blog entry is a personal story, so I don't think it qualifies as an exception, hence it should be removed. I also think it fuels the stereotype of Quebecers as rude and racist (where the guy says "get out of my country"). I don't dispute that it did happen to her, but I can't help but feel linking to such a personal story in an entry on the Saint-Jean-Baptiste gives that impression.
Note that this has been edited before by Mathieugp, although I am sure he had some bias in there because his profile declares him to be a Quebec sovereigntists.
Disclaimer: I am not a Quebecer, I'm Acadian. TheJF 01:26, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even federalists are nationalists. They just think that being in Canad serve us beter. And nobody like to see his people branded as 'x'.

Nationalist Bias

Referring to la Fete nationale as Quebec's "national" holiday implies that Quebec is a nation (this is impossible, it is a province in Canada), and runs afoul of NPOV standards here on wikipedia. I believe it should be referred to indirectly as a holiday of the province of Quebec, not as Quebec's national holiday. Obviously its proper name should remain the same, but in the editoral context here on Wikipedia, it should be referred to with the former and not the latter title. In the meantime, I've put "quotations" around the word national when used in the wikipedia 'this is a fact' context in the article. 66.130.181.233 21:30, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quebec can be considered a nation even if it is not a sovereign one, and even if there was not a movement for it to be an independent nation.

Dictionary. 1. 3. A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality: “Historically the Ukrainians are an ancient nation which has persisted and survived through terrible calamity” (Robert Conquest).

To use the Dictionary example, Ukraine could still be referred to as a nation even during the USSR. The holiday is considered a National Holiday by the government, and thus, it should be referred as so.
It is good to note that although I am Quebecois, I am not supportive of the nationalist movement. --A Sunshade Lust 22:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it could be considered a nation, but my point is that this is not for us to decide nor proclaim. 66.130.181.233 05:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is not for us to decide whether Quebec is a nation or not, but it is a fact that A) it is called La fête nationale du Québec which translates to "Quebec National holiday" B) that is what the governement of Quebec calls it too even under a federalist Premier (see http://www.cnt.gouv.qc.ca/en/normes/fete_nationale.asp) C) if we are to question whether Quebec is a nation, we should also question whether Canada is one which we don't. (That is called being neutral). D) one does not need to be nationalist to recognize Quebec as a nation, one only needs to know the meaning of the word nation. Nation can be synonymous with sovereign state but that is not the only meaning of the word an certainly not the first. -- Mathieugp 05:21, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A is not in dispute. B is irrelevant, it doesn't matter who calls it what, only that we cannot proclaim it to be something it is not generally accepted to be. Quebec may claim to be a nation, but the rest of Canada does not necessarily think so. Again, it's not for us to decide. C is gratuitous and irrelevant; Canada is recognized as a nation in the broader international context and there is no real debate on the issue. D may perhaps be true, but again, this is a controversial issue and we should not be taking sides.
To affirm the positive and describe Quebec as a nation is to take a side. To affirm the negative and describe it as 'not a nation' is to take a side. To simply state that Quebec has claimed itself to be a nation and that this fact is in dispute is the proper NPOV we should be taking. In all places in the article, the word 'nation' when mentioned in the wikipedia editorial voice should maintain this NPOV no matter what. 66.130.181.233 15:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What specific sentence(s) do you have a problem with? Maybe this would help me understand your thinking.
So far, I think that doing what you suggested would be pushing the NPOV policy to an extreme. Following your reasoning, most Wikipedia articles dealing with science would currently be written in a NPOV manner, and should be fixed because they say something contrary to some Christian fundamentalist beliefs. The NPOV policy is not there to go around the main purpose of an encyclopedia: to inform with facts.
It can be demonstrated easily that Quebec fits the description of a nation, unless we are using the word as a synonym for "independent state". If this article asserted that Quebec was a "sovereign nation" or an "independent state" or whatever, it would simply be untrue and would be removed in 10 sec., but I see no such claim in this article. At the present, Canada does not recognize Quebec as a nation officially for reasons that are primarily political. The main reason why the federal government does not affirm that Quebec is "not a nation" is also political.
Ultimately, to block "any description of Quebec as a nation" because the federal state of Canada has not yet taken a side on this is censorship. The federal state of Canada's opinion on Quebec does not allow us to claim, as you claimed, that Quebec is not "generally" accepted to be a nation.
I understand that it is your perception that Quebec is not generally accepted to be a nation. From where I come from, Quebec, Quebec is generally accepted to be a nation that is not sovereign and not recognized by Ottawa. Also, both our individual perceptions cannot allow us to know what is "generally" accepted to be or not. It depends in which social milieu you evolve in.
If I entered a room full of random people gave them a description of the word nation, a description of Quebec, how many people would assert that Quebec is not a non-sovereign nation? Following such an experient, we could maybe talk about what people generally think. Quebec compares to other non-sovereign nations like Scotland or Catalonia and one would have to deny much evidence to claim the opposite. -- Mathieugp 21:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Quebec is considered to be a nation. When you arrive in Quebec City, roadsigns welcome you to the "Capitale nationale".

Title

Can anyone explain why this is at Fete nationale du Quebec, rather than St Jean Baptiste Day? It's la Saint-Jean in Quebec more commonly than Fete nationale, and for english-speakers it's Saint Jean Baptiste Day. Why privilege a political rebranding of the holiday which hasn't even gained acceptance? I say, move and provide a forward. Given the earlier debates, I should perhaps note that I say this as someone with no problem with the definition of Quebec as a nation.

Essentially for two reasons: 1) Midsummer/Nativity of St. John the Baptist/St. John the Baptist Day is a religious celebration common to many (historically) Catholic nations. 2) The public holiday of June 24, St. John the Baptist Day, is officially called the National Holiday since 1977.
Out of habit, a great many Quebecers continued to call the day la Saint-Jean just as they kept calling breakers breillequeur even after learning that in French the word was disjoncteur. A people changes their habits as easily as an individual it seems... :-) --- Mathieugp 23:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quebecers or québécois?

I feel that "québécois" is a more pleasant title and more politically correct, so I made the replacement. If you are of the other opinion, feel free to revert, but please comment. Thanks. Tyler (talk) 07:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The English word "Quebecer" translates the French word "Québécois". In every Act of the Parliament of Quebec or any regulation or official administrative document, that is the term used. -- Mathieugp (talk) 14:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Financing & Political signification

I just came across this article on cyberpresse.ca which may be a good reference (read the second part "Le Québec choyé?") to the "Political nature of the celebration" paragraph of this article. I'm not sur how to link this properly, or if it's even a good idea to do this, considering the Cyberpresse article is in French. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be an equivalent article in the current editions of Montreal's English media. Scyrma (talk) 13:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why a French title?

Why is this article under a French title? This is an English Wikipedia, so it should be at Quebec National Holiday, shouldn't it? — Kpalion(talk) 22:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User Kpalion is right. It is called the "National Holiday" in the very Act of Parliament giving the day its legal existence. The article should consequently be given an English name, since it is exists officially. I am moving the article to "Quebec's National Holiday". -- Mathieugp (talk) 01:29, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
: The usual English translation is Saint Jean Baptiste Day.
Only the Quebec government uses this translation, and it holds not legal weight as English is not an official language in Quebec. I don't see why one translation should weigh more than the common usage of the term in English.

--soulscanner (talk) 01:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

  • So we have a consensus here that the article should be given an English name. That is good.

However, "Quebec's national holiday" is a poor choice because of Wikipedia naming conventions:

" ... article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize"

The following scholarly and popular sources all show that English-speaking Canadians and Americans as a whole recognize June 24 as Saint Jean Baptiste Day:

Only Quebec government translations uses the direct translation "Quebec's national holiday", and even this holds no legal weight as English is not an official language in Quebec. I don't see why an invalid legalistic translation should weigh more than the common usage of the term in English, particularly since wikipolicies discourage specialized legal contexts like this:

"The names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors, and for a general audience over specialists."

--soulscanner (talk) 05:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • The belief that Fête nationale was also the official name of it in English was my initial assumption. I was mistaken. Indeed, many institutions in Québec retain their French name in English, in all official documents emanating from both Québec and Ottawa, as per Quebec's Charter of the French Language. For example, Commission des normes du travail does, but many others do not. In the case we are concerned with, as I have clearly showed above by linking to the National Holiday Act, "National Holiday" and not Fête nationale is used. There are many reasons why, in virtue of Wikipedia's naming conventions, and other good reasons, the article should be moved from Fête nationale du Québec to "Quebec's National Holiday":
1) 1.5 Use English words: Convention: Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly recognized by readers than the English form.
This is precisely what I am proposing to do. Just that is good reason enough, but there is more.
2) 1.7 Be precise when necessary: Convention: Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as though that title had no other meanings. If all possible words have multiple meanings, go with the rule of thumb of naming guidelines and use the more popular term.
As the articles Midsummer and Nativity of St. John the Baptist reveal, Quebecers are not the only people celebrating June 24th. I will come back to this later, but in a nutshell, the subject of the article is June 24 as Quebec's National Holiday while the more general topic of St. John the Baptist's Day is covered elsewhere in this encyclopedia.
3) "Quebec National Holiday" is used extensively with 40,900 hits. It is obviously less used than "Fête nationale du Québec" (88,900 hits) but not in English. Obviously, the facts that Quebecers are a majority to speak French, have French as their only official language, are there to explain why 99% of all things written on Quebec's National Holiday are done so in French. In spite of this, we still get a far from negligible 40,900 hits.
4) "National Holiday" is not only used extensively, it is officially called that way. I do not understand where the idea that it would be "an invalid legalistic translation" comes from. Which word of the three words in "Quebec's National Holiday" would be legal jargon? Had the Parliament of Quebec wanted to recognize Fête nationale as the only official designation in any language, it could have made a regulation concerning this. But it did not. And "National Holiday" does not only show up in that Act of Parliament, it shows up in 40,900 Google hits. The complete dismissal of Quebec's main political institutions (the Parliament and the Government) as sources worthy of mention strikes me as severely biased. To my knowledge, this would be unprecedented inside Wikipedia.
Reasons why moving from Fête nationale du Québec to "Saint Jean Baptiste Day" is not a good idea:
A) As alluded to above, the article's subject is about June 24th, St. John the Baptist Day since before Quebec even existed, as Quebec's own particular National Holiday. In the French Wikipedia, confusion arose from the fact that Fête de la Saint-Jean redirected straight to Fête nationale du Québec. In other words, Quebec cannot claim "Saint Jean Baptist Day" to itself. Many people searching for this holiday will not be finding what they were looking for in this Quebec-centric article. There is a need for disambiguation there, which a good name provides.
B) That "Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day", "St. Jean Baptiste Day" or other forms is used a lot in English is about as significant as the fact that "New York City" is often called the "Big Apple". It is certainly worthy of mention in the article, in fact in the case of Quebec's National Holiday, it is impossible to go around, but in my opinion not sufficient to justify making abstraction of the day's official name in the English language.
Soulscanner's unilateral renaming to "Fête nationale du Québec (Saint Jean Baptiste Day)" is even more problematic:
a) After reverting my renaming, stating that such a bold move should first be discussed in the talk page, he arbitrarily decides to go his own way, not waiting for any feedback. That is about as contradictory as it can get.
b) The new title combines the weaknesses of both "Fête nationale du Québec" and "Saint Jean Baptiste Day", and adds the new and important one of its being unprecedented among articles in the National Days category. -- Mathieugp (talk) 17:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • None of this addresses the point at hand, which is that wiki naming conventions require choosing the term most English speakers will recognize. You have made no argument about which expression English speakers are most likely to recognize. In English-speaking Canada and the U.S., the most common usage and most easily recognized term is Saint Jean Baptiste Day, and I've provided references that show this. Official Quebec government translations, which are numerous on the web, do not reflect general usage among English-speakers, except within the Quebec government, where English-speakers are actually rather rare. Wikipedia and most English-speakers are not governed by the translation policies of the Quebec government. --soulscanner (talk) 22:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Wiki convention on naming articles is made out of many points, and cannot be reduced to the "requirement" of choosing the term most English speakers will recognize. First of all, the whole point of this is not to introduce either colloquialism or inaccessible technical jargon in the naming of the articles. This is not at all the case here between "Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day" and "Quebec's National Holiday". Not only that, but the sources you provided "prove" absolutely nothing. Many of these sources are not concerned with our National Holiday specifically and there are several repetitions:
1. The Canadian Encyclopedia article is concerned with the celebration of SJB Day throughout Canada and the USA. Of course the article cannot be named either "Fête nationale du Québec" or "Quebec's National Holiday" if that is the focus of the article.
2. The Encyclopedia Britannica article is actually named "Fête Nationale du Québec". Was Wikipedia their source?
3. The Heritage Canada page is concerned with the celebration of SJB Day in Canada only and induce readers to believe that French Canadians somehow would still be honouring their Patron Saint! Talk about outdatedness!
4. The Prime Minister, Governor General, or the Parliament or the Government are all really one source and it would have been surprising if it had differed from Heritage Canada. They follow a common policy on this.
5. Ville de Montréal: A one liner in a communiqué?
6. City of Lethbridge: This one talks about the francophone minority of Alberta.
7. State of Maine: This one talks about the Franco-Americans of Maine.
8. NDP: Our buddy Jack here is talking "to all Quebecers and francophones of Canada".
9. Montreal.about.com: their article is almost entirely copied off Wikipedia's.
10. Ontario govt: this one is concerned with "Canada's Francophones" in general and Franco-Ontarians in particular.
-- Mathieugp (talk) 16:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whatever is done, it cannot be moved to just "St. Jean Baptiste Day", as St. Jean Baptiste Day is celebrated in many parts of the world, without being a national holiday there. I don't have an objection to adding (St Jean Baptiste Day) to either "Fete Nationale du Quebec" or "Quebec National Holiday".--Ramdrake (talk) 23:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The only thing relevant with the naming of the article here is this guideline:
Convention: Name your pages in English and place the native transliteration on the first line of the article unless the native form is more commonly recognized by readers than the English form.
The above references clearly show that in most of Canada and the U.S., Saint Jean de Baptiste Day is more recognizable than the other terms. In Quebec, both are equally recognizable, so it does not favor one region over the other.
The fact that the Quebec government has called it a national holiday should be mentioned in the lead, of course, but it needs to be attributed to the Quebec government since the majority of English-speakers would not use the word "national".
As for national holidays, Independence Day, Bastille Day, and Canada Day are all national holidays, but they are not named as National Holiday of the United States, France and Canada on Wikipedia. --soulscanner (talk) 01:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • What a mess has been made with the mutilple moves. Let's have it discussed out. I think it is clear that the ideal title would be Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day as that is how it is best known and referred to in English. It is correct that the celebration of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day is not isolated to Quebec and that the celebration is special and unique from others so separate articles may be desirable, though there is no non-Quebec Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day article yet. I would suggest a stub be created for a general Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day article and the specific Quebec article be located either at Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day (Quebec) or Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day (Canada). Cheers! DoubleBlue (Talk) 01:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The current title is terrible. "Name (synonym)" is against the conventions and forces a redirect for any reasonable search. The multiple moves have not been done properly either, and now there are double and triple (and more) redirects, so it's a horrible mess on top of that. As much as the official name is "official", it's not common use in English (even in French, "la Saint-Jean" is arguably more used than "fête nationale"). So, for an article on Quebec's National Holiday (the government appointed official name in English) the title should probably be Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day (hyphen use debatable, but I'd rather not use the abbreviation St. for Saint). Any official and other common use names (in French and English) should be included in the introduction. Everything else regarding Quebec's national holiday should redirect there. A disambiguation to separate article(s) on the various June 24 celebrations (either relating to Saint-John the Baptist or the summer solstice) would be necessary on the page as well (instead of making a separate section on such holidays as celebrated outside of Quebec).--Boffob (talk) 16:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with a disambiguation. The general June 24th article already exist as Midsummer Day. The specific religious celebration is at Nativity of St. John the Baptist. The subject here is neither the pagan celebration of the sun, nor the Christian honouring of St. John the Baptist, but the secular national day of Quebecers. Regarding the most commonly used expression in English, well ""Saint Jean Baptiste Day" currently returns only 17,000 hits. Oddly enough, the changes we have made here appear to have affected Google results greatly as "Quebec National Holiday" went from 40,900 hits just yesterday to 7,380 hits. In any case, we cannot assert for certain that one is widely used while the other isn't. In the French language article, the fact that "Fête nationale" is the real name while "la St-Jean-Baptiste" or simply "la St-Jean" are popular nicknames is in the lead paragraph. It would be odd if the English article had it reversed. -- Mathieugp (talk) 16:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The current name is bad because it is formatted as a disambiguation but as there's only one Fête nationale du Québec there's nothing to disambiguate. Reversing it to Saint Jean Baptiste Day (Fête nationale du Québec) would make more sense as there are other St. John the Baptist Days. Reggie Perrin (talk) 19:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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