“Is it realistic to expect anything more?”

This story is part of the 2013 Atkinson Series : Me, You, Us. Journalist and author Michael Valpy has done an investigation into social cohesion in Canada — what binds us together, what draws us apart.

The people of English-speaking Canada are conservative, dull and still in the grip of religion. The cowboy provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan are no different from the United States.

Quebecers are more likely to be dreamers, romantics, visionaries and laid back than their fellow citizens in the rest of Canada. They have a better sense of humour.

Multiculturalism may be a good idea in principle but it should be kept on a tight leash.

And whether the province stays in Canada or its people eventually vote to leave, Quebecers are really, really irritated by English Canadians on the subject of language. They don’t like feeling compelled to speak a language that’s not their own to their fellow citizens. Words like “unfair,” “opportunistic” and “failure of the country’s bilingual character” are used forcefully.

These are some of the replies to a questionnaire handed out to Quebecers in Montreal and Quebec City as part of this Atkinson project.

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The 33 respondents ranged in age from their 20s to their 60s. Almost all had university degrees. Some were academics. A substantial number were students. Only one — a 60-year-old man — had not progressed beyond high school and three had not been educated beyond the level of CEGEP, Quebec’s post-secondary colleges. Two respondents were immigrants; one was first-generation Canadian; none was an anglophone.

There was nothing scientific about the questionnaire other than that it was handed out at random to an equal number of men and women. The respondents were urban and almost all well-educated.

How they saw English-Canadians — apart from in a generally uncomplimentary light (a 61-year-old woman said anglophone Canadians were different from Americans because Americans “are less aggressive toward us”) — was eyebrow-raising. Dull and conservative maybe. But still in the grip of religion?

They thought Atlantic Canadians and British Columbians were perhaps a little more sophisticated than the people of the “cowboy provinces,” as one respondent called them. Their next-door neighbours in Ontario didn’t get a mention.

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And in reply to a question about whether they thought there were mutually beneficial cultural ties between Quebecers and Canadians in the English-speaking provinces, most of the answers were a kind of verbal shrug: like, it’s always nice to have a conversation but the relationship isn’t going to go anywhere.

A number of respondents used the term “two solitudes.” One woman in her 50s wrote: “Is it realistic to expect anything more?”

The respondents were asked to estimate what percentage of anglophone schoolchildren in the rest of Canada were being educated in French immersion. Most thought it was less than 5 per cent. In fact, it’s more than 9 per cent — and 10.7 per cent in Manitoba, 17 per cent in New Brunswick and for some inexplicable reason 20.3 per cent in Prince Edward Island.

Perhaps the most surprising responses dealt with multiculturalism. Keep in mind these are well-educated, urban people and the questionnaire was circulated before the Quebec government began talking about its charter of values.

The question they were asked was two-part: did they think multiculturalism was essential in the world and did they think a culture of diversity is attractive? They were specifically not asked if they favoured multiculturalism and diversity for Quebec.

About 20 per cent of respondents said yes without qualification to both parts of the question. The 60-year-old man with the high school education was the most adamantly opposed. He called it “Trudeau-inspired nonsense that has inspired the merde we have nowadays.” A 31-year-old female office worker with a master’s degree said she liked it “less and less”

And the remainder gave intriguingly vague, cautious replies.

Yes, they liked the idea in principle but the majority culture must have “strong roots”; it must “guard against the imposition of foreign values”; it must “keep an attachment to where we come from.” It is important to “embrace a certain degree of multiculturalism while maintaining a strong identity.” And so on.

As for how they felt Quebec was treated by the rest of Canada, the replies ranged from “badly” to “like every other province,” with three respondents equating Quebec to a distant and irritating cousin or an annoying little brother constantly creating discord in the family. A couple of people said they understood English-Canadians’ exasperation.

Only a small minority thought Quebec’s signature on the 1982 Constitution Act (whether it should sign remains a contentious subject) would be a substantially positive thing for the province. (One man said it would pull the rug out from under the separatists.) Most people were indifferent.

And not that many respondents talked about Quebec’s culture and language being at risk or described Quebec’s history as a narrative of conquest. Two students actually said they didn’t know enough about Quebec’s history to give an answer.

And the most poignant reply came from a 22-year-old woman student at l’Université de Montréal: “I think about colonization, hope and disappointment. I also think about the two solitudes. It is rather sad.”