Identity politics (I)

A fascinating poll out on Saturday, commissioned by Jack Jedwab's shop in Montreal, and reported on by the Sun chain. Sadly, neither the Association for Canadian Studies, Sun media, nor the pollster Léger Marketing, have yet published the full tables on the intertubes. (In the case of the perennially out-of-date ACS website, they probably never will.)

However, the print edition of the Sun did carry a cleverly colour-coded graph, from which all manner of interesting lessons might be drawn, but for now, try this...

The share of poll respondents in Newfoundland and Labrador who said they were "very attached" to "their language" was 81.3%.

Not only is that higher than the all-Canada response of 62.4%, it is also the highest of any province outside Quebec.

What is perhaps surprisinger, however, is that Quebecers actually rank language even lower: 61.6% are "very attached" to "their" language (whatever that language may be for any given respondent.) In Newfoundland and Labrador, the figure was a staggering 81.3%

New Brunswick, less surprisingly perhaps, comes in next, at 70.3%.

It is not immediately clear whether "their language", to which respondents in NL self-profess to be "very attached", is the same one that the Entirely Spontaneous Blue Kool-Aid Brigade have, of late, taken to belittling, entirely spontaneously.