Is Bonjour-Hi The Calling Card Of Montreal?

Montreal is this island in the middle of Quebec that exists in a weird socio-political reality.

In addition to traditional issues like racist police and corrupt political actors, we get to deal with language politics. End of the day our mayoress, Valerie Plante, went on wax and said something to the effect of the “Hi” at the end of Bonjour-Hi was not more appreciated, liked or welcoming. She didn’t say “hi”, she said “adding an English word”.This didn’t sit well with everyone. 

Especially the historic anglophone community, a group that I am a part of. 

I can assure you that the hi, means a lot, to a lot of people who were born in Quebec. 

A graffiti artist is tagging “Bonjour-Hi” the sidewalks in the NDG borough of Montreal in response

One day the people of NDG woke up to a bunch of sidewalk corners tagged with Bonjour-Hi.

Sometimes there was a cat. At the one next to the dog park, they put a “Woof” above it. Either way the city jumped on it and they were removed quickly.

My theory is that the city doesn’t want people to tag sidewalks. Others feel that the “Bonjour-Hi”, directly responding to Valerie, triggered her into getting city officials to move quickly for once. The tags were removed.

Then the news caught wind of it and it became a bigger talking point.

The city can’t mow the grass in our parks in a reasonable timeframe, but they were able to remove the graffiti immediately.

Granted, the version in Snowdon district with Kamasta written above it near a Filipino church. 

The language politics is stupid but the “Hi” part matters 

While Valerie feels bilingualism is promoted by saying “Bonjour” on its own, the rest of us disagree.

When tourists, who don’t speak French, come to visit, they are welcomed when a store clerk says “Bonjour-Hi”. It’s cute and charming. Like Montreal is a French place, but you are still welcome here with your beautiful tourist dollars.

It’s one thing for the rest of Quebec, and Legault, to pretend English people don’t matter. It’s weird the mayor of the 9th biggest metropolis area in North America feels “Bonjour” is good enough. I totally get that she literally has to be anti-English in public, but it’s dumb for her to speak for us.

Since we exist, we love hearing the “Hi” part. 

Also, it’s something the rest of the world can relate to, Montreal is a place for English people along with the local French culture.

Everyone born in Montreal can connect to needing to say “Bonjour-Hi”

I’m sure that some old people, who never leave their block, are the exception to this section’s title that proves the rule. 

But in reality, when you are out drinking in the middle of the night, you end up needing to say bonjour or hi. Combining the two is a fast language check. How the other person answers says a lot. Mostly we use the greeting that makes sense to us, but in mixed linguistic company, it’s almost a cute joke we can share. You really do have people who live here speaking English most of the time and others who speak French. Yet most of us can speak both to some degree (because both camps know they can make more as bilingual folk).

The “Bonjour-Hi” phrase is something that unites us as Montrealers. 

It’s also something the rest of the continent can relate to enough to get in on the joke.

And yet it’s not cool because of weird legal bureaucracy.Montreal can be a joke but “Bonjour-Hi” as a movement is not.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone