Have you been to Montreal? It would explain a lot. It's very live and let live. Not so sure how that affects the GLBT population, since there are also a lot of straight people in the Montreal area. One guy told me that he had gone to school in Montreal and that that experience made him all that much more prone to come out and that it does that to a lot of men and women. Certain big cities seem to do that to college students. Maybe they go to school there sort of wanting that to happen. Who knows, really.
Montreal is a rather unique city in North America. It's also part of the more tolerant and culturally interesting province of Quebec. Fifty-five or so years ago, this was a strongly catholic, right-wing province under the yoke of the church and English-only businesses. About 50 years ago, everything changed, as much a backlash against all the oppression as it coincided with the baby boom generation, coming of age in the sixties. Suffice it to say, that we are an internet-savvy, highly tolerant, multi-lingual, but predominantly French-speaking and educated (four universities) community with North America's largest gay village. The changes have been unbelievable...so here we are!
Is The Village the largest in North America in terms of area or population? What are its four boundary streets, if you will?
The gray area is Quartier Latin, or it could be the university found downtown. It looks to be St. Hubert, Papineau, Ontario and Rene Levesque. Thank you. The only one I knew for sure was Papineau.
I don't think there are that many from Montreal on EC. Maybe 4 or 5 in total. Montreal happens to be the city with the highest rate of English speakers (and most populated as well) in the province of Québec, which is a primarily (and the only) French province in Canada. We also have the Gay Village, and the city is very accepting of it. I'd disagree with Greatwhale when he says we are more "tolerant" purely because it implies that we're "tolerating" people. I'd rather say that we're very open-minded instead, that Montreal is a multicultural city, and we've truly embraced that part of our identity. We also have many festivals known internationally during the summer season as well. I'm so glad I can write with my left hand today! :roflmao: