DCHP-2

ROC Rest of Canada, rest of Canada DCHP-2 (October 2016)

• n. — abbreviation, Quebec, Politics, French relations

  Rest of Canada; the parts of Canada outside Quebec.

  Type: 1. Origin — The term is most popular in Quebec (see Chart 1) and has undergone semantic specialization from the more general context that pits one location against the "rest of the country", a meaning that is found in Canada as well as Quebec. This special meaning is mostly used in political contexts and designates Quebec as a distinct entity within Canada, which reflects its special status in a number of ways. More problematically, the term also represents the non-Quebec part of Canada as a homogeneous entity, which it is not.
  See also ITP Nelson, s.v. "ROC".

  See also: separation (meaning 1)  Rest of Canada  

  • It appears that use of the abbreviation and term is is rarer in the 2010s than in the 1980s and 1990s. The intense political focus on Quebec during discussions around the patriation of the Constitution Act and the 1980 and 1995 referenda on Quebec sovereigny has dissipated in recent years.

  • 1977  Public opinion polls show that support for sovereignty-association falls away if Quebeckers feel there is no hope of an association with the rest of Canada after political independence. Mr. Chretien picked up this theme in his remarks yesterday. 
  • 1985  Miller said Levesque's nine-year reign in Quebec "made us re-examine ourselves and stop taking for granted the fact that Canada was a country that was forever going to remain united." "He brought a good deal of concern to those of the rest of Canada who were perhaps unaware of the legitimate aspirations of the people of Quebec and assumed that they should automatically stay in our country." 
  • 1990  The overall impression left by reports of the hearings is that Quebec is strong and stable enough, politically and economically, to succeed as an independent country. The idea has a certain appealing logic, given the vacuum in which the debate is taking place. The English Canada that was so identifiable during the Meech Lake debate has evaporated into the mists of the "rest of Canada" (ROC) in English and "le Canada hors Quebec" (CHQ) in French. It is faceless, unfocused but still unfriendly. In a recent interview with La Presse, Premier Clyde Wells of Newfoundland declared categorically that an independent Quebec could not count on economic association. 
  • 1999  The Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar byelection will be a test run for a new Alberta-based political party dedicated to decentralizing power in Canada by forging an alliance with the Bloc Quebecois. The Rest of Canada Party (ROC) plans to run its leader and founder, Edmonton chartered accountant Ace Cetinski, as an independent candidate in the Nov. 15 vote. 
  • 2008  Handouts from the Rest of Canada so that they can afford programs only dreamed about in the ROC -- $7-a-day day universal daycare, university and college tuition fees frozen for the past 14 years, bailouts for large Quebec corporations etc. etc. Official bilingualism is an affirmative action program for Francophones in the federal civil service to the extent that most Canadians are denied positions in government. The Bloc whose only interest is in getting more for Quebec to the detriment of the ROC. 
  • 2013  Montreal is relentlessly anglicizing even if the writer concedes that you can "almost" live in French in Montreal. Montreal culture is splitting away from mainstream Quebec culture. And Montreal sees itself as a "distinct society." (Does this mean that the rest of Quebec (ROQ) feels like the rest of Canada (ROC) does about Quebec?) Montrealers identify more with fellow city dwellers in New York and Toronto than with closed-minded, homespun Quebecers. 
  • 2015  Rest of Canada, not Quebec, the key to NDP putting 2015 behind it New Democrats find themselves at their lowest standing in the polls in more than a decade