Second, I think the GP was slightly exaggerating, or doesn't know much beyond his small area of Canada. The problem isn't with those who consider themselves Quebecois, since that would be both unreasonable and, in many cases, hypocritical. The problem is with those who consider themselves Quebecois as opposed to Canadian, and don't believe/recognize that they can be both.
"Everything comes at a price" is a consequence of capitalism, not the goal. The principle is that if I value your skills more than I value X dollars per year, then that's what I'll be willing to pay you. If you won't work for less than X + 10000 dollars per year and that's more than I value your skills, we don't have a deal and I'll keep my money.
If you want something without giving anything in return, what you are talking about isn't capitalism.
Note: By you, I don't mean you, I mean them.
Sure it does. The kid was probably learning in school to write formally, which involves plenty of verb conjugations, so it would be fresh in her mind. The father was presumably long out of school, so he would be in the habit of speaking informally, where the Subjunctive is used less frequently. Plenty of English speakers are informal and technically wrong, even though they learned how to speak properly in school, and are in a position to be corrected by their kids who are thinking about the rules.
I think that what you are noticing isn't the difference between English and other languages, but between mother tongue and second (or third or whatever) languages. I studied French as a second language when I was in school, and we spent much more time learning the technical rules of French than we did English, where we generally learned about creative writing and things. It was pretty much assumed that we would be able to put sentences together on our own. Friends of mine who learned English as a second language in Quebec generally report the opposite, that they learned technical language skills in English while it was assumed that they could express themselves in French. I suspect it has more to do with the expectation that people have a basic proficiency in their mother tongue by virtue of the environment they live in but they need to be taught a second language completely.
Note: When I say I took French as a second language, I mean that starting at 6 years old, all classes were in French, so I "know" more about French than I do about English, even though I speak better English.
If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro