French vs. English Volume 6

Latendresse Trade Irks Militant?

Georges Le Gal is one of those frothing at the mouth, French language fanatics, who clog up the blogsphere with nonesensical rants, most of which make no sense. In his latest missive he complains that the Montreal Canadiens don't hire enough Francophone players and is specifically upset that the Canadiens traded away one of them, Guillaume Latendresse.

"Indeed, with the recent departure of Guillaume Latendresse, only Maxim Lapierre, Georges Laracque, and defenceman Marc-André Bergeron remain."

Of course he conveniently fails to mention that Latendresse was traded for another Francophone, Benoit Pouliot, who has joined the team and is waiting for an injury to heal before taking his place on the bench.
Mr. Le Gal then goes on to complain that when the Canadiens retired the number of Émile 'Butch' Bouchard at the 100th anniversary ceremony on December 4, they were forced by "Anglophone" pressure to include an English player alongside and thus retired Elmer Lach's number as well.
Finally, Mr. Gal completes his hat-trick of faulty logic, absurdity and bad math, with this pearl of wisdom. "It makes me think of the financing of the two mega hospitals in Montreal: 50% funding for McGill University Health Center for the 10% Anglophones and 50% of funding for CHUM for the 90% Francophones!"

Are Francophone children smarter than Anglophone children?

Shopping for toys in Wal-Mart, I couldn't help noticing this anomaly. It seems that there are different standards for Anglophones and Francophones in terms of age recommendation for video games.

Letter writer offended by bilingual announcement in English towns?

In it's latest newsletter the Mouvement Montréal français complains the the AMT, the agency which runs trains to suburban Montreal was disrespecting the French language by announcing stops bilingually, when passing through predominantly English towns.

"What surprised me was that this organization promotes bilingualism! I understand that this line (and who knows about the others?) passes through towns that is home to a great part of the anglophone population of Montreal (Saint-Laurent, Roxboro, Pierrefonds, Sainte-Dorothée) but is it necessary to call out stops bilingually, dozens of times per day;

"Prochain arrêt/Next Stop, Gare Bois-Franc/ Bois-Franc Station"

Oh, the inhumanity!!

Money more important than principles?

The Syndicat de la fonction publique du Québec, the union representing the 43, 000 Quebec government workers, has loudly opposed bilingualism in the civil service and militated against what they perceive as 'creeping bilingualism.' Last year, the union participated in an anti-English campaign called "Press 9" (read- 'press nine for English')  that attempted to restrict the automatic right of citizens to be served in English. The head of the union opposes citizens retaining the right to have their government file designated as "English," thus obliging the government to serve them in English.

This week however, the union hypocritically demanded that Quebec pay 'bilingualism' bonuses for those employees that do speak English to citizens. When asked about the discrepancy, Lucie Martineau, the union's leader said that she saw saw no contradiction in their position.

Mouvement Montérégie francais is born.
Inspired by the Mouvement Montréal français, a new organization has been created to defend the French language on the south shore of Montreal.

"The island of Montreal is Anglicizing and it's spreading to the periphery. French is losing ground in several places, Brossard, Châteauguay, Delson, La Prairie, Longueuil," said the spokesman of the group, the author Yves Beauchemin.

Yesiree, it's best to be vigilant.

They can start by picketing the  McDonald's restaurant on D'Anjou boulevard in Chateauguay which is perpetrating an egregious attack on the integrity of the French language.

Before my very eyes, I recently witnessed senior citizens playing a bilingually run BINGO game run, right in the middle of the restaurant, without any shame whatsoever!
 BAY-DOUZE , BEE-TWELVE,
JAY-QUARANTE SIX, GEE-FORTY-SIX.
EEE-VINGT-DEUX, EYE-TWENTY-TWO

As I munched on my chicken sandwich, the Bingo caller expertly shouted out the numbers in Frech ana English to the delight of a senior group that was made up of an interesting mix of Francophone and Anglophone seniors.
"What did he say?" Asked an elderly Anglo to her French seat mate.
"Coudon!, il a dit EEE-VINGT DEUX!"
"Ok, Ok, Keep your shirt on!!,"
This new language organization is going to have to be on it's toes, otherwise bilingualism may spread to other Bingo games across the Montérégie region and that would clearly be disastrous!!


Blame Canada
In an unsigned article entitled" "The Canadian Governement discriminates against Independantists" appearing on the Ameriquebec.net website, the writer complains about the fact that enviormental demonstrators on Parliament Hill received more favourable treatment than those protesters who demonstrated against Prince Charles in Montreal. He is furious that the Ottawa demonstrators who were arrested were fined only $65 by the RCMP while the Quebec demonstrators who were arrested were fined $500 by the Montreal police.
Somehow, according to the writer, this is a plot to discriminate against separatists. What's puzzling is how all this relates to the headline attached to the story, which would make more sense if it read" "Montreal Police discriminate against Independentists"
If the fine assessed by the Montreal police is overly harsh, what does it have to do with the Canadian government?