There' s an old adage that says that Truth is the first casualty of war and it certainly applies in the continuing saga of misinformation, twisted and misinterpreted facts and figures bandied about by national groups 'proving' that English is taking over Quebec and that the French language and Francophone culture is going the way of the Dodo bird. Back in May I wrote a piece about a newspaper story that reported on a study that put forward the fact that Francophones now made more money on average than Anglophones.
The story made little sense and seemed poorly researched, likely using questionable methodology. Read my piece about the problems I had with the research.
Now nationalists are hitting back with research of their own proving and complaining that the research was flawed. A mathematician, Charles Castonguay, in a story on vigile.net criticized the methodology of Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association of Canadian Studies, a non-profit think tank.
I tend to agree that the study was junk and as a consequence it didn't do the Anglo community any good by stooping to the same dishonest methods used by nationalists to manipulate numbers.
At any rate I never trust these types of studies put out by partisan parties. Things like milk companies providing studies that show children who drink their product in the morning do better in school or tabacco companies providing data that second hand smoke is nothing to worry about. Sure.......
William Johnson has been an outstanding spokesman for the English community for several decades. His superbly researched articles are devastatingly to the point and exposes head on, the lies and half-truths promulgated by the the French nationalist movement. His tenacious attacks have led to his nickname - William "Pitt Bull" Johnson
His latest article appeared in The Montreal Gazette on June 14, 2009;
A simple fix for panic over threat to French: a reality checkThe government of Jean Charest is enacting a new law to further strangle English schooling in Quebec. But a coalition including the Parti Quebecois, the Bloc Quebecois, and the New Democratic Party denounced the bill last Monday on the grounds that it doesn't go far enough.They all signed a statement calling on the Quebec government to invoke the "notwithstanding" clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to override what the Supreme Court of Canada declared last October to be a constitutional right: to have access to English public schooling after demonstrating a serious commitment to the English language while attending an unsubsidized English school.Monday, NDP leader Jack Layton was asked during a scrum: "Is this merely the position of Mr. (Outremont MP Thomas) Mulcair or is it the party's?" Layton answered: "No, no, it's the position of the party."Under Jack Layton, the NDP increasingly aligns its policies on language and secession with those of the two separatist parties....
