Thursday, February 10, 2011

Pierre Curzi -Quebec's Most Dangerous Fool

Many years ago a senior civil servant in the Ontario government told me the story of how a government minister whilst on a whistle stop speaking tour through several towns in northern Ontario, reached into the wrong pocket and gave the wrong speech in the wrong town, much to the consternation of his political minders, who cringed in abject horror at the gaffe.
Making matters worse, the minister's speech included a promise of several million dollars for the construction of a library or some such affair, an undertaking meant for the next town over.
When shocked handlers insisted that the minister correct his mistake, he was having no part of it.
"We'll just have to build two!"
 
"In 1983 Marc Lalonde, the then finance minister, accidentally allowed a cameraman to film parts of his budget that indicated a deficit. It's a Parliamentary tradition that the budget is to remain top secret until tabled in Parliament and any leak is automatic grounds for the Minister's resignation. 
"To deflect charges that his deficit forecast has been leaked, Lalonde decides to boost spending in the final budget document, which allows him to claim that the correct deficit figure hadn't really been leaked.."Link
The reaction to these gaffes highlights the problem of foolish politicians unleashed.

The lengths certain politicians will go to save their own skin or salvage their image can only be categorized as criminal when it means the abject waste of taxpayer resources.

Even worse than these idiots, are the politicians who advance flawed or capricious policies based only on a 'gut' feeling and an overclocked sense of importance.

These are the politicians that cause even more damage than the above-mentioned idiots.

Major Jean Drapeau of Montreal was one such self-important fool, who knew better than all the advisers around him. There was no stopping his unbending and ill-conceived vision of a self financing Olympic games, which saddled the city of Montreal with a billion dollar deficit and a monstrously ugly and dysfunctional Olympic stadium, a monument to self-aggrandizement and uncontrollable ego.

Such is the character of Quebec's most dangerous politician, Pierre Curzi, the under-educated, unilingual, Peeqiss Anglophobe who passes himself off as some sort of language and cultural expert.

Mr. Curzi, although born in bilingual Montreal, never bothered to learn a lick of English and just like many French language militants, his frustrating unilingualism is the basis of his loathing for everything English.

Back in 2007, Curzi intimated in a radio interview that anglos could be stripped of their voting rights in a sovereign Quebec.
"We can't take away their right to vote because that is a right we cannot control because we are still a province within the federation. Obviously, the day when the country is there, we will control citizenship, which will have more teeth, if I can dare to say so."  
Of course, he later backtracked, once informed of the racist implication of his pronouncement, but the incident highlights the grave concern minorities must share with the very real possibility that this type of fanatic can get his hands on the levers of power.

Mr. Curzi is famous for quoting self-serving studies and reports that he himself (or his militant friends) prepare to advance his special brand of language eugenics.

It's about as honest as asking a group of priests (or alternately, agnostics) to prepare a report as to whether religion is a positive benefit to society.
It is the very definition of a foregone conclusion.

These so-called 'scholarly' works should be roundly denounced by a skeptical press, but they are generally accepted as gospel by a compliant and complacent media as anxious as Mr Curzi, to prove that the sky is falling in relation to the protection of the French language.

Mr. Curzi, through a complete lack of understanding or alternately through cynical design, ignores the fundamental difference between 'causation' and 'correlation' to reach the most asinine conclusions, such as this beauty;

"Since Francophone students who attend English cegep are more likely to accept an English job in the future, English cegeps are responsible for their anglicization."

It is these types of pearls of wisdom that should frighten us all.

Hear no English, See no English, Speak no English!
Mr. Curzi has displayed a deep and unabiding disdain for English, so much so that he objected to Paul McCartney singing at a celebration marking the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec, because he was representative of English and Canadian culture.
Mocked by the public and after being reproached by Pauline Marois, he once again was forced to excuse himself.

Last fall, he suggested the lack of French players on the Canadiens hockey team was a deliberate move on the part of federalists to starve Quebecers of a powerful “symbol of identity.”  Link
 "He has also called for policies to stop francophones from moving from Montreal to off-island suburbs, in order to preserve a majority of the population whose mother tongue is French. The fewer francophones on the island, he warned, the greater the chance recent immigrants would form families with anglophones." LINK
Of course none of this passes for racism in Quebec, where bashing fellow anglo or ethnic citizens is par for the course to 'defenders of the faith' like Mr. Curzi, who continue to characterize anglophones and English as a disease with nary a compunction.

Here's an old clip of the ill-prepared and clearly over-matched Curzi making a fool of himself in front of a parliamentary committee charged with discussing access to to English schools.



Mr. Curzi is trying to demonize the French private school for having such a large English component to its curriculum.
First, he complains that the school can't provide figures as to how many of its grade school graduates abandon their French roots and go on to English high school, to which the surprised school official points out  that the school has indeed provided the information to the committee and that furthermore, 132 of the 136 graduates, went on to French high school. Ouch!

Then after much stuttering, hemming and hawing, Curzi warns the representative indignantly, that nothing is stopping those graduates from going on to English high school, if they so choose.
The school representative delivers a priceless and deadpan put down by telling Mr. Curzi that everyone in Quebec has that same right! PRICELESS!!

And this idiot is the man who might one day create linguistic policy.

Today, Mr. Curzi wants to apply Bill 101 to small and micro businesses, a law never intended to regulate small business.

One of the requirements of Bill 101 is that employees communicate to each other in French.

Imagine an anglophone family running a small home-based business being obliged to talk to each other in French during the work day!

Imagine them having to purchase and install on their computer hard drive, a French version of QuickBooks Accounting Software or Microsoft WORD, even if they use the English versions!

Imagine them being forced to leave notes to each other in French!

That is what's required in Bill 101, which was intended to regulate larger businesses.

Even the infamous Doctor Camille Laurin, father of  Bill 101 couldn't conceive of something so stupid.
“There is no question of preventing [non-French-speaking] employees from working together in their own language, provided it is understood that they must serve their French customers in French.”  
Obviously Mr. Curzi doesn't agree, he suggests that Montreal's 46,000 small business be inspected regularly to insure language compliance.


Mr Curzi may seem like a colourful buffoon, but he represents a real danger should the PQ ever achieve power.

His ideas about the promotion of the French language and culture are mutually exclusive to the preservation and respect of English in Quebec.
He is an ideologue imbued with the same sense of misplaced righteousness as a Spanish inquisitor and like most ultra-nationalists, he believes that in order for French to survive, English must die.

Be afraid. . . Be very afraid!

32 comments:

  1. Yeah... what a fool, and a monkey fool... I was walking once on Sherbrooke very close to l'Office de la langue francaise and I saw the fool walking on the sidewalk. I literally stare at him. I wanted to take a good look at what I was watching: the fool of the fool in person!

    (I like your blog because I share the same opinion as yourself on basically almost you write about! Please continue. I link you on my blog)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am pretty sure he has lot more culture than the author of the article.

    I am soooooo afraid...

    Lol

    ReplyDelete
  3. There has been many an exposé on Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf". Move forward 85 years and what you have now is Pierre Curzi's "Mon Combat".

    To Hitler, Jews were his bitterest enemy. To Curzi, English is his bitterest enemy. Like Louise Beaudoin, Curzi would, if he could, place a language cop under the bed of every minority to make sure everybody snores, sleep talks and makes love in French.

    Make English speakers talk French to each other in their family business? GET REAL! The guy is obviously a paranoid, hateful, bigoted freak of nature. Sadly, there are too many of these in Quebec and Premier John James "Goldilocks" Charest seems to sympathize with this element, otherwise, Premier John James "Goldilocks" Charest would NEVER solve the Bill 104 crisis with Bill 103, then Bill 115, then whatever, now would he?

    Former Premier Robert Bourassa, followed by Former Premier Daniel Johnson Jr. followed by Premier John James "Goldilocks" Charest made a point of not changing a comma of the Holy Grail 101 in the name of "linguistic peace", yet despite bending over backwards for Nazi-like figures like Pierre Curzi has not resulted in "linguistic peace", now has it?

    They can't tighten the screws enough on English because malcontents the likes of Pierre Curzi, Louise Beaudoin, the SSJB, Français Impératif and other xenophobic, fascist factions still exist and they're constantly parading their pipes.

    Maybe Pierre Curzi is the modern version of, as Buffalo Springfield used to sing, "[the] man over there telling me I've got to beware", and if I dare speak English in the streets, my work and chez moi, "the man come and take me a-way"! I guess when I visit Quebec, I better "Arrêt, listen what's that sound, tous le monde look what's goin' down"!

    Now half a century has passed since the «pur laine» sheep woke up after the prior two centuries being led astray by bad leadership (evil, really) in the name of the Roman Catholic church, assisted by despotic advantage takers like Maurice Duplessis, these sheep still don't know how to shepherd themselves, and now they have «laine noir» in names like Pierre Curzi.

    Small wonder since the Quiet Revolution and "maitre chez nous" and "Kay-bec knows how" we now have a Montreal that was the economic engine of Canada slipping to 4th or 5th place...and falling (and if below 8th place, is Montreal out of the playoffs?).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lunatics like Curzi are a result when the Nationalist created myths go unchallenged in the public sphere. For decades these people have been spewing garbage and no one in the media ( English ot French ) dare challenges... not even the national media... so called federalist politicians cowtow to these racists, English speaking leadership..( Alliance Quebec ) ...Linguistic peace exists in so far as the english speaking community in Quebec is willing to be sodomized.....

    ReplyDelete
  5. The only reason Parti Quebecois threats seem effective is because anglos and allos never have threatened to just ignore the new laws on mass. The Quebec government nor the vigile.net types do not have the power to enforce have the stupid laws they have on their books. A tax strike would be a double whammy. Its time to call their bluff. Just the threat of the anti Bill 101 rally has struck fear into the entire pur laine supremist groups because they never have had anyone stand up to them. Thats what scared them about one lone man, angus brown.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Angus Brown dont scare anyone...except a few parano peoples in the french suprematist folks.

    If the anglo community dont united behind him....he will stay a useless blogger with only a few partisans.

    ReplyDelete
  7. @anon 10:32

    Thats my point, he wasn't considered a useless blogger. The vigile and all the other types quickly went to try to crush him and his website.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Small wonder since the Quiet Revolution and "maitre chez nous" and "Kay-bec knows how" we now have a Montreal that was the economic engine of Canada slipping to 4th or 5th place...and falling (and if below 8th place, is Montreal out of the playoffs?)."

    Can you imagine the decayed, decrepit state of disrepair Montreal and the rest of Quebec would be in today if the rest of Canada had not pumped in tens of billions of dollars in transfer payments during the last 40 years? If Quebec had voted to separate in the 1980 or 1995 referendums, it would surely have become a Third World country by now.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jim Angus brown, is the publisher of the Park Avenue Gazette.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Votre idée de la liberté, on voit bien ce que ça donne bande de faux-culs. Continuez à vouloir coloniser le Québec en traitant ses habitants comme des citoyens de second ordre. À ce que je sache la Loi 101 n'a fait que rendre plus normale une situation qui ne l'est définitivement pas. Il y a une langue COMMUNE et c'est le français puisque c'est la langue de la vaste majorité. Point final, parlez l'anglais entre-vous, chez-vous, dans vos clubs et commerces mais de grâce, lâchez-nous avec ''LA LIBERTÉ'' et autres concepts complétement galvaudés de leur sens premier. À ce compte, j'exige de travailler, d'être servi en français ou en arabe dans le centre-ville de Toronto (p-être Ottawa ?). La Loi 101 n'est pas une surprise, elle est appliquée depuis 1977, si ça ne vous convient pas, trouvez-vous une alternative qui vous rend plus heureux.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Jim Angus is a racist folk that doesn't want to speak any other languages then english.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The Committee is run by several People and Jim is one of the blogger leaders, as am I.
    We are now accepting donations via Paypal, please see the top of Groups' wall:
    http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=188473804513203

    I have been in double-recourse against the sacred nationalist institution that failed us all miserably after their $47BN loss revealed early 2009 - LaCaisse.com is a 220+BN$ organisation, and taking on the biggest economic bully of QC is my cross to bear (but I have HR Commission help, the Retirees Association...since the Working Standards Commission's work fell on a Septard Judge).

    ReplyDelete
  13. Curzi will be on Tout Le Monde en Parle this Sunday. Though invited as one of the actors in Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain (released 25 years ago) I'd not be surprised if he detracts and sets on his usual anti-Federalist/anglo folly.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "urzi will be on Tout Le Monde en Parle this Sunday. Though invited as one of the actors in Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain (released 25 years ago) I'd not be surprised if he detracts and sets on his usual anti-Federalist/anglo folly."

    HMMM> no wonder I found that movie bad. Not much more than sensational porn for the times.

    ReplyDelete
  15. anon 4:04

    Its not colonization when English speakers built and found much of Montreal and Quebec. The actual city of Montreal had an english speaking majority. We are already Chez Nous and will continue to speak and promote english whenever we can. Its your attitude that makes people like myself hope and do my little bit in hoping Quebec demographics keep changing until we have the demographic weight to get rid of bill 101.

    ReplyDelete
  16. "Jim Angus is a racist folk that doesn't want to speak any other languages then english."

    I suppose that means Francophones who don't want to speak languages other than French are racists as well...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Le conseil administratif de l'entreprise ou je travaille et dont je fais partie,ont décidé d'installer des caméras (sonores) dans les "zones a risques" de l'usine.C'est-a-dire les chaînes de montages ou la plupart des allophones travaillent.
    Nous sommes 137 employés dont 76 sont de nouveaux arrivants.Le but de l'exercice est de les surprendre a parler anglais.Après 3 infractions,ils sont remerciés et mis a la porte.Moi j'aurais été d'accord pour de simples contraventions étant donné que la plupart de nos employés sont relativement démunis et ont vraiment besoin de ce travail afin de survivre.

    Je n'étais pas daccord avec mon conseil d'administration mais la majorité l'a emporté.
    Le plus malheureux dans tout ça c'est que ça fonctionne très bien.Les travailleurs continuent de parler en Français même a la cafétéria et c'est le seul endroit avec les toilettes dans l'entreprise ou les caméras sont absentes.

    D'après une évaluation récente de l'opération,
    Les "experts" affirment que l'exercice est un franc succès.

    Je me demande par contre si ces gens ont développé le réflexe jusqu'a la maison.

    ReplyDelete
  18. anon 6:14

    If your company has enough resources to monitor cameras for english then it means that company is on the road to bankruptcy and deserves to shut down. Even though I think its all in your imagination. IF it was true would love to find out the name of the company so we could post it all over the internet. I guess all publicity is good publicity until someone decides to boycott the plant and they decide to move it elsewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  19. @ Anon. at 6:14 PM,

    What is the name of the company? Some of the shareholders might be interested in how it treats its employees.

    I doubt, however, that you are working, because you spend way too much time making idiotic comments on this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  20. to anon@5:48

    Is this story really true?
    Employees fired for speaking English?

    Please give us some more details or contact me @
    anglomontreal@gmail.com. SVP

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anon 6:14PM: “Après 3 infractions,ils sont remerciés et mis a la porte.Moi j'aurais été d'accord pour de simples contraventions étant donné”

    You are too generous Anon.

    But on a serious note, look at the consequences of your small mindedness and pettiness. The immigrants that you (claim to) invigilate and penalize will never take you or your people seriously. You’ve lost them for good and they’re never coming back to your side even if they were sympathetic towards your cause before. And outside the 40 hours a week at work, these people go home and the last thing they do is speak French or embrace anything even remotely related to the Quebecois culture.

    You are shooting yourself in the foot, essentially.

    ReplyDelete
  22. So who wants to take a bet that when Pauline Marois is forced to step down after a poor leadership review in April, Pierre Curzi steps up to take her place?

    Imagine Pierre Curzi leader of the Parti Quebecois. Imagine him holding a referendum and winning. Now imagine the next Adolf Hitler.

    ReplyDelete
  23. A great man, God bless him! i hope that your corrupted Irish puddle will be defeated and a strong PQ government to correct the mess of your Savior.

    By the way , please excuse my bad English. Did you know that most of your vocabulary comes from French? The Norman conquest bring you civilization...

    Dieu est mon droit

    ReplyDelete
  24. "Did you know that most of your vocabulary comes from French"

    Effectivement,le globish est un langage artificiel.Un amalgame de mots et d'expressions volés aux autres langues.Ce sont des pilleurs nés.

    ReplyDelete
  25. "Dieu est mon droit"

    This sounds like something a serial killer would say.

    ReplyDelete
  26. at anon 8:52

    actually the Quebecois joual is a mix of all the languages the french banned after the french revoltuon and the english lanugage. Like the celtic languages of brittany and other parts of Northwest France. I guess the total banning of languages runs in the blood sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  27. "I guess the total banning of languages runs in the blood sometimes."

    Oui mon Général!Pardon,Caporal.

    En passant je ne suis pas "anon".
    Je suis "Le tueur de chiens de l'Ouest"

    ReplyDelete
  28. "Dog killer from West said...

    En passant je ne suis pas "anon".
    Je suis "Le tueur de chiens de l'Ouest""

    Well if your name is le tueur de chiens de l'Ouest then you've comppletely wrecked the translation. What "Dog Killer from west" actually translates to is "Quelqu'un qui vient de l'ouest qui tue des chiens". What your name actually should be is "Killer of Western dogs"

    ReplyDelete
  29. J'aime aussi traquer le jason sauvage.Il est petit,poilu et coriace et il se reproduit dans les sous-bois.Il est souvent en conflit avec les perdrix,quoique plus peureux.

    ReplyDelete
  30. 'Did you know that most of your vocabulary comes from French? The Norman conquest bring you civilization...' When my ancestors crossed the channel in longboats based on the ones they landed in Normandy from DK with about three hundred years before, they brought with them about 14k FR words that were integrated into the English language.
    The 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. English is a language that absorbs from many other languages, such as Latin, Greek, German, Spanish and French - but I do not know how you can posssibly say 14k words out of 174k is 'most'.

    Dieu est mon droit - wrong, it is 'et' as in God and my Rights.

    ReplyDelete
  31. "Dog killer from West said..."

    I DID give you the proper spelling and grammar you know.

    Anyways, I guess I just have to not let my dog travel out West to make sure you don't kill it. What have canines ever done to you?

    ReplyDelete