Language War - Part Deux

In my last post, I promised a blog piece today, entitled "The Coming Language War," but alas, it seems that events have trumped that prediction and the opening salvo has already been fired.

In both Monday's and Wednesday's posts, I warned both francophones and anglophones that the addition of 26 more employees at the Office québécois de la langue française and the subsequent fielding of many more language inspectors would be the proverbial ill wind that brings nobody any good.
And so it seems that my prediction has unfolded much more quickly than I anticipated!

Montreal sign war hinges on whether 'import' is a French word 

It is a modest sign hanging outside an equally modest fair-trade furniture store in Montreal, yet it has become a matter of great import to Quebec’s language guardians.

Kif-Kif Import, a family-run business that sells furniture and decor knick-knacks from around the world, has run afoul of Quebec’s French-language protection agency over its sign. The problem is not so much with Kif-Kif. It’s the word “import,” which officials from the Office québécois de la langue française insist is not French.

And that, storeowner Elie Bendavid says, is simply off-base.

Mr. Bendavid’s store on Montreal’s bustling Mont Royal Avenue sits next to a Subway restaurant and kitty corner from a Canada Trust, which both affix their English names in large letters on their signs. His establishment is a negligible player in a city whose commercial landscape is dominated by chains like Best Buy, Banana Republic, Home Depot, American Eagle Outfitters – and Pier 1 Imports.

Not only does Mr. Bendavid say he is being unfairly targeted, but he consulted a linguist who insists that the word “import” is, in fact, French; it’s in the dictionary.

“I believe the Office didn’t do its homework,” said Mr. Bendavid, whose mother tongue is French, and who teaches at the French-language Université du Québec à Montréal.                                        Read the rest of the story in the Globe and Mail

And there it is readers, the perfect language storm!

An OQLF inspector harassing a small ethnic merchant over the vagueries of one French English contentious word.. HOW SWEET!

The higher-ups at the OQLF must be sitting around the conference table, banging their heads on the table, agonizing over the shear lunacy and poor decision-making of an over-zealous language inspector picking this type of a fight.
Lost on the OQLF is the ironic fact that KIF-KIF IMPORT is sandwiched(pardon the pun) between SUBWAY and a CANADA TRUST!

While most francophones believe in supporting the French language, most would agree that going after a pipsqueak over one disputed word is the height of stupidity or stupidité, if you will.

As the story goes viral, it becomes more and more an utter humiliation to mainstream francophones.

And of course, the only beneficiaries is the small cadre of language fanatics who embrace this type of confrontation as a desperate strategy meant to poison English/French relations and thus raise the chances of building enough support for sovereignty.

Are we to return to the bad old days of confrontation with language inspectors and clogged courtrooms with recalcitrant Anglos refusing to capitulate?
Will we see a return to scenes of OQLF inspectors being accosted as was the case in Shawville where in 1999, a posse of militant English-speakers chased an OQLF inspector out of town during a showdown over French on business signs?

Methinks, YES.
The addition of so many more inspectors can only be a recipe for disaster.

One thing is for sure. Anglos are not frightened. With social media, outing and humiliating language cops will become the preferred method of defence.
Mr. Bendavid has clearly shown the OQLF what they are in store for.

I'll have a lot more to say about this subject in the future.

Meanwhile I'd like to comment on a newspaper story written by the  insufferable blowhard Jean-François Lisée,

Bank prez tells language militants to buzz off
Whenever companies or government organizations come under attack by French-language militants for being lax in the application of French in the workplace, the usual scenario is for the company to grovel publicly and promise to do better in the future.
That's what happened over at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, when the government agency, charged with investing the public pension plan's nest egg, was found to have in its employ two highly-placed unilingual anglophones.
This set off a short-lived witch hunt which resulted with the outing of one more such boss over at the National Bank, where not only was the head of the IT department discovered to be unilingually English, but also that the whole department operated in English.

The story was the object of a column written by separatist columnist Jean-François Lisée, who called the bank to task for not supporting French in the workplace and living up to its moral obligation to operate in French. As you know, the bank as a federally chartered institution is not subject to the application of Bill 101.

Where the story takes an unfamiliar turn is in the reaction of the bank president, Louis Vachon who  remained uncharacteristically unapologetic and promised only halfheartedly to do better.
To the criticism levelled against the bank, Mr. Vachon remained stoic, diplomatically lecturing those who complained, on the realities of the business world.

"Our business model is highly centralized. We serve our customers from outside of Quebec and internationally from Montreal. We created these jobs in Montreal. Yes, we operate partly in English, but we will not apologize for having created 500 jobs in Montreal! Other companies have branch offices in Toronto. I'm not sure that is to Montreal's benefit " LINK{Fr}

I'm not sure Mr. Vachon was blunt enough, what he was saying is that while other banks shipped off English departments to a Toronto branch office, the National Bank preferred to keep the jobs in its Montreal head office, even if it meant running an English department. He then questions which scenario best serves Montreal's interest, English jobs in Toronto or English jobs in Montreal.

Converting these English jobs into French jobs, as Mr, Lisée demanded, was off the table, in that respect Mr. Vachon was clear, the bank had made a business decision to run the IT department in English, either in Montreal or Toronto, take your pick.

In response to this explanation Mr. Lisée went onto a prolonged done-me-wrong whine, lecturing the bank president why it was a poor business decision to move jobs to Toronto. (because Toronto is too expensive a city)
As if he understood nothing Mr.Vachon said, he went on to advise the president that those who work in Montreal in English and refuse to learn French after a reasonable period, should not have their contracts renewed.
It seems that Mr. Lisée didn't get the memo written by the bank president. Perhaps it was in English.

Maybe this is what Mr. Lisée prefers, its been going on for thirty-five years;

Oct 29, 2011"Air Canada confirmed Friday it will move 130 flight crew scheduling jobs from its Montreal headquarters to a new main operations centre in Toronto due to open in 2014" Link.

Mr. Lisée's prescription to force French upon all head-offices operating in Quebec fails to account for free will.
He, along with his separatist confreres, fail to understand or care, that companies who don't like the arrangements, are apt to move operations to friendlier environs.

Readers how many thousands upon thousands of well-paying jobs have been shipped out of Quebec?

It all started in 1977 when Sun Life, the province's biggest employer of Anglophones, announced that it was moving out of Quebec because of Bill 101, after 110 years of continuous operation in Quebec.
It was the start of a corporate exodus that shifted the financial center of Canada from Montreal to Toronto. In the four months after the imposition of Bill 101, 91 companies moved out of Quebec. Link

While institutions like the Royal Bank and Bank of Montreal officially remain based in Montreal, the reality is that they are empty shells, the real operational center moved to Toronto surreptitiously, just like Air Canada and hundreds of others.

To this, how do French militants like Mr. Lisée react?
With nary a sigh, wishing good riddance to those who won't conform, telling all who will listen that Quebec is better off without these arrogant English bastard companies.

After all, wealth creation and jobs are not a priority in Quebec as long as the bills are paid for by deficit spending and equalization payments from the rest of Canada.

As for the proposed boycott of the bank called for by the separatist Guy A. Lepage, television host of the popular television talk show "Tout le monde en parle," I imagine it would be as ineffective as a call to boycott his show.

By the way, the hoity-toity separatist makes his living on the backs of federalists in the ROC who pay the bulk of his salary at the CBC's French division, Radio-Canada, which is vastly over-funded.


At any rate, Quebeckers are NOT from the big boycotters and have remarkably short memories.
Think I'm kidding?
To Francophones of all political persuasions, Sun Life was the embodiment of a bad corporate citizen for moving out of Quebec so publicly back in the day.

Venomous calls for boycotts of all manner were announced by unions and all manner of associations.
The bad blood engendered seemed to doom the company's operation in Quebec forever.

But forever is a long time. Today Sun Life is back again in the public's good grace.
Without any complaints from the separatist peanut gallery, Sun Life announced last week it would sponsor a project to rehabilitate the vast concrete plaza in front of the moribund Olympic Stadium, to be named... you guessed it...
"l'Esplanade Financière Sun Life"