Curzi's Proposed Bill 101 an Orwellian Nightmare

With  his political career winding down, (not by his choice) Pierre Curzi decided to go out in a blaze of glory, offering his unadulterated vision of Quebec society to the National Assembly, a separatist wet dream if you will, free from the constraints of real world politics.

Mr. Curzi presented his version of an updated Bill 101 (Bill 593) to the Quebec National Assembly, a bill that has no chance of passing, but a document that represents what language militants, obsessed with tilting at the windmill of anglicization, view as ultimate response to a culture and language 'under siege.'

Mr. Curzi shares with us his vision of the linguistic question that holds that not only is English a threat to the French language but bilingualism as well, and as such should be removed from public life.
And so to support this view, the OQLF shall be imbued with enhanced powers worthy of the Thought Police, interfering in everyday life so as to order society in the image of the majority, based on the tenet that diversity is a cancerous lesion that will inevitably spread and kill its most generous host.

And to those reading this last sentence and who are shaking their heads, telling themselves that the editor is on a hyperbolic flight of fancy at the idea that Mr. Curzi and friends are trying to moderate not only how we speak, but also how we think, I ask you to consider the L'Acualité's primary complaint, which is that Anglos do speak French, but are disinterested in joining or promoting the majority culture.
As pointed out in our comment section in regards to Wednesday's post, Curzi's friendly cohort, Benoît Dutrizac, complained exactly of this fact, that Anglos don't embrace French culture.

"Evidently you aren't interested in Quebec culture. An Anglo is a second rate American."
("Évidemment, tu ne t'intéresses pas à la culture francophone du Québec. Un anglo simili américain de 2ème ordre.")

And so Anglos are chastised for not embracing poutine or the sugar shack and the myriad of second and third rate talents like Julie Snyder, Les Cowboys Fringants or Ginette Reno or insipid television snorefests like Tout le Monde en Parle.
We Anglo Quebecers are branded as culturally insensitive because only 10% of us can name the mayor of Quebec City, while there is not one Francophone in 50,000 who can name the mayor of Vancouver.

To French language militants, it remains a holy tenet that Anglos who wish to maintain their own separate culture within Quebec are evil pariahs, while Francophones who cultivate and maintain a separate culture from the majority of Canadians are heroes.

Deux poids deux mesures, a double standard extraordinaire.

And so language militants are lining up to applaud a document proposing changes to the law restricting English, a vision that is nothing less than an Orwellian nightmare, where the state controls not only how citizens act in public, but how they think in private.
 

"le Mouvement national des Québécoises et Québécois (MNQ) welcomes this initiative with great enthusiasm........"

"The Mouvement Québec français  congratulates Pierre Curzi for his immense contribution to the political debate on the French language..."

The initiative of the Member for Borduas, Pierre Curzi, is significant. It is a difficult job and this is a useful approach. We share the same concerns and same objectives. We must take much more daring actions than those put forward by the Liberal government which is negligent and complicit in the anglicization of Quebec..." Parti Quebecois

The Anglo Press, so freaked out by the article in L'Acualité that characterized Anglophones as not only unsympathetic to the French cause, but purposely engaged in its destruction, issued a slew of articles defending the community and labeling the article alarmist and misinformed.
In their zeal to counter the conclusions, all failed to realize that the article said more about the attitudes of the francophones authors, than anglophones.

It reminds me of the old major league baseball story (I can't remember the characters) wherein a batter hits a tiny infield pop fly and the catcher, as is his role, hollers an instruction at the top of his lungs to the infielders, to allow the third baseman to catch the ball.
The pitcher ignores him, attempts a catch and promptly drops the ball. As the fuming catcher walks back to home plate and passes the opposing team's bench, a player in the dugout gives him a nasty dig;  "Hey, he had to consider the source!"

Yup, all these Anglos journalists reacted in a knee-jerk fashion defensive manner to a skewed story written by a quintessential Anglophobe fanatic, instead of pointing out the obvious fact that anything prepared by Pierre Curzi has zero journalistic credibility.

"Curzi was forced to apologize and retract a statement he made in October 2007 during a radio interview that appeared to suggest that a sovereign Quebec would have "more teeth" and could potentially remove the voting rights of Quebec's English-speaking community living on Montreal's West Island.  He faced some criticism in 2008 as one of two MNAs, along with Daniel Turp, who endorsed a controversial petition opposing Paul McCartney's performance at Quebec City's 400th anniversary celebrations. In September 2010, Curzi expressed on the television interview show Les Francs-tireurs his theory that there was a shortage of Francophone players on the National Hockey League team the Montreal Canadiens and that this was "damned well political" and the result of a federalist plot." Wikipedia

On Monday, the headline to my  blog piece read  L'Actualité  Poll on Anglophones Says More about Francophone Perceptions

It seems that I was alone in decrying the fact that the article was more an indictment of French attitudes, than English.
Well, I was almost alone.
In an Op-Ed piece in the Montreal Gazette, Jean-François Lisée responded to those detractors and in doing so, let this slip in.

"We at L’Actualité are totally aware that the questions asked reveal just as much about the questioner as the respondents. The questions reflect exactly what we, bilingual French-speaking journalists, wanted to know" Link{Fr}

Either Mr.  Lisée reads this blog or my observation is obvious to all, obvious to all except those Anglo defenders in the Press who completely missed the point that the article was nothing more than Anglo-bashing dressed up as journalism.

There's a lot of this journalistic fraud going around the French Quebec Press and I'll have more to say on the subject next week.

At any rate, let me help enlighten readers as to what changes Mr. Curzi and his supporters would like to see in Bill 101.
I'm sure a detailed analysis will be made available soon in the Anglo Press, but let me give you the highlights lowlights.

Now I'm not going to make direct translations, it would take too long. What I am going to do is to set out what Mr. Curzi attempts to do with his new interpretation of Bill 101 and my interpretation of the impact of these changes.

Chapter 1 Article 1
French is not only the  official language of Quebec it is the common denominator among its citizens.
(An Anglo walks into the license bureau in a predominantly English town and is served, not surprisingly, by an English (albeit bilingual) employee. They both are obliged to speak to each other in French unless a special written request is made beforehand. The same goes for an Anglo employee of the town Huntingdon answering a phone call from a fellow Anglophone resident.)

Chapter 1 Article 11
French is the language of the courts and the legislature, subject to rights already in force in Quebec.
(Pure nonsense, a clause that contradicts itself. The BNA forbids this and the clause actually admits it.)

Chapter 1 Article 17
The government will use French only in writing to immigrants.
 (POW!)

Chapter 1 Article 25
English school commissions must expressly offer their services to the public in French.
(Teachers in English schools must be prepared to have parent/teacher conferences in French )

Chapter 4 Article 32
Someone making a renewal or new demand that the  Health board communicate with him/her in English must prove that they are eligible.
 (English is no longer an option for ethnics and immigrants)

Chapter 5 Article 44
Speaking French for all professionals is an obligation. Temporary permits  may be authorized until the professional passes a French test. Flunk three times and you must stop practicing 
(An English speaking doctor who serves a 100% Anglophone clientele, cannot practice if he/she cannot pass a French test, which by the way is not that easy to pass)

Chapter 7 Article 57-58
The OQLF will impose French rules on companies with less than 50 employees. 
(Massively complicated rules including the establishment of internal French committees will bring a mess of bureaucratic pain to companies without the ability or the financial resources to comply. )

Chapter 7 Article 62
Companies with 25 or more employees must register with the OQLF and furnish all sorts of information and must obtain a certificate of conformity
(Was my reference to BIG BROTHER really out of line?)

Chapter 7 Article 86
All companies must use a French name or in the case of a legal trademark, a French descriptor must be added
(A complete and TOTAL admission that the present act has no requirement for descriptors.) 

Some other highlights

Pertaining to education, the new Bill 101 will apply from kindergarten to university and eligibility to Dawson college or McGill University will no longer be an option to ineligible Francophone or Allophones.

Businesses would no longer be able to make bilingualism a condition of employment unless approved by the OQLF. It would remain to be seen if it were to be legal to ask that a clerk in a downtown Montreal speak English as a condition of employment. (probably not).

As to Bill 103, a law passed in response to a Supreme Court decision allowing students who had some private English education entry into the public education system in English, Mr Curzi suggests that the Draconian Notwithstanding Clause be implemented to deny about 150 students a year an English education.

On and on it goes, but perhaps the most telling nightmarish clause of all, is the frightening Article 43, which authorizes the OQLF to monitor the behavior and mindset of its citizens.
Do not be fooled with it's reference to linguistic groups, it targets Anglos and ethnics only.

Article 43.
The Office shall monitor the linguistic situation in Québec and shall report thereon to the Minister at least every three years, especially as regards the use and status of the French language and the behaviour and attitudes of the various linguistic groups.

WOW! Welcome to our Brave New world. 


 If you speak French you can do your own clause by clause comparison of the the new Bill 101 compared to the old law by downloading a PDF HERE.

You can download  an English PDF of this proposed bill (without a comparision to the old Bill 101) Here  (Thanks Tony for the link) 

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I'd like to share a chart with you which I lifted from antagoniste.net where DAVID writes some blistering pieces in his famous series "Arguing with idiots"
I gave out all sorts of links in Monday's post

Not all of you speak French, so I'd like to share this chart which will put paid to the arguments made in the comments section about Ontario also receiving Equalization payments.


The charts shows how much each citizen in Ontario versus Quebec receives in Equalization.

Finally here's a laugh to send you off.

It's a video wherein the interviewer stops people in a Toronto street and asks them what they think of bilingualism.
I didn't embed the video because it is definitely NSFW.
You've been warned......... WATCH IT HERE

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!!