PQ Set to Drive Language Wedge

It's Friday and before I get to the main theme of this post, permit me license to ramble on a bit.

As you may know, my wife and I were away for a couple of days, visiting our son and daughter-in-law in New York City.
Grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, siblings, great grandmothers and friends, both home and abroad are thrilled with a brand new little girl, hale and hearty. 

Thanks to everyone who took the time to email me offering their best wishes, it was most appreciated.

I hope to reply to each, but it will take a couple of days to get through the mail.

So please excuse the lack of post on Wednesday, frankly my head wasn't into it.
That being said our blog received an above average hit rate on that day and yesterday, so considering that there was no new post, it is a bit humbling.
I've always maintained that it's the comment section that drives this blog and I suppose that this result offers proof positive.
I was however a bit disappointed that nobody with sovereignty views offered any sort of reply to my proposition that it was time for sovereigntists to embrace partition.
I would have been interested to hear from them, but alas it was not to be.
Be sure it is not because we are not read by those who view our blog as a threat, perhaps they had nothing to say or nothing to offer in rebuttal.

Remember when I told you that the Americans would be none too pleased that US companies were being targeted by the OQLF over descriptors and that the post I wrote would probably be circulated in Washington.

I actually get to see where traffic to this blog originates and what stories are being viewed.
Here's just a snippet ( about 15 minutes worth of traffic) of those arrived on our blog to read that piece.

A couple of posts back, I made reference to a protest song written in the sixties entitled THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION, by Barry McGuire.
Whilst sojourning in the Big Apple, one of the lines of that song reverberated in my brain as I read of one more tale of linguistic intolerance, this time by a paramedic who should have been instructed in the Hypocratic Oath as part of his training.

♪♫ ♫ "You may leave here for 4 days in space.

 But when you return, it's the same old place" ♫ ♫

Yes, being away for a couple of days has put a fresh perspective on things and the endless and tedious sky-is-falling discussions about the French language seem childish and self-destructive when viewed from afar.

Listening to the horror stories emanating from the Charbonneau Commission, it is painfully evident that the Maclean's magazine article claiming Quebec as the most corrupt province was woefully understated. Quebec is likely the most corrupt jurisdiction, right down to the Rio Grande.

I tapped out a few calculations on my IPhone calculator, using what few numbers I could glean from stories surrounding the issue of Quebec corruption and what it actually costs. I came to a very rough but nonetheless disappointing conclusion.

It seems that corruption in the construction industry in its heyday cost taxpayers about 1 to 1½ billion dollars a year, enough to pay for the health tax levy that the Marois government recently eliminated and then reinstated because she had no money to pay for it.

In fact the elimination of construction graft would mean that the Quebec sales tax could go down by one full percentage point or to make it more personal, here's what corruption would cost you based on your own salary.
If you are earning;
$100,000 a year, corruption costs you $2,000
$50,000 a year, corruption costs you $1,000
$25,000 a year, corruption costs you $500

And it isn't just corruption plaguing our construction industry, it is also gross incompetence. Our bridges and highways are clearly second rate, built on the cheap and poorly engineered.
Driving across the iconic 130 year-old Brooklyn Bridge earlier this week had me scratching my head as to why our Champlain bridge is ready for the scrap heap and must be replaced after just fifty years in operation. Is that what they mean by Quebec know-how?

You'd think that the government would be assembling a crisis management team to deal with the corruption catastrophe that plagues cities and towns across the whole province, not only Montreal, but it seems that language issues are more important.

With its popularity down to under 50%, less than two months in government and after a few disastrous forays by clumsy ministers, the PQ appears set to go back to its election game plan and use language to divide and conquer Quebec.

The latest gambit by the government is based on census results released by StatsCan  indicating that French is in danger or is in fact, well-preserved, depending on who is doing the spinning.

Jean-François Lisée, a PQ cabinet minister is once more aghast at the apparent linguistic shift on the island of Montreal, vis-a-vis mother tongue and French's slow and insidious decline.

We've talked about this before on this blog and how utterly stupid the whole question is.
When you bring in 40,000 immigrants a year, almost none of whom who have French as a mother tongue, the linguistic balance of mother tongues is bound to change, especially in Montreal where 90% of these immigrants choose to make their home.

Complaining about it seems a little silly, it's like blaming the ice cream itself for one's own weight gain!

The PQ government is warning that stern measures must be adopted to preserve French in Montreal and one of Mr. Lisée's suggestions is to create more affordable housing for young families on the island of Montreal.

"Lisée said the pattern is that as couples have one child or a second child, they realize they need larger accommodations, but housing on the island is more expensive than housing in the suburbs.
“And if we can keep them, that would reduce the trend,” he said, referring to the tendency for francophones to leave the island." Link

I don't know how that is going to work short of posting signs on these 'affordable' properties that Anglos and Ethnics need not apply, as they are reserved for 'real' Quebecers. The proposition is probably the most moronic notion ever proposed by a member of government, the rank stupidity boggles the mind.

And so with the government promising to make language the major thrust of their legislative agenda, choosing to ignore the economy, corruption and wealth creation, it was sadly to be expected.

"The Quebec government says it is preparing a “robust reform” to stop the decline of the French language in Montreal in response to an “alarming trend” reported in the 2011 census released by Statistics Canada.The 2011 census showed that the number of francophones leaving Montreal continued to increase. And while the census numbers released on Wednesday showed that the use of French in immigrant households was increasing there were growing signs that the knowledge of English was still being demanded in the workplace requiring newcomers to eventually embrace English rather than French, according to the Quebec government." Link

So here we go, the PQ is going back to the tried and true, the politics of division.

It is usually the case that political parties once elected leave the rhetoric of the campaign behind as they become subject to the realities of responsibility, but for the PQ it is the opposite.

As they realize they cannot implement their leftist agenda, (the opposition has already told them it will not be tolerated) the PQ is falling back to language where it will be tougher for opposition parties to vote against oppressive language laws, which has essentially become a motherhood issue.

And so we are to face more language strife, confrontation and friction.

Sadly, it's something the PQ is comfortable with, driving Quebecers apart through the creation of a divisive Us/Them political atmosphere, something we clearly saw in the election campaign.

Marois and the PQ are set to launch a language war, telling francophones that if they aren't with them on the issue, then they are against Quebec as a French 'nation'

As the rhetoric rises, it can only lead to more incidents of intolerance as ordinary citizens are told that to hate Anglophones is not only all right but a required element for defenders of French.

If a PQ cabinet minister can refer to English as a 'foreign language' without apology, then the message being sent is that it is open season for hate.
Just for one minute, imagine the uproar if a member of Stephen Harper's cabinet called French a 'foreign language" in Canada.

So get set to see more sandwich throwers, more refusals by paramedics, metro ticket takers and bus drivers to speak English, they are being encouraged to do so.

It augers poorly for all Quebecers, because while Quebec is melting down, Marois will be desperately playing the language fiddle as the shelf life of her government shrinks with each passing gaffe.

*******************

Speaking of bridges, let's hope that when the government gets around to replacing the Champlain bridge that they build it as tough as this railway bridge....

Please have yourself a very good weekend!
Bonne Fin de Semaine!