Election debate uninspired

There's going to be a lot of commentary in the media over Thursday's debate that readers who are interested can peruse at their leisure in other media.
The only point I take away from the debate is that Philippe Couillard didn't get embarrassed over corruption, the Achilles' Heel of the Liberal party for the last three years. As I told you, the PQ advantage was negated with the Claude Blanchet 'deal or no deal' affair and as I predicted, Marois was frightened off the issue by an ominous warning by Couillard in the days running up to the debate.

As for winners or losers, I suggest that beauty is distinctly in the eye of the beholder and that it depends majoritarily on your political bent.
Speaking to this view, Le Journal de Montreal polled six of its opinion writers for their take on who won and who lost and it pretty much broke down on political affiliation.

Mathieu Bock-Côté- "Marois Surprising"

Winner- Pauline Marois

Loser - Phillippe Couillard

Lise Ravary- "What Debate?"

Winner- Philippe Couillard

Loser - Pauline Marois

Benoît Aubin - "Inconclusive"

Winner- Francois Legault

Loser - Tie

Jean Dussault - "Pfff!"

Winner- Francois Legault

Loser - Tie

Esther Bégin - "Respectful, but no K.O"

Winner- Philippe Couillard

Loser - Francois Legault

Simon Tremblay-Pépin - "Missed the mark"

Winner- Nobody

Loser - Francois Legault

As I said...depends on your optic... Link: Journal de Montreal

The always hilarious YGRECK, the political cartoonist offered us this pearl, an indecisive Pauline Marois, unable to complete the simple Wheel of Fortune puzzle.
His cartoons are always good for a laugh and most of the time, no French required. Go ahead and visit, YGRECK

"Hmm!.... I can't really see it."

Natives Tell Separatists that they're not interested in an independent Quebec

One of the great myths spouted by separatists is how well they get on with natives and how well they'd be treated in an independent Quebec, filled with brotherhood and good will towards all men.

Not so fast.
Natives are deeply mistrustful of Quebec and have no use for independence. Although separatists have promised to respect treaty rights granted under the British crown and the Canadian government, some tribes are outright hostile especially to the French language.

Natives, like everyone else in Quebec, are divided into linguistic groups, some tribes speak English and are aligned with the English community and others likewise with the French majority.
Quebec is actually home to less than 10% of natives in Canada, about 140,000, of which, 30% are Metis, the ancestors of Francophone Quebecer and Native intermarriage.
But for the Cree and the Innu who live in the North and the high North, as well as the Mohawks down south, English is the language of choice for interaction with Quebec and Canada.

You might recall the terrible conflict that was the Oka Crisis that laid bare the reality of anti-native sentiment in Quebec, with many separatist commentators and journalists pumping up the racism, based mostly on what they perceived as the unholy and insulting alliance of the natives with the English minority and their clear preference to Canada, not Quebec.

Much to the dismay of separatists, but no surprise to any one who pays attention is the Mohawks recent assertion that they'll have no part in an independent Quebec.

Quebec Mohawks likely to declare own independence if PQ wins sovereignty referendum: Grand Chief'

Leaders from Mohawk communities near Montreal say they will likely declare their own independence if a re-elected Parti Québécois succeeds in winning a third sovereignty referendum.
“We’d never be part of Quebec or cede out of Canada because we don’t believe we are Canadians to begin with. Our ties are to the land,” said Grand Chief Michael Delisle of Kahnawake, which counts about 8,000 Mohawks. “I would take a wild guess and I’m sure I’d be right my community would absolutely turn down any sovereignty movement by the provincial government.” Link

“With the potential threat of this region’s culture and language becoming distinctly French, we must concern ourselves with the reality that there is not even 1 percent of the Akwesasne population that speaks the French language. The every day languages are still Mohawk and English. An additional concern we’d have is that much of our vast territory in Quebec would be subject to new, more stringent laws that are alien to our culture. Many areas of our organization and the services we provide would also be impacted by the formation of a new Quebec government.” the release added.

“If Quebec ultimately chooses to separate, I would advise our Council and community to hold our own vote in order to determine whether we would stay within the borders of Quebec or separate ourselves,” said MCA Grand Chief Mike Kanentakeron Mitchell. Watertown Daily Time (USA)

Now Quebec could probably live with losing the small reservations down south but the real problem is the Cree up north who make claim to vast areas of the province and the Cree are every bit as militant as the Mohawk when it comes to defending their territory.

It's really another obstacle to independence that Quebec would have to surmount and it isn't at all clear or likely that in light of the current bad blood and the memories of Oka, that any deal could be reached.

Journal de Montreal ramping up Charter Hysteria

When Pierre-Karl Péladeau announced his entry into politics under the PQ banner without selling off his media holding, journalists at the Journal de Montreal were indignant at the accusation that the newspaper would be even more biased than before in favour of sovereignty.

But let's face it, if you were the highly paid editor of the newspaper and a journalist came to you with a story confirming that PKP participated in drug-laced orgies with Mafia cohorts using underage hookers, would you print or kill the story? (NONE OF THAT IS TRUE!!!!)

There's the famous journalist adage to remember, that 'A scoop is a scoop, but a job is a job...'

And so I've been watching the JdeMtl closely to see when and if they would run some gratuitous article dishonestly pushing the PQ agenda, and lo and behold my fears were well-founded.

An absolutely despicable article entitled "More Requests for Accommodations' tells readers that requests for accommodations are rising, without a shred of evidence or backup material.

The article quotes some school official, clearly a huge booster of the Charter, describe how students are refusing to take gym or swimming because of religious convictions. All this without one statistic or even an anecdotal tale.

Danielle Boucher, head of an association of school personnel has reported that in a poll, 60% of school personnel in the Quebec city area favour the Charter.
Let's break that down.
60% of Francophone teaching personnel in Quebec City, WHERE YOU CAN COUNT THE MUSLIMS WEARING HIJABS IN SCHOOLS ON YOUR FINGERS are concerned with the growing problem of accommodations.

The story is pure propaganda and even the picture accompanying the story is strange, showing a student who is not even wearing a Hijab eating at what I suppose is a school buffet (maybe not) with what looks to be a portion of rolled ham on the plate.
What exactly is all that about?

Now true to the hilarious Journal de Montreal comments section, one reader took the newspaper to task.

Translation:
"Interesting. Lagging behind in the polls, the PQ suddenly returns with an attack with its racist and xenophobic Charter. And what do we see five days later in the JdMtl? an article on religious accommodations as well as the energetic pleadings in favour of this Charter (the cost of which is not booked by the PQ)
After this, Mathieu Turbide has the audacity to write a blog in which he explains that the JdeMtl isn't biased. Really...."

Polls depressing PQ supporters

I've always warned readers that polls in Quebec can change overnight and they seem to have done so again, perhaps not overnight, but dramatically in favour of the Liberals over the course of this election.
Jack Layton proved in his last election that you can literally move the numbers by 10% overnight after his appearance on an iconic Quebec talk-show.
And so the Liberals, for the moment seem to have snatched the lead away from the PQ rather significantly and aside from being pleasantly surprised, I can't stop those certain feelings of schadenfreude that are welling up inside of me, over the pain these numbers inflict on the PQ brain trust.

"The Forum Research poll for the Toronto Star, which was conducted Wednesday, is in line with a string of surveys this week showing that the federalist Liberals are pulling out ahead of the incumbent Parti Québécois after a rocky campaign launch that was dominated by unpopular talk of a third referendum on Quebec independence.

Of the 1,650 respondents, 45 per cent said they intended to vote for the provincial Liberals compared to just 32 per cent for Pauline Marois’ PQ.

The Coalition Avenir Québec was in a distant third place with 13 per cent of the potential voters and the left-wing sovereigntist part Québec Solidaire garnered 7 per cent support. The results are considered accurate to within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20." Link

Polls like this are significant, because they tend to fire up or throw cold water on the volunteers that are so important in campaigns.
Voters who see these numbers tend to get energized to get up and vote, or conversely skip the whole thing as a lost cause.
These polls can be devastating to the faithful and no better example of this is Richard Martineau, the JdeMtl blogger who has been the Charter of Values biggest booster, writing dozens of pieces in favour, some rather stinging.

After a strange piece in which he compared the PQ's sovereignty option to Barbra Streisand's nose, (ugly but beautiful) he lost it after the above poll came out, clearly descending into a nasty funk.

In two pieces, where his depression was clearly dripping through the screen, he compared the PQ to a restaurant called La Moulerie (Mussels) in Montreal which suffered a disastrous drop in business because of an outbreak of illness in Montreal due to some bad mussels.
The restaurant serves all sorts of wonderful dishes, he remarked, but alas, because of the toxicity of the mussels, nobody would come to the restaurant.
Actually, quite a good analogy pertaining to the PQ albatross that sovereignty and the referendum represents, both of which hang over the PQ campaign like the Angel of Death.

On his Facebook page, the ardent Charterist (a word?) realized that his dream of checking the influence of the mongol hordes of Muslim, Jews and Sikhs was perhaps going down the drain, and clearly, it was too much too take.

I've come to the conclusion that the PQ does not care about the Charter ...

If the Charter was close to the PQ heart and so important for Quebec, the party of Pauline Marois could have reached an agreement with the CAQ, which offered a very respectable compromise ... It would have maintained about 85% of the Charter.

Instead, we may have 0% of the Charter. Transforming the Charter into an election issue and in trying to use the Charter as an advantage, the PQ rolled the dice. It was 100% of the Charter with them, or NOTHING at all ...

They chose the party before country. Bravo. It will be remembered.

Admit it, dear friends, a little schadenfreude is a tasty delight!

Professors Support Annual Thugfest

Each year, masked anarchists gather in Montreal to demonstrate against police brutality and do so by marching chaotically and destroying property along an undetermined route, splitting up into rowdy marauders and engaging in mayhem leading to pitched and running battles with police.

In the end the police are forced to chase down the rioters, but not before significant property damage, where windows are smashed and cars vandalized.
It seems that the whole point of the affair is for the rioters to get arrested and whine about the unfairness of it all.

For years citizens have begged the police to put an end to the riot before it starts and this year, armed with a bylaw that forbids demonstrations of an indeterminate route, the police stepped in, warned the rioters to disperse and arresting most of them before they could get their licks in.

It was to say the least, frustrating for the anarchists, especially since their protestations fell on the deaf ears of relieved property owners.

But for professors, mostly from that font of higher learning, UQAM, it was unacceptable to arrest the demonstrators before they rioted. So shocking and unfair, it moved 120 teachers to sign an open letter asking for the resignation of Montreal's police director.
You can see the letter here, but I want to share a sampling of the subjects that these professors teach;

3 Sexologists.....
11 Sociologists
11 Literary studies
11 Political Science
13 Social Studies
11 Philosophy
2 Arts and Letters
4 Education
3 Cinema
2 Art
3 History
2 Feminist studies
4 Language teachers

and my favourites;
-Interdisciplinary studies for conjugal violence and sexual aggression
-psychoeducation,

When bashers bash...

It seems that language fanatics continue to amuse themselves with a hilartious campaign against so-called Quebec-bashing by the English media led by the indomitable Mario Beaulieu, whose two month long campaign has garnered an amazing 4300 signatures on a petition which I suppose he might submit to someone or somebody, sometime.

So in order to help out a lagging campaign I submit this, another example of those bastard Anglos disrespecting the innocent.