McGill Français

It's hard to believe that this March 28, will be exactly 40 years since the infamous 'McGill Français' demonstration. Most of you weren't even born back then, when between 10,000 and 15,000 demonstrators marched to the school to demand that the institution convert to become a French language institution (really).
The marchers were met at the school gates by hundreds of police and security guards, but the demonstration was nonviolent and broke up peaceably.

Ten years ago, on the 30th anniversary, the McGill News Alumni Quarterly wrote an interesting retrospective concerning the event.
You can read the article HERE.

Forty years later you would think that things would have evolved, but as they say in French-
'Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme chose.'

For radical nationalists, McGill continues to be a thorn in the side. What seems to gall them the most is McGill's success and it's worldwide reputation, which they believe comes at the expense of the Univeristé de Montréal.
For nationalists, McGill's very existence is a humiliation, a constant reminder that Montreal is home to one of the finest English universities in the world and that there is no French institution in Quebec that comes remotely close it, on any level.
McGill is also uniformly reviled in the French press and nary a week goes by without a 'done me wrong' story about McGill or the MUHC, it's affiliated hospitals.
Last September the dedication of the new $73 million "Life Sciences Complex" was the subject of a particularly nasty rant by the Mouvement Montreal Francais which complained that the Federal and provincial governments shouldn't have helped fund the project. They complained that the money should have gone to a French institution and that the donation to McGill insured that the biotech industry remains an anglo domain.

My favorite negative story about McGill is the one told by Jean-Philippe Pineault of Le Journal de Montréal where in an article he describes a program whereby students from France are subsidized to come to Quebec to study in our universities. The idea of this exchange is forge strong links between the two Francophone nations. The only problem is that some six hundred of these students use the subsidy to study at McGill and in English! Quelle horreur!
"C'est une perversion..." according to Jean Dorion, president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

Amusing as that may be, there is a real and emerging threat to the future McGill superhospital. Radical nationalist organizations are forming into a coalition and are gearing up for a fight. Buoyed by their success in the cancellation of the Plains of Abraham battle re-enactment, they have firmly set their eyes on getting the project cancelled. They already have started a website Unseulmégachu.org and a petition.
Given the new economic reality and the mood in Quebec in light of the massive losses at the Caisse de dépôt, I'm not sure that a concerted effort will not be successful.

Watch Out!

Campaign fizzles

The l'Office Québécois de la Langue Française has launched a $400,000 campaign consisting of poster that says 'ICI on commerce en francais' ('HERE, we shop in French.')
The plan is to get stores to post the sign in their front windows as a sign of the business' commitment to serve customers in French.

If you haven't seen any of these signs you're not alone. The radical Mouvement Montréal français MMF also hasn't seen many signs and complains to the OQLF in a moronic exchange of letters .

Georges Le Gal of the MMF writes; (my translation)

"...I must inform you that several board members regularly visit downtown stores and rarely or almost never see the posters 'ICI on commerce en Francais!' "

Duh!

Do they really think stores want to alienate customers by taking sides in a political issue?

Anyways, it's a helluva way to spend 400k!

Pardon Your French

Le Quebecois is radical sovereignist magazine who's leader, Partrick Bourgeois was the character front and center in the the Plains of Abraham debate. In fact you don't get get much more radical than this group who see humiliation, affront and enemies under every rock.

The organization along with others groups like the Mouvement Montreal Francais are constantly carrying on the noble battle against English and it's 'creeping' influence. Perhaps Mr. Bourgeois should keep an eye out on his own advertisers on his web site. I may be wrong and perhaps 'Bed & Breakfast' has crossed the language barrier much as 'deppaneur' has become a part of English lexicon, but I think not...

L'autre Scandale

Joseph Facal, an ex-PQ minister and columnist for Le Journal de Montreal wrote an article in Monday's paper which attacked the two superhospital projects, both French and English.

Mr. Facal is one of the original heavyweights who signed Lucien Bouchard's famous manifesto 'Pour un Quebec Lucide' (For a Clear-eyed Vision of Quebec.) The conservative document proposed sweeping changes to Quebec society that included increasing public fees and tuition and asking the population to work harder.

It's not surprising that he complains that the projects don't make economic sense and puts forward some reasonable arguments. What is surprising is his anti-English and anti-McGill tirade and his misuse of statistics concerning McGill's performance.

I wouldn't have made the article a subject of a post except for the brilliant rebuttal offered by 'Cedric' in the comments section of the article as published in Mr. Facal's blog.

I have done the best to translate both pieces but please excuse me, it is most definitely not perfect. You can read the original French article and the rebuttal here.

L'autre Scandale by Joseph Facal

The disaster that occurred at the Caisse de dépôt should not blind us to another huge mess: the planned construction of two mega-hospitals in downtown Montreal at a minimum cost of nearly 4 billion dollars.

The Anglophone project will receive half of the money, inspite of the fact that one out of two doctors trained at McGill leaves Quebec and that it trains 4 times fewer doctors practicing in Quebec as compared to the Francophone side. Obviously, a taboo issue among those PQ and Liberals who were involved in this decision.

On the French side, we don’t know where to go with this shipwreck, we’ve forgotten the oldest principle of management in the world that says when you are in a hole, stop digging. The decision to build on the present site of the Hopital St-Luc is a huge mistake: there is not enough space, and it is much more expensive to repair the old building that to build new. All those who follow this case closely know it very well. But we continue as if nothing has happened. Those who defend the project in public do so because they feel compelled to do so, but they say the opposite in private.

Fascinating, isn’t it? How an absurd a project can move forward while everyone knows that it makes no sense? Take the members of the government and the project management team. All people of superior intelligence and clarity. Between them, they all know that it's nuts, but the first to admit the truth, will lose face in the group. They are silent, and the train continues to move towards the abyss.

Every one of them knows that it's crazy, but remains silent so as not to give ammunition to the opponents and so, the madness continues.

Everyone knows that it's crazy, but hopes that someone else will blow the whistle eventually and stop the train, but because everyone is thinking the same thing, the madness continues.

Everyone knows that it's crazy, but as the project will take many years to complete, they tell themselves that those who come after them can cope and so the madness continues.

Everyone of them knows that it's crazy, but they tell themselves that the first to admit it publicly will be taken down by the others, even as they understand deep down that the first opinion is correct and so the madness continues.

The whole affair is mad, but people can be intoxicated by the technical challenges of the project and lose sight of the overall absurdity of the situation.

Remember the famous film ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ where the captured British General resolutely directs his own prisoners of war to construct a bridge which will serve the Japanese enemy.

In short, this dynamic of silence and cowardice is absurd, but can be rationally explained. Individual people may be intelligent and lucid, but collectively can deliver a monster that nobody can believe.

I say this shipwreck will haunt us even longer than the Caisse de dépôt.

Here is a Cédric's brilliant reply in the comments section;

Your analysis of this crazy project is interesting, but as to McGill, there Mr. Facal, you disappoint me. For several reasons I am familiar with the medical school at McGill, and allow me to make some quick points.
Across Canada (and in Quebec), medical education has two main parts: the schooling phase and then the residency phase, which our cousins from France also call the internat. Between these two phases there is a set of transactions as in hockey, but much more intense. The young doctors graduate after four years of study and become doctors, but without a specialty. They then apply to where they want to do their residency specialty training (family medicine is also specialty) and it can be anywhere across Canada, if they so desire. Then after two to five years of residency, they become medical practitioners.
Your statistics are true Mr. Facal, except that they relate to young doctors after graduation and prior to residency, at the time of the "transactions" and not when they are medical practitioners. So yes, players leave Quebec.

Most young French doctors do not feel comfortable going to practice medicine in English, they remain captives of Quebec, not necessarily for love of the nation, but for issues of intellectual and personal comfort (it’s difficult to practice an intellectual vocation when you don’t have the necessary language skills) so they take themselves out of the transaction lines. But at McGill, our young Quebecers learn English quickly on the job and theses ‘players’ are not afraid to leave for further training on an English ‘team’, sometimes as far away as Vancouver. But as in all transactions, there are players who arrive here and of these, nobody makes mention. We scream when doctors from McGill leave, but there few people like myself willing to say "Yes, but McGill brings people from elsewhere here."

The irony is that many people from other provinces who are trained in residencies at McGill University in Quebec and who would like to stay here to care for the people of Quebec are prevented to do so for stupid reasons, including quotas and oppressive paperwork by the College of Physicians. No facility is set up to help those doctors wishing to settle in Quebec to learn French at a level acceptable to the College.
The moral is not that McGill is a sieve, it is that Quebec does nothing to retain its doctors.

Residents have been made to work under Act 33 of the public service, and despite the fact that Quebec pays doctors the worst salaries in Canada... and despite of the fact that the College of Physicians impedes the installation of physicians of other provinces and despite the new requirement that English-speaking doctors be perfectly bilingual...and despite of the fact that there is a racist anti-Anglophone atmosphere hanging over Quebec, the net migratory balance is positive.

There are more physicians from elsewhere settling in Quebec, then there are who are leaving. (my emphasis)

So I find your post on the mega-hospitals passionate, but please, spare us this contagious disease that is ‘McGillitte’, which results in the use of one of the largest academic institutions in our beautiful Quebec as the goat for all our booboos.

I really enjoyed this piece and congratulate 'Cedric' on his excellent rebuttal. If anyone is a true 'lucide', it is he. By the way ,can anyone enlighten me as to what exactly 'McGillitte' is.

Bob Gainey- Enemy of Francophone Players

Although it took a couple of years, it was bound to happen. Bob Gainey, general manager of the Montreal Canadiens, has been accused of having it in for French Quebeckers.
I was listening to sports commentator P.J. Stock on the radio yesterday when he played a tape of a the Canadiens general manager's press conference. While Gainey discussed the Steve begin trade, he took a question from a very indignant and rude reporter (I don't know who) who questioned why he was getting rid of Francophone Quebec players. I carefully noted that the reporter didn't say Quebecois players, but quite specifically 'francophone' Quebecois players. I guess it wouldn't matter if Gainey traded away an anglophone Quebecois.
As we all know, in Quebec language trumps everything, including good sense and even in sports. Apparently the number of Francophone Quebecois players on the team is more important than winning. The above-mentioned reporter's attitude is not at all isolated, in fact it is pretty much the norm.
In Saturday's La Presse, writer Réjean Tremblay goes over the checklist of francophone players on the Canadiens and laments on the impending shortage. Oddly, he makes no reference to skill in the whole article.
Over at the Journal de Montreal , there is a lively discussion in the sports forums, discussing whether Montreal Canadiens hockey players should be forced to learn French. Below is a humourous post in that thread.

Subject: Re: Les jouers du Canadien devraient-ils apprendre le francais?
"Qu'est-ce que les Quebecois veulent, une équipe gagnante ou bilingue? Est-ce que le fait que les joueurs parlent français vont les aider à scorer des buts dans le net avec la puck? Je m'excuse, j'aurais du écrire marquer ou compter des buts avec le disque ou la rondelle!"

At least some people see the humour in the subject!

Coming after last year's brouhaha concerning Saku Koivu's lack of French, it's no wonder that many NHLer's are crossing Montreal off as a place to play. Canadiens lack of success at last year's free agent market last year was clear evidence that few will freely choose to play here. There are even some francophone Quebecois who see Montreal as a place to avoid. (Vincent Lecavalier, Simon Gagne etc.).

Unfortunately, there are many Quebeckers who would prefer an all Francophone team to one that's competitive. Plus ca change......