Quebec Joins Margarine Big Leagues

I received quite a jolt a breakfast yesterday as I opened up a brand new tub of my favorite Becel margarine.
Lo and behold my margarine was yellow!

Yup, margarine sold in Quebec has been uncolored for the last twenty years because of a law that forbid the practice of adding yellow die to the product. The prohibition came as a result of pressure brought to bear by the dairy industry,
who feared that Quebeckers might be fooled into buying margarine instead of butter.

If you think the industry wasn't serious about the ban, you'd be wrong. The issue has been subject to expensive litigation between the producers of margarine and the dairy association. Until now the dairy association has prevailed and beaten back all attacks.

A few years ago Wal-Mart was subject to a raid by food inspectors after an industry complaint and had $200 worth of yellow margarine carted. Quel horreur!

Last summer, the Quebec cabinet finally ruled on the weighty matter and decided that after twenty years, Quebeckers could finally be trusted to recognize the difference between products.

Congratulations to the government on this bold and innovative initiative!

Habs Coaches Disrespect National Anthem

After the Game 3 booing of the US national anthem, Bob Gainey made a special appeal for fans to be more respectful.

“I feel like there’s a confusion there with our fans,” general manager Bob Gainey told the Canadian Press on Tuesday.
“They feel like booing the anthem is supporting our team, in that the anthem represents the Boston team. And I think if they could separate those two things, then we could respect the anthem of the United States of America and they could still participate loudly in whatever way they want to disrupt the Bruins.”

I've always been bothered by the fact that the Canadiens coaching staff themselves, disrespect the national anthems at each home game, but somehow never wrote about it.

Gainey's statement, meant as damage control and to placate an outraged American press is somewhat hypocritical.

At the start of each home game at the Bell Centre, 21,000 plus fans, as well as all the players, officials, vendors and the opposition coaches stand at attention as the national anthems are played.

The only people missing are.... Bob Gainey, Pat Jarvis and Kirk Muller, the Montreal Canadiens coaching staff.

Where are they?..... In the dressing room.

It seems that they are too important to endure the trial of the national anthems. As the last notes are struck and the crowd roars in excited anticipation of the opening faceoff, the three coaches, like royalty waiting to make an entrance, make there way out from the corridor and take their places behind the bench. This happens every single home game, without exception. It is a ritual.

It isn't that big a deal, but I'd suggest that Gainey take his own advice before admonishing fans about respect.

Racist Anti-Anglo Book Hits Bookstore

This week, the thoroughly racist anglo-bashing book "ANGLAID" by Michel Brule, made its appearances in bookstores across the province.

For your reading pleasure, here is a brief extract that I translated as best as I could. Enjoy....if you can stomach it;

"Like millions of people, I succumbed to the powerful attraction of English. Over time, I realized that the genius of the language and it's Anglo-American culture is based on a race to the lowest common denominator. Beyond a decadent civilization characterized by a pervasive and omnipresent cinema and superficial music, equally pervasive, I realized that there was something worse attached to the language and culture: intolerance.

This intransigence is evidenced by centuries of incessant wars, and unequalled racism, expressed in slogans such as Ku Klux Klan: "White Power", "Speak white" or " A good Indian is a dead Indian," a formula that has led to the extermination of 40 million people. If the Germans are ashamed of their Nazi past, the English have glorified Amherst, who waged the first biological warfare, Monckton, a practitioner of ethnic cleansing, and Kitchener, who invented concentration camps.

To top it all, Anglophones are ethnocentric and narcissistic in the extreme: they watch only their own films, read only their own books, listen only to their own music and eat almost only their own food - I dare not call it for food.

The skeptics will say that the French, for example, were the same, when France controlled more or less the world. This is wrong, the French, despite their undeniable arrogance, were very open to the world. It is no exaggeration to say that the English are the most ethnocentric people in the history of humanity, nothing less.

I made a revolutionary breakthrough which could explain the superiority complex of anglophones.
Is it be possible that this complex is inherent in language itself? I think so.

In fact, the English language is a unique case in linguistics. In English, the "I" is written with a capital letter. Around the world, where the speaker is French, Portuguese or German- the 'you' is placed on a pedestal, but in English the "I" is placed on the pedestal. This relationship between the almighty "I" and the 'you' smacks of subordination and subjection.

The English language is a hopelessly devoted to imperialism, and the leadership of the negative Anglo-American culture, drives the entire world into decadence and war. Continuing to make English the universal language can only lead us to a dead end. It is time to move on!"

Richard Martineau of Le Journal de Montreal was one of the few people to take the author to task. In Tuesday's paper he wrote; LINK

"Francophone Quebeckers are always ready to climb the walls and rip their shirts when an anglophone criticises their culture.

They scream racism, intolerance and xenophobia...
But when a francophone drags the English through the mud, we can hear a pin drop....

Is anti-English racism more acceptable than anti-French racism?"

Guy Lafleur in Court While Mulroney Laughs

It's a sad commentary on the Canadian justice system, that while Guy Lafleur is prosecuted for lying under oath, a much bigger fish, Brian Mulroney is given a pass, for doing essentially, the same thing.

Today, Guy Lafleur is standing trial, charged with giving false testimony, concerning his son's violation of bail conditions.

As anyone responsible for a deeply troubled or sick child knows, it is a situation that is all-consuming and debilitating for a parent. There's little doubt that Mark Lafleur was out of control, dealing with drug and rage issues that led to multiple charges, including kidnapping and assault.
While out on bail, Guy Lafleur was charged with keeping an eye out on his son, making sure that he respected a curfew while keeping his son away from drugs and alcohol.
The crown charges that Lafleur drove his son to a hotel in order for him to meet his girlfriend for an overnight tryst and then lied about it in sworn testimony.

“What was important for me was that he respect his curfew and not use drugs or alcohol,” Lafleur said in court, at his trial. “Whether it was at our place or a hotel, it didn’t matter.”- Guy Lafleur

I can only imagine the battle that Mr. Lafleur waged to keep his out-of-control son on track. If he lied to keep his son out of jail for the minor offense, he should likely be forgiven his transgression, made in difficult and emotional times and out of love for a child. He didn't exactly lie about a murder. At any rate, Mr. Lafleur's vengeful treatment by prosecutors was so harsh, his very public arrest so humiliating, that it should serve as punishment enough.

Mr Mulroney is a horse of a different colour, a consummate liar and manipulator, a man who has scoffed at the justice system and who certainly deserves a comeuppance, yet our timid and reluctant justice system is just too plain scared of his power to do anything about it. Having seen what tangling with Mulroney has done to the careers of RCMP officers and Justice Department employees in the past, it seems that those who should be acting, are just plain gun-shy.

As Mulroney was leaving the office of Prime Minister back in 1993, accusations of corruption swirled about him, fueled largely by charges made in a book, 'On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years" written by Stevie Cameron, a Canadian investigative reporter.

The RCMP opened an investigation that looked into allegations that Mulroney had squirrelled away bribe money in a Swiss bank account. It was alleged that a German businessman, Karlheinz Schreiber, had paid Mulroney off to to insure that Air Canada purchase Airbus aircraft.
The amateurish investigation by the RCMP included a letter to Swiss authorities making these charges and requesting information about the alleged account that Mulroney was supposed to own.
Everyone but RCMP knew that the Swiss would rather eat their children then reveal this type of information and when they stonewalled, the investigation died.
When the contents of the RCMP letter became public, Mulroney sued the government for 50 million dollar in a defamation of character lawsuit.
During the legal proceedings, Mulroney testified under oath that he while he knew Mr. Schreiber, he had no dealings with him.

Here is what Mulroney said on April 17, 1996 while being examined under oath in relation to his lawsuit;

QUESTION. "Did you maintain contact with Mr. Schreiber after you ceased being Prime Minister?"

Mulroney: "Well, from time to time, not very often. When he was going through Montreal, he would give me a call. We would have a cup of coffee, I think, once or twice." Mulroney elaborated, "when he's on his way to Montreal, he called me and asked me and I say perhaps once or twice, if I could come to a cup . . have a cup of coffee, with him at a hotel. I think I had one in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel with him. I had one in the coffee bar at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel."

Lacking hard evidence, the government eventually settled the lawsuit for about of 2 million dollars in Mr. Mulroney's favour.

Years later, facing mounting evidence, Mr. Mulroney admitted that he did indeed have a business relationship with Mr.Schreiber and that he had accepted, by his own admission $225,000 from Mr Schreiber in late 1993 and early 1994 (Mr Schreiber claims that the amount was $300,000). The money was paid in cash and wasn't declared as income to Revenue Canada until six years later when the story started to unravel. Mr. Mulroney went to Revenue Canada, made a confession and paid the taxes and penalities related to this undeclared income.

By his own admission, Mr. Mulroney lied under oath about the sordid affair. That Mr.Mulroney could sue the government based on such a blatant lie is a testament to his arrogance and moxie.

If Mr. Mulroney can convince the Oliphant inquiry that his dealings with Schreiber were kosher, good for him. The public has already come to it's own conclusions about his honesty.

But it's time that the justice system summon up some courage and act to punish Mr. Mulroney for lying under oath and wrangling money out of the government under false pretenses.

Otherwise how can we in good faith look Mr. Lafleur in the eye?

Montreal Gazette Writers are Amateurs

"I wish the Montreal Gazette would hire some competent writers instead of the lazy minded corps of liberal hacks that they employ.

I implore them (as well as you, gentle reader) to read this article from the Globe and Mail by Konrad Yakabuski, one of the best writers in Canada, to see what real newspaper reporting is about.

"Quebeckers should be worried"
by Konrad Yakabuski

If you don't feel a bit ill about living in Quebec after reading the article, you're a stronger person than me.

If you don't see the qualitative difference between this article and the pap turned out by the Gazette, I'd recommend that you add US Magazine to your reading list.