Josh Freed versus Gilles Rhéame

For those of you who don't know, Josh Freed, the Montreal Gazette columnist, took a lot of heat from the French press for a humorous reference he made in a column entitled Politics Ruin the Party.

In the column he writes.

"In recent years, June 24 has officially become a big party for all Quebecers, no matter what your roots. Yet most of the festivities still take place east of Park Ave. - so what stands in the way of making this a day for everyone? Just the same small things that keep all of us ethnically polyester Quebecers from feeling 100-per-cent pur laine Québécois.

They include: The dinosaurs of nationalism like the St. Jean organizers who tried to stop two local bands from singing in a foreign dialect called English - a move reminiscent of the old days of the Apostrophe SS."

He was referring to that time in recent Quebec history when almost all stores and business' who had an English appelation changed their name in an effort to be more acceptable to the French majority. Names that included an '' 's ", dropped the contraction entirely, à la Eaton's which morphed into 'Eaton' and Joe's which became 'Joe', thus appeasing the nationalist element that demanded that any vestige of English disappear from the public face of Quebec.

The 'Apostrophe SS' reference was one of the funniest things Freed has ever penned, as it perfectly describes the mean-spiritness of the Frenchification campaign that swept through the island of Montreal like an icy ill wind.

Freed's "Apostrophe SS" reference annoyed many nationalists, who are sensitive to being labeled racist or ethnocentric and a big brouhaha was set off in the press, culminating with Gilles Rhéaume , a radical and somewhat kooky sovereignist, making a complaint to the Quebec Press Council, alleging that Freed had compared Quebeckers to the Nazi SS.

Now before things got out of hand, Freed backpedalled and offered up a somewhat lame explanation and apologized for any offense that he may have caused. By week's end the story had run it's course.

His actions are understandable on a professional level, but it's sad that he caved, the joke was genuinely funny, one of the best he's ever cracked.

English humor is not francophone humor.
Try explaining John Cleese's Basil Fawlty character or Chris Rock's 'nigger' jokes to someone that doesn't have perfect English and a anglo background and you'll find that the humour is lost in the translation. It just doesn't cross language barriers.

It was the 1965 TV series, Hogan's Heroes that transformed the very frightening and serious Nazis into a group of burlesque incompetents who ultimately became the butt of every joke.
Aside from Sergeant Shultz, the lovable boob and the ass-kissing Colonel Kink, who can forget our favorite SS officer, Major Wolfgang Hochstetter: who's unforgettable catchphrase was "Everybody is UNDER ARREST!!!"

The nasty SS character had a recurring role as an antagonist who made everybody's life miserable, a dogmatic, humourless hard-liner who was amusing for his ultimate ineffectiveness. (OQLF language inspector, anyone?)


Who of us hasn't referred to difficult teacher or a nasty boss, as a 'Nazi' at one time or another.
It's no big deal.

Are we offended by the wonderful "Soup Nazi" character of Seinfeld fame, who's evil spirit and petty exercise of power is the personification of what we mean when we humorously call someone a 'NAZI'?

Even the Jews, a people who can rightfully be offended by trivialization of Nazism, seem to have accepted Nazi humour. Does anyone take offense when comedian Jackie Mason screams "Mister, I'm talking to you,... NAZI BASTARD!" at some unsuspecting shnook in the audience? It just part of his shtick which offends nobody.

In the anglophone world 'Nazi' or 'SS' are perfectly fine put downs of authoritarian hardliners, people whom are dogmatic, petty and mean, people who we don't like. To us, it's funny, even if it shouldn't be and if French speakers don't understand the nuance, it's on them.

That Gilles Rhéaume took serious offense is particularly galling. He's been spewing venom towards the English his whole career, from his job as president of the Saint Jean Baptiste Society to the dopey radical organizations that he's been involved with ever since his unceremonious departure.

In a biography by Jean Côté entitled 'Gilles Rhéaume baroudeur de l’indépendance", Rhéaume himself is described as an ardent fascist admirer (read-Nazi?). Read an account of the book in an article written by le Devoir's Jean-François Nadeau.

But the 'piece de la resistance' is contained in an interview with Benoît Dutrizac a couple of years ago when ironically, Rhéaume himself is accused of comparing English Canadians to Nazis.

Here's a rough translation of the juicy part.

Rheame:
Stop talking like that ! When France.....

Dutrizac:
Don't tell me what to say or think!

Rheame:
When France was occupied by Hitler and the Germans, there were women hemorrhaging and there were hungry people and people living through injustice, but it didn't stop all of France from getting up and saying 'We'll kick the Germans out". It's true that there's people in our emergency rooms. It's true that there are poor people and it's true that there's all sorts of things, but give us a country! It's an emergency, we're disappearing. In 15 or twenty years, we won't be here anymore, we'll speak English. It's starting...

Dutrizac:
You're not telling me....er.... your not comparing English Canadians to the Germans of World War Two.

Rheame:
No I'm not comparing.

Dutrizac:
But you said it.

Rheame:

NO...NO...NO

Delicious!
You can view the entire interview HERE

Vincent Lecroix is Laughing

Vincent Lacroix, Quebec's very own version of Bernie Madoff received parole after spending just 550 days of his eight and a half year sentence behind bars.

Lacroix defrauded mostly elderly francophone Quebeckers of over $115 million dollars and while it pales when compared with the latest estimate of the $13 billion fraud perpetrated by Mr. Madoff, considering Quebec's size, our Vinnie is right up there in the big leagues of fraud artists.

Lets consider the statistics.

Vincent served 1 day in jail for every $200,000 that he defrauded his clients out of.
Yup - 200K!

Let me ask you this, would you go to jail for a day if they gave you $200,000?
If you said no, you're a liar.

How's about a week in the poky for $1.4 million?.....and how's about a month for $6 million?

Me, I think I'd go for six months ($36 million), it'd be tough, but the idea of all that moola would be worth it.

Now let's consider another Quebec thief and how the justice system treated him.

A Thetford Mines shoplifter was caught after stealing a $3 DVD. He was arrested and spent 3 days and night in jail before seeing a judge.

$1 theft =1 day in jail and that's without even being convicted!

Boycott the Canadiens?

As a follow up to a recent post, an article in vigel.net Boycottons le Canadien de Montréal anglais! (Boycott the Montreal English Canadiens) by Laurent Desbois calls for a boycott of the team as punishment for not having enough Quebecois (code for francophones) on the team.

He castigates the Fonds de solidarité of the FTQ for investing in the team.

The writer refers readers to a FACEBOOK group , opened to help organize the boycott, but it seems to have already been pulled.

A letter to the editor of LE DEVOIR also makes the same point.

Now that the hated Maple Leafs have signed veteran defenceman Francis Beauchemin, it represents another stab in the heart of all those demanding more francophone players on the Habs.

Sadly, there's a particular nasty and hysterical tone to all these complaints, which manifests in an overt expression of anti-anglophone xenophobia and language ethnocentrism.

Do you think a Le Devoir would print a letter complaining that there aren't enough Christians or too many blacks on the team?

René Levesque In A Skirt?

I finally got around to watching a recorded TV version of the Fete Saint Jean parade which was held on the June 24th.

For most anglos, attending the parade is not high on the things-to-do-before-you-die list. The parade is so far out in the east end of Montreal that those of us who would wish to attend would need to pack a suitcase.

The short parade (1 hour) clearly suffers from a lack of sponsorship, it's plainly evident that there aren't too many companies keen to be identified with what is clearly a nationalist/sovereignist manifestation. The only sponsors I could make out (aside from the state monopolies) were Amaro water and Labatt's beer. It made for an amateurish and decidedly lame affair.

Now before I go on to critique the parade unfavourably, let me state clearly that the Canada Day Parade is every bit as lame.

Montreal is a one parade town, nothing beats the St. Patrick's Day parade, a magnificent display of real inclusiveness, one that turns every Montrealer, Irish for a day. The massive parade is so popular that there's a waiting list to join. There is no finer parade in Canada and the fete Saint Jean parade pales in comparison.


But I digress, back to the Fete Saint Jean parade. The 'defile" is centered around 'giant' personalities from Quebec history, standing some 5 meters high. The lack of an engineering budget forced the 'géants' to be enrobed with a skirt-like covering to hide the propulsion device (feet?). This wasn't a problem for the female representations, but René Levesque in a skirt was a bit 'outre.' On the other hand Saint Patrick looked great in his priestly attire and was clearly the best of these floats.

As someone who as a young lad was deathly frightened of Santa Claus and utterly horrified at the banshee-like laugh of the Fat Lady of Belmont Park, I couldn't help wonder if these garish effigies would somehow have the same effect on children. Perhaps not, kids are more sophisticated today.

At any rate, the most positive thing I can say, is that the crowd was large and ready to cheer just about anything that came by. As for it's make-up, it's hard to tell from the TV, as the commentators were quick to interview any brown or black face that they could find, thus validating the parade's theme-"My separatist parade is inclusive!"

Marching between the géants were groups of mostly teenagers, marching, dancing or otherwise presenting various talents. They could have used a dress rehearsal and the best that can be said, is that they all deserve an 'A' for effort.

By far, the gayest display most artistic display was a group of synchronized swimmers who performed a land version of their routine. Check out the moves of the guy members of the troupe in the video below.

Then there was this 'float' which seemed to be celebrating graffiti art.



The newest 'géant' of Canadiens legend Maurice Richard was certainly impressive. No skirt for the Rocket! The artists who created this 'géant', by accident or design, certainly got his famous flashing eyes right, but the 'Rocket' looked a little out of uniform without the famous C-H on his chest. I don't know why it was omitted, perhaps because it represented 'Canadiens' or problems with permissions from the hockey club. Dunno, but it looked a bit retarded. At least the guys schlepping the trailer had the right jersey on.

I wouldn't have added a picture of the 'Human Flag', a guy who gave a male version of a pole-dance, except for the fact that I saw someone at the Canada Day celebration in Ottawa do the exact same act, one week later. Sheesh, it wasn't that good the first time.

Bringing up the rear was a line of dignitaries, marching behind a blue ribbon. The regular cast of sovereignists were there, including Mario Beaulieu of the Societe Saint-Jean Baptiste (the guy who wanted to kick out the 2 anglo bands.)
Françoise David and Amir Khadir of the ultra sovereignist Québec solidaire party, Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois and our old friend Bernard Landry. Other staunch defenders of the faith attending were Gérald Larose (longtime unionist militant) and Maka Kotto from the PQ (adding a little colour).


The parade wended its way to Maisonneuve Park where the real talent was presented that evening. I guess it all comes down to budget. The show, aside from host Guy A. Lepage's crude separatist missives was entertaining and showcased some of Quebec's most important artists.

For anglos, the best part of the day was the fantastic weather and for those of us who stayed in town, it was a great day for a backyard barbecue!

Language Sniping Starts Early For the Habs

In my Saturday post I mentioned that the Montreal Canadiens are down to just three francophone players and that if Bob Gainey's team doesn't show a lot of improvement this season, that fact would haunt him as the public and media play the inevitable language card as the reason for the team's failure.

I was wrong.....It's started already.

Pierre Trudel, who now writes for fanatique.com, after coming over from La Presse, got the ball rolling quickly. I don't know if he's trying to make a splash at his new job by writing something inflammatory, but nonetheless, here it is;

"Bienvenue chez The Montreal Canadiens. Au rythme où le français régresse à Montréal, on n'est pas loin du jour où l'hymne national ne sera chanté que dans une langue, la présentation des joueurs faite dans une seule langue, l'annonce des buts dans une seule langue. J'exagère? Bien sûr. C'est un peu caricatural. Mais toute caricature a un fond de vérité"

"Welcome to the Montreal Canadiens. At the rate at which French is regressing in Montreal, it won't be long before the national anthem will be sung in just one language, the players lineup announced in just one language and the public address announcement of goals in just one language. Exaggerating?...Surely. It's somewhat caricatural. But all caricatures have a foundation of truth."

Let the fun begin.