Paranoid Sportswriter's Anti-English Rant

Réjean Tremblay is not your average run of the mill sportswriter, he's an influential columnist for Montreal's La Presse newspaper and writes a widely read column, mostly about the Montreal Canadiens. He is well-connected and to his credit eschews the temptation to write puff pieces about the team in exchange for greater access and inside scoops.

His one failing, is his overt dislike and obsession with anglos and his unabashed demand that the Montreal Canadiens become more 'French.'

Mr. Tremblay wrote a column last week exposing an embarrassing persecution complex, which is unfortunately not all together uncommon in Quebec.

The piece, written September 10, is entitled "Un mépris évident envers les joueurs francophones" ("Blatant contempt For Francophone Players")

You can read the entire original article in French HERE.

..."There are four to five million francophones in Quebec who do not speak English fluently. Obviously, for the intellectuals of the electronic media in the rest of Canada, five million Quebecers are part of a backward race.

Sixty million Frenchmen do not speak English, 70 million Germans do not speak it either. Not to mention the Spaniards or Italians. Or Chinese or Japanese. They are not bumpkins, they speak their own language, like any normal people would. If people speak English, Spanish or Mandarin as well, it's obviously an asset, but it's normal for a society to speak it's own language.

During the first 95 years of its history, the Canadiens respected their 'French-Canadian' customers, as we were called at the time. In recent years, the contempt is obvious. The yahoos of Roberval, Quebec, Rimouski and Rouyn-Noranda can't comprehend their favorite players, they just buy the crap the team is selling at three times it's value. 'Peter' Boivin and 'Ray' Lalonde made the decision.

I hope the Molson brothers can read and count. They should be aware of the names Lapierre, Latendresse and Laraque and take into account that there are only three of them. (Francophone names-ed.) These sons of a great Quebec family should understand that they own a very ordinary team that boasts of no more than two and a half 'frogs', since 'Big George' (Laraque.-ed) only appears in about forty games a year.

I spent the summer traveling the backwoods of Quebec. I visited Abitibi, the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and Outaouais regions. I can reassure the Molson brothers, that Quebecers still love their Canadians. But they are troubled, some are angry and above all, they don't understand. Why this eradication of francophones from their team? Why get rid of them? Why so little effort to cultivate the soil of Quebec to find young players who could represent the next generation? Why this abominable behavior by the Canadiens towards francophone coaches that has seen them literally banned to positions in Hamilton? Coincidentally, ever since the team was put up for sale this summer, Bob Gainey seems to have rediscovered some 'frogs' for his organization. Damned accident!

The Molson brothers are not obliged to turn to Quebecers for political reasons. Not even for cultural reasons. But they should take advantage of the unique situation of Montreal and Quebec in North America to give the fans a great team. Only Quebec and Montreal can build a team by using the special relationship between fans and players who are part of the same nation. The situation exists nowhere else. There is no Swedish nation in the Detroit area or a Cuban nation in Sunrise.
The clientele of the team is French Canadian and the history of the team is based on that sacred bond. The history of the organization has proved that the Canadiens succeed when team officials used the synergy between the francophone majority and its players.

At any rate, the taxpayers of this province have just lent a hundred million to the three brothers. We should at least ask them to do us the courtesy of observing Sam Pollock and Serge Savard's old rule. At equal talent, hire the Francophone. And as a corollary, the team should never pass up a good francophone draft pick. That doesn't mean that there will be no mistakes along the way, but at least there will be a thought behind the decisions.

And thus we will counteract the attempts by Bob Gainey to expatriate all Francophone players from 'Les Glorieux. It will probably lead to less problems with the media.

In a few weeks, Robert Sirois, a former player with the Washington Capitals and a successful businessman, will publish a bombshell of a book. Sirois has spent thousands of hours doing yeoman's work on the project. He gathered all the statistics, all positions of the French players in the National League since 1970. And the conclusions that he has drawn from these mountains of numbers are chilling. Discrimination is absolute against the 'frogs.' The worst thing is that this discrimination begins at the Midget 'AAA' level. In recent years, the Canadiens has foolishly turned their back on Quebec. Go check. How many French players did Bob Gainey draft during his years in Dallas? Another accident, obviously.

And then I remember that Robert "Bob" Sirois is neither a politician nor an evil separatist. He is just an intelligent man who is passionate about a situation that seems abnormal. It's okay if the three Molson brothers don't buy the Sirois book, let them keep their dollars to hire a full-time scout for Quebec, I'm going to personally to send them a copy. Changes in an organization starts with awareness. And when it's the owners who are aware, everything else follows.

Wow!!!
Believe me this attitude is not uncommon.
Paranoia and persecution, a lovely combination that can only be cured by a dose of reality or Ativan.

Let me start by making a few factual corrections.

• Mr. Tremblay's statement that five million Quebecers don't speak or understand English is false. Half of francophone Montrealers and thirty percent of francophone residents of Quebec City are bilingual. That five out of six francophone Quebecers can't understand an interview in English is hogwash and an insult to their intelligence.
  

• His statement that 70 million Germans don't understand English is also false. At least half the German population understand English.

• There are more English speakers in China than any other country in the world!

Now it's time to call him out on other nonsense;

"Only Quebec and Montreal can build a team by using the special relationship between fans and players who are part of the same nation. The situation exists nowhere else. There is no Swedish nation in the Detroit area or a Cuban nation in Sunrise."

Whaaat???
Cubans in Sunrise? Swedes in Detroit?
How about Anglos in Ontario, Alberta and BC?

If there's a Francophone nation in Quebec that supports and embraces the Canadiens, it certainly is not the exclusive situation that he purports.
That Quebecers have a special relationship with the Canadiens cannot be denied, but it isn't any more special than those enjoyed by the other Canadian teams with their fans.

There's an Anglophone nation in BC that supports the Canucks with every bit as much fervor and loyalty as the francophone nation in Quebec. It's nothing unique.
If he believes that Canadiens fans are more loyal or in any way more special than the 'Leafs Nation,' he is sadly mistaken. He should be reminded that Alberta, a province with less than half the population of Quebec supports two NHL franchises.
If Quebec is the be-all and end-all of the hockey world, what happened to the Nordiques?

Finally the silliest thing that he wrote in this article, is that francophone players and coaches don't get an equal opportunity.

Both the entertainment industry and the sports industry are the two professional fields where minorities do the best. That's because talent wins out, and the last time I looked, there were plenty of francophone coaches in the NHL, which is actually surprising because they must coach in a foreign language. The only place where francophone coaches have a problem is in Montreal, where they burn out with amazing regularity and not because of management, but rather because the francophone press corps hounds them mercilessly (Mr. Tremblay, is an important member of this cabal.)

Mr. Tremblay is two-faced. He accuses the league of discrimination, yet urges the Montreal Canadiens to discriminate themselves, by hiring and drafting francophones over every one else.

Extending his logic, Canadian teams outside Quebec teams should give preference to Canadian Anglos over Francophones and Europeans. If that's the case (which it isn't) why exactly is he complaining?

I'm sure he'll find a rationalization why the Montreal Canadiens should discriminate, while the other Canadian teams should not.

Commenting on the whole situation, Montreal Canadiens President Pierre Boivin was understandably furious. "I'm fed up!"

Can the Canadiens survive the language war?
Not successfully. As long as language remains a distraction, on ice performance will suffer. Its already hard enough to compete.

I shall let Mr. Tremblay in on a little secret. The reason that there are so few francophones playing on the Canadiens is quite simply because they don't want to. The francophone media attention is too unnerving and distracting for many. Those who have a choice stay far away. Francophone players that who do want to play in Montreal are generally those at the end of their career or talently challenged.

If those are the players that Mr. Tremblay wants the team to pursue, then heaven help the Montreal Canadiens and their fans.

Separatist Gathering on Plains of Abraham A Bust

A search of google news (Moulin à Paroles) last night showed over five hundred original newspaper articles and over 31,000 blog references to the separatist love-in that took place this week-end on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City.
Last night's articles in the French press were uniformly complimentary and the whole extravaganza was declared an overwhelming success.

I read over sixty articles and could not find one reference as to the number of people who attended. I became curiouser and curiouser.

On Saturday, the Montreal Gazette listed the attendance at somewhere around 1,200, but it was little hard to accept. All this hoopla and publicity and a paltry 1,200 people showed up?

Perhaps it was just wishful Anglo thinking on the part the newspaper, the number couldn't possibly be that low. Or could it?
Crowds are awfully hard to estimate and a lot has to do with the eye of the beholder.

Finally I found a story in Le Devoir, a Montreal French newspaper, known for it's nationalist bent, so if there was to be any fudging, it was going to lean towards inflating the number of participants.

"A quiet crowd, at times exceeding a thousand people who listened religiously to the 156 texts selected for the occasion"

Whaaaaat!!!!

One thousand people!!! --- That's it!

If you subtract the family members who were forced to show up just to support the 140 readers (like a ballet recital), you might cut the actual attendance in half!

I get the feeling that the whole thing was a complete con, a manufactured story. That nobody is willing to point out that fact is sad and dishonest.

By the way, on the same afternoon as the 'wildly successful' separatist happening on the Plains of Abraham, a minor league exhibition baseball game played between Quebec City and New Jersey at the city's Stade Municipal, attracted close to 5,000 people.

I don't think the newspapers are going write 500 articles about that event.

Here's a little more context. Sunday was the 7th annual open house at over 100 Quebec farms in an event organised by the farm trade association (l'Union des producteurs agricoles). Over 135,000 people across Quebec took the opportunity to visit.

Separatists Giddy with Excitment

This weekend sovereignists will be holding a commemoration of the 250 year old defeat of the French forces and the loss of New France at the hands of the dastardly English on the Plains of Abraham. The event is presented by nationalists under the umbrella organization Le Moulin à Paroles as an alternative to the re-enactment of the battle itself which was cancelled due to threats of violence.

They will be reading poems, letters and historical accounts of Quebec history, all which will serve to foster the notion of Quebec as a victim.

• Conquest
• Colonialism
• Victimisation
  
• The Evil English
• French language
• Evil Federalists
• FLQ
• Sovereignty
• blah.....blah...

While the province is abuzz with heated discussions, the rest of Canada remains snorefully oblivious to the serious debate surrounding the scheduled reading of the terrorist FLQ manifesto by Haitian born Quebec artist Luck Mervil.

Black sovereignists are precious and rare commodities in Quebec, so it's no wonder that Quebec's most integrated and inclusive of sovereignist organisations, Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste slapped him with the title of "Patriot of the Year" in 2005.

That means of course that Maka Kotto, the other visible minority of the separatist movement is sure to called upon to give a reading as well.

It's too bad that the event is coming so soon. For sovereignists, the run up is likely more exciting than the actual event.

For organisers, deciding to read the FLQ manifesto was a stroke of genius. When Premier Charest and Quebec City Mayor Regis Lebeame denounced the decision, it was sweet music to sovereignist ears.

Defending the honour of the event has been a labour of love with separatist bloggers cracking out 3,000 word pieces in defence of the sacred manifesto.

After all they remind us, history is history and deserves to be celebrated, warts and all.

Since there are few anglophones scheduled to read at the event, I offer my very humble services which comes complete with a wriitten text that just cries out to be heard.

On the off chance organisers refuse my generous offer, I include this important piece of Quebec history below, for your perusal.

It is the suicide note of Marc Lépine, the chap who murdered 14 women at the in the famous École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal back in 1989;

Forgive the mistakes, I had 15 minutes to write this.
Would you note that if I commit suicide today 89-12-06 it is not for economic reasons (for I have waited until I exhausted all my financial means, even refusing jobs) but for political reasons.

Because I have decided to send the feminists, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker.

For seven years life has brought me no joy and being totally blasé, I have decided to put an end to those viragos. I tried in my youth to enter the Forces as an officer cadet, which would have allowed me possibly to get into the arsenal and precede Lortie in a raid. They refused me because antisocial (sic). I therefore had to wait until this day to execute my plans. In between, I continued my studies in a haphazard way for they never really interested me, knowing in advance my fate. Which did not prevent me from obtaining very good marks despite my theory of not handing in work and the lack of studying before exams. Even if the Mad Killer epithet will be attributed to me by the media, I consider myself a rational erudite that only the arrival of the Grim Reaper has forced to take extreme acts. For why persevere to exist if it is only to please the government. Being rather backward-looking by nature (except for science), the feminists have always enraged me. They want to keep the advantages of women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventative leave, etc.) while seizing for themselves those of men. Thus it is an obvious truth that if the Olympic Games removed the Men-Women distinction, there would be Women only in the graceful events. So the feminists are not fighting to remove that barrier. They are so opportunistic they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men through the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can. Thus, the other day, I heard they were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontline during the world wars. How can you explain women were not authorized to go to the frontline??? Will we hear of Caesar's female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50% of the ranks of history, though they never existed. A real Casus Belli.
Sorry for this too brief letter.
Marc Lépine

Or how about this Jacques Parizeau pearl of a speech on the night of the referendum loss in 1995;

"My friends"

"It's lost, but not by much. But it's a success, it's a success in a way. Please, let's stop talking about the francophones of Quebec, would you? Let's talk about us: the 60% - those who voted for (independence). We fought well, and we ... we even showed clearly what we wanted. And we missed by a small margin, by a few tens of thousands of voices. Well, in a case like this, what do we do? We spit in our hands and start all over again.

"I really wanted this to go through. I wanted it so badly, like all of you, that it would get through. We were so close to a country. Well, it's been delayed a little ... not for long, not for long ... we won't wait 15 years this time ... no, no ..."

"It's true, it's true that we have been defeated, but basically by what? By money and ethnic votes, essentially.

So all it means is that, in the next round, instead of being 60 or 61 per cent to vote YES, we will be 63 or 64 per cent and it will suffice. That's all. But now my friends, in the months that will come, we are going to... Listen: Some people got so afraid that the temptation to take revenge is going to be something! And never again will it be more important to have a Parti Québécois government to protect us until the next time!"

After all, history is history!

Visit Restaurant Madrid

I've been travelling Autoroute 20, the highway that connects Montreal to Quebec City for the last 30 years. The road is pretty boring with just about the only feature of interest being the flamboyant Restaurant Madrid, perched over the highway on a little bluff with it's eye catching assortment of dinosaur replicas and monster trucks displayed in it's parking lot.

This week I finally decided to stop and was impressed by the lengths that the owners have gone to make their rather ordinary highway restaurant interesting and fun.

The restaurant has an interesting history which you can read on the bilingual web site. I like the respect that the owners have for tourists, being one of the only restaurants along the road offering full service in English.

You've got to admire the spunk, they even have a webcam that shows the inside of the diner. Innovative but not that interesting a sight!

The food was okay, but what caught my eye was a real ZOLTAR machine tucked up against the wall near the entrance.
You might remember ZOLTAR from the Tom Hanks movie "BIG"

This ZOLTAR offered up advice in French with a decidedly Italian accent. He also sported a modern operator's headset!

If you have the time, make the stop.

The restaurant is located just about half way between Quebec city and Montreal

Quebec is 47th out of 60...arghhh!...

In a study entitled "Measuring Labour Markets in Canada and the United States" prepared by the Fraser Institute, Quebec didn't fare so well.

The paper studied;

"Labour performance, such as job creation, unemployment, and productivity, which compares Canadian provincial and US state labour market performance."

Judging the 50 American States combined with the 10 Canadian provinces, Quebec ranked 47th out of 60.

It isn't surprising that Quebec did so poorly, the atrocious placement is largely a result of the province's abysmal productivity rate. The Province's overly generous time-off work programs, such as parental leave, and extended maternity leave, results in Quebeckers working less.

If it weren't for Newfoundland, who were 55th, we'd have the worst performance in Canada.

How did other Canadian province's fare?

Alberta was Number 1 out of the 60 provinces and states.
Yup! - Number 1 in all of North America.

It's somewhat depressing.

The Rest of Canada? Here's how the provinces rank...

Alberta #01
Saskatchewan #08
British Colombia #09
Manitoba #21
Ontario #35
New Brunswick #39
PEI #41
Nova Scotia #45
Quebec #47
Newfoundland #55
_______________________
Talk about low productivity, a story about a City of Montreal employee in Saturday's Journal de Montreal may be the worst case of an unproductive worker that I've ever heard of.

Jean-Claude Bourdon, was employed by the City of Montreal since 1990, as an inspector of fire hydrants. His job was to let the water flow out of the hydrant for a few minutes to see if it worked properly.

He was to inspect between 15 and 20 hydrants per day, in a well defined territory. His shift started at 7 AM and ended at 4 PM, four days a week.

Apparantly his behavior came under suspicion and his employer put him under surveillance.

A GPS device was also placed aboard the vehicle, which was provided by the City.

What his bosses found out was much worse than they imagined.

An analysis of the GPS reports showed that some days, he spent 10 minutes at work, others 28, others 30 or 60 minutes.

When confronted, he told his boss,'it wasn't a big deal and anyways he had a house and a Jeep to pay for."

The City fired him in 2005.

Mr. Bourdon then challenged his dismissal, complaining that the city had no right to watch him using GPS and that the City had encroached on his privacy.

It has taken over four years to have that termination confirmed.

It's a good example why Quebec is 47th out of 60.