Will Quebec City Blackmail Work?

A couple of weeks ago, French language militants went 'gaga' over what they described as a 'spectacular' turnout, when 2,500 people attended a rally in a Montreal hall to protest Bill 103, and show support for more restrictive language policies. LINK

I wonder how those organizers are reacting to the fact that twenty-five times as many people attended  a rally in Quebec City, where about 60,000 of them showed up to voice support for the return of NHL hockey. STORY  PHOTO GALLERY

There must be some sort of message in that, but I'll let the readers draw their own conclusions......

The demonstration was not just a feel good event meant for Nordique-crazed fans to demonstrate their determination to win back an NHL franchise, it was a carefully staged maneuvre by mayor Regis Lebaume, to deliver a message to the the Harper government and although the gathering was described as apolitical, it was anything but.


It seems that Mayor Lebaume has a plan to return the Nordiques to Quebec City and that plan is not up for discussion.
It's a simple plan, one where the three levels of government will pay for a new $400 million arena and Quebec's latest heartthrob, 'Boy Wonder' Pierre-Karl Péladeau, will buy, own and operate the 'new' Nordiques.

The Province of Quebec has already committed to the plan by pledging 45% of the cost of the arena. The City of Quebec has already announced that it will throw in $50 million and so another $170 million is needed to get the project off the ground.
Of course Mayor Lebaume expects the federal government to foot the bill and has embarked on a pressure campaign that can better be described as blackmail.

On the face of it, nothing goes further against Tory policy than the public financing of projects that benefit private industry and Mayor Lebaume knows it.

But political realities are something that Mayor Lebaume also understands and in an effort to pull out all the stops he has played the election card rather deftly and so, has placed the Prime Minister firmly between the proverbial "rock and a hard place"

While watching coverage of the event on the news, I spotted several signs that put it as plainly as could be.

NORDIQUES OUI= CONSERVATEURS OUI

ARENA / CONSERVATEURS 

(No Arena/ No Conservatives)

No misunderstanding there!

And so as stupid as it seems, the key to a majority government may come at the cost of a Quebec City arena.

For Harper the dilemma is real. 

The Prime Minister hasn't exactly demonstrated a keen loyalty to the conservative ideal of no interference in the public marketplace and he's certainly not been averse to blowing big government bucks in search of political advantage.

Perhaps the real question for Harper is not philosophical but rather practical. Should he pony up the money for Quebec's new arena, will the seats he will gain in Quebec, be offset by losses in other parts of the country, triggered by disgusted voter blowback?

Perhaps he can go the other route and promise funding to all that come, be it Winnipeg, Edmonton, Saskatchewan and Ottawa as well. After all, for under a billion dollars or so he can satisfy everybody's stadium ambitions and perhaps guarantee a conservative majority.

At any rate, it seems like a better use of the money then the billion he spent on the G20 conference.

For Harper the decision must be agonizing, another minority government will probably spell his demise.
Most in the Conservative party have been holding their nose, watching as the party betrays its ideals in order to stay in power.  It's unlikely that the rank and file will accept much more of a Harper if he doesn't deliver a majority. 

And so the 170 million dollar question remains, will the Prime Minister throw out the political ideals of his party and roll the dice in one last desperate attempt at a majority?

Will Harper pay?

Quebeckers Confront Corruption

The spirited defence put up by Quebec politicians and journalists, arguing against the Maclean's magazine article that described the province as the most corrupt in Canada, seems to run counter to the underlying public perception by ordinary Quebeckers that indeed, Quebec is a very corrupt place.

Reading the online comments, attached to the articles discussing the story, one would expect the majority of reader opinions to echo the professionals and defend their beloved province, but surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly at all, such was not the case.
Quebeckers remain deeply humiliated by the allegations made by the magazine because most know the charges to be true.

Whether Quebec is the most corrupt province in Canada is largely beside the point, that it is perceived by almost all Quebeckers as extremely corrupt, is entirely the issue.

Quebeckers didn't need the magazine to remind them that corruption is a problem in Quebec, we already knew.
It's more than likely that the article itself was borne from the growing public debate and outrage that has gripped the province over corruption. The issue has become the number one political topic and has far eclipsed even that of sovereignty.

Perhaps the greatest failing of the Maclean's article was to ignore the ongoing public reaction in  Quebec and so leave the impression that it is business as usual.

It is most certainly not!

Quebeckers across all political stripes have been howling for a cleanup. Most believe that Premier Charest's refusal to call an inquiry into the construction industry, perceived by the public to be the most corrupt and corrupting element in Quebec society, is evidence that he and his party have a lot to hide. His calling of an inquiry over the lessor issue of whether undue political influence was brought to bear in the naming of judges was seen as a diversion and even that hasn't worked out that well. While Marc Bellemare, the ex-justice minister who made the allegations of interference, hasn't made a great case for himself, the exposure of the inner machinations of the political party system, it's fundraisers and their influence, even legal, has left a decidedly sour taste in the public's mind.

Corruption has always been around, but it remained hidden from the public under a layer of secrecy, worthy of the mob code of secrecy - 'Omerta'

Frank Zampino

That all changed drastically one day, two years ago, in May, 2008, when Frank Zampino, the City of Montreal's number two elected official and boss of its finances, resigned rather hastily.  LINK

I remember the press conference distinctly because it was the germ that led to me start this blog.

I remarked to my wife how surprised I was that all the reporters attending the news conference, were falling for Mr. Zampino's story that he was retiring to look for new challenges and that he didn't have anything lined up. Not one reporter challenged him.

If there's one thing that I know, (and reporters should know too) it's that 48 year old politicians, with families to support, don't retire at the zenith of their careers for no reason, it just doesn't happen. They retire because they have to, be it a political, sex or corruption scandal or possibly caused by health reasons or a helluva better offer of employment elsewhere. You pick'em.

Tony Accurso

Eventually the truth came out. Zampino was intimately connected to Tony Accurso, a very big wheel in the Quebec construction industry and whose various companies had a dizzying amount of criminal investigations surrounding them. It started with the news that Zampino had vacationed on Accurso's yacht in the Caribbean and escalated when Accurso gave Zampino a job after he left the city.

All this led to the exposure of the 'Water Meter' scandal, whereby it is alleged that Zampino facilitated a bid by an Accurso consortium to supply hundreds of millions of dollars of water meters to the city of Montreal. That contract was eventually cancelled amid cries of corruption.
It's been downhill since then.

Reporters finally started doing their jobs and the long hand of corruption was exposed at almost every level of government.

Benoit Labonté

In light of the Water Meter scandal, the political fortunes of up and comer Benoit Labonté seemed to rise and for a while he looked like the right man to clean house at Montreal City Hall. But alas, he too was exposed as being corrupt himself, having accepted campaign money from none other than one Tony Accurso and then brazenly lying about it before being outed by the press. LINK
It was quite a shocker!

Eric Duhame wrote in the National Post about the dubious connection between unions, politicians and the underworld;

"...in March 2009, a Radio-Canada investigation discovered alleged links between the general-director of the powerful FTQ-Construction, the biggest union of the industry, and the underworld. In September, further investigation uncovered a cost fixing scam among construction companies on public jobs, mainly road construction or repair. It involved bikers intimidating the competition and brown envelopes used to buy politicians and bureaucrats.
Many analysts and commentators started to wonder if such corruption could explain why it costs between 35% and 40% more to build roads in Quebec than in Ontario."

On and on it goes....

Three out of four Quebeckers are demanding that a commission look into the corruption and tens of thousands have signed an online petition.

Premier Charest's attempt to quell the rage hasn't exactly worked out.

He hired ex-Montreal police chief Jacques Duchesneau to head a team to investigate the 15,000 yearly contracts given out by the Ministry of Transport.

But it seems even that has turned sour.
Ethical questions have been raised over Mr. Duchesneau's departure as head of CATSA,  the government organization that screens passengers in federal airports. 

Apparently, he was pushed out as president.

"His abrupt exit came a day after a CATSA board meeting. Directors talked for 40 minutes by telephone before passing a resolution -- now kept secret by the government -- and just six months after his contract was renewed until 2010, the documents show." LINK

Here's a full account explaining why he was let go in a LCN report in French.

Here's a somewhat more abbreviated version in English.
In another blow to Mr. Duchesneau's reputation, an investigative report in June, claims irregularities in the campaign financing of his unsuccessful 1998 run for the mayorship of Montreal. LINK

At any rate, it seems that the Premier was unaware of all this at the time of the hiring  and now insiders tell me that he has completely lost confidence in Duchesneau. Suffice to say that things are not going well.

All these public revelations, as well as the Maclean's article. have contributed to the impression that Quebeckers are more dishonest than other Canadians, a perception that despite the prima facie evidence, I contend is not true.

I shall write about that in another post, but if you visit Quebec and get stopped by a cop for speeding, I wouldn't recommend offering him a bribe. You'll be sadly surprised at his reaction and might even find yourself behind bars.

Anglos Still 'Rule' Much of Montreal

One of the strange myths of the French language nationalist movement is that English is taking over the island of Montreal. This is based partly on the perception that immigrants are adopting English in a greater demographic proportion than French and anecdotal evidence that English use is on the upswing in private and public use in Montreal.

There's no doubt that outside the greater Montreal area (with a couple of exceptions), the English influence has been largely decimated and so in comparing Montreal to the rest of the province, it's easy to see why this misconception exists.
While the face of Quebec has radically changed towards a French only society, Montreal appears to become more and more English, by virtue of it changing at a much slower pace.

Montreal remains stubbornly resistant to this Francisation, and remains in many respects, what it always has been, a bilingual city.
Claims by language militants that Montreal is a French city is nothing more than bravado and wishful thinking, unsupported by the facts.

While the numbers of English residents has diminished, particularly over the last forty years, Anglos still make up a significant percentage of the city and in many areas of the city, actually dominate.

The comprehensive study released by Statistics Canada, which I cited yesterday paints a very different picture of Anglophone society in Quebec and particularly Montreal, than what French language militants would have us believe.

Here, from that study is a table indicating the percentage of Anglos living in the various cities on the island of Montreal;

For those unfamiliar with the Montreal region, it is an island that is politically divided between it's largest component, the City of Montreal, and about two dozen towns, most of them located in the central and western part of the island. The farther west one goes, the greater the English influence, as you can see from the map below.(Red=equals English)

While the StatsCan study says that Anglos make up one-third of the residents of the island of Montreal, it doesn't consider that the eastern half of the island is completely bereft of Anglophones.
If one were to consider the downtown core plus the areas west only, Anglos make up  at least 50% of the residents, perhaps more.

So is it any wonder that in this area of Montreal, English is spoken widely, and that English culture flourishes?

French language militants refuse to face the unalterable fact that Montreal is still a bilingual city, or if not, a two language city. Though coercive language laws may have changed the outward appearance of the city, by ripping down English public signage, this underlying fact remains. Trying to sell the fiction that Montreal is a French city and that Anglos are interlopers is the core of the language 'problem.'

So instead of complaining that Montreal is becoming too English, it would be fairer if French language militants complained that Montreal is still too English.

This is isn't splitting hairs, there's a big difference between the concepts.

If the first scenario is true, the concept that Montreal is becoming too English, militants can fairly claim to be defending the French nature of the city.

But if the second scenario is true and Montreal has always been a two-language and two-cultured city, with that English element remaining stable or declining slowly,  it would expose the ugly truth that efforts to curb this English influence is nothing more than ethnic cleansing.

Heads Will Roll Over Foolish Macleans Article

We've all seen the movie where the editor of a newspaper or magazine comes under undue pressure from a big client who demands that the newspaper kill an unfavourable or unflattering story or else face the prospect of losing a big advertiser.

It's more than an urban myth, it's a reality that the media faces when it reports on its own advertisers.

Now Maclean's magazine doesn't seem to have a lot to lose in writing a completely unflattering article accusing Quebec of being the most corrupt province. There aren't a lot of subscribers here and not a lot of advertisers that could be affected, or so it seems.

Whether the story is actually true or not, is entirely beside the point. Foolishly, the magazine never really considered the consequences of printing such an inflammatory piece, or worse, using outrageously inappropriate and insulting cover art.

Quebeckers are seething.

To be honest, most can't even read English, but seeing the image of Bonhomme Carnaval being abused in such a way, was enough to send them into a justified fury.
It isn't a great leap to conclude that given the trash treatment of Bonhomme, the article would likely be as unfair.

While Maclean's defenders tells us to look past the title of the article and cover artwork and instead concentrate on the gist of the article, they are badly out of touch with reality.

I don't know what Maclean's was thinking. Apparently nobody overseeing the magazine had the good sense to anticipate the reaction. In that respect, they are rank amateurs.

Let me be the first (to my knowledge) to predict that heads will roll in consequence. It won't take long for the link between the magazine and it's parent corporation, ROGERS, to be made.

And Rogers has a lot to lose in Quebec. Any sort of boycott, or even a talk of a boycott would be devastating and don't think it isn't coming.

Right now, somewhere in Toronto the midnight oil is burning at Rogers headquarters and the damage control consultants have been summoned and are in full battle mode. A plan is brewing.

Someone is going to be thrown under the bus. Someone will pay.
It's coming, just you wait and see.

Just ask Jan Wong, whose career nosedived after writing an article claiming that the Dawson shooting could be blamed on Bill 101. Link

"Jan Wong, it seems recently freed of any restrictions on speaking about matters surrounding her departure of the Globe, confided in the large group of student journalists that she was fired while on leave for depression."  Link 

There's a lot of nervous editors over at Maclean's, you can bet on it. They deserve to be.

P..S
I was going to write a piece myself denouncing the Maclean's article for various reasons, but there's enough being said by better writers than myself.

For the very best piece on the subject read what Carole Beaulieu, the editor of L'Acualité, a French sister publication of Maclean's, had to say; LINK

BOMBSHELL! Statistics Canada Discovers Many More Anglos in Quebec!

I've always maintained that the language and demographic statistics bandied about by Quebec nationalists are subject to the most fanciful of interpretation, reflecting outright misrepresentation, more often than not.

Statistics Canada has released a bombshell study that discredits the conventional perception that Anglos make up about 8.5% of the Quebec population.
This figure has been so widely circulated by language nationalists that it has passed into the separatist narrative woven by organizations like the Societé Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

".... the criterion of the first official language spoken (FOLS) offers a more inclusive definition of the Anglophone population. The English FOLS population’s relative share is 11.9% (885,000) excluding those having French and English as a double first official language, and 13.4% (995,000) when half the population with both French and English as FOLS is included. This is a sizable difference, in comparison with the 607,000 persons who have English as their mother tongue." -Statistics Canada

 DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE REPORT HERE

The dark blue bar indicates what has been traditionally defined as anglophones, while the light blue line is more inclusive.
It takes into consideration immigrant stock that have assimilated into the Anglophone community over the years and share English as their first language as opposed to French. Second and third generation Greeks, Italians, Chinese, Portuguese, Jews etc. are now considered bone fide anglophones if they speak English at home and if their children attend English schools legally. Makes sense.
Also, previous calculations considered Anglo/French families as francophone, instead considering 50% of them being English.

Interestingly, it jives rather neatly with what nationalist Mario Bealieu of the SSJB complains about, when he says that 12% of children attend primary and high school in English. These children (except a handful of gatecrashers) all require proper documentation to get into English school and must have a mother, father, sister or brother who attended English school before them.

And so incredibly, there are now 50% more Anglos living in Quebec than yesterday!

In one fell swoop, Anglo ranks have increased from 8.5% to 13.4%, to just under 1 million citizens!

Another interesting statistic is one that Anglo-Quebeckers understand intuitively, that they don't particularly feel like a minority, because they live in communities that have huge Anglo representation.

 The numbers would be adjusted much, much higher if the survey would  discount the eastern part of the island of Montreal, where very few Anglos live.

The study is chock full of interesting tidbits which the intrepid reader can peruse by downloading the file. I'll write more about the study in a further post, but now,  I don't want to be accused of information overload.

Now I'm sure that the report will be widely ignored in nationalist circles, after all it doesn't fit in with their agenda.
What surprises me is why the Anglo press isn't jumping on this story.