Academic Fraud at Concordia University!

If you're not particularly familiar with Concordia University, don't feel bad, the school is nothing more than Glendale Community College on steroids, with a worse looking campus.
Concordia is the poor cousin to McGill University, whose shadow casts a mighty pall over everything that Concordia tries to be.

From its ignoble roots as a small night school run by the YMCA called Sir George Williams University, the school is the result of the merger with the Jesuit College of Loyola, way off in the west end of the city and today has grown to become one of the largest second tier universities in Canada.

The school's central campus is the ground floor in a singularly ugly Stalanist looking building in downtown Montreal that enjoys a much deserved reputation as dreary and soulless.

Much as it tries to aspire to greatness, the school will be forever known as the place where you go to earn a degree when you cannot get into McGill.

Now I know there are those who will angrily reply that they did indeed have the qualifications to get into McGill but chose Concordia, for whatever reason. 

It's like choosing to visit the Wax Museum while in Paris instead of the Louvre.

The current board of directors, rubber stamps decisions taken by the elite executive committee, which actually runs the university by fiat. This group is made up, with the exception of one, of a group of business tycoons, representing a who's who of powerful Quebec CEO's.

It's clear that the goal of these rich gentlemen is to play catch-up with McGill and somehow enhance the reputation of the school. They are obsessed with growing the school bigger and have embarked on an impressive building program. Try as they may, the school remains the Hamilton Bulldogs to the Montreal Canadiens. You can dress the team up in new uniforms and build a nicer arena, but they still play hockey in a bush league.

The difference between McGill and Concordia is the qualitative difference in staff and students and that will never change. There are not enough good quality English students to fill two massive universities in Montreal.

Poor staff relations and high turnover have always been the hallmark of Concordia which can best be illustrated by the unfortunate  Dr. Valery Fabrikant, who in a burst of rage over apparent slights by superiors, went on a shooting spree in 1992 that forever stained the University.

Screaming bloody murder about academic fraud and threats against his life by his Concordia superiors, who he claimed stole credit for his work, Fabrikant was branded insane and bundled off to jail forever.

It now appears, nutty as he was, that his charges of academic fraud were actually true! Read this.

Since the university has no interest in pursuing the truth in defence of a murderer, the motives for the murders will forever be chalked up to unprovoked acts of a madman.

Cover-up and misinformation has always been the hallmark of the Concordia board of directors and the shameful circumstances of the firing of the current Chancellor Judith Woodsworth has finally got those outside the school demanding an explanation.
The sacking of the chancellor midway through her five year term and the golden parachute of 700k awarded to her, was a bit hard to take considering that the Board of Directors announced that she had left for 'personal reasons.' The press release, announcing her departure was issued just before the Christmas break, causing many to believe that a cover-up was afoot. Link

“Gazette sources say members of the board’s elite executive committee made the decision to let Woodsworth go. This group includes the board’s chair, Peter Kruyt, as well as James Cherry, Brian Edwards, Jonathan Wener and Annie Tobias.” Link

Faced with a barrage of criticism and Ms. Woodsworth's reluctant admission later that she was sacked,

 “I would have been happy to continue as president, but some board members said that they had lost confidence and they felt I should step down,” she said. “I was not given the reasons, so that's all I can tell you.” LINK

In the face of the truth, The board continued to maintain the lie and arrogantly told all who'd listen -"That's my story and I'm sticking to it"

As with Martha Stewart and Richard Nixon, it's the cover-up that will be the downfall of the school.

Ms.Woodsworth's firing may have very well have been justified.
Certainly there is turmoil in the upper hierarchy of senior management with many recent departures costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance. Her decision to fire  two senior members of the audit staff, Ted Nowak and Saad Zubair over a wrongly expensed $250 restaurant bill is going to cost the school hundreds of thousands of dollars. Both men made some startling accusations in labour court over unjustified expenses claimed by Woodsworth, where they are disputing the firings. LINK

Ms. Woodsworth is accused of attending the Olympic Games in Vancouver as a guest of Bell Canada, just months before the school awarded the company a huge contract. Link fr

Revelations over huge salaries, lavish spending and obscene benefits accorded to higher ups is being splashed all over the Press with the Journal de Montreal taking extreme delight in exposing 'English' abuse in academia. Link fr

A  'Professional Development' fund of a $150,000 seems to be nothing more than a slush fund used by executives to pay for personal items. No rules exist other than the expenses should somehow be related to work. So personal computers and telephones are all included. Link 

For a long version of events, read the excellently prepared blog piece by Steve Faguy, entitled  The Clique de Concordia

While the media has covered the story admirably, perhaps they are too afraid of the powerful members of the Executive Council to say what should be said.

It's time for all of them to be gone. Telling a bold face lie to the public and refusing to retract it in the face of exposure is unacceptable.

Perhaps in the rough and tumble world of business, lying to shareholders is an acceptable practice, but running a university under that model is not.

Late yesterday, in the face of pressure, Mr. Kruyt finally issued a statement which reaffirmed that the Board of Directors is standing by the ridiculous fiction that Ms. Woodsworth resigned of her own accord.

“It was in this context and following discussions with members of the board during the month of December that Dr. Woodsworth made the decision to resign.”

He said confidentiality agreements limit what he can say publicly about the issue. LINK

DISGRACEFUL.......

I wonder if Power Corporation pays out the balance of employment contracts to people who quit of their own accord. 
It's time for the Minister of Education to react. The millions of dollars in golden parachutes, the inflated salaries and expenses is not something the public should be asked to finance.

As it stands, the actions of the Board of Directors of Concordia University is humiliating the entire Anglo community, which cannot nor should not abide by the continuing cover-up.

No donor should give a dime to the university until things improve.

Its time to clean up Concordia and it starts at the top.

Mr. Kruyt and his posse, need to do the honourable thing and resign. We'll send you a plaque.

Conservative Majority will Crush Quebec

While Quebec voters continue to delude themselves that it's in their best interest to vote massively for the Bloc Quebecois, the penny has finally dropped on Quebec commentators who are starting to widely report what I've been saying for almost a year now, that Harper has more or less abandoned the interests of Quebec in favour of an English only based majority government.

“...Mr. Harper, utterly frustrated by the betrayal, decided to write off Quebec for good and rule with a minority, while seeking a majority, outside the borders of  Quebec.” NoDogsOrAnglophones- April 2, 2010

“Quebeckers have finally convinced Stephen Harper that Quebec is a dead end, a place where governments go to die, not to find majorities. Coldly turning his back on the Province, Harper is slowly and deliberately setting out to take Quebec out of the Canada equation and like the oblivious frog in the pot of cold water, the heat is being turned up.” NoDogsOrAnglophones- May 17, 2010

 A realistic analysis of the death of 'Quebec Power" in Ottawa, was written last week  by commentator Joël-Denis Bellavance in La Presse

 "Mr. Harper and his senior aides were so firmly convinced that further gains in Quebec would allow them to gain a majority in Parliament...

But the results of the federal election of October 2008 shattered that belief. After a difficult electoral campaign and despite a respectable record in Quebec, the Conservatives won only 10 seats (they have since made a gain at the expense of the Bloc in Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup). At the same time, they won a dozen more seats in Ontario without a campaign of seduction.

Since then, the political Quebec-Alberta axis has officially been replaced by a new coalition: Ontario/Alberta. For conservatives, obtaining a majority in the House of Commons passes through Ontario." Read the full story (fr)

Last week's cabinet shuffle underscored this Alberta/Ontario axis, with those promoted to the cabinet representing Albertan and suburban Toronto area ridings. The promotion of Peter Kent, a unilingual Torontonian was particularly galling to Quebec as well as the newly-elected Julian Fantino, a "big C" conservative who is also no friend of the province.
No Quebec minister lost their job, but none were promoted. For hard-working Steve Blaney, of Levis, Quebec, it's a bit of a disappointment. Link fr

It's clear that Harper is looking to high-profile candidates to knock off Liberals in the riding rich suburbs of Toronto, known colloquially as the the 905's (after the area code.) Building a conservative majority now runs through southern Ontario and while nothing is sure, it is the only viable option left to the Conservatives.

That's because in Quebec, the Conservatives realize that they are dead.

The Bloc Quebecois MP summed it up neatly, not realizing that his analysis, underscore why Quebeckers shouldn't vote for the Bloc;

"They're picking people from Ontario because we are possibly on the eve of a federal election. There is a political message here. He's winking  at Ontario, noting that he obviously cannot improve his score in Quebec . Mario Laframboise, Bloc québécois

For separatist journalist Josée Legault, it's somehow unfair that the Prime Minister has turned his back on Quebec.
As a longtime advocate of squeezing Ottawa for whatever Quebec can get, whilst pursuing a sovereignist agenda, a policy that has been quite successful over the years, the fact that the gravy train has pulled into the station and parked, is particularly hard to take.
In a blog piece appropriately entitled Bye Bye Québec, Ms Legault reports rather bitterly that Quebec no longer figures in Harper's plans.

Whether Harper can actually pull off a majority government is debatable, he certainly can't do it today. Most likely Harper will work on southern Ontario over the next months and recruit more 'star' candidates with promises of cabinet positions.

If the Conservatives do achieve a majority, it will be nothing less than apocalyptic for Quebec.

Free from a large Quebec presence in the caucus or the cabinet, Harper will get down to payback, punishing Quebec for turning its back on the Conservatives.
Quebec can expect him to follow through on all those ant-Quebec legislative initiatives that have been impossible to pass under a minority government.

First he will finally add those thirty seats to parliament, diluting Quebec and the Maritimes political weight in Parliament. Out of those thirty seats, the Conservatives will probably win about two-thirds.

Next he'll pass legislation removing federal subsidies to political parties, a move which will cripple the Bloc Quebecois, since they don't really raise any money on their own. Quebeckers have shown themselves the least generous Canadians when it comes to reaching in their pocket and so the next time Mr. Duceppe wishes to visit Washington to speak, he'll be riding a Greyhound bus.

Most importantly, Harper will curry favour in the ethnic communities of Toronto and that means no decrease in immigration levels, which stands at a devastatingly high level, that is slowly, but surely eroding Quebec's demographic position.

These policies are a given, but it could get worse if the Conservatives decide to 're-work' equalization payments or fiddle with bilingualism.  

For Quebec, a Conservative majority government represents a grave threat, one that is starting to scare the crap out of political commentators in Quebec.

But oblivious as usual, expect Quebec voters to send the Bloc back to Ottawa in force, not believing or realizing that four or five years of a majority Conservative government will destroy what is left of 'Quebec Power' and change this country forever. 

Quebec may react by voting in a separatist government, but without enough votes for independence, it will be another case of the worst possible outcome.

For Quebec there's nothing left to do but to cross their fingers and pray for the good fortunes of the federal Liberals., otherwise......

PAJU Continues Boycott of Shoe Store!

As I mentioned in a recent post the last thing Amir Khadir needs is the boycott of LE MARCHEUR to continue.
I also predicted that the masochists at PAJU would continue the boycott despite the fact that it has blown up in their face and actually increased sales in the store.

The PAJU boycott continues tomorrow at 1:00PM

Boycott Israeli apartheid!!

We are drawing a line in the sand : NO MORE ASSOCIATION WITH ISRAELI APARTHEID!!!
Invite the owner of the boutique Le Marcheur to take the moral decision to remove the shoes made in Apartheid Israel !
Saturday, January 8th 2011
Between 1PM and 3PM, corner Duluth and St-Denis

If you wish to confront them or buy shoes tomorrow is a good opportunity.

If you are a St. Denis merchant and would like PAJU to boycott your store as well, you can make this request tomorrow.
Remember stores lucky enough to be targeted will see sales swell to unprecedented levels!

Who is the Real Terrorist?

 I thought I'd point out a reader comment left on an older post, because not many of us follow older threads and this one is definitely worth viewing;

"My father's uncle is Wilfred Vincent O'Neil who was killed by the FLQ! It's too bad what happen back then as our family still misses him yet today! "

Posted by Crystal O'Neil (Gaspesie,QC)  Jan.05/11     The War Measures Act- 40 Years Later

It's been forty years since the deadly FLQ attacks took place, but for the families of those murdered, time doesn't erase the pain of having lost a loved one. For those who suffered through injuries and amputations, the reality of those barbaric acts linger. The FLQ perpetrated over 170 acts of violence which resulted in eight deaths and a multitude of injured.

Sgt. Wilfred V. O'Neil, was the first fatal casualty of the FLQ reign of terror. A night watchman at the Canadian Army Recruiting Centre in Montreal, he was killed in January 1963, when he tried to remove 10 sticks of dynamite from a container.
"In February 1969 - the FLQ set off a powerful bomb that ripped through the Montreal Stock Exchange causing massive destruction and seriously injuring twenty-seven people." Link 

"The FLQ sent a bomb to a Quebec shoe manufacturer, to show their solidarity with the union. Therese Morin, 64, the secretary to the general manager was killed when it exploded in the office May 5, 1965. She had just returned from lunch .....
.....On April 19, 1964, some of the FLQ raided a gun shop in Montreal for weapons. They murdered store manager Leslie MacWilliams, 56.
....Sgt. Major Walter Leja, 42, had both hands blown off as he was trying to defuse the last of three FLQ bombs in a mailbox in the Westmount region of Montreal. The bombers were just warming up." LINK

Today these deaths are largely forgotten and even Quebec schools make sure to gloss over the FLQ.
It's little wonder, as the author of the actual book used to teach history has characterized the death of Pierre Laporte at the hands of the terrorists 'accidental' and that the other deaths were 'collateral damage.' LINK
In Quebec, especially among  young francophones, the FLQ is nothing more than folklore, it's barbaric image successfully rehabilitated by sympathetic journalists who have contributed to a historical makeover par excellence.

A review of the French press will reveal that the word 'terrorist' is never used to describe the members of the FLQ, with the sanitized term of 'Felkist,' (FLQer) much preferred.

The political revisionism is reminiscent of Stalinist apologists who created the myth for decades that 'Uncle Joe' was a swell guy.
The success of the campaign to rehabilitate the reputation of the FLQ is underlined by the welcoming arms that accepted the terrorists  back into mainstream Quebec society, where many of the terrorists have worked  for unions, government and as esteemed journalists, their terrorist past, never much of an issue.

Many will say that it is fit and proper that those who commit crimes be re-integrated back into society once the offender has paid his debt.
But the fact remains that the FLQ terrorists were treated rather lightly, with some receiving nothing more than a slap on the wrist or a couple of years in the pen. The largest sentence served was but eleven years, and the majority of the terrorists never apologized to the families of the victims, nor expressed any remorse whatsoever.

Many went back to a life of activism and in the case of Rhéal Mathieu, a return to terrorism itself, when he was convicted of involvement in the firebombing of a Second Cup coffee shop in 2001. LINK

Mr. Mathieu remains a prolific and honoured contributor to vigile.net as well as convicted FLQ terrorist Pierre Schneider who also writes for the militant website and who signs his articles with this beauty (proud member of the 1st FLQ-1963)

Click to see article

Mr. Schneider, according to Wikipedia remains a member of the Réseau de résistance du Québécois.


So it was with utter disgust that I witnessed the forces of order move at light speed in reaction to a complaint  by the Parti Quebecois against Colonel James Angus Brown over 'terrorist threats' over his blog posts at Parkavenuegazette.com.

Read my post my Anglo Website Triggers Charges of Racism

Had the blog posts called for the death of, say, Jewish Imperialists or Anglo Imperialists or Christians of any sort, we'd be looking at a three year wait for the police to even consider any action.

Think I'm joking?
Read an account here of the pursuit of an Internet hate-monger from Toronto that has taken years to prosecute. LINK

So the poor colonel is a threat to society.... Hmmmm

In a recent post on vigile.net, convicted terrorist Rhéal Mathieu reprinted a hate letter which was sent to homes in Westmount threatening all sorts of hell in the case of partition, including the burning of Westmount Square. LINK

Did the police pick up Mathieu or force him to remove the offending article?
When a twice convicted terrorist makes a threat, shouldn't the police take it seriously?

Colonel James Angus Brown a terrorist?  Hardly....

Only in Quebec can real terrorists be labelled harmless and the bombastic as terrorists.

It's  a question of what language the threatener speaks.

Even Separatists Agree. Montreal is English!

After yesterday's post, which seemed to push a particularly angry button among readers, let's do something a little on the humorous side today.

But before I continue,  I want to congratulate those readers who enriched the debate with a plethora of thoughtful comments yesterday. I do believe it was the best batch of comments ever written on this blog and no, it had nothing to do with the fact that 'ALLCAPS' was silent!!

Unfortunately I deleted an important comment from 'Appartchick' by accident. Too bad, it was excellent. How about a re-post?

Onward!
I read with amusement a post by Quebec City blowhard Rejean Labrie on vigile.net who wrote a pathetic lament about what he perceives as the sad reality of English in Montreal. He reluctantly admits that Montreal is what it always was, a bilingual city, something he abhors.
Read;

"Come and  settle in Montreal where you can live exclusively in English"

"Venez vous établir à Montréal, où l’on peut vivre exclusivement en anglais"

Perhaps the language militants are finally accepting reality.

He makes the point that immigrants can easily assimilate into the English cultural community without any difficulty and that they can successfully function without French.
While it isn't easy for anyone to function without French in Quebec, his point about many immigrants adopting the English culture is quite valid and while for him it represents a sad reality, I'm reminded of the old adage- 'One man's meat is another man's poison.'

"...you can never count on these people to join the nationalist cause that drives us, this is a very unfortunate fact, but a fact. And it's not because we haven't reached out to them generously. No, they have no intention of joining the majority culture of Quebec, it's just that there's no incentive for them to do so. In one word or a thousand, they couldn't care less about preserving our culture."

As for our English community, which has lost 300,000 members through emigration over the last forty years, survival is based in renewal. It's a fact that immigrants have rallied to help save the English community. As a grateful anglophone, I welcome them to our ranks!

As for Mr. Labrie, I'm sure he was rubbing his hands in glee, all those years, watching the anglos leave his beloved Quebec, purifying the population as they left.  

The pain that he manifests so clearly in his post, over those cursed immigrants that ruined his separatist plans, can only bring a smile to my face and perhaps to yours.....

But enough of that, I said humorous!.....

Mr. Labrie added a photo collage of store signs showing an arrogant use of English to the exclusion of French.
Yup, never mind bilingual, these signs showed an utter contempt for Bill 101 in that nary a word of French was to be found.

But there's something wrong!

The longer I looked at the pictures, the more I believe them to be fraudulent.

Can you play detective and spot the giveaways?

Here's some 'think music' to help you concentrate, click on the arrow and study the pictures. Then scroll down to compare thoughts!

spoiler alert.....scroll down..
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• The bottom right hand photo is what got me started. It has a date of 2004, indicating that these photos are seven years old! Who uses seven year old pictures to prove a point about today?

• It also seems that all the photos seven years old, too. Why? Because two of the signs have a 473-XXXX telephone number, indicating that they were both taken in the same neighbourhood. Then there is no area code in front of the telephone number. Today we use 10 digit dialling in Quebec, so these pictures are were probably snapped at the same time and place as the photo with the 2004 date.

• The "473=XXXX numbers would put the business' in the francophone dominated town of St. Eustache, Quebec, where trust me, no business would dare post in English exclusively.

•  In Quebec, even in English the word is spelled "CENTRE" when referring to a place (Shopping centre) and "CENTER" when referring to the middle of something (like a target.) The use of "Center" to denote a place is used in the USA and in the Maritime provinces in Canada.

• The signage is just too amateurish or corny to come from Montreal. 

In fact none of these pictures were taken in Montreal!

At little research shows that most or all the photos were all taken in Grand Falls, New Brunswick.

The giveaway was the phone number and business name, "473-4644 +Speedy Auto Glass" which is easily be traced back to Grand Falls via a simple Google search. Some of the businesses seem to be closed, but at least two others also trace back to Grand Falls!

Mr. Labrie you are so BUSTED!!!