Pauline Marois' Losing Conditions and Other Nonsense

So it's Friday and perhaps time to wrap up the week with a couple of mini-stories that don't have enough girth to merit a separate post. 

Pauline Marois Declares negotiating strategy

One of the most basic rules of negotiating is not to let your opponent know your strategy beforehand. It's something Pauline Marois apparently never learned, but perhaps should have, considering that her strategy to win support for sovereignty is so ridiculous.
Madame Marois has told a PQ meeting that since 'winning conditions' don't seem to be in the offing any time soon, she'll boost support for sovereignty by entering into bad faith negotiations with Ottawa, the purpose of which is to end up in protracted arguments that will somehow fuel support for sovereignty.

"....she intends to make demands for new powers within Canadian federalism in such fields as culture in the hope they will be refused, provoking crises in Quebec-Ottawa relations that will boost support for secession.
"We're finished with the winning conditions," she told a PQ regional convention," LINK

Pauline Marois: "Mr. Harper, I demand that we enter into negotiations to return more power to Quebec and I'm telling you right now that I won't agree to anything, no matter what!"

Stephen Harper: "Hmm...."

Anybody else see any problem with this plan?

Language cops get new Boss

The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) got a new boss Louise Marchand who is promising renewed vigor and more transparency in protecting the French language.
What's interesting about this?....nothing at all.

But I wanted to publish her picture because she looks like a corpse and has a smile worthy of the WAX museum...... eeeks..

Amir Khadir gets a taste of his own medicine

For someone who has tried to  have a myriad of anti-Israel motions passed in Quebec's Parliament, the  Assemblee nationale, Amir Khadir felt the sting of being the object of just such a motion himself.

A motion put forward by all three of the other political parties representing all the members of the House except for Mr. Khadir, condemned the boycott of the shoe store by the left wing organization PAJU.

To add insult to injury the motion reiterated the Parliament's support for the cooperation agreement with Israel signed by the government of Israel several years ago. LINK

"Although blocked by the sole member of Québec solidaire, "said Director General of Quebec/Israel Committee, Luciano G. Del Negro, "this motion is not only a stinging disavowal and consensus of the campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel promoted by Mr. Amir Khadir and his political party (Quebec solidaire), but a rejection of the Zionist ideological war that Mr. Khadir has brought to the National Assembly and into the street. ""

Mr. Khadir was forced to deny the unanimous consent required to debate the motion, the only member to do so. It was a humiliating comeuppance.

In a statement released on the Quebec solidaire website, Khadir complained that the motion was flawed;

"The motion by the member for Shefford in support of Le Marcheur shop was misleading in consideration that the boycott of the store by a group of citizens ended two weeks ago."

But alas, Amir couldn't even get that right!

PAJU, the group organizing the protest is back outside Le Marcheur once again, after taking a two week break.

Separatist online petition's ignominious end

The over-hyped online petition demanding Premier Charest's resignation came to an ignominious end when the government refused to table the printout. Pierre Moreau, the brand new  Minister of intergovernmental Affairs refused to accept the petition because according to him, 'it contained a fatal flaw' in that it demanded that the parliamentarians do what they could not legally do, that is, fire  Premier Charest. The opposition parties were furious to see the petition dumped so frivolously and lashed out angrily. LINK

Asked to comment on the petition Premier Charest shrugged it off, remarking; "Didn't Rick Mercer get 600,000 names for Stockwell Day to change his name to Doris?"  LINK

The PQ and the Bloc solidaire were all agog over the 250,000 signatures, but considering that over a million people voted for the PQ in the last election, getting a quarter of them to sign a partisan petition online was not much of an achievement.
The petition was, so to speak, not worth the paper it wasn't written on!

Steve Brosseau, the organizer of the petition promised to also organize a demonstration in front of Parliament. After testing the waters to gauge how many people would actually show up, he backed off when he realized very few would actually attend. LINK

Earl Jones likely to sit in jail....

Passage of the government's crime law Bill-C59, which I've affectionately dubbed as "Earl's Law" has raised a level of controversy between legalists as to whether the elimination of the 1/6 provision for parole can be applied retroactively to Earl Jones.
According to a bar expert, Stephen Sineberg, the law's retroactive nature may be anti-constitutional in that it modifies an already existing sentence. Prisoners who accepted a plea 'deal' in exchange for an expectation of early parlole are now seeing the government modifying that possibility after the fact. LINK{FR}

But a criminal lawyer aware of the Earl Jones case has told me that he is pretty sure that the law will hold up and poor Earl will be incarcerated in the big house for at least 44 months.
His interpretation of the effect of 'Earl's law' is somewhat different from Mr. Sineberg's. Here's what I've been told.

A prisoner's sentence cannot be modified once handed down. That means, should the law change and the amount of jail time for a certain crime be modified, it cannot affect the previously convicted.

That being said, how a prisoner serves his sentence is flexible and to some extent up to the parole board. A prisoner who has been given a 10 year sentence may serve 5 years in prison and 5 on parole. Another may serve 3 in prison and 7 on parole. In both cases the criminals will be deemed to have served their entire sentence.
If Earl Jones serves 1/6 of his sentence in jail and the rest on parole or if he serves 2/3 of his sentence behind bars and the rest on parole, he will he have been deemed to have fulfilled his sentence, as well.

Many criminals that go into jail don't know exactly when their parole will start, or if they will be getting parole at all, and Earl Jones is no exception.
The key is, that he'll serve his full original sentence, but how many years on parole or in jail, is up to authorities.
And so the new provisions of the law do not modify his actual sentence. They modify parole conditions which are at any rate flexible to begin with.

This week, The Truth in Sentencing Act, which came into effect last year survived its first judicial challenge. An Ontario judge ruled that abolishing the 2-for-1 sentencing credit that offenders received for time served before their sentence was constitutional. LINK

Montreal City councillors vote in favour of boycott

In reaction to a motion put forward by the Montreal mayor opposing the boycott of the Montreal shoe store LE MARCHEUR, for selling Israeli shoes, Louise Harel and her gang voted in favour of those persecuting the small Montreal merchant. She repeated the hackneyed leftist position that Israel is comparable to apartheid South Africa. Her opposition to the motion was supported by her entire Vision Montreal team as well as about half the councillors on Projet Montreal team..
The motion passed 38-16, but not before some heated debates in council.
In supporting a stupid and meaningless assault on a small merchant, Madame Harel has validated Montrealers view that she remains a dangerous leftist ideologue bitch politician.  LINK

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Let me end the week on a bit of a humorous note.
Failqc.com is a relatively new website that you should click on at least once a week to get a nice laugh.

Inspired by the FAIL genre that features the less than successful achievements, it focuses on the dubious  aspects of Quebec life. I've pulled out a few examples that are somehow related to language and the French/English thing. Enjoy.

By the way, for those who don't speak French I've provided an explanation when necessary.

Seen in Ottawa. Sorry, if you don't actually speak French, I can't help you with this one. Ha ha!!!!

Translation FAILS are more common than you'd think, especially when the manufacturer uses GOOGLE to translate or some other online translation software. Hey, don't laugh the RCMP is no better... LINK

This last video is just plain devastatingly funny. For late-nighters, Call-TV is a mind-numbing time-wasting television show that is best watched under the influence. The presenters try anything to get people to participate in the moronic games meant to suck you in to making a toll 1-900 call.

Here, the hostess pretends that she is pissed-off that nobody is calling in and exhorts the audience to call-in to express displeasure with the producer, who she purportedly wants to have fired for coming up with such lame games.

It's a great example of why Quebec French is as expressive as any language in the world.

This piece is appropriately called;

"On peut-tu crisser le fucking producteur dewors?!"

Have a very good weekend!

Quebec Shale Gas Hullabaloo Worth Paying Attention To

Generally speaking, when environmentalists start in on another tiresome harangue that global warming is going to destroy us all, I generally switch my brain off. While there's likely a measure of truth in what they are saying, my heart tells me they exaggerate their position for effect and at any rate I truly don't believe that there's anything we can do about it.....Sort of like promoting an end to war. A good idea but....

I don't want to get into a global warming debate, especially on this blog which is oriented elsewhere, but there is a local  environmental question that has peeked my interest of late, the exploration of shale gas and its very real effects on our local environment.

A year ago I never even heard of shale gas, shale gas exploration, its French appellation 'gaz de schiste' or the word 'fracking'

If you live outside Quebec (in Canada,) the issue is hardly making the news as there are only a few of these shale gas fields and of them, few are in such a densely populated area, as here in Quebec.

When the issue first surfaced in the news I arrogantly assumed that it was more environmentalist doomsayers warning of yet another impending catastrophe and so I cast my attention elsewhere, that is, until I saw a documentary on the subject on HBO entitled 'Gasland, a documentary film describing the dangers of this type of gas extraction. It was an eye-opener to say the least.

For those of you unfamiliar with the issue allow me to offer the Reader's Digest explanation.

Unlike crude oil which is hard to find, but relatively easy to pump out, shale gas is relatively easy to find, but hard to extract.

There are a massive amount of shale gas bearing fields across North America, but almost all are in the United States, as indicated on the map on the right. As you can see there is a pocket in Quebec that runs along the shore of the St. Lawrence river, but unfortunately in the most populated area of Quebec.

Extracting this gas is a mighty difficult affair. It involves pumping millions of litres of water laced with a secret chemical cocktail deep into the earth to ramp up the pressure and fracture the shale formation, releasing the trapped gas. Thus we get the term FRACKING.

If you think the process sounds complicated and dangerous you are probably correct. The effects of so much chemical laced water pumped underground is not understood at this time, in spite of assurances from the industry that the process is safe.

The United States is years ahead of us in terms of shale gas development. Tens of thousands of wells already exist and the process of extracting the gas is well-established.  

That being said,  problems with groundwater, air pollution and other environmental consequences are just now becoming a subject of extreme public debate.

The question remains as to whether the whole shale gas extraction thing is a blessing or a Pandora's box. Nobody is sure and that is what is scary.

Here is a report about shale gas exploration from an industry point of view; Shale Play Extends to Canada

Here is an excellent news article by Monique Muise writing in the Montreal Gazette;
A guide to Quebec’s shale gas controversy

I urge readers who are unfamiliar with the issue to spend the eight minutes or so to watch this rivetting video which I found on YouTube;

 

The issue is complicated by the fact that the gas could provide a vast amount of tax for the Quebec government and we cannot discount that the government could use all the money it can get it's hands on. Estimates are that the gas may be worth over 200 billion dollars.

That being said, I believe that a go slow approach is required. The EPA in the USA is set to release a definitive report next year on the impact on shale gas extraction and it would be prudent to put things off until then.

"Michael Binnion, CEO of Calgary-based Questerre Energy Inc., characterized resistance to shale gas development as largely being driven by uninformed opinion circulated on social media." LINK

With arrogance like that it's no wonder the  industry has hired Lucien Bouchard to be their point man   probably realizing that the public is waking up to the potential dangers.

How much confidence do you have that the Quebec government can safely regulate this industry?

Hmmmm........Don't answer that!

Further reading; 

Opposition to shale gas drilling unexpectedly strong

Quebec should 'go slow' on shale gas: expert

The Two Montreals

Charter of Ville de Montréal

CHAPTER I

CONSTITUTION OF THE MUNICIPALITY
1. A city is hereby constituted under the name “Ville de Montréal”.

Constitution.

Montréal is a French-speaking city.

Language.

Montréal is the metropolis of Québec and one of its key actors as regards to economic development.

Metropolis.

There it is, written for all to see, the declaration by the city itself that Montreal is French, a declaration which was untrue when it was written and which remains an outlandish lie today.

The uncomfortable reality for those who propagate this myth is that Montreal was conceived and built by the Scots and the English, with the Irish contributing most of the heavy lifting. Strolling down Ste. Catherine Street, it's no accident that almost all the cross streets honour those Anglos who built our metropolis.
Bishop, Crescent, Mountain, Drummond, Stanley, Peel, Metcalfe, Mansfield, McGill, University, Union, Phillips, Aylmer and City Councillors.
Fourteen streets in a row, representing the heart and soul of downtown Montreal and every one of them named for our historical Montreal Anglophone community. How come?

The great lie that Montreal is a French city rests on faulty statistics and decidedly wishful thinking, propagated by language fantasists living in unreality.

Pumped up artificially by coercive language laws meant to hide Montreal's true English face, separatists cannot stomach that the English language and its culture endures and thrives.

As these language militants they themselves admit (when they have the crying towel out), Montreal is made up by about 50% of its citizens whose mother tongue is French, with the balance split almost perfectly between English native speakers and ethnics speaking a variety of languages.
As for cultural assimilation, the 'ethnics' split their loyalty (much to the chagrin of French language militants) about 50/50 between the English community and the French community. The real language demographic has the city about ⅔ French and about ⅓ English.
This is the reality of modern Montreal.

But consider this;
Montreal is really two cities living side by side. There isn't a Berlin wall bisecting the two, but the division is as real as can be.

Running north/south is the boundary street of St Lawrence Boulevard, splitting the city rather neatly into two  halves. On the east side, you'd be hard pressed to find an anglophone. It's a part of the city that few tourists visit, because quite frankly, there isn't much to see or do over there. As I said, the population is almost completely francophone (except for the Italians in St. Leonard and Anjou.) Here francophones live with those ethnics who have assimilated into the francophone side of the language equation, the Arabs from the Mahgreb, the creole speaking Haitians and various French African immigrants, as well as a small peppering of South Americans who seem as a community to have chosen French.

Olympic Stadium-A mediocre symbol defining its neighbourhood

I won't spend time running down the east, suffice to say it is the denizen of the Mario Beaulieus and Louis  Prefontaines. It is the Plateau Mont-Royal and Amir Khadir. It's one recognizable symbol, the monstrous Olympic stadium, is a testament to hubris and incompetence and everything else that's bad about Montreal.

The western part of the Island is a completely different story. It's the Montreal that owns the downtown core, great universities and colleges, Mont Royal Park and quite frankly, anything of value that is Montreal.
It is as different from East Montreal as one can imagine.

Here the Anglos exist in numbers equal to the French speakers and it's where the ethnics are aligned with the English. The Indians, Tamils,  Pakistanis, the Jamaicans and others from the islands. From the downtown core out to the western tip of the island, its a whole other ballgame.

This is the Montreal that the world sees and understands, a cosmopolitan, bilingual and exciting urban scene that is by any standard, world class.

Our Montreal - the west

This Montreal is unaffected by dimwit language purists, it is a place of innovation and experimenters, both English French and ethnic. It is vibrant and exciting and most Canadians will admit that its the most exciting place in the country.

One Saturday night as the hockey game, at the then Molson Centre let out, the crowds surged out of the building onto the surrounding streets as per usual.
At the corner of Ste. Catherine and Metcalfe a left-turning cab cut me off as I was crossing the street and immediately got snared in a jam. As the cab sat in the middle of the intersection, the back window rolled down to reveal two fans bedecked in Maple Leafs jerseys, obviously in town for the hockey game. The one sitting by the open window looked out and sheepishly apologized for the driver's rudeness.
It bowled me over.
"Wha??..." I retorted, "Listen, friend. This is Montreal. You don't apologize!"

This Montreal has its very own rules. Pedestrians jaywalk and cars run through red lights. Crosswalks exist, but like the batters box in major league baseball which are duly painted before each game, only to be erased by the umpires, don't count on anyone respecting them. Montreal must be the only place on Earth that has signs under the traffic lights, reminding drivers to wait for the 'green.'

There's an edginess to this Montreal that is hard to describe. This Montreal, contrary to what we are told, may be the most bilingual place on earth, where locals flick between French and English depending on whom they are addressing. It isn't only a place where people can speak two languages, it is a city that actually operates in two languages. Bar conversations are bilingual, even among friends. The intermarriage (or shacking up) rate is high.
No Anglo would ever use the word 'corner store' when 'depanner' is so much easier and it's where francophones describe those whom they dislike as 'loosers' (notice the anglicized and francized spellings of both words.)

If you want perfection, go to Toronto, a city described to me once, quite appropriately by a Montreal expat as the "Kraft Dinner City" (for its originality.)
Almost everything great in Canada originated in Montreal. No doubt Toronto can do it bigger and better and I'm sure that one day they'll have a BIXI system that will outstrip ours. By then we'll be on to something else. We are the innovators.
Before you detractors out there say it, I'll admit, we can't run a hospital decently and have a dysfunctional government to boot.
Montreal isn't easy.
Detractors will remind us about  potholes, riots, the disorganization and the tension.
But the Chinese have a saying- 'In danger there is opportunity'. In Montreal, we can say that "In chaos there is creativity."
Montreal endures as the greatest place in Canada for creativity and innovation and in two languages to boot. Hip and cutting edge.

This is the Montreal that is Arcade Fire.

When French language militants say the the music group isn't representative of Montreal, they are talking about the Montreal on the other side of St. Lawrence Boulevard. In that respect I agree with them.

But Arcade Fire is exactly what our Montreal is.

When language hardliners cross the border from the East into downtown, they are outraged. While forced artificially to adopt a French face because of Bill 101, the reality that English dominates becomes self-evident rather quickly. For French language hardliners its a hard pill to swallow.

The hotels, the restaurants, the hospitals, the schools, the bars, the stores, the airport.
English, English, English ......Too bad for French language fantasists...

Next time you hear a language militant complain that Arcade Fire doesn't represent the true face of Montreal, point them to the East, kick'em in the arse and tell them to get out of our Montreal...

Arcade Fire Dérange

déranger :  inconvenience, bother,  disquiet,  perturb,  trouble....

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

By now all of Canada is aware that Montreal's Arcade Fire won the  prestigious Grammy for album of the year for their album "The Suburbs." Following that victory they jetted off to London to accept two Brit awards.
The accolades are pouring from all quarters, even the City of Montreal put up a congratulatory banner on their website and Quebec's Parliament passed a special congratulatory motion.
How do you say 'bandwagon' in French?

The reality is that to Quebec's narrow-minded music industry and the French language militants that run the show, Arcade Fire's win is nothing to celebrate, the group and its newly won Grammy is actually a huge embarrassment.

To these narrow-minded anglophobes, Arcade Fire represents the Quebec's music industry worst nightmare, a wildly successful artistic group, singing in English and claiming Quebec as their artistic home.

For the entrenched music industry in Quebec, English music is considered a threat and a force to be countered, not encouraged.
For ADISQ, the powers that run the Quebec music scene, it is official policy to discourage English music in Quebec and so that is why, while Arcade Fire is eligible for Grammy awards in the USA, the Brit awards in England and the Junos in Canada, they are not eligible at home, for the major categories in the Quebec music industry's awards because they don't sing in French.

The 'Felixs', Quebec's music awards, restrict nominations in major categories to French singing artists and so Quebec's hottest artists such as Arcade Fire, Bobby Bazini, Sam Roberts, or Ian Kelly cannot participate. It's no wonder that the Felixs are about as prestigious as bowling club trophies.

And so even francophone artists that sing in English are treated as lepers by the Quebec music industry, which believes that by shunning English singing artists they will somehow influence and control the musical tastes of Quebeckers.

"ADISQ behaves like a cult with its parish feast which denies the reality of Montreal. It's small and dusty , "tweeted radio host Paul Arcand.

Strangely, nowhere on ADISQ's French only website is the policy of promoting French language music to the detriment of English language music explained. Perhaps it is wise of them not to enunciate a racist policy that denies Quebec's English singing artists equality.

"Since 1978, ADISQ is working for the  survival  and blossoming of the production of  independent music, strong, original and innovative."

(Depuis 1978, l’ADISQ travaille à la survie et à l’épanouissement, au Québec, d’une production musicale indépendante, forte, originale et innovatrice.) LINK

This banner appears on the bottom of the ADISQ website, so its a bit disconcerting to see that English Canada is paying in large part for an organization that discriminates against English-singing artists.

In spite of their efforts, Arcade Fire is proof of the failure of this bankrupt mentality that is reminiscent of totalitarian regimes which try to restrict access to the Internet or who attempt to control what citizens read and see on television.

If you think Arcade Fire's win will change this optic, you're sadly mistaken.

"Organizers of Montreal's Fete Nationale celebration say the band would have to sing their songs in French, like any other act playing at the festival for Quebec's annual holiday
The chief organizer said Wednesday that the Grammy-winning band would be welcome to play the June 24 event if it wanted to. "As long as they conform to certain guidelines," When asked whether those guidelines included not singing in English, and performing in French instead," Savard replied: "Voila." LINK

Given their lack of success in controlling what Quebeckers listen to, perhaps in conjunction with the OQLF,  ADISQ will ramp up the pressure and ban English music altogether. Maybe we will see a new cadre of hybrid music/language inspectors raiding the bedrooms of francophone tweens, ripping Justin Bieber posters off the wall.

What ADISQ and French language militants refuse to admit, is the hidden reality that the Montreal English music scene, unsubsidized and unrecognized by the Quebec music industry is setting North America on it's ear.  Montreal's hip underground music scene based in the Mile End district of Montreal, Canada's most creative neighbourhood, is attracting attention from artists and industry insiders across North America.

"Though Montreal may not have the commercial punch of Nashville, its musical assets extend far beyond Arcade Fire. In a study of Montreal's creative economy I conducted with Stolarick and consultant Lou Musante in the early-2000s, we found musicians from around North America relocating there to take advantage of the city's historic and cultural heritage, openness, and affordable real estate.  Montreal is also home to Cirque de Soleil, a cultural force in its own right.
Upon accepting the award for best record, Win Butler, the leader of Arcade Fire--who hails originally from Texas--noted the bond between music and his adopted city.  "I just want to say thank you, merci, to Montreal, Quebec, for taking us and giving us a home and a place to be in a band." Talking with reporters after the show he added: "There's such a beautiful arts scene and music and dance (and) a lot of creative forces there." This is clearly a guy who thinks a lot about place: his band's award winning album is titled "The Suburbs." Read the story in THE ATLANTIC

This incredible Montreal music scene is not an anglophone-only invention. The fact that the artistic language is English, hasn't stopped francophone artists and fans from participating.
In fact, Arcade Fire's success lies not only in its Anglo supporters, but in large part to the Quebec francophone fan base which recognized and embraced their talent almost immediately.  Long before the world even heard of Arcade Fire, the group was gaining a following in the Quebec music scene, with no help of course, from ADISQ. From artsy coffee houses in the Mile End to suburban shopping centre performances in Longueuil, to the Quebec Summer Music Festival, Arcade Fire's rise can be credited to the group's talent and the support they earned from their Quebec fans, both English and French.
It's a wonderful testament to the musical sophistication of Quebec francophones who embraced an English-singing group before the world discovered them. No bandwagon here and no help from the powers that be, Quebeckers of all linguistic groups proved that it is they and they alone, who decide what music they listen to and moreover, that they have discerning taste.

Of course the French language militants are apoplectic. Louis Prefontaine compared this group to that of a Montreal ethnic restaurant, tasty and good, but not really an authentic Quebecois dish.
No doubt he prefers Poutine.
He rags on the one Francophone member of the group for pursuing a music degree at McGill University and choosing English to perform in. Link

Arcade Fire's success painfully underlines what Mr. Prefontaine wishes to deny, that is, if you want to make it internationally, you've got to perform in English.  Just ask Celine Dion (who actually removed the French accent in her name) and Guy Laliberté, Quebec's most successful entertainment exports.

One of the most telling observations was made in a comment by 'Rawkenroll,' under Mr. Prefontaine's rant;

"There are artists who are content to do the CEGEP and the festival tour, generously funded out of our taxes.

There are other artists who set their sights on the world and promote Quebec across the globe.

Some people praise Loco Locass. Some people shit on Arcade Fire.

These are the people who are overpaid to ring up sales at the SAQ.

Others are playing to audiences in Las Vegas and travelling into space.

You're right Louis, Arcade Fire is nothing like us.
....They are successful and ambitious."

 Touché! 

By the way, Saint Jean Baptiste organizers need not worry about Arcade Fire singing in English at the separatist holiday celebration, they'll likely be off on a world tour!


Read:

We Will Not Be Quiet!

Heritage Classic Another Slap in the Face to Quebec

I might understand the lack of French at yesterday's 'Heritage Classic" hockey game in Calgary, should it have been treated as just another NHL game, one of just 82, but that wasn't the case.

The whole patriotic affair was wrapped up in our flag, packaged and sold as a national celebration of Canadian hockey, complete with a flyby by the Snowbirds, the Canadian air force's demonstration team.  The event was hyped as such by the CBC and Hockey Night in Canada, otherwise why else broadcast the game nationally on a Sunday night?

It was most definitely not just another hockey game!

It may just come down to a case of bad manners, or perhaps more sadly a case of mean-spiritedness, something westerners are not generally known for, but the exclusion of French at this national event was disgraceful, repugnant and downright shameful.

It made the Vancouver Olympics opening ceremonies look downright inclusive.

What can you say about a broadcast that sings the Star-Spangled Banner in front of two Canadian teams in Canada to satisfy the twelve American viewers watching on the American cable channel VERSUS and forgets to sing O Canada bilingually in respect of the more than the million viewers from Quebec who are tuning in.
All it would have taken was a few French words in the national anthem and a couple of bilingual banners.  Too much to ask, really?

If the Flames organization forgot, the Montreal Canadiens were their guests and were good sports to participate in an extraordinary affair that would largely pay dividends to the home team.

Yeeeechhh............!!!!!!!!1

The Montreal Canadiens didn't seem to matter all, it's as if the Habs were playing the Washington Generals to the Calgary Flames, who were incidentally, so handsomely bedecked in uniforms that made the dead and buried Canadiens barbershop outfit look positively dashing.
At least Montreal had an excuse for wearing the horrifically ugly barbershop uniforms- they were authentic.
What idiot in the Flames organization dreamed up a pretend vintage uniform that is even uglier?

No, not even Tim Horton's could muster a word in French in its many humungous advertising banners splashed all around the stadium.  Pas une maudit mot!....

At any rate the whole event was tedious.
The local musical talent was hard to stomach with the anthems sung rather dully and the 'half-time' show another descent in musical hell with a shrieking blond, part of indie rockers Metric who are certainly no Arcade Fire. . PAINFUL!!!!
 Perhaps they need to move to the Mile End to hone their talents! 

The game looked like a exhibition match with all the players afraid to hit or be hit, with good reason.
The horrible ice insured that the Canadiens faster game would be neutralized and that the locals would get their dream come true.

I hope the Canadiens will never allow themselves to be used this shallowly again.

The Calgary Flames organization disrespected them and all Montreal Canadiens fans in Quebec.

Next time, let the Calgary Flames play with the Edmonton Oilers in a hundred degrees below zero and see if the rest of the country actually gives a crap.

Calgary chose the Montreal Canadiens for the fan interest and the gravitas that Canada's most storied franchise brought to the event.

Shame on the Calgary Flames , for inviting the guest of honour guest to their party and treating the team as a prop.

Shame on the NHL for encouraging this total disrespect!