Is Quebec City Mayor Melting Down?

A while back I wrote a rather glowing blog piece about the then popular mayor of Quebec City, Regis Lebeaume. LINK
Sadly, since then, it appears that the good mayor has developed some serious illusions of grandeur and has suffered a personality transformation.

Somewhere along the line Mr. Lebaume developed a God complex whereby he believes that he knows better than everyone. Anybody, who publicly opposes him or asks an uncomfortable question, whether that person be an elected official, city employee or news reporter is treated to a vicious tongue lashing and in some cases threatened with legal action.
Lebeaume and his political party have followed through with two lawsuits claiming that his reputation has been damaged. The thin-skinned mayor has sued a city councillor and the  president of the  union of municipal employees, both for $200,000. LINK{FR}
Questions about the chilling effects on democracy these lawsuits bring to the political arena are now being asked and rightfully so.

His bizarre and aggressive behaviour can be linked to his latest political setbacks and perhaps the real Regis is now manifesting itself, a nasty and vindictive, self-important tyrant.
He recently called city blue collar employees incompetents and cheats and even complained that seniors used too many city services without contributing enough taxes.

The new Regis Lebaume reminds me more and more of the old Montreal Mayor, Jean Drapeau, an unstable dreamer from another era who also became infatuated with himself, pursuing an unrealistic  Olympic dream that saddled Montreal with a crushing Olympic-sized debt for thirty years.
Can it be the Quebec amphitheater will become another white elephant which will end up costing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars? 

The Quebec Olympic dream was a non-starter from the beginning and it's hard to understand how the press and the media went along with the fiction that Quebec could somehow change the reality that the city does not have a suitable mountain that passes the criteria for an Olympic downhill ski event.
The last time the city bid for the Olympics, the effort failed largely based on the mountain issue and so how a re-formulated bid including the same rejected mountain could possibly succeed is a testament to the self-deception that is the hallmark and dishonesty of the Quebec City Olympic bid. In fact back in June of last year, René Fasel, an influential member of the International Olympic Committee gave an interview where he said in  no uncertain terms that a Quebec bid was a non-starter. LINK{Fr}

The truth is likely that the Olympic bid was kept alive as a pretext in order to con the federal government into coughing up money to help build a new arena that would potentially attract an NHL franchise By maintaining the fiction that a new arena would help attract the Olympics, justification for a federal subsidy made some sort of sense.

When the latest Olympic bid was flushed down the toilet by the IOC, so early in the game, Lebaume's plan to involve Ottawa in the financing through the fiction of an Olympic bid, went out the window.
In a vain attempt to salvage things, he tried to resurrect the Olympic bid  in order to buy time, but the whole fiasco fell flat on its face as even the most ardent supporters knew that the jig was up.

And so for Lebeaume, it's off to Plan B, but not before cursing out the federal Conservatives for failing to cough up the money, telling reporters that the federal party had committed suicide in the Quebec City area, the only place in Quebec where they hold a modicum of support.

Counting on the local population's mindless lust for a NHL team, Lebeaume reformulated his plan to finance his arena with public money from Quebec alone.

It is here where Mr. Lebeaume goes the way of Jean Drapeau and embarks on a lunatic path that will see taxpayers pay for his arena folly.
And so taxpayers will finance an arena for the benefit of a private enterprise.

Even after the president of the NHL Gary Bettman told the city not to assume that a new arena would lead to a team, the mayor has pooh-poohed the warning and irresponsibly and incredibly continued on his merry way.

His latest move was to designate Pierre-Karl Péladeau the anointed son who has been given a virtual monopoly to negotiate on behalf of the city for any potential NHL franchise.

The city made a poor mans deal with the tycoon, which includes the naming rights for the new building.
This effectively shuts out all other bidders, who would in all likelihood refuse to bring a team to the city if they had to play in an arena named for another business.

It seems that Bettman dislikes the pushy Quebec city mayor something awful and like Jim Basille before him, putting undue pressure and bullying the league is exactly the wrong way to proceed.  

The fanatical pursuit of an NHL franchise on the backs of taxpayers doesn't seem to faze the mayor or local taxpayers at all and if Pierre-Karl Péladeau is the ultimate beneficiary, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, so be it.

This is bound to end badly, but what else is new. Today's dream is tomorrow's nightmare!

I can see Jean Drapeau looking down on all this (or up) shaking his head and mumbling...."Been there, done that!"

Quebec Anglos Prove We Are Pigs as Well

Two stories last week demonstrated  that Anglo Quebeckers and our English Quebec society are no better than our francophone counterparts when it comes to graft, greed and disdain for the public purse.

First came the news that the English Montreal School Board sent six educators on a jaunt to Hawaii, where they were supposedly boning up  on how to reduce the dropout rate in Montreal high schools.

The School board came under fire for investing $10,000 dollars to send the six to Hawaii and when called to the carpet the wagons were circled to defend the indefensible.
Read: EMSB takes heat for $10K Hawaii trip
Mike Cohen the apologist communications director for the school board assured us with a straight face that there was nothing untoward and given his unique ability to blow smoke up our keesters, might I suggest that he apply for the vacant position of Charlie Sheen's publicist.

We were assured that the educators went to Hawaii to get insight into the problem of high school drop outs.....but;
The reality is that a simple verification of the the conference program guide indicates that the four day conference offered just one brief seminar on the subject. In fact the one and a half hour talk included two other non-related subjects that probably reduced the discussion on the dropout problem  to just one half hour!

In fact after reviewing the entire seminar program, it is abundantly clear that the whole seminar was ill-suited to anything that would be remotely relevant to the EMSB.
See the entire seminar program and judge for yourself. HERE

Of course none of the participants are coming forward to defend themselves and the EMSB isn't offering names. Shame on all involved for conspiring to defraud taxpayers on fair use of our money!

This comes on the heels of another dubious training exercise last year, wherein EMSB educators were sent to the Dominican Republic in the dead of winter to ostensibly study how the locals cope with reduced educational resources. No doubt our teachers learned how to cope with educating a class of sixty in a straw hut with just two pencils allotted for the whole class! Excellent work!
How's that tan?

Read: Stupidity and Greed Cross Language Divide

It didn't bother the school commission then and it certainly doesn't bother them now. Spending money on vacations instead of on the children, seems par for the course.
It goes hand in hand with the general incompetence of the EMSB who last year blew their entire year's security budget in under two months because of their inability to manage the simplest of files.
Read about the sad affair.


Shame on the EMSB!

Next comes the continuing sorry saga of Concordia University where the powers that be have been on an ongoing campaign to sack all those that stand in the way of the 'plan' as designated by the all-powerful board of directors.
These millionaire gentlemen run the school as a private fiefdom and are not averse to ordering the dismissal of anyone that displeases them to the tune of millions of dollars in wrongful termination compensations.
The recently deposed rector, sacked in the middle of her term with a package worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, has been replaced by a more compliant yes-man. Given that the job description includes kowtowing to the whims of the real managers of the the university, one would imagine that he'd come in a bit cheaper.

That being said the University opened the wallet and gave Mr Lowy the most absurd contract, one that included buying his million dollar condo and re-renting it back to him, but not before giving him a $3,000 monthly rental allowance.
Even more absurd is paying the expenses of his better half for university related activities, which includes eating cucumber sandwiches and sipping Kir royal at the annual Christmas Holiday party.
Does it include dress shopping at Holt-Renfrew?

The new rector miscalculated badly when he put his contract online in the interests of transparency.
Not many students or faculty were impressed with his civic call to service, considering the golden conditions.
Read a story on the contract conditions. HERE
If you'd like to be ill see a PDF of the entire contract. 

The questions remains for our community. Will we tolerate these excesses or will we bitch and moan for a while and then get back to our television programs.

I think you know the answer......

C'mon.... Give Christians a Break!

I'm not a big fan of Saguenay mayor, Jean Tremblay, the man in the eye of the storm regarding prayers at city council meetings, but that being said, he was elected by the good townsfolk of his constituency and he seems to enjoy their support. Read the background story.

The question of prayers before council meetings seems like a cut and dried issue in our society that is moving towards secularism, though no real political debate has ever really been undertaken and no societal consensus ever reached against retaining aspects of our Quebec Christian heritage and beliefs in Judeo-Christian principles that has been and remains the basis of our society.

The principle of separation of church and state is well established and accepted by all. The days where the senior members of the Catholic church advise or influence the government in any way are long gone and even secularists would stipulate to that.
To maintain that conserving the crucifix in Parliament or placing a Christmas tree on the front lawn is an assault on that separation of powers is unsupportable.

Perhaps secularists are inspired by the American system that strictly forbids any public display of faith, but that doesn't mean that those rules are necessarily suited to us.
A free and democratic state is one where society is ordered according to the wishes of the majority, within reason, of course.
We recognize that this majority can sometimes, in a moment of excitement or delirium, make mistakes, so we voluntarily limit what we can do by way of a constitution.

And so we have a Constitution that defines what we can do, a Parliament that enacts laws within the constraints of that constitution and an independent judicial system that insures that everyone is obeying the rules. It's a pretty good system.

Human rights tribunals were established to insure that individual members of society are treated fairly under the law. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
When, for example, a group of Black people are systematically refused entrance to a night club, in an attempt by management to keep the premises 'white,' it is an appropriate job of the Human Rights commission to intervene on behalf of citizens that have been wronged.

But our Human Rights Commissions (all across Canada) have degenerated into nothing less than out of control, unsanctioned extra-Parliamentary political bodies which have usurped power to impose an ultra-liberal, ultra-feminist, secularist agenda on society.

Unlike our established court system, these tribunals are anything but impartial, believing in principle that society must change to suit the individual and that personal rights are more important than societal rights. It's a viewpoint not shared by most of us, yet because we have abdicated political power to these commissions instead of respecting our elected Parliament to decide these issues, we are now reaping the rewards of that folly.

If the majority of citizens want to have a Christmas tree on the front lawn of Parliament or a short Christian prayer before a meeting, as a people, it is our choice to decide. Society belongs to the people, not Human Rights Tribunals.

Now if as a majority we decide that everyone be obliged to convert to Christianity, our constitution and our courts will set us right. It's a fair system of checks and balances, rules that the Star Chamber Human Rights Commission completely sidestep.


The good citizens of the Lac-St-Jean region are 98% Catholic and although most don't go to church each week, almost all of them consider themselves Christians and would probably tell you that they agree with a little Christian prayer at the beginning of council meetings. If enough citizens disagree, there is always the choice of the ballot box. It's called the democratic system.

There are those, who in wishing to impose secularism on everyone, argue that favouring one religion over another, or favouring religion over the absence of religion, is necessarily unfair.

I cannot say with certainty that the mayor has done anything of the sort. He offers a Christian prayer at the beginning of the meeting, where the majority is Christian, but should a secularist demand a silent moment of reflection from the mayor, I'm sure he'd indulge. If perhaps a Jew or a Muslim or Native would on occasion ask for the opportunity to bless the works of the council, I'd hope he'd also be accommodating.

It seems to me that our Human Rights Tribunals, right across the country have placed Christians and Jews firmly in their sights, siding with the secularists, radical Muslims and ultra-left-wingers who wish to impose a different brand of society on the majority.

How is it that not one secularist complained about the Native participation at the Vancouver Olympic Games opening ceremonies? The natives presented various dances of a religious nature where their own native Gods were entreated for various supplications on behalf of all?
Could you imagine the clamour if a Christian priest recited the Lord's Prayer or a Jewish rabbi offered  a short prayer of good luck in Hebrew?
Before the ceremony would be over, I imagine there'd be a slew of Human Rights complaints filed right across the country by secularists!

Years ago a Christian wouldn't be caught dead in a mosque or synagogue. Jews, Muslims and other minority religious denominations would stick strictly to themselves.
Today there's hardly a wedding in a church, mosque or synagogue that doesn't include guests of different faiths. We as a people have progressed where we are no longer afraid to accept the faith of others.
It's a good thing.

Christmas trees in front of City Halls cause offense only to those who are radicals.
In front of some Montreal suburban town halls with significant Jewish populations, a large lighted candelabra celebrating the Jewish holiday of Channukah is offered. Who is offended? Only radicals.

When the Chinese celebrate their faith with a public parade celebrating the New Year, according to their faith, who doesn't want to participate?
 
The truth is that our society has progressed to where we accept and even celebrate each others culture and faith. To take that away would diminish all.

Many years ago, when my son was a toddler, he was often frightened by the 'scary' parts in some movies, even those rated PG. Sitting beside me he would take both his hands and cover his eyes for the duration of the scene. It was a good solution. I don't think it would have been reasonable for me to complain to the theatre to eliminate these scenes.
To secularists who are offended by a thirty second prayer, here's my advice- Stick your fingers in your ears!

If secularists are offended by a short prayer, too bad. It is a Human rights Commission tenet that when an individual is offended, all society must change to accommodate them. What hogwash!

Many things in society offend me as well, I learn to live with it.

It is high time that the Quebec government take the bull by the horns by declaring exactly how we define our society. We need legislation clearly stating who and what we are. These choices are up to our elected Parliament to decide, after a vigorous and open debate.

There is no shame in declaring ourselves a society that recognizes its Christian past and one that maintains its core belief in Judeo-Christian values.

That being said we must tell all our citizens clearly that religious freedom is a sacrosanct pillar of our society, but that not every archaic religious practice can be tolerated in modern society.

There are some people who do not believe in the above. Fair enough.
But they are the minority and it is incumbent on them to accept the terms of society as defined by the majority.

French versus English -Volume 23

SAQ accused of colonialism

Michel Phaneuf, a big shot Quebec wine connoisseur who writes an annual guide to the wines offered at the SAQ, the Quebec liquor monopoly, has taken the organization to task for partnering with an American wine expert, James Suckling, in a promotion.
Obviously annoyed he offered this pearl; 

"The SAQ does not need to do this. It is a form of colonialism. Like an American opinion is better than another. It seems to me that Quebec, with all its talent, editors, critics and sommeliers need not rely on the opinion of a Californian columnist"

Colonialism? Actually, it sounds more like sour grapes to me!

OQLF to attack English Store names

Louise Marchand-very professional

Last week I caught some heat for calling the new director of the l'Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) ugly, so from now on I shall refer to her as the 'very professional' Louise Marchand.  She happens, by the way, to be in a bit of a snit over the fact that in the Saint-Roch district of Quebec City, horrors of horrors, she spotted an Urban Outfitters store alongside  Mountain Equipment Co-op, not far from City Café.

And so the 'very professional' director of the OQLF has set herself a goal of francizing the names of stores such as American Apparel, Old Navy and Feetfirst to reflect the fact that they are operating in Quebec. LINK{FR}

Unfortunately for her, international law protects the intellectual property of company names and so her hands are somewhat tied. No doubt we will see another SECOND CUP imbroglio wherein the company was forced to add the word "Les cafés" before its name to satisfy the language hounds. How would I describe this state of affairs.....'very professional.'

The OQLF has found itself tongue-tied in the affair of SKI IN/SKI OUT  hotels a new type of lodging that allows skiers to, as you might have guessed it, ski right up to the door of their lodging. 
These type of hotels are sprouting up along the hills of many Quebec ski resorts and the appellation seems to have stuck.
As of yet their are no suggestions for French alternatives. LINK

Interviewed in a Quebec City newspaper Madame Marchand warned Quebeckers that it's their responsibility to protect the French language and as such, when speaking with anglos or ethnics, they should stick to speaking French only.... How 'very professional' of her!

I received an email from Steve asking what the annual budget of the OQLF is...
The answer..... a little more than $20 million.

Student complains about English course material

 "The case has not made much noise, but nevertheless reveals a disturbing trend. On February 4, in Le Devoir we learned that a student at the University of Montreal believed herself to be a victim of language discrimination. Enrolled in a Religious Studies, Marie-Noelle Smith had to retire from the very first course because 80% of reading material was in English. "Does it mean that higher education is accessible only to a bilingual elite in Quebec? "She asked anxiously.  
The Ombudsman of the university responded that French is fine, but it must first seek "the highest standards of quality ."  Le Devoir

French dictionary makes a stink

A Montreal Gazette writer humorously noted that a French dictionary was placed in the Foreign language section of a Montreal bookstore.
It was funny until Josee Legault, the Montreal Gazette resident separatist made a big deal about it and sent the story viral.
Always ready to find something to feed her persecution complex she played up the story as something significant instead of something just plain dumb.
Read Andy Riga's story

Anglos ask for English health services in Trois-Rivieres

The small but not insignificant anglo community of the Three-Rivers Trois-Rivieres region has been politely militating for English services in the health care field.
As of now no English services are available anywhere in the region and anglos say that being hospitalized without being able to communicate represents a hardship, especially to the elderly. Bilingual hospital employees are few and far between in the region. LINK

English cegep demand up again this year

Last year saw a 20% rise in the demand for places in Montreal area English cegeps. The increased demand put pressure on students to produce higher marks to earn entry and many were disappointed. The schools increased enrollment after securing a promise from the education department for increased funding.
To date, the money has not been paid and schools are facing another crisis as enrollment is up considerably again this year.

"Dawson College allowed 300 additional students, while John Abbott admitted an extra 175 students, and Vanier added 204.

But none of the schools has actually received any of the new money yet, and the long-term plans for the provincial funding are still up in the air.

Meanwhile, demand to register for the Quebec junior colleges increased for the third year in a row this year, with parents lining up Tuesday at CEGEPs like Dawson College in Montreal on the last day to register students for next fall.

Some CEGEPs have been forced to reject thousands of students in recent years because of an inability to accommodate the demand." LINK CBC news

Renowned Montreal lawyer warns of lawsuit if  Bill 101 applied to cegep

“If an eventual Parti Québécois government decides to extend Bill 101 to CEGEPs, a prominent Montreal lawyer predicts it would be quickly challenged in court.

“I would join in any challenge and I would perhaps personally challenge it, as well,” said Julius Grey.

“I consider academic freedom to be a fundamental issue. And I don’t think a society should play around with higher education and with restricting what people may do.” LINK

In an interview, ex-separatist Premier Lucien Bouchard advised against applying the English restrictions of Bill 101 to cegeps;

“I think we have reached a linguistic balance in Quebec. It's fragile, it's not a perfect balance. But at the risk of losing it, we must accept to live with it. ” LINK{FR}

Rural Anglophones a vanishing breed

“Quietly, without fanfare, English-speakers are disappearing from regions where the roots of both language communities run deep....”

“...150 years ago, the Eastern Townships had more English-speaking residents than Montreal, points out Ronald Rudin, a history professor at Concordia University who spoke at a conference there last week on the inclusion of anglophones in Quebec history. In 1861, anglophones formed one-quarter of the population in the Gaspe, 39 per cent in Quebec City and 64 per cent in the Ottawa Valley...”

Read an outstanding article by Marian Scott about Quebec's vanishing Anglo rural  population.

Rural anglophones a vanishing breed in Quebec

More blowback about grade 6 bilingualism

More progressive thinking on the subject;

"It isn't true that all humans can learn two languages perfectly. Only 10 to 20% can do so without it interfering with their culture. The rest learn their own language poorly or the other imposed language. That's time and money lost.
Everybody says, even today, after 150 years of public education, 35% of people are illiterate to the point of being unable to cope ... and 30% of students are dropping out of high school ..

Where does this madness of trying to impose a second language come from? Speaking  English in Quebec is only required by about 15 to 20% of people. If Bill 101 was implemented, it would be even less.- Onil Perrier

"The teaching of English in the first year in Quebec schools would be a disaster," says French linguist Claude Hagege.

"In another language environment, the teaching of English in the first year would be questionable. But in Quebec, such a reform would have serious consequences with only six million francophones in a sea of 300 million anglophones. The natural evolution is  towards English. French may disappear at any time if English is not severely and strictly forbidden by law. "

"Quebec Francophones must stop believing that in the holy name of globalization, they can thrive and prosper by becoming bilingual. This is a dangerous slippery slope, the consequences will be disastrous for the survival and future of an entire people. React while there is still time!" 

Claude Verreault, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Translation
  University of Laval,

"As we saw in the case of bridging schools and as we see now, the decision to require all sixth graders to be subjected to half a year of intensive English, is the Liberal party dream to bilingualize Quebec from one horizon to another, regardless of need and cost." -Yves Rancourt

"No need to look at the numbers to understand that Quebecers are among the most bilingual in the world. Bilingualism is symptomatic of a language imbalance, it is the first phase of a process by which a foreign language is to supplant a local language. Bilingualism in Quebec is one way: Francophones in Montreal or Gatineau speak English to be understood by English speakers, who have no need at all to learn French to be understood. That's the magic of bilingualism." -Daniel Sénéchal

Only in Quebec is a STOP sign a Language Issue.

I thought that the once simmering "STOP sign" controversy was long over, until reading some recent posts on French language militant websites where it appears that the subject has reared its ugly head once again.

You'd think that with the province drowning in debt, the health care system on the verge of a collapse, the dropout rate among francophone teens an utter disgrace, one wouldn't have the time or energy to debate such a mundane subject as STOP signs, but such is not the case.

This is Quebec.

In another century, this cartoon by Montreal Gazette cartoonist Aislin, said it all, the sad pettiness and vindictiveness that characterized the issue.

When the Parti Quebecois first came to power, it became public policy to sanitize all road signs and slowly over the years, English slowly disappeared from road signs across the province, in all but a few officially bilingual towns.

And so Quebec's distinctive and beloved bilingual STOP/ARRÊT sign went the way of the dinosaur, replaced by the unilingual ARRÊT.

The inconvenient fact that the word 'ARRÊT' is not really proper French to describe the act of coming to a stop at an intersection was of no matter. The word ARRÊT' can be best used to describe a stop as in a "Bus Stop" In fact the proper French word for coming to a halt at an intersection is.......wait for it.....STOP or STOPPEZ.

In France 'STOP' is what is written on their stop signs, believe it or not.

In fact most countries in the world, especially in Europe, employ STOP and nothing else on their signs.  For an interesting picture gallery go here.

That being said and Quebec being what it is, the idea of 'STOP' on signs no longer sat right and so the grammatically incorrect ARRÊT was decreed politically correct.

Last summer, I filed what I thought was an amusing post about Stop signs for further reference, believing it to be an atypical rant, something that perhaps didn't deserve to be critiqued on its own.

But last week another Stop sign complainer graced the pages of another militant French language website, so I decided to take a closer look at the complainers, where sadly I found, a particular twisted state of mind, one that still exists in Quebec, to what extent, I cannot really say.

 In Dorval near the Airport

If you live in the greater Montreal area, you may have noticed these last years that "STOP" signs have slowly begun replacing the now familiar ARRÊT or ARRÊT/STOP signs.

Apparently the powers that be, have now decided that Quebec has matured to the point where STOP can be employed alone, rehabilitated like a political prisoner who spent a decade in the Gulag.

But of course this doesn't sit well with some language militants who are outraged that such an affront to the French language is going unchallenged and so they have taken up the good fight to keep French pure and to police words like STOP from entering the common French lexicon.

You'll remember that during the francization campaign to remove English from road signs, the common ARRÊT/STOP sign was particularly galling to French militants because it reflected a bilingual society, nothing less than an anathema to them. And so the innocent STOP/ARRÊT sign was treated to a cruel onslaught of vandalization.

Here's an interesting exchange on the Mouvement Montréal français website LINK

I'm surprised that nobody is talking about it, but have you noticed that the city of Granby has retained its stop signs that say: "Stop" while the rest of the province, we see "ARRÊT". Is this city exempt from the Bill 101?.... 

....I can't accept to live in English in Granby while the rest of the province lives in French"

"I spoke with Mr. André Jean, Public Works of the City of Granby, today and he replied that the word "Stop"is legal and comes from Old French (?) that the word is in the French dictionary and that the word is accepted OQLF and MTQ. It is the word "ARRÊT" that is not the correct French term and the government accepts these signs since 1978. They are accepted by the road signs manual of Quebec accepted as well as everywhere in the world, even in Germany, he told me. I asked him for a copy of the report and  will check it out...."

"The word 'STOP' is French and has been for a hundred years! I agree that the word STOP on a sign gives the impression of English monolingualism. On the other hand the word ARRÊT is less acceptable because in general French, this term refers to a bus stop! I do not understand why our signs don't display 'ARRÊTEZ' or something similar in Quebec. Can someone give me an opinion on this?

Hmmm. a whole big discussion. Here is another reader exclaiming outrage last week in another post vigile.net

"The real significance of these 'Stop' signs is that it is an act of defiance towards Quebec. In Quebec the stop signs that say 'ARRÊT' are a symbol of the survival of French in North America. Remember that Quebec is the only "state" in the Francophone world that writes ARRÊT on its signs. This is a legitimate way to tell the world that we exist. These signs are somehow inscribed in the cultural heritage of Quebec.
Westmount with STOP signs reject Quebec, flouting Bill 101, ignoring the minority, helping to create and maintain the two solitudes in Montreal." LINK

Can you believe all of this over stop signs?
Incidentally, this writer of the above post must never have been west of Decarie Boulevard in Montreal. Had he visited Hampstead, Côte St. Luc and practically every other west island community, he'd have found the same STOP signs widely in use.

Incidentally, a public works employee told me one of the reasons for using the 'STOP' sign is because they are cheaper and available in bulk from suppliers across North America. Hmm....

The stop sign debate even crosses over to the native communities in Quebec where natives, like all  Quebeckers, are divided along linguistic lines.

Stop signs on reservations reflect this French/English divide wherein  bands that speak English display bilingual stop signs with English while those bands that speak French display bilingual stop signs with French.
Some signs are even tri-lingual.

At any rate I don't think the OQLF or Transports Quebec will have much influence on what the natives display on their resevations!

My least favourite Stop sign is one that remains in the parking garage of the Westmount Square parking complex. Not only is it insulting, but completely stupid, no doubt the product of a nincompoop employee making a bad decision.

On the other hand my favourite stop sign is this one that appeared last Spring as the Canadiens were making a heroic playoff run.


Ah, Quebec! always interesting.