Are Quebeckers Being Brainwashed?- Part Two

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. - Mark Twain.

I was going to publish this post a bit later in the week, but in respect to a request from JASON, a valued and prolific commentor, I decided to move it up to today....so here goes..

One of the saddest aspects of the sovereignty debate is that professional advocates for an independent Quebec have resorted to the most egregious massaging and distortion of facts, in an effort designed to change the perception that Quebec has a pretty good deal in Canada.

These militants have been fighting an uphill battle ever since the implementation of Bill 101. Cry as they will, the language law has been instrumental in removing most of the irritants and complaints francophone Quebeckers had about maintaining a French society in Quebec. Ironically, it is this success that in large part has made redundant the need for independence.
Secondly, the billions and billions of dollars in transfer payments from the rest of Canada to Quebec has put paid to the sovereignist assertion that Quebec gets a raw economic deal from Canada.

So selling sovereignty is a lot harder than it was in the past and thus separatists have had to reach deep into their bag of arguments to pull out a variety of cockamamie ideas that really don't hold much water upon close dissection.
But because these arguments are repeated and repeated ad nauseum, with nary a dissenting voice in the media, they do tend to take root to a certain extent.

And so, everyday Quebeckers are fed the same hackneyed diet of complaints and grievances that really aren't true at all.
Wash, rinse, repeat, is the battle plan of the modern independence movement.
In other words- Lie, distort, repeat......Lie, distort, repeat.....
Here are some of the main talking points offered by sovereignists.

• The 1995 referendum was stolen
• Montreal is being anglicized
• French is in danger of disappearing
• Anglophone institutions are over-funded
• Cegep attendance by francophone and allophone students is dangerous
• There's a plot to eliminate French in the rest of Canada
• 50% of the budget for Super hospitals is being spent on 8% of the Anglophone population.
• Learning English will turn everyone into Anglophones
• The strong Canadian dollar caused by Alberta's oil destroyed Quebec's manufacturing base.
• Ottawa owes Quebec billions...... blah.....blah... blah

Let's start by debunking the notion that the 1995 referendum was stolen.
This myth is so popularly ingrained that it is taken as a historical fact in Quebec.
But looking at the question dispassionately tells a different story.

Proponents of the myth contend that the federal government interfered on the NO side by pumping money surreptitiously to murky unofficial organizations that supported the NO side in contravention of the referendum law, which set a strict spending limit on both the YES and NO camps. They also contend that Ottawa fast tracked the processing of immigrant applications for citizenship so that these newly-minted Canadians could vote massively NO in the referendum. Contentions were also made that the immigration level was greatly increased in the two year run up to the referendum.

On the other side of the coin, there is evidence that the PQ government also spent money promoting sovereignty covertly, through the various ministries. Another serious allegation exists that says that efforts were made in English districts to intimidate voters and reject NO ballots during the voting process of the referendum.

Each side has put a lot of weight on these arguments, so let's examine all aspects equally.

The allegation that general immigration levels were increased in the years before the referendum, specifically to affect the referendum outcome is really too far-fetched to consider. Could federal officials really believe that in two years hence the addition of a couple of thousand immigrants would be the turning point in a referendum that as of yet hadn't been called?  I'm afraid that those in the immigration department, like all federal employees, are not that creative and foresighted.

Now, the question of the immigrants being fast tracked.

Evidence is irrefutable that many immigrants were fast-tracked by immigration Canada, but in its defence, the department says that this is always the case before a major election.  Maybe, maybe not, but the highest estimate of these 'fast-tracked immigrants offered by the sovereignist side is 14,000.
Some of these fast-tracked citizens were minor family members, not of a voting age and so even the darkest sovereignist estimate would lead to no more than 10,000 extra votes for the NO side.

Since the NO side won by over 52,000 votes, this alleged  'cheating' wasn't as crucial as is made out by sovereignist forces, even if we accept it as true.

On the countervailing side, it's also clear that there was a concerted effort, backed by the PQ cabinet (according to Richard Le Hir) to send shock troops to certain English polling stations to intimidate anglo voters and also to reject NO ballots on flimsy technical excuses.
A review of the voting data shows that across Quebec, each riding had somewhere between 400 and a 1,000 rejected ballots per riding. These ballots were rejected because they were spoiled or didn't follow the basic rules.
But three ridings stuck out like a sore thumb with the Chomedy riding having an astonishing 5,500 ballots rejected with an average of 1 out of every 9 ballots tossed out. Two other 'English' ridings showing a smaller, yet still abnormally high rejection rate.  Citation

All told, it's fair to say that about 10,000 NO votes were reject fraudulently, again not as big a deal as the NO side would have us believe, but enough to counteract the YES votes of the fast tracked immigrants.

Both these issues cancel each other out rather neatly and so the remaining issue of the federal government 'interference' remains the only legitimate bone of contention. 

There isn't any doubt that the federal government interfered on behalf of the NO side by means of secret funding of OPTION CANADA and other organizations fighting on the NO side.
Sovereignists claim that this interference made the difference between winning and losing.

I agree.

The referendum law conceived by the PQ government banned spending by third parties, anybody outside the official YES and NO camps. Both sides were given an equal spending limit and nobody outside Quebec could participate.

This seemed eminently fair if you're a sovereignist, but not if you are the federal government which  also has a stake in the outcome.

In fact no provincial law can restrict the federal government from making their views known to the people.
Every constitutional lawyer knew from the outset that the referendum law was flawed, but the PQ banked on the fact that Ottawa wouldn't interfere officially and they were right.

Looking at the polling data at the beginning of the referendum it seemed to Ottawa that the NO side was on track for another easy win. A tragically flawed decision was made not to contest the referendum law based on the notion of leaving well enough alone.

We all know how that turned out.

When Lucien Bouchard took over a faltering campaign and re-ignited the YES side, Ottawa panicked and resorted to a secret campaign of under the table financing of NO side forces, including organizing the massive Unity Rally in Montreal, where many Ontarians were bussed in to bolster the numbers. 

I've no doubt that this final spending push made enough of a difference to tip the NO side over the top.

I can sympathize with sovereignists who look on the exercise as a deceitful betrayal, but alas, it wasn't illegal.

In the aftermath of the referendum, when this hidden campaign become public knowledge, the chief electoral officer laid charges against several people for violating the referendum law.

Alas those charges were stayed when a court challenge of the referendum law, led by my good friend Robert Libman, was successful. Much to the chagrin of separatists, all charges had to be dropped.

"In 1997 Libman won a unanimous Supreme Court Judgement in "Libman v. Quebec (Attorney General)" in which certain sections of the Quebec Referendum Law concerning restrictions on third party spending were struck down. The charges against federalist groups who participated in the large Pro-Canada Rally during the 1995 referendum campaign were cancelled as a result of this decision." Wikipedia

Like Bill 101, it was clear that the referendum law could never withstand a court challenge.
That hasn't stopped sovereignists from calling the court reversal another Anglo betrayal. But as long as Quebec remains part of Canada, it is forced to follow Canadian law, a fact that continues to rub sovereignists the wrong way.

That being said,  there's little doubt that the federal government acted dishonourably by doing something secretly that they could have done out in the open.

On the other hand, the PQ government wrote a referendum law it knew to be indefensible in the hope that a YES vote victory would make any court challenge redundant.
In addition, the convoluted 40 plus word referendum question was clearly meant to obscure the true implications of a YES vote.

"Do you agree that Québec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Québec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?"

 In a meeting with Ottawa-based foreign ambassadors, Jacques Parizeau told them that Quebecers, in the event of a Yes vote in a sovereignty referendum, would be trapped like "lobsters thrown into boiling water!"  Link{FR}

Did the Quebec government do anything illegal? No, but certainly nothing to be proud of.

And so in conclusion, both sides acted dishonestly, but not illegally.

The real dishonesty is not that separatists overestimate the number of fast-tracked NO voters or underestimate the amount of NO spoiled ballots, it is that they continue to perpetrate the myth that Ottawa illegally interfered in the referendum and somehow 'stole' the result.

And so the myth lives on.

Are Quebeckers Being Brainwashed?- Part One

In doing some research over the weekend in support of the next couple of posts, I turned up a rather amazing document which I must admit, I had never seen before.

My theme for the next couple of posts is the contention that Quebeckers are subject to a relentless and ongoing process of separatist brainwashing through the historically tried and true methods of disinformation coupled by the repetition of a big lie. I also wanted to explore Quebeckers propensity to distort or ignore facts that don't fit neatly into the separatist narrative..

Poo-Pooing unpleasant facts while distorting the truth has been a hallmark of the sovereignty movement for forty years. Repetitively drilled into the public, are doomsday scenarios of assimilation coupled with a Shangri-la description of a sovereign Quebec. Of late, this brainwashing has become more and more overwhelming and pervasive.The dirty little secret is, that sovereignists continue to use dubious and dishonest methods to manipulate what people hold as true, in a desperate effort to 'subvert'  public opinion.

My first stop was to go way back to the 1995 referendum where the Parti Quebecois refused to acknowledge some unflattering reports that they themselves had commissioned.
Richard Le Hir, a PQ minister was the godfather of these reports and ultimately became a patsy when those reports showed exactly the opposite of what he had set out to prove.
Rather than painting a rosy picture,  the results showed that Quebec would suffer financially under sovereignty. The PQ government decided not to publish the results once the contents were known and Mr. Le Hir was forced to defend the government's decision, something later in life, he seems to regret.
You can listen to a radio interview where Le Hir defends that decision rather clumsily and gets raked over the coals by an interviewer. LISTEN HERE{FR}

When Lucien Bouchard took over the faltering referendum campaign, his first act was to banish any mention of the so-called Le Hir reports and refused to answer any question about them. Curiously reporters seemed to let the whole thing go, even anglos.

And so, poof, they were gone, just like that!
This cynical manoeuvre was my first taste of how the sovereignist public relations machine works to manipulate public perception, a policy that the official and semi-official sovereignty movement continues to maintain today.

Ten years after the referendum Le Hir wrote a shockingly frank and honest assessment of his role in the referendum and provided a candid inside view of the the Parti Quebecois' preparations for the referendum.

While my research in the Le Hir affair was just a small preface to what I wanted to write about, the following translation of the article that Mr. Le Hir wrote, ten years after the referendum, bowled me over.
I had never seen the article before, nor an English translation. I haven't heard or read of any journalist discussing the bombshell implications that he described. 

In the article, Le Hir accuses the PQ government of planning to literally brainwash the Quebec population. The entire article which contains other starling revelations can be found here. LINK{FR}


I have endeavored to translate the article as best I could and modified language to make it more readable in English, without in any way changing the authors meaning. My translation is an abridged version.
Mr. Le Hir

In the footsteps of Goebbels by Richard Le Hir
"A few weeks after the swearing in of the new Government, I received a call from the Office of the Prime Minister. Mr. Parizeau wanted me to meet him forthwith to give me a special mission.......
The solemn and concerned, PM pointed me towards two thick volumes lying on his table. It was, according to his explanation, a study that the PQ had commissioned in 1985 on a strong recommendation from Jean-Pierre Charbonneau, a few months before being defeated in the general election by the Liberals. I was to make quick study of the report and get back to him within two weeks with my recommendations.
..... I returned to my office, eager to immerse myself into these two tomes. It took a while to understand what it in fact they were. The PQ had undertaken a study with a well-known Laval University professor (his name escapes me) who was known for his expertise in psychoanalysis. He was commissioned to discover what was the basis of the fears that a large proportion of Quebecers held toward sovereignty.
In conducting his study, the professor had used a degree of subterfuge. He established control groups according to people's origins, old stock francophones, anglophones, allophones, and indigenous, etc..

He presented himself as a film director working on a project on the history of Canada, who needed input from a number of different Canadians to write his script.

In very detailed interviews he used his expertise in psychoanalysis, to get the respondents to reveal their deepest innermost feelings in regard to Québec, Canada, and what inspired their views of a possible sovereign Quebec.
As I continued my reading, a feeling of uneasiness grew over me. From my experience in the private sector, I was very familiar with the process that market research firms use to understand the motivations of consumers. But in this case, it went far beyond what private industry would be permitted to do, and worse we were doing it for political ends, which immediately raised some very serious ethical issues. The future of a people is something completely different than the selection of a new car.
I finished reading the first volume late at night, worried by the implications and already wondering what recommendation I was going to be able to make.

With a sinking feeling, I couldn't resist jumping into the second volume immediately. At dawn, I realized with horror that I had been sucked into a very dirty business.

Basically, the second volume contained the recommendations of the analyst to "treat" these fears that Quebecers harboured towards sovereignty. We were to deliver nothing less than a collective dose of psychotherapy over a period of five years by organizing, across Quebec, "sensibility sessions," that would externalize and tame these fears gradually through exposure to those who were not afraid and foresaw independence with confidence.
I was appalled. I couldn't believe that I belonged to a Government that might for a moment consider using such methods, or even use of such data. I decided to give myself a few days of reflection, after all, my reaction was perhaps excessive. So I took the initiative to ask the Office of the PM to meet with the expert who wrote the study. I heard he was suffering from terminal cancer and was bedridden. He nevertheless agreed to receive me at the same time he would meet with  Jean-François Lisée.
After an hour of discussion with the Professor in question, I knew that his analysis made sense, but it only served to make more acute the question of whether to use this information for political purposes, and especially the idea to use a group therapy. I needed a professional opinion. I therefore resolved to call Dr. Denis Lazure, psychiatrist, who had just been re-elected in Laprairie..... Explaining briefly what it was, I asked him if he would consider the study and tell me what he thought and he kindly accepted to do so.
As he was late in coming back to me with his response, I decided to reach out. His comments were rather evasive and so I asked him very directly what he thought of using such methods in a political context. He replied that indeed it was perhaps not entirely appropriate. And so I had the confirmation that I needed to confront the Prime Minister.
I got my appointment quickly and briefed Mr Parizeau as to my discomfort. If I could somehow accept the conclusions of the first part of the study, even though I disapproved of the use of such methods in politics, I found the second part totally unacceptable. "This is Goebbels" I said, not mincing words. My message was not having a positive effect on Mr Parizeau and as I advanced my remarks, I saw his face take on a gradual and increasing shade of crimson.

From that moment on, the PQ was aware of the deep attachment that Quebecers held towards Canada and their commitment to what is still their country, it became impossible to claim, as it still does today, that sovereignty would be a  smooth departure. And that, they've  known since 1985.

Wow. At the highest levels of the PQ it was understood that if Quebec was to achieve sovereignty, the population would need to undergo a five year program of thought re-engineering!

Reading the article I could only think of those sexual re-orientation clinics that purport to teach young gays how to become heterosexuals at the behest of their parents, who want them 'changed'.

I don't think the PQ government ever acted on the reports and undertook any direct campaign of brainwashing, the referendum loss left the party licking some rather deep wounds. But the implications were there, many read the report and understood it's meaning.

Clearly sovereignty had plateaued and could not advance without  convincing a lot of francophones who had voted NO , to vote YES.

Today, there remains little economic benefits to sovereignty. Nobody in the PQ will say any different, at least in private. As long as Canada sends Quebec billions and billions in equalization payments, its hard to cut the purse strings.

And so sovereignists have set out on a new plan, one where they will sell a new and improved version of the necessity of sovereignty based on a two-pronged narrative.
The first part is to constantly remind Quebeckers that they are victims, conquered in the past, continually screwed in the present by a continuing English plot. The second part of the narrative is of course the language issue and the contention by separatists that French in Quebec is disappearing and that Francophone culture is on the way to extinction.

Both these themes have been hammered home over the last decade with uncertain results. Support for sovereignty has actually decreased.

That being said, efforts continue to attempt to fool Quebeckers into believing that the sky is falling.

I'll have more to say about all that tomorrow.

NHL Has Lost Touch With Reality

Chara drives Pacioretty's head into the stanchion

Given the NHL's reaction to Zdeno Chara's now infamous hit on Max Pacioretty, it's hard not to conclude that the NHL powers are badly out of touch with reality.

It's clear that they also badly miscalculated public perception when they gave Zdeno Chara a pass on his violent and dangerous hit. The league will tell us that they cannot take public opinion into account when dishing out punishment in relation to an on-ice foul, but they should.
The NHL is an entertainment business and tailoring its product to what customers want makes good business sense.
I think it's fair to say that the fans didn't like what they saw and expected the NHL to see it the same way.
One the leagues sponsor's AIR CANADA has already sent an ominous letter to the league warning that they are considering pulling out because of the increased level of violence.

"From a corporate social responsibility standpoint, it is becoming increasingly difficult to associate our brand with sports events which could lead to serious and irresponsible accidents; action must be taken by the NHL before we are encountered with a fatality.  AIR CANADA

The Pacioretty incident was so violent and gruesome that it jumped off the sports pages into the mainstream press and unfortunately, the league's non-reaction solidifies the general perception (outside the league's fan base) that professional hockey is nothing more than glorified roller derby on ice.

The incredibly graphic nature of the hit and the spectre of a motionless body sprawled on the ice for an agonizing amount of time did more to set back minor hockey, than any other incident in the recent past.

What mother charged with protecting the well-being of her child could watch that incident without being put off hockey for her child, thinking perhaps that soccer is a better choice?

Most of you watched the incident after the fact and the chilling effect was no doubt mitigated by the knowledge that Pacioretty made it to the hospital and although badly injured, was not facing a life-threatening situation.

But for those of us of us who witnessed the incident in real time on TV, we lived through several minutes of abject horror as Pacioretty lay motionless on the ice. As we watched the doctors and training staff struggle over his limp body, there was legitimate concern that Pacioretty may have become the first on-ice fatality. 

The NHL and their disciplinary organ in their collective wisdom decided to give Chara a pass, an act that defies legal principles and common good sense.

Is there anyone who doubts that if Pacioretty was killed, that Chara would be facing involuntary manslaughter charges?

The NHL rationale is best expressed by apologist and fart-catcher Scott Burnside who's piece for ESPN explained the attitude of the dinosaurs that run the NHL.

"Tuesday's ruling was plain and simple about separating the result from the act." LINK

WHaaaaaa??

I hope Mr. Burnside never stands before a real judge and tries that sort of defence.

"Your Honour, I know I was driving drunk, but the fact that I hit a child riding a bicycle and broke one of his vertebrae and left him severely concussed, should not have any bearing on my punishment. It was a simple act of drunk driving which should be separated  from the result"

I don't believe that there's a judge in North America who wouldn't throw the book at the fool offering that sort of defence. If Mr. Burnside had legal representation the lawyer would be well advised to tape his client's mouth shut before allowing him to make that pitch.

"The other defence being bandied about by Chara's defenders is that the hit was out of character and that he never meant to injure Pacioretty.

"You honour, I shouldn't be punished because it's out of my character and at any rate, I didn't mean it"

 Hmmm....Really........

Such is the fantasy world of the Scott Burnside and the NHL.
 Let me quote Charles P. Pierce in the Boston Globe;

"Executive assistant district attorney Jack McCoy (Law & Order) used to warn us all that "intent follows the bullet." If you get a little sockless one night and shoot a gun out the window of your apartment accidentally into the wall across the alley, you are not punished as harshly as would be the case if you got a little sockless one night and shot a gun out the window of your apartment accidentally into the noggin of a bicycle messenger who is riding down the alley....Which is about where Zdeno Chara is right now."- Link To Hab and Hab not

Hockey fans are not as stupid or bloodthirsty as the league presumes. Fans like clean open ice checks and yes, a good punch up between two matched players who follow the rules, duke it out a bit and then break cleanly. If a player is outmatched or unable to defend himself, the referees break up the fight and the 'winning' fighter is expected to back off honourably. These are fair rules that everybody follows scrupulously. No fan wants to see a mismatched fight or somebody cheating by biting or kicking or some other dishonourable act.
At any rate we all know that these types of fights rarely lead to serious injury and it satisfies our blood lust rather harmlessly.

That being said, fans don't appreciate players being launched head first into the boards or given a dangerous cheap shot, be it an elbow to the head, knee to knee contact or a cowardly slew foot.
Does it make sense at all for players racing back to touch the puck for icing to be subjected to gratuitous and completely unnecessary body checks from behind?

The NHL has demonstrated in the past that the game can be modified significantly without affecting the competition. I recently screened an old playoff game from the seventies and was amazed at the ghoulish and dangerous behaviour of players, where hooking and interference was the norm. The league changed for the better and can eliminate certain dangerous behaviour without affecting the on-ice product, it is a question of will.

Ten years ago, Formula One car racing suffered a run of dangerous accidents and deaths. Cars had gotten too fast and dangerous. The powers that be realized that such was unacceptable and made significant changes both safety-wise and even took the unpopular decision to slow cars down through technical limitations. It had to be done, those who ran the sport knew it was in their selfish best interest to fix a dangerous situation.
Today Formula One remains as competitive and exciting as ever. Accidents, which are much fewer and farther between have much less devastating consequences.

It's high time that the NHL paid attention to the welfare of their players. If they can't see to it, fans should demand it.

Incidentally, the very worst thing for Chara was not to be suspended, it would have been in his own best interest to sit out for a couple of games. Coupled with a sincere apology (which he has not offered to date,) he could have put this incident behind him, no matter what Pacioretty's outcome.

Most Boston fans concede with good grace, that a 2-4 game suspension would have ended the incident.
Now Chara stands marked forever as a goon in the court of public opinion and just like O.J. Simpson, a man scorned for having gotten away with murder, the perception remains among fans that Chara got away with a dirty hit causing injury.

I'll presume now to speak for all readers of this blog, in wishing Max Pacioretty a speedy recovery.
If you'd like to send a personal public message to Max Pacioretty, please feel free to use the comment section.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Quebec Media Unrepresentatitve of Reality

As might be expected, reaction to Premier Charest's plan to require francophone grade six student to undergo half  a year of intense English instruction drew a firestorm of criticism not only from the language militants and separatist forces, but surprisingly in the mainstream media as well.

A brief Google search by myself indicated that over 90% of stories on the OP-ED pages of mainstream newspapers were either lukewarm or negative towards the idea. It was hard to find more than a few stories that actually supported the government's proposal.
Of course when it came to the unions, the separatist and nationalist, French language doomsayers, the reaction bordered on the absurd, with predictions of gloom and doom making up the bulk of the stories, but that of course was to be expected.

An article in Le Devoir points out that Premier Charest likely announced this new policy after conducting internal polling that indicated that the public was largely in favour of increased English instruction, but you'd never find that to be the case by reading reactions in the media.
In fact that very same article went on to quote a language expert, Christian Dufour, who offered a myriad of reasons why the idea of increased English instruction is dangerous, something to be avoided at all costs.

It's interesting that to date we haven't heard from any of the pollsters concerning Mr. Charest's plan, which is usually the case when a controversial proposal is made. I'm sure that we'd find that the opinions of Quebeckers, don't match what is being said in the media, not even close.

The truth remains that the Quebec media is dominated by those who don't represent popular opinion and that separatists and left-wingers are badly over-represented.

For the purpose of this discussion, I'll limit myself to television, because that is were the majority of Quebeckers get their news and where they are exposed to editorial opinion.

Newspaper editorials and opinion pieces, as well as Internet political websites represent a tiny fraction of this sensibilization. Readers here, are more educated and critical. (as evidenced on this blog!) and tend to be more politicized and opinionated, much harder to push off their conservative or liberal predisposition.

The real battleground is television, where the evening newscast and the choice of editors in the political content of stories covered, help shape public opinion.

"The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan, which dictates that what the media decides to cover as newsworthy, shapes our opinion regardless of the point of view of the story.
If the media carries many stories about French students attending English cegeps, the public is conditioned to believe that there is a problem there, regardless of whether both sides of the issue is explored.

The same goes for the ongoing discussions of shale gas exploration. The fact that the media dwells to such an extent on the subject leads the public to conclude that the issue is important.
Sometimes the media exposure is warranted (as in the case of shale gas) and sometimes it is not, (as is the case of English cegeps.) 

Unlike English Canada, Quebec is rather limited in television choices and particularly in the realm of news and current events. That is why the Radio Canada (the French CBC) plays a much bigger role in shaping Quebec public opinion than does the CBC in English Canada, which is forced to compete not only with CTV and Global, but news organizations in the USA, such as FOX news and CNN.
Soon Canada will get a conservative news channel, insuring that the public is exposed to even a wider realm of all manner of ideas.

The impact of Radio Canada in Quebec cannot be underestimated and the fact that editorially it's optic is so largely far-left and separatist is clearly disturbing.

This opinion is not exclusively mine, Radio Canada has been described as being run by the CLIQUE DU PLATEAU by better pundits than I, a denigrating term to describe the ultra-liberal separatists who make up the majority of the on and off-air staff at the crown corporation (ironic, eh!)

"The Clique du Plateau is a term used to describe a certain elite, an intelligentsia, real or fictitious, made up of people who have an important influence on culture and media across Quebec from Montreal, and more precisely one of its neighbourhoods, the Plateau Mont-Royal, home to an artistic community....The Clique du Plateau is often accused of being associated with the political left and socialism and is considered diametrically opposite to centrists and rightist ideology, including that of the Action Democratique du Quebec. It also sometimes involves the PQ and the sovereignty ideology." Wikipedia{Fr}

And so everyday we are treated to interviews and discussions on language issues, most (but not all) from a nationalistic point of view, giving  an over-weighted relevance to the issue.

The 'Clique' is wildly anti-conservative, pro-sovereignist, anti-Canada, anti-USA and of course anti-Israel.
Sometimes, as in the case of Israel, reporters are so biased that they are called to task as in the case of an on-air interviewer who likened Israel to Iran. LINK 
Simon Durivage was forced to apologize on-air when the corporation's own ombudsman condemned his characterization. LINK
Recently the network came under intense fire for airing a 'documentary' on the influence of evangelical Christians on the Harper government. The program was so biased and nasty that a firestorm of criticism erupted. I shall perhaps have something to say on that subject in a future post.  Watch the show

It's not likely that the program in question, "Enquete" will air an exposé anytime in the future, concerning the inordinate amount of influence that unions hold on the Parti Quebecois!
This of course, is an example of how editorial choices and the subjects chosen to be covered by Radio Canada, affect and shape public opinion.

What remains interesting is that despite the bombardment of anti-Canada and anti-English opinions put forward, Quebeckers continue to resist falling for the propaganda.

While Quebeckers are reminded and threatened each day that sending their children to English school or teaching them English in any enhanced manner, diminishes the French character of Quebec, they continue to resist, and opinion polls demonstrate that the majority want English instruction.

Perhaps it is the selfish notion that parents of all nationalities, creeds and languages share, the desire to give their children the very best chance in life to succeed, this despite the brain-washing campaign being waged against them.

It leads us to wonder what would be the political reality if fairness and balance was returned to our airwaves.

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!"