Are Quebeckers Being Brainwashed?- Part Four

Everyday, language militants and a complicit media flood Quebec with stories and urban myths of French language and culture gloom and doom. The sheer weight and pervasiveness of these stories, true, false or half-true, all lead to the general impression among francophone Quebeckers that they are on the road to linguistic assimilation at the hands of the dastardly English who are portrayed as having tried to eliminate the French fact for 400 years.

Of course the popular myth remains that Quebec has not been assimilated to date through the dynamic and historic resistance mounted by a people determined to save their language and culture.

Hmmm......quite a story.

I'm not going to delve into the above subject today, readers can draw their own conclusion as to the veracity of that argument...

After decades of failing to sell sovereignty on its merits, language militants and separatists have embarked on a cynical campaign of trying to frighten and intimidate Quebeckers into moving towards a more radical position and to do so, they have embarked on the most egregious combination of lies and distortion.

By mixing in enough truth to make their stories somewhat plausible, it's amazing what they can get away with when the mainstream press, who are generally sympathetic, fail to offer even the most basic critical review.

And so on any given day Anglophones may be depicted as a Mongol horde, over-running the island of Montreal or alternately as a small insignificant minority that is coddled.

Arguments are made one way only to be reversed on another day. Statistics are invented, or misinterpreted and illogical conclusions are drawn from facts that don't really exist.

Phony baloney research is produced by in house separatists which is then offered as impartial proof of exactly what is desired to be proved, somewhat akin to asking a group of archbishops to form a group to decide the question of whether there is a God.
Chief language mouthpiece for the PQ, Pierre Curzi is the master of this dishonest practice of manufacturing unscientific studies and then quoting them as gospel.  LINK

Here is a video that I uploaded a while ago, which if you haven't seen, is rather interesting. It is a speech given by Mario Beaulieu where he tells one outrageous falsehood after another, all the while sounding like he knows what he is talking about.

I have yet to decide if Mr. Beaulieu is a moron or a cleverly cheeky bastard, so insulting is his use of  creative interpretations of statistics and his outright ability to lie that he neatly personifies the Gobbels description of the Big lie.
Wash, rinse, repeat.

A couple of days ago the Canadian Senate published a report that anglophone communities outside Montreal are in trouble. Truthfully, it wasn't much of a revelation, everyone in Quebec knows that Anglos have been in decline in the Quebec regions. The Montreal Gazette scooped the Senate report a couple of weeks ago with an excellent piece on the subject.

That being said, before the ink was dry, there was Mr. Beaulieu offering the standard opinion that Anglophones in Quebec are coddled. It's likely that he didn't even read the report since none of his critique was based on anything said in the report. For Beaulieu, 'pulling a Nixon' is standard operating procedure, one of his many talents. LINK{FR}.


On and on it goes, but remarkably, many Quebeckers don't bite.

Given the overwhelming brainwashing effort, it amazes me that the majority still believe in Canada and still believe in the benefits of speaking two languages and so one of the reasons that the brain washers need to work so hard is that they don't really  enjoy popular support.

Perhaps this reluctance to be 'treated' speaks to Quebeckers general mistrust of officials and politicians. It's a Quebec trait to take these people with a grain of salt. No where in Canada are politicians held in such low esteem. The last Premier of Quebec that was generally popular was Rene Levesque, thirty years ago. Today the popularity and trust accorded to these people is so low that that nothing they say is believed.

The brainwashers do their thing, people listen but seem to act otherwise, in their own self-interest. A general consensus is that immigrants should be forced into French schools but not francophones.

The latest poll shows that among Quebeckers, Premier Charest is less popular than Colonel Khadifi is among Libyans. That's pretty low. But The opposition isn't doing much better.

And yesterday the results of a poll must have sent shivers up the spine of hardline sovereignists and French language militants.
A Leger poll found that 80% of Quebeckers believe that bilingualism is an advantage for Quebeckers.

Only 31% (which corresponds roughly with the hardliners) believe that this bilingualism represents a danger to the preservation of the French language. Download a PDF of the Poll

Given these numbers one can ask why media attention doesn't represent this majority view at all.
In fact all we ever here from, is that minority of language militants.

How would fairness in the media affect these numbers?

Are Quebeckers Being Brainwashed?- Part Three

Nothing but nothing demonstrates the principle of the 'Big Lie' as does the case of the hullabaloo created by French language militants over their monstrously dishonest claim that access to English cegep by francophones and allophones should be limited because it represents a danger to the preservation of the French language.

Adolph Hitler described the use of the Big Lie in his book Mein Kampf and used the device to blame the Jews for Germany's economic woes in the 1930's, when he became leader of the country.

"....that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." Adolf Hitler-Mein Kampf

And so the principle remains valid ninety years after Hitler wrote his book.
Tell a monstrously big lie, repeat it often enough and people are apt to believe it.

In a closed society like Germany or Quebec where language is a barrier to outside ideas, it is much easier to sell the 'big lie' and unfortunately sovereignists have resorted to this method of distortion because everything else they've tried has failed.

I have previously written on the utter stupidity of the notion that francophones who attend English cegeps are destined to abandon their language and culture and magically turn into anglophones
Read my previous posts on the subject;
English Cegep Study - A Case of Weird Science
More Language Nonsense from Pierre Curzi  

A recent article caught my attention because it confirms what I've been saying all along about this nonsense and amazingly that confirmation comes from the unlikeliest of sources:

"Pierre Curzi, PQ MNA for the South Shore riding of Chambly and sponsor of the Bill 101 proposal, says attending English CEGEP will lead French-speakers and allophones, after 12 years of obligatory primary and secondary schooling in French, to "anglicize."

But a study on linguistic transfers by allophones, conducted by the Conseil supérieur de la language française, says attending English CEGEPs has hardly any impact on linguistic transfers."  LINK

Yup, this is the opinion of the Conseil supérieur de la language française, a quasi-government body charged with advising the government on policy regarding the French language!
In December 2009 the president of this organization Conrad Ouellon, wrote a letter to La Presse denouncing the notion that English cegep contributes to the anglicization of Francophones;       

"Based on a rough analysis of  its own researchers, attendance in English cegep has virtually no effect on language shifts, he said, allophones anglotropes opt for English in the same proportion, whether or not they attended English cegep. In short, the study found that about 40% of "children of Bill 101 adopting English anyway.  LINK{FR}

"Two conclusions emerge from the data," Béland wrote. "First, among young francotropes and anglotropes, attendance in CEGEP had practically no impact on linguistic transfers. Secondly, these results confirm what previous studies revealed, that the origin of allophones is the principle determinant of linguistic transfers.    LINK

WOW!
Of course Pierre Curzi, chief spielmeister of the cegep big lie, never mentions Mr. Ouellon and Conseil supérieur de la language française's position when he hammers home his theme over and over again that English cegep is a threat.

Now it is painfully obvious that the position of CSLF conflicts rather badly with Mr. Curzi's narrative and represents quite a problem for PQ militants who want to debate the question of limiting access to these cegeps at the Parti Québécois convention to be held in Montreal next month where they'll be asked to sanction a proposal to extend Bill 101 to English cegeps.

So what's to be done to keep this big lie going?

Well after a great deal of pressure was brought to bear, the Conseil supérieur de la language française  has 'agreed' to revisit the matter and has in essence, renounced its previous position.


POOF!!  As if it was never there.

In an article in Le Devoir that borders on the absurd, you can just see the facts being re-engineered to suit the narrative woven by Pierre Curzi. If you read French, try not to laugh as you read how the Conseil tap dances to back away from the very well researched report that it produced. 
And so Mr. Ouellon has changed his tune rather abruptly! 

"In drafting our next position, the CSLF will be "more nuanced" and take into accountall relevant studies. "We will take into consideration all available data. And that's what is new, it will leads us to take a more formal, more reasoned conclusion, because it will consider a range of factors,"said Conrad Ouellon. LINK{FR}

Haha!!!!! Sounds like poor Mr. Ouellon is reading a prepared ransom note! ...
"I am being treated fairly......and don't call the police!" 

And so the Conseil will undertake a new revised study, politically revisioned, to be published after the PQ convention. The liars have won.

By the way you can read the entire original report written by Paul Béland for the CSLF, in French by downloading the PDF . I've downloaded my own copy, it's quite well done and convincing. I'm sure it will soon be disappeared a la Jimmy Hoffa!


Are Quebeckers being brainwashed? 
What can I say......wash, rinse, repeat..

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.