PQ Convention - Blah...Blah...Blah!

Reading news reports of the events at the PQ convention last weekend I am reminded of that famous New York Yankee baseball manger, Yogi Berra who once said; ""It's déjà vu all over again,"

Each PQ convention seems a clone of the previous, the only question at issue is whether the current leader survives or is cast aside in another cruel act of political fratricide.

Alas, the lovely Pauline was indeed confirmed as the leader, receiving a 93% approval rating,  impressive when one considers that she scores in the mid-twenties with the general public.

The day before her reconfirmation, Marois sat silently by as delegates voted to ban English public signage, holding her tongue, lest she upset the militant dogs ahead of her leadership review.
Readers may remember that this particular clause in Bill 101, among dozens of others, was overturned by the Supreme Court, years ago.
The delegates wanted to re-implement the very same clause and use the famous "Notwithstanding Clause" to opt out of the inevitable court defeat.

In most politcal parties, it is the 'Young Turks' wing of the party that pushes for radical new policies, but in the case of the PQ, it is the old and frustrated who most want to push the envelope, sensing that like Moses or Martin Luther King, they will never see the Promised Land.
"And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!"

Of course Pauline and the other PQ elected members were aghast at the idea of re-implementing the draconian policy that could best be described as lose/lose gambit.

As soon as her leadership was reaffirmed she set forth to scuttle the newly minted motion.

First she sent party bigwigs out to the podium to soften up delegates.
Makko Kotta told delegates then that "...We can reduce, but not outlaw English. We are on a quest for a new nation and this resolution can be potentially divisive"
...How generous!

"PQ language critic Pierre Curzi and former PQ language critic Louise Beaudoin were dispatched to send a message to the hard-liners through the media that the PQ in power would not revisit the sign issue.
"It is a position which could effectively be perceived as radical," Curzi told reporters at a hastily called news conference in the corridor. "We find it does, indeed, send us down a perilous path." LINK

After the delegates had been suitably cowered, Marois hit the stage to put the coup de grace on the proposal by calling for a new vote;

"I have no desire to get embroiled in another legal debate on the question of the language of signs, given that we have lost all the way to the United Nations.

"What I want is for us to put all our energies into winning our battles. I ask you to reject this proposal."

"With that, the party made a stunning flip-flop - agreeing to not touch the existing law: Bill 86, adopted by the Liberal government in 1993, allowing English on signs as long as French is predominant." LINK

It was a cunning piece of strategy, cynical but nonetheless effective. Marois let the militants run wild and then after receiving their blessing, undid the damage.

One thing the party did do was to re-affirm their intention to restrict access to English cegep to those ineligible under the terms of Bill 101, thus rejecting the conclusions of the Quebec's most senior language body, charged with defending the French language, the Conseil supérieur de la language française. In a report published just weeks before the PQ convention, it concluded that "...attendance in English cegep has virtually no effect on language shifts" 

As far as language militants were concerned, this unacceptable conclusion meant that the bloom was off of the rose of this hitherto august body which they attacked mercilessly in the press as a sellout.

LINK

No matter, it wasn't really about defending French, it was more about punishing the English 'colonialists.' 

I daresay that if Rene Levesque and Lionel Groulx popped out of the grave to advise them the same, they would reject the notion as well. 

To delegates, anti-English resolutions are just too delicious to pass up and no convention would be complete without a few nasty proposals, putting Anglos in their place.

One of the proponent's of the ban on English signage told reporters that it is 'normal' to have only one language on commercial signs, after all, he pontificated, when one goes to Italy, one doesn't expect to see English signs.

Hmmm.....No reporter dared to challenge the remarks by reminding him that Quebec is not a country, but rather a province in a predominantly English-speaking country! Ouch!

And so with a renewed sense of purpose and conviction that Quebec would soon be a sovereign state, the delegates left the convention in an upbeat and confident state of mind, oblivious to the reality that they'll be back again next year and the year after that and in ten years as well, ad nauseum.

The broken record continues to play the same tired tune over and over again, with the general public sick of hearing it, while to hardliners, it remains a rhapsodic symphony!

Our Cherished Lost English Schools

What school is this?

Reading some of the comments concerning the closure of English schools in Quebec, I was saddened to read the names of my primary and high school among the casualties of the language war.
For those of use, who are over forty and attended an English public high school or primary school in Quebec, there's a good chance that the school no longer exists.

Sadly as commentors pointed out, there's no history preserved to remind us of our past and the great institutions we attended. They were good times....

My first memory of kindergarten was my teacher calling  the us over to the windows to take a gander at what might have been the last horse-drawn milk wagon in the city. As we strained to peak out over the window sills, (we were little tykes) I will never forget a tired old horse bedecked with the obligatory blinkers covering its eyes to filter out those peripheral distractions,  pulling a  J.J Joubert milk wagon. It's over 50 years and I remember it like yesterday....really.

Kindergarten is where I made a small clay imprint of my right hand, which I molded and then  painted by myself. I still keep it proudly displayed on my desk and it is my oldest possession.

Grade one was where I first met Dick, Jane and Spot. In Grade Two or Three it was 'Bunga' the jungle boy and Eric and Ingor from Sweden, among others.
It's funny what we remember.

In primary school I remember the tears flowing down my teacher's face as she announced the murder of John F. Kennedy.

In high school I remember students protesting the Viet Nam war, cafeteria food that sucked and nerdy Prefects in white cardigans who patrolled the halls like Capos in a concentration camp.
I remember all the high schools with whom we competed in basketball and with which we had the occasional brawl.
Outremont, Northmount, Wager, Westhill, Lasalle Protestant, Chomedy Protestant, Montreal high, Montreal West High School, and perhaps Montreal's most infamous high school, Baron Bing,  all sadly gone. I'm sure readers can help me fill out the list.

Its hard to believe that this world is gone and unremembered.

I would like to put together a post or a series of posts,that includes your fondest memories of primary and high school as a salute to our disappearing schools.
Your teachers, your school, you classmates, whatever you'd like to say.
Please share with the readers a personal account of your school and your experience.

You don't have to include your name, but if you'd like to, please mention it specifically. The default is pseudonym only. That being said, your school name and its location is important.
I'll print everything that is reasonable (under 1500 words.)

You might even get your very own post!

I think readers would be interested in your personal experience, so now's your chance to get out your Ernest Hemingway..

I'll put together a post or posts and publish in the near future.

Send submissions to anglomontreal@gmail.com. DO NOT use the Comments section.
I look forward to your submissions.

Too Many 'French' Stores in English Shopping Centre

I don't imagine a newspaper story with the above storyline, would go over big in the Montreal Gazette, wherein the writer complains that there are too many stores with French names in the Fairview Mall, in the decidedly English-speaking town of Pointe Claire, a suburb of Montreal.

I think it would be fair to say that the spectre of racism would be raised rather quickly by readers who would rightfully wonder as to what kind of twisted mind would write such a story and what rag of a newspaper would print it.
No, the Montreal Gazette would not print such a story, but transpose the word  'English' with 'French' and yesiree, the Journal de Montreal has no problem printing that very same story, written by Quebec's most renowned Anglophobe journalist Gilles Proulx. LINK 

"Walking through the Champlain Mall, the 2011 version, with a plethora of stores with English names, I've seen the Quebec of the future. And yes, Greater Montreal will end up a giant West Island (Montreal's anglophone bastion-ed.)
(En me promenant dans le Mail Champlain mouture 2011 avec sa pléthore de raisons sociales anglaises, j'ai vu le Québec de demain. Eh oui, le Grand Montréal finira par devenir un immense West Island.) LINK 

Ever since the death of Pierre Falardeau, Gilles Proulx acceded to the position as Quebec's most vocal Anglophobe, but unlike Mr. Falardeau, who in spite of his Anglophobia, was a likeable and talented artist, with a rakish sense of humour and an impish smile, Mr. Proulx has no such redeeming characteristics.
Proulx is a nasty sort, who on an ongoing basis, launches into  the most hysterical rants casting Francophones as the sad and unfortunate victims of the evil Anglo colonizers.

When Mr. Proulx gets into the subject of the English or Canada, his voice rises an octave or two, into a annoyingly high pitched screech that  mocks and denigrates, which he uses to underline his visceral hated of the English.

The facts are not particularly useful to Mr. Proulx, his sarcastic portrayal of Anglos is based on outdated stereotypes, false impressions interspersed with outright falsehoods.

In a recent rant on television, during which he used the perjoritive "Têtes carrée" to decribe the English  he  accused English high school students of being unable to carry on a conversation in French, an outrageous falsehood.

In a typical rant, Mr. Proulx complains that on a recent visit to a shopping mall in the the Montreal suburb of Brossard, he noticed that too many stores names had English names and concludes that Quebec is on the way to Anglicization.

"David's Tea, Jugo Juice, Foot Locker, USA, Only, Naturalizer,  Children's Place, President Stone, Foxy, Trade Secrets, Game Buzz, Style Exchange, Faces, Little Burgundy, Key West, Payless Shoe store, Access, Urban Planet,  D-tox, RW Co, Jones and Sweet Factory...
...And I'm not mentioning  Stokes, Starbucks' Coffee, Bentley, or all the other  Italian names followed by an 'S' . No doubt its no longer necessary to impose Bill 101."

What an utter crock!
Mr. Proulx complains he found about 50 examples of stores with English appellations.
According to the shopping centre's own website there are 137 and restaurants stores in the mall.
Here's a list, with the stores with clearly English names highlighted by myself.

1850   A&W   Access   Aldo  Amir   Amnesia   Archambault   Ardène   Atmosphère   Banque Scotia   Bell   Bentley   Bijouterie Sirène   Bikini Village   Bizou   Bleu Lavande    Bowring    Brûlerie St-Denis (Les Ailes)   Café Dépôt   Caleçons vos goûts  Calin Caline   Caroline Néron   Cazza Petite   Centre du Rasoir   Clair de Lune    Claire France    Mode 14+   Clinique Dentaire Champlain   Colori   Comneuf    Le fil Enchanté   D-Tox   Dans un Jardin   David's Tea   De Neuville Coiffure et Spa    Diamants Élinor    Doucet    Dynamite     Ecco    Emotions    Ernest   F.X. LaSalle    Faces  Fido  Foot Locker   Foxy   Freedom   Fruits & Passion   Gaby  Game Buzz    GNC Bien Vivre   Gourmet Santé   Greiche & Scaff    H&M   Hallmark   Hugo Boss   Jack & Jones    Jacob   Joshua Perets   Jugo Juice    Key West    Kojax    Koodo Mobile    La Baie  La Bonbonnière   La Capsule Sportive    La Crémière   La Forfaiterie    La Senza   La Source par Circuit City   La Vie en Rose   Laura Secord   Lavigueur   Le Château   Le Naturiste   Le Tambourin   Les Ailes de la Mode  Les Gaufres    Les Montres Ramnik   Limité   Little Burgundy  Locale   Loto Québec   Venise  Magenta Studio Photo   Manteaux Manteaux   Marie-Claire  Masako Sushi    Monaco   Naturalizer  Panda   Paris Coiffure Elle et Lui   Payless Shoesource    Pik Nik  Place Tevere  Polar Ice  President Stone RBC Banque Royale Reitmans    Restaurant L'Académie   Ribelle   Rinascimento   Roger Roy   Rogers Sans Fil   Rudsak  RW & Co.  SAQ Classique   Sears   Sirens    Sports Experts   Spring    Starbucks    Stokes   Stylexchange   Subway  Sul Posto   Suzy Shier   Swarovski  Tabagie Champlain    Taylor    Télus    Mobilité   Tendances Chaussures     Teriyaki   Terra Nostra    Thaï Express    The Children's Place  Zara   Tiki Ming   Toxik    Trade Secrets    Tristan     U.S.A.    Urban Planet  Van Houtte Café   Vidéotron    Virgin Mobile    XXI Forever  Yves Rocher 

All of a sudden the English predominance doesn't seem so high when compared to the total. Now by my count, there' only about 20-25 stores with English names, about half what Mr. Proulx claims.
Typical.
I haven't included proper names like Stokes or Bentley, as Mr. Proulx must have, to arrive at his figure. To do so is pure unadulterated racism. Under his scenario, F.X Lasalle and Van Houtte are kosher while Stokes and Bentley are offensive.  Bah!
By the way, a bunch of those stores with the offending English names are owned by Quebec francophones!

Now it would be easy to cite the current trend of globalization and the American retail invasion of Canada as an answer as to why there are more English stores, but that would be to admit that Mr.
Proulx's premise is true, which it is not.

Mr. Proulx intimates that the overall collective of stores is getting more and more English when in fact it is getting more and more French!


As an old retailer, I can tell you that forty years ago, there was hardly a French name in the retail game.
Mr. Proulx has either a very short or selective memory.

Eaton's, Morgan's, Direct Film, Fith Avenue, Sam the Record Man, Discus, Martinizing, Sweet Jeans, Steinberg, Dominion, A&P, Miracle Mart, Wise, to name just a very few.
There are literally dozens and dozens of English chains, big and small,  that have disappeared, to be replaced by up and coming francophone retailers.

Mr. Proulx uses the same false argument that says Montreal signage is becoming more bilingual. Hogwash.
When I was a kid, there wasn't a commercial, traffic or government sign that wasn't bilingual.

It's tired and false, but repeated often enough, well...............

French versus English - Volume 25

Jewish Star of David 'Offensive'

Thanks to Mitchel S. for this story about a Montreal food market that was asked by head office to remove three very prominent Stars of David hanging from the ceiling, over a section of seasonal Kosher food offered before the Jewish holiday of Passover, when Jews celebrate the Exodus from Egypt by eating unleavened bread.
A customer complained that the display was overly religious and the head office immediately ordered the store to take down the offending signs.
After a barrage of counter-complaints, the company reacted quickly to repair the damage and at least one Star of Davis is up once again.
The question remains. What kind of Grinch would complain?  LINK

Dangerous Anglo invasion in Laval

Impératif français, a militant French language group has sounded the alarm over the disturbing development that too many Anglos are moving to Laval. The separatist group has discerned a booby prize to the Mayor of Laval and city councillors for doing nothing to stop this barbarian invasion.
Exactly what steps the city should take to keep the Anglos out, wasn't suggested.
Link{FR}
By the way, if you go to the original article, check out the comments!
Jean-Paul Perreault, the president of the organization, also offered another 'booby prize' to Line Beauchamp, the minister of education for her efforts to teach English starting in Grade one, another dangerous idea! LINK{FR}

Quebec's first Veiled Robbers

You just knew it would happen.

A group of seven people, five women and two men robbed a depaneur. The women were veiled, but it didn't seem to help, the robbers were apprehended a short time later. Rather than coming from Arab countries, the crooks appeared to come from Eastern Europe and were just using the veils as a disguise. Link{FR}

PQ's Marois Wants Ottawa to pay for bridge

PQ leader Pauline thinks its a peachy idea for the federal government to provide a replacement for the Champlain bridge, Canada's busiest bridge, connecting the island of Montreal to the south shore. The Champlain is crumbling and the scheduled patch-up job isn't satisfying anyone including the separatist leader.
 The replacement bridge is estimated to cost in the neighborhood of six billion dollars, too rich for the provincial government and the fact that these bridges, fall under federal jurisdiction didn't seem to bother Madame Marois........Or did it?
Her suggestion is that Ottawa build the bridge and THEN transfer it to provincial jurisdiction, a neat solution! Link{FR}

Ontario to allow vanity plates in French

"Starting Monday, Franco-Ontarians will have a chance to turn their licence plates into showy, self-referential inside jokes in their own language.
The province says it will begin accepting applications for French vanity plates on that date. The new plates will also feature an optional embossed French language provincial slogan - "Tant À Découvrir" instead of "Yours to Discover". Link

If you think about it, the the program offers a great bilingual, English/French dynamic, as in my amateur example to the right.

Quebec cancer registry delayed

 Quebec is the last province to get a provincial cancer registry where data will be collected from 70 centres to give physicians and health care planners a better tool to organize their work.
But Nathalie Rodigue a spokeswoman for the Coalition Priorite Cancer told a Montreal television interviewer that only 22 centres have the necessary software to transmit the information, even though the software is readily available elsewhere, including other Canadian provinces, the US and France. Quebec has decided to write a new home-grown Quebec version of the software, which will delay the implementation. When asked about this, Quebec's Health Minister, Yves Bolduc advised the reporter that;
"We should stop to compare with other provinces. Instead we should work together." Argh!......

Air Transat cancels French lessons.

The Montreal charter airline that flies to the south in the winter and to Europe in the summer, is taking some flak for offering some specialized Quebecois French lessons on its website for European tourists flying to Montreal,  unfamiliar with Quebec's particular version of French.
The examples that the airline provided were actually quite funny, first offering a phrase in Parisian French and then in a Quebecois version.
Of course this displeased many, who demanded that the airline cease these 'insulting lessons' and so, alas, they have disappeared from the website.
You can read the story in French HERE
 If you speak French, you can listen to an audio file of the lessons HERE.

Quebec press council cites Maclean's

On the same day that the massive ongoing corruption scandal at Montreal City Hall escalated even further, with the announcement that the city was spying on a senior politician who was then asked to step aside, the Quebec Press Council announced that it had found Maclean's magazine guilty of bad journalism for the story that called Quebec the most corrupt Canadian province.
Responding to a complaint from radical separatist Gilles Rheame, the watchdog organization claimed that Maclean's had not made its case. LINK

The magazine, fearing that the conclusion was foregone, didn't even bother to defend itself.
Incidentally, it is being reported that the ex-chief of police  of Montreal, Yvan Delorme was also under investigation for his dealing with a local security firm which has since gone bankrupt. Eyebrows were raised when Mr. Delorme resigned abruptly, shortly after signing a new deal with the city to extend his term. LINK 

Quebec the most corrupt province? ...never!

Quebec reducing French Arab immigration

"The new policy of immigration to Quebec will lead to a decrease in the number Africans - especially the citizens of North Africa - admitted in the province.
By 2015, Quebec says it wants to re-balance gradually the proportion that each of the (four) major  geographical basins of immigrant origin.

basins

 Thus, the proportion will be limited to a maximum of 30% for each basin.
In 2010, the proportion of Africans was 36.8% for the total number of immigrants admitted to Quebec. The new government target will therefore reduce the de facto number and proportion.
Moroccans and Algerians formed the two largest contingents of immigrants to Quebec last year."

Link{FR}

Word Cloud highlights differences

 A word cloud representing the most frequently used words in the leaders debates highlights the differences in the English and French debate (translated

English

French

Further reading  French versus English -Volume 24

Anti-Bill 101 March this Sunday

For those interested there is a rally scheduled for this Sunday at noon, in Montreal in front of McGill University, to protest Bill 101.
I shall be there......

 

ABOLISH BILL 101 RALLY for April 2011

ABOLISH BILL 101 Rally
Sunday, April 17, 2011

Recently a number of men and women from numerous different ethnic and religious and lingusitic communities in Greater Montreal discussed a rally and march to abolish Bill 101 in our political region. It was decided to invite participants to brandish posters and signs in every language of each community on the Island and throughout Greater Montreal who shows a marcher.

The ad-hoc Committee to ABOLISH BILL 101 plans this as the first in a regular twice-annual event: April and October … until Bill 101 and official Quebec french racism is outlawed by either Canada or the United Nations. Twice a year will keep it in the consciousness of the victims of Bill 101 who want to go to the World Court in The Hague for Reparations against the particular separatist leaders, lodges, clubs, fronts, unions and businesses as well as individuals responsible for the fascism we live under here. In any event we realize that we must do this ourselves if we are ever to hope to change the inherent anti-democracy and anti-Human Rights music emanating from of Ottawa (Canada) and Geneva (UN). READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE