French versus English - Volume 27

Canadian Sale on 'Patriotes' holiday irks Separatists

Years ago the PQ government changed the Fête de Dollard, (which had been changed from Victoria Day) to the Journée nationale des patriotes, ostensibly to commemorate the so-called 'Patriots' of the
Lower Canada Rebellion in 1837.
The holiday which coincides with Victoria Day in the rest of Canada fast became Quebec's unofficial separatist holiday.
Imagine the rage in the sovereignist camp when an American chain store, operating in Canada, adopted the U.S tradition of naming a sale after the holiday and used a big red Maple Leaf to announce the  "Fête des patriotes Sale" 
Of course Mario Beaulieu, the head of the militant Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste, hit the roof and waded in with his usual indignation; 

"Already, the name of the company, 'The Children's Place, 'shows that there is no great respect for Quebec and its common language."  
After a couple of calls to the New Jersey Head-office, the signs were removed. LINK{FR}

Phony Poll by SSJB

Speaking of the Devil, Mr. Beaulieu, was in fine form again, manipulating  the truth to inflate his sovereignist agenda. A while back, in an opinion poll, just 38% of Quebeckers agreed that Bill 101 language restrictions should be applied to cegep (college). Link
Mr. Beaulieu took great offense claiming that the question was rigged and in response ran his own poll with a rigged question of his own;

"Unlimited access to colleges for English allophones, immigrants and francophones threatens the future of French in Quebec. Should the admission criteria of Bill 101 for English schools  also apply to CEGEP " Link

When you put it like that, I'd imagine everyone would answer positively, but no, just 57% agreed with the loaded question.
By the way, there's a name for the practice of  asking dishonest polling questions that are meant to influence public opinion, rather than to sample it. It's called Push-polling

Radio Stations

Claiming that there is plenty of good French music to go around, the Mouvement Montréal français held a small rally with a few dozen people to protest certain practices of Montreal radio stations. The group was complaining about the fact that the stations were violating the spirit of the law that mandates a minimum level of French music to be played on air. Apparently the stations don't agree that French music is as commercial as English music and is using a bunch of tactics to skirt the law. The stations have been playing the less popular French music in non-peak hours and also have been playing long mashups combining many English songs strung together and counting them as one. Very ingenious! LINK

Anglo appointed to the OQLF

It's hard to understand why Premier Charest appointed an anglophone to the Board of Directors of l'Office québécois de la langue française, the agency that enforces Bill 101.
Perhaps stranger, is why Gordon Bernstein would want the job.
That's it. Nothing more to say on the subject except that, here's what the separatists think of the appointment.  LINK

Lady Gaga

Lotto Quebec is chastised for spending $300,000 to license the 'Poker Face' song from Lady Gaga for promotional purposes, instead of spending the money on a Quebec Quebecois francophone artist.  LINK
  

English performers forced to sing in French

"When the news release came out announcing the lineup for the official Fête Nationale concert next month in Montreal, it appeared there had been a momentous breakthrough.

There on the program, alongside such francophone stars as Robert Charlebois and Éric Lapointe, were brother and sister Rufus and Martha Wainwright, two Quebec stars who have built international careers singing in English.

Had the concert organizers finally relaxed their no-English rule, which made a mockery of their expressed desire to include all Quebecers in the celebrations? Well, no, they hadn't.

The Wainwrights had been informed they could join in the June 24 party as long as they chose songs in French. "This is the Nation Québécoise; you sing in French," the concert's emcee, sovereignist TV host Guy A. Lepage, told The Gazette. "If you take the job, you accept the rules, and on the 24th, it's singing in French."

Mario Beaulieu, president of both the Société Saint Jean Baptiste and head of the committee organizing the outdoor concert, said the Wainwrights were happy to comply with the requirement that they sing in French.

"Considering that French is the common language, the national language of Quebec, the concert is in French," he said in an interview. "We invite Quebecers of all backgrounds, all languages, to come and sing in French." Read the rest of the NATIONAL POST story

Bilingual Supremos Bill to Die in the Senate

Last year, the Conservative minority government couldn't stop an NDP motion from passing in Parliament, one that would make it a requirement for Supreme Court judges to be bilingual. The three opposition parties all supported Bill C-232 and it was sent upstairs to the Senate for ratification where the Conservative members have kept the Bill from being debated for almost eight months.
Now that the Conservatives have an outright majority in the Senate, MP Yvon Godin from New Brunswick, the Ndp godfather of the bill, fears it's curtains for the Bill C-232.

"In a partisan manner, the Senate has decided to support the Prime Minister in a minority government and I think it's dangerous for democracy in our country." The NDP is campaigning for the abolition of the Senate, considering that it is not the role of the unelected Senate to cancel laws passed by elected MPs."

Perhaps Mr. Godin should take heed of Pierre Boivin, who admitted after he left as General Manger of the Canadiens, that bilingualism hurts quality.

"Pierre Boivin, the outgoing president of the Montreal Canadiens, has some advice for the federal New Democratic Party.

He didn't put it that way. But the NDP, which proposes to require that all judges of the Supreme Court of Canada be bilingual, should take note of something Boivin said in his interview with Dave Stubbs of The Gazette, published on Wednesday.

While English is the working language in the front offices and dressing rooms of the National Hockey League, the general manager and the coach of the Canadiens must be able to explain themselves to the team's fans in French as well.

This bilingualism requirement means the Canadiens "are severely competitively disadvantaged," Boivin said.

Another NHL team needing a new general manager can choose from "a pool of 90, (even if) not all are good or are available. We have a pool of three, four, five maybe? Sometimes none? It's the same thing with coaches."

In effect, this makes bilingualism not only a requirement for the job of general manager or coach of the Canadiens, but the most important one."  Read more in the Montreal Gazette

New sovereignist group off to inauspicious start

"Sovereigntist groups in Quebec have banded together to form a coalition that will permanently campaign for the province's independence.Close to 20 groups have united under the title "Cap sur l'independance," or "Heading for Independence," in order to help advance the cause of separatism." Link

The only problem is that at it the news conference announcing its founding, only 20 or so people showed up as well as only six reporters.
Hmmm..... not much of a start.

Further Reading:

French versus English - Volume 26

Montreal Police Harass Entire Black Community

Yesterday I discussed racial profiling as a preface to this story which will examine the Montreal Police force's all-out organized assault on the city's Black community.

Sadly, the Montreal police have undertaken a well-organized and sophisticated program of harassment or 'rousting', in an ill-conceived attempt of control and to reduce the perceived elevated crime rate that plagues the Black community.
The tactic of 'rousting' is not new, it has been in the police arsenal as long as there has been organized crime.
It is a method whereby the police keep street gangs and mobsters off-balance by subjecting them to an extreme form harassment, based on enforcing the most minor of offences in the most draconian fashion, with the goal of making the targets' life as miserable as possible.

An example of rousting is inspecting a mob-controlled business, over and over again, looking for code infractions that could shut the establishment down.
Rousting is stopping a known criminal in his car for the proverbial broken tail light, failing to signal or some other minor infraction and then subjecting him to a lengthy search.
Rousting is the act of ticketing a known target for such minor offences that includes jaywalking, loitering or playing dice in public. The stop is then justification for a body search and a chance to hold the suspect while a verification is made in relation to outstanding warrants.

In short, 'rousting' is any legal device that justifies police stopping targeted individuals or groups, where the goal is not to enforce the law, but rather to harass the target.

All this is done by police to impose authority and to make criminals fearful of conducting business in the open.
If you're wondering, it's all quite legal and yes, it is effective. As long as a criminal knows that they may be stopped and searched at any moment, they tend to leave contraband and weapons off their person. It definitely crimps their style and it also impresses upon targets that the streets belong to the police, not the criminals.

Fredy and Dany Villanueva flash "Bloods'" gang signs

One police officer told me that it is a favourite practice to humiliate gang leaders in front of girlfriends and underlings and sometimes even the target's mother. In a hierarchical group like a street gang, this humiliation by the police is particularly effective in undermining gang authority.

An episode of 'rousting' can explain the infamous confrontation between police and the Villanueva brothers, in 2008, when a routine stop led to Fredy's death.
The police, who knew Dany as a serious gang member, used the minor infraction of playing dice in public, to do a stop and search. The pretext of the minor infraction was used as a justification to search him for drugs, guns or other contraband.
It's likely that Dany became furious at being rousted once again, it certainly wasn't the first time he had been stopped and searched on a flimsy excuse. When he lost his temper and approached police aggressively, a not so simple intervention over a tiny dice game escalated to gunfire and death.

Most of us don't have an objection to police harassing known criminals in this manner. Criminals expect it and deal with it as an occupational hazard.
By the way, while police would never admit it, the death of Fredy Villanueva during a routine rousting has actually had a salutary effect on other criminals who take note that it's dangerous to confront the police. Better to submit.

Now what happens when rousting is applied, not to criminals, but a specific community, is a completely different story. Criminals expect to be rousted, not law-abiding citizens.
I can only imagine  my rage if a police officer stopped me for something stupid like crossing a street in the middle of the block and then proceeded to ticket and search me while running my name for outstanding warrants. If it happened on more than one occasion, I'd really be pissed.

Do I exaggerate?
Just last night, the local CBC television station ran a news story whereby it reported that Black people were ticketed for jaywalking after a benefit concert for a slain Black Montreal rapper.

And so ......plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Why the Montreal police have decided to apply rousting methods to the Black community has never been explained, because of course, the police deny doing it.
But evidence is piled high to the contrary. There's hardly a black youth that hasn't been stopped for no good reason, regardless whether he's a criminal or an honour student.  Read this and this.

From thieves to high school teachers, from drug dealers to university graduates, nobody in the Black community is immune to being stopped searched, ticketed and arrested for no other reason than they are Black.

So what is the effect? What would you imagine?
Do the police naively assume that the Black community will become more law-abiding?

Perhaps the criminal elements in the Black community will, but what about the majority of innocents who are taught from a tender age that being Black means being targeted by the forces of order.

It's hard to quantify, but there has to be a huge negative effect. You cannot treat a segment of society unfairly and ask them to become good citizens.
How many blacks have given up on the straight and narrow, because of this harassment, is not known.

I'd like to tell you about an episode of FRONTLINE that I watched on PBS, having nothing to do with Blacks or racial profiling, but very apropos.

KILL/CAPTURE  discussed the efficacy of targeted killings and 'night raids' in Afghanistan and whether the tactic contributed to the lessening of violence.

The part that interested me was the description of 'Night Raids" a tactic by the American army  meant  to capture Taliban members hiding out in villages.
The army swoops down by helicopter in the middle of the night and rousts the whole village. Everyone is woken up, driven out of their homes in their night clothes and then subjected to a detailed and humiliating search. Anybody remotely suspicious is bundled into the waiting helicopter to be flown to headquarters for an interrogation.

If it doesn't sound so bad to you, apply the scenario to your street or apartment building and imagine the police banging on your door and forcing you and your family out of your bed at gunpoint. The whole neighbourhood stands around the street in pyjamas with soldiers pointing guns, for an hour or two. Meanwhile the soldiers are going through your house, room by room, searching every nook and cranny for whatever. Hmmm....

Of course the vast majority of the villagers are innocents and are furious at the imposition and humiliation.
The elders complain to the Americans that the Taliban treats them better and with more respect.
Some villagers are actually driven to actually join the Taliban!

In trying to win the war for the hearts and minds of the people, can this strategy of rousting possibly work?

The producers of the show concluded that rousting has a negative effect on security. For every Taliban member that is caught using rousting, more join the enemy ranks because of it!

Watch a small part of the show examining these type of raids and the effect. If you haven't got the eleven minutes to devote to the video, start at the 6:00 mark to view the sad legacy of rousting.

                                 Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

I think there is a lesson  to be drawn, even if we in Montreal are not in Afghanistan.
Rousting is counter-productive.

It's time for the police to extend an olive branch to the Black and minority communities of Montreal. Another track must be found to attack crime, one that doesn't terrorize innocent citizens.

Will it happen?
Sadly, probably not.

Montreal Police Go Beyond Racial Profiling

Last week the Quebec Human Right Commission took the Montreal Police force to task for being guilty of racial profiling in relation to the treatment of Montreal's ethnics, especially the Black community. The report made 93 specific recommendations to eliminate the problem. Link 
While the story made the front page news, there were no surprises, the police themselves admit to the practice and every time the issue flares up, the higher echelons of the force, fob off the public with platitudes and promises to do better, followed by no remedial action whatsoever.

I've written about it before and caught some flak when I entitled my blog piece, Canada's Most Racist Police Force, which you can read to get a sense of how deep the problem is.
I take the Human Rights Commission report as a measure of vindication.

But there's a lot more than racial profiling going on in the Montreal Police and it's a problem that is much, much, more sinister than what is being reported.

For years, I enjoyed a close relationship with the highest members of the Montreal Police, including the chief and his assistant directors. I wasn't a cop but enjoyed the freedom to explore certain aspects of the department operations when I was asked to offer a consulting opinion on several logistical aspects of the way the force was run. I spoke freely, with captains and lieutenants, discussing their work and got to know many of them personally at golf tournaments or through the charity work that many senior members of the force engage in.
I generally like the men and women who serve and can say that they honestly do the best they can, subject to the constraints placed upon them by union demands and budgetary constraints.

But at all levels of the department, there's a sense of "Us versus them" and I'm not talking about criminals versus police. There is a persecution complex that is part of the department culture, a shared belief that the public, the press and the politicians are against them.

When senior management is called to task by outside forces, there is an automatic reaction that moves to deflect or neutralize the perceived attack. And so the report by the Human Rights Commission will likely be 'handled' with little serious effort applied to redress any problem.
It's the way of the police, in Montreal anyway.

The reason the Montreal police resist change is because they believe their methods work, which is why they are loathe to give up racial profiling.

Profiling versus Racial Profiling
First let's be clear about what legitimate and illegitimate profiling is.
We've all watched cop shows where the use of a 'Profiler,' is enlisted to help catch that ever elusive serial killer. This criminologist makes predictions as to who that killer may be based on scientific methods and experience. The profiler, might instruct the police that the murderer is likely to be a white male, between twenty and forty years old and someone who lives alone. We've all heard the pitch.
That is profiling, making assumptions in lieu of hard evidence.
 
When short of hard facts, we all engage in a sort of profiling, making assumptions about people based on our own experience and preconceptions.
We see a skateboarder in  punk dress rolling down the street and we comfortably assume his musical taste doesn't include Anne Murray. That's profiling.

Police rely on profiling of this type to apply the law every day.
A man going into a bank on a hot July afternoon, wearing a heavy overcoat immediately attracts the attention of a passing police officer.
A teenager of tender age, at the wheel of a $100,000 Mercedes, late at night, is stopped by police to verify if the youth is on a joy ride.
Even though police have no specific knowledge that any crime is in progress or is being contemplated, most of us would support an intervention based on this type of profiling.

But RACIAL PROFILING is a horse of a different colour. It makes assumptions based on race, not on the unfolding scenario.
A good example is that of a black man being pulled over because he is driving an expensive car. The police assume that there is a high probability that the man is carrying drugs or otherwise involved in crime, because experience has taught them that few black people other than criminals can afford to drive such a car.
The Montreal police freely admit to profiling based on race and justify their actions by claiming that it cuts down crime.
While that may be true, most of us don't accept racial profiling as a justifiable police method.
Obviously if police could do whatever they want, crime would go down.  If they didn't need judicial authority for a search warrant or a wiretap, or were allowed to stop, detain and search people at will, we might very likely have a lower crime rate, but at a cost to our liberty.
Reasonable people agree that reducing crime in this way is not worth giving up our personal freedom and expectation of privacy, so we put constraints on how and when the police may intervene. Racial profiling as a police tool, has long been consigned to the trash heap of history, at least officially.

While the Human Rights Commission complains about racial profiling, they touch on, but fail to address a more sinister problem in the Montreal Police department. The police have embarked on a dark campaign of intimidation and harassment of the entire Black community, based on the wrong-headed notion that by keeping the community on edge, off balance and in fear of the police, crime will somehow go down.

It is called 'ROUSTING," something that I learned about in my interaction with the force.

Rousting is a campaign of deliberate and highly directed intimidation and harassment, directed at known criminal elements. It goes way beyond racial profiling. It is legal and effective, but sometimes dangerous. When wrongly applied to a community as a whole, it can have devastating consequences.

Tomorrows post will detail how the Montreal Police have engaged in this organized and egregious attack on the Black community and we'll draw a lesson about the effects of such a policy in the unlikeliest of places- Afghanistan!

Hugo Shebbeare is Vindicated!

Regular readers of this blog will instantly recognize the name of Hugo Shebbeare, a regular and passionate contributor who doesn't leave his tongue in his pocket when it comes to Anglo rights and his personal enmity towards the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, where he passionately argued on these pages that he was wronged.

Mr. Shebbeare generates a lot of controversy, as many on the other side believe him to be hyperbolic and sensationalist.
When he claimed to be threatened for his views, some were dubious, believing him to be a tad paranoid.

But lo and behold Hugo Shebbeare is vindicated.  Hooray!

Mr.Shebearre may not know it, but I attended the anti-Bill 101 rally incognito, and while I wanted to make my identity known, I chickened out in an effort to save myself the aggravation that he and his close ones have been subjected to.
Mr.Shebearre is a tireless fighter for minority rights and I am not embarrassed to call him a hero.

The next time I'm asked why I keep my identity to myself, I will always refer to the case of one Hugo Shebbeare !
Note to Hugo: Sorry you have to bear this burden!

'Major' Serge Provost

On April 18th, Serge Provost of the la Milice Patriotique Québécoise, was charged by police for a threat that he sent to Shebbeare.
Claiming that Mr. Shebbeare's postion was highly offensive, Mr. Prevost stated that he felt that he had to put him in his place and sent this message;

"I strongly advise you to tell your daughter that you love her and that you are doing this on her behalf, because you may not make it home on April 17th" (the day of the protest)

Serge Provost was arrested and pleaded "Not Guilty" of uttering a death threat. He claimed that he was just informing Mr. Shebbeare what might happen ....Sure......

Here's a video of the news  report;

Readers, how about some messages of support on the comments page?

Honeymoon Soon Over For Jack Layton and Ndp in Quebec

For almost two decades the province of Quebec has been sending Bloc Quebecois members to Ottawa by virtue of a protest vote that grew from the perceived back-stabbing of René-Lévesque by the other Premiers that allowed a new Constitution to be created without the province's consent. The story of that so-called 'betrayal,' known as "The Night of the Long Knives" was burned into the collective memories of Quebeckers and remained the primary motivation for soft nationalists to vote for the Bloc, alongside the more militant, sovereignist element of Quebec society.

Ostensibly, the Bloc was created to protect Quebec's interests in Ottawa, but should that have been the case, they'd have been tossed out years ago for non-performance. After almost two decades in Parliament, the Bloc would be hard pressed to describe one single notable achievement. The fact that the Bloc was largely snubbed and ignored by the ruling government of the day, even in times of a minority government, remains an open secret, one which was largely ignored in Quebec.

In truth, the Bloc's ineffectiveness didn't really matter, it's real function was to remain a thorn in the side of Canadian federalism, a symbol that Quebec aspirations remained unrealized. In that respect nobody can deny that the party fulfilled its function rather well, annoying the heck out of the ROC and causing paralysis in Parliament.

And so the Quebec public and more importantly the French press, filled with zero expectations, have given Gilles Duceppe and his party, a twenty year free ride.

This last election signalled that the mood of the province had shifted rather suddenly and dramatically. The Francophone electorate, for whatever reason, decided to seek a new path.
Perhaps voters tired of the separatist debate or perhaps they believed that tangible results were more important than remaining the pouting child of the Canadian federation. At any rate, voters went for a change and that change was the NDP and the pie-in-the-sky promises of Jack Layton and his political henchman, Thomas Mulcair.

But the mandate to represent Quebec's interests in Ottawa and the challenge to keep the electorate satisfied, will be a task much more difficult for Mr. Layton than it was for Gilles Duceppe, as the extended free pass afforded to the Bloc, will not be offered to the Ndp.

Unlike the Bloc who were expected to produce nothing, expectations are running high for the Ndp, who themselves built up hopes by making a multitude of unrealizable promises.

Perhaps wiser than Mr. Layton, Mr. Duceppe never made any such promises at all, other than to offer the old chestnut, of "Protecting Quebec interests'

Mr Layton, as per his usual election style, made these promises, secure in the knowledge that he'd never have to deliver. Now as opposition leader he is faced with the impossible task of making good on his undertakings.
The three major planks that he offered Quebec, application of Bill 101 to presently-exempt federally chartered institutions in Quebec, mandatory bilingualism for Supreme Court judges and the re-opening of the constitutional debate, have as much chance of flying as pigs do.

Mr. Layton has written political cheques to Quebec that are going to bounce.
When it happens, it won't be pretty.

While the Ndp is enjoying a honeymoon with Quebeckers, it is likely to be short-lived. In fact, it may already be unravelling.
The Press has already crucified the absentee, inexperienced, non-French-speaking element of the Ndp Quebec caucus. Ruth Ellen Brouseau, the poster-girl for these unlikely members has already achieved more negative publicity than an opposition back-bencher can expect in an entire Parliamentary session.

In fact, the Bloc-voting, sovereignist-dominated Press is so enraged by the Ndp success at the polls, they have openly mocked the choice that electors made and have gone so far as to characterize the many Quebeckers who voted for the Ndp as naive and stupid.
And so, perceived by the 'intelligentsia' as illegitimate carpetbaggers, the Ndp is in for a very rough ride.
If you think that the Quebec Press has a hate-on for Harper, watch what is going to happen to Layton when he fails to deliver on his promises.

Hoping for failure, the Press waits impatiently to pounce. Gleefully sharpening their knives, their mouths are salivating with cruel anticipation at the fine meal the 'Dippers' will make once the inevitable futility and impotence of opposition is realized.

When the ultimate comedown happens, it will brutal.
Twelve to eighteen months-tops....