'Smilin' Jack'-A well-deserved nickname of affection
I wasn't one of those who voted for Jack Layton and I certainly didn't share his ideals and policies.
But many, many Canadians did.
The success of the Ndp in the last federal election can be squarely attributed to his tremendous popularity and personal charisma, especially in Quebec, where almost everyone voting for the Ndp, voted for Jack and not the local candidate or even the party platform.
Not since Pierre Elliott Trudeau did a Canadian politician capture the hearts and minds of so many Canadians, transcending politics and party affiliation.
It's somewhat two-faced to praise someone in death who you didn't like or support in real life, but I can say with honesty that I felt remorse at the passing of someone who meant so much to so many people.
If Moammar Khadafy or Bashar al-Assad dropped dead tomorrow of a heart attack I would probably raise a glass in celebration.
But even though I disliked Jack's politics and that of the Ndp, I cannot help but feeling badly for his family and for the loss that so many Canadians feel.
The Ndp has been blessed with worthy and principled leaders, more than any other federal party. Although in my estimation Jack Layton doesn't hold a candle to Tommy Douglas, Ed Broadbent, or David Lewis, he did deliver what all of them could not -opposition status.
That was no mean feat, attributed to one thing and one thing alone- the popularity and the connection that Jack made with so many Canadians.
For that, Jack should go down in history as one of the most beloved politicians in Canadian history, much as it pains me to say so.
He was a card, a bullshitter, a button pusher, a politician extraordinaire, but he inspired people to believe in something better.
How many Canadian politicians can say the same?
Our Parliamentary democracy functions best when there is a strong, vibrant opposition, one that presents an alternate view of the universe and attacks the government over base principles.
In it's brief tenure in the last Parliament, the Ndp put up a feisty defence of the Post Office back-to-work legislation, that set a tone for what was to come over the next years of a majority government.
I was truly looking forward to years of strident and effective opposition. Without Jack, the Ndp is diminished and so too, effective opposition.
His loss will be felt by all of us who support democracy.
Heaven help us if Thomas Mulcair wrests the laurel of power from the Ndp.
He is everything that Jack was not- cynical, cruel, phony and a shameless self-promoter.
You don't have to be a supporter to acknowledge the contribution that Jack made to the Canadian political scene.
His tragic passing, in the prime of his political life is cruelly unfair on a personal level and reminds us all to live in the moment.
Jack Layton - July 18, 1950 - August 22, 2011, RIP
Will Premier Charest call an early election or will he ride out his mandate for another two and a half years?
In the dog days of summer, when political stories are in short supply and journalists have an obligation to fill columns, it's time to engage in fanciful speculation.
The sudden collapse in support of the Parti Quebecois and the small uptick in Liberal Party support, coupled with the fact that Francois Legault's new party is not up to speed, might indicate that it's a good a time for Premier Charest to take the plunge and call a snap election.
But it isn't going to happen.
If anything the May 2, federal election showed us is that it doesn't take much organization to win an election, especially when the voters are out for a change.
Like the NDP, Francois Legault could field a group of shnooks and still probably wipe the floor with the hapless Liberals and Peekists. There are a good number of sitting members (from all parties) of the National Assembly who are ready to jump ship to his new party and should he combine forces with the AQD, it would likely be a majority government.
Given the odds of defeat, Premier Charest will wait it out.
Not to say things will be better in two years, but why accept a sure defeat now?
Even if a miracle of miracles happens, the Liberals could hold on to power as a minority government, it still doesn't help Mr. Charest who is sure to go down to personal defeat in Sherbrooke.
The Premier has held his seat by less than a 10% margin in each of the two last elections and not even he can believe, given his collapse in personal popularity, that he will be re-elected.
The only possibility that I can think of is for Mr. Charest to run in Westmount, an Anglo riding where he would win handily. Mr. Charest has lived in the wealthy Montreal enclave for a decade and has virtually no ties left to the Sherbrooke riding that he represents. There has been a stink in the Press lately about members of the National Assembly not living in the ridings that they represent and so he could make the case quite successfully that it's appropriate to run in Westmount.
If the polling numbers remain decent and the PQ. continues into its descent into oblivion, there is a chance things can work out for the Liberals, perhaps as a coalition government with the new Force Quebec.
But there's another issue mitigating in favour of Mr. Charest running out his mandate.
His pension.
In June 2013, Jean Charest turns 55 years old and becomes eligible for his federal government pension. It makes sense for him, on a personal level, to wait it out until then so that in the event of an election defeat, he isn't left scrambling to find an income.
Having served almost 14 years in Ottawa, Charest is entitled to about 70% of the average of his best six years in Parliament and having been a cabinet minister, that works out to about 100 grand a year.
But wait!
Mr. Charest is also eligible for his Quebec Parliamentary pension and at age sixty he'll collect another 100k (on top of his federal pension) for life, courtesy of Quebec taxpayers.
As I was studying eligibility requirement and benefits related to the Quebec pension plan for politicians, I came across a detail that bowled me over for its generosity. Early retirement.
The Quebec parliamentary pension starts paying at age sixty (federal at 55,) but it seems by taking a reduced payout, Mr Charest can start his pension early, at the exact same time as his federal pension kicks in. Now for readers to understand how attractive this offer is, let me explain how it works when ordinary Canadians take their Canada Pension early, at sixty instead of sixty-five. That pension is reduced by ½ of one percent for each month that we retire early before reaching sixty-five years old. That means that if you retire at age sixty instead of sixty-five, (60 months early) your pension will be reduced by a whopping 30% (60 x .05%) And so, if you are eligible for a $600 dollar a month pension at sixty-five, you can retire early at age sixty and immediately receive a pension of $420 a month. Read a full explanation
When a Quebec politician retires early, the penalty is nowhere near as harsh, in fact, it is so laughably small that any politician who is no longer serving would be a fool not to exercise the option. While we ordinary plebeians take a penalty of 30% to retire at age sixty instead of sixty-five, a Quebec politician who takes an early pension at fifty-five instead of sixty is slapped with a crushing penalty of just 5%! Yes, that is not a typo! That is six times more generous than what is provided to ordinary Canadians.
In fact under the rules of the plan, a Quebec politician can take a pension at forty-five years old and take just a 25% penalty. Incredible! All this is explained in a document which you can download (French only) entitled; Le Régime de retraite des membres de l’Assemblée nationale
In the case of the Premier, early retirement would mean his $100,000 pension would be reduced by a measly $5,000 to $95,000. If he started to collect at age 55 instead of sixty years old, over that five year period he would collect and extra $475,000. If he collects his reduced pension for thirty years, let's say to 85 years, he would have been penalized just $125,000 for taking an early pension, a net gain of $350,000. How do you say no-brainer in French?
Each year that Mr. Charest hangs on, adds $7,500 to his annul pension. If he holds out until the end of his mandate it will mean an additional $18,000 a year added to his pension. FOR LIFE+ INDEXED! At a certain point one has to believe that the pension considerations will affect his decision to call an election.
At any rate, if he stays until the end of 2013, he will be entitled to a combined federal/provincial pension of about $200K.
Yes, $200,000 a year.
When Charest hits sixty years old, the pension will become indexed. In other words, it will rise automatically with inflation each year, not too shabby a deal!
And so Mr. Charest will be free to pursue other interests at fifty-five years old, financially secure.
All this being said, I can assure readers that given the circumstances, Charest would forgo his pension to remain Premier. He adores the job. He loves the trappings of power, the political rumbles in Parliament, the foreign travel, rubbing shoulders with the glitterati, the intrigues and the political gamesmanship of the National Assembly. All of it! In this respect Mr. Charest is unique. How many Canadians Premiers resign or cut short their career at the summit of power, worn down by the daily grind in a pressure-cooker job? Quite a few, including Gordon Campbell, Danny Williams, Ed Stelmach and Gary Doer and that's just recently.
But Mr. Charest soldiers on, more at home and comfortable with the job of Premier today, as ever before. At any rate, should Mr. Charest be shown the door, he's too young at 53 not to work.
But outside of politics, there aren't a lot of opportunities for Mr. Charest. I know he abhors the diplomatic corps, where he'd have to take orders from political superiors and having burned his bridges with Prime Minister Harper, there will be no opportunities for a juicy federal appointment. As for joining a law firm, Mr. Charest has little experience, having never really practised law. Being a Wal-Mart greeter at a law firm, taking rich clients to lunch, isn't really his speed and teaching at a university is much too boring. Perhaps his good friend Mr. Sarkozy can hook him up to some sort of an international type of position, but who knows.
No, Jean Charest prefers to do what he does best and what he loves- being Premier and he will have to be dragged away from his job, kicking and screaming.
Putting his Premiership up for grabs prematurely is not his style, not without some pretty good prospects for success and Mr. Charest has always been expert at judging odds.
Most Montrealers are familiar with the horrific hit and run incident that cost the life of a Laval teenager last September. 15-year-old Rona
Mansourian was killed when an unlicensed scofflaw ran a red light while speeding, passed three cars, struck the girl and fled the scene. The teen was thrown into the path of a bus and died of internal injuries in hospital. Link
The 23 year old driver was a serial offender, driving without a valid license while awaiting trial on a fraud charge.
According to the placard held by a protester in the picture on the right, the driver, Robert Bélanger, just 23, has already had quite a few problems with the law.
You can imagine the surprise and fury of the family when the prosecutors recommended a five-year sentence (free in 1½ years?) Even the judge commented that it wasn't harsh enough..... Link
Robert Bélanger, will be sentenced on SEPTEMBER 2.
Now lets compare this sad story to that of a Floridian (with no prior criminal record at all) who killed three Montrealers while driving drunk. Kenneth Jenkins, 28, drove the wrong way up highway I-95 in Florida and collided with a car full of vacationers.
At the trial, the judge was not amused and handed down a real sentence.
Guess how many years he got? 9 years, 18 years, 24 years or 33 years?
Read the story, it's interesting. LINK
Distracted bus driver "no big deal" according to union.
Ah, those cell-phone cameras, they'll do it to you every time. As you can see in this video, a Gatineau bus driver was caught in 'flagrant delit' filling out paperwork while driving.
Now these type of incidents are certainly not isolated to Quebec. You can go on YouTube and find many idiot bus drivers driving while texting, talking on phones or what not.
What is interesting in this story is the reaction of the bus driver's union who took an unconventional avenue of defence.
Now all unions defend their members, it's to be expected. In this case I'd imagine the union would claim that the driver was just having a bad day and made a mistake for which he shouldn't be crucified. If the driver had a good record it would be trotted out as an excuse for leniency.
But that's not the position the union took and that is what makes the story stand out.
A spokesman for the union claimed that the driving filling out paperwork isn't that big a deal, "After all, women drive while putting on makeup and teens send text messages while driving all the time.."
The union rep went on to say that the real culprit in all this was not the driver, but rather the passenger that filmed the incident. Claiming that the driver's privacy rights were violated, he went on to demand that the transport company ban anyone from filming on a bus.LINK{Fr}LINK
Hapless mayor reassures Montreal over falling concrete. How jittery are Montrealers over falling bridges and raining concrete? Very.... When a piece of concrete hit a car passing under a viaduct in northern Montreal, the mayor rushed to the scene to calm fears.
After a quick inspection engineers discovered that the grapefruit size piece of concrete didn't fall off the bridge. LINK A beaming mayor assured cameras that citizens should feel safe that the bridges were intact. What he failed to warn citizens was what the police told him, that it was probably some nutbar who threw the concrete at the car driving below.
That's right! Nothing to worry about!
At any rate the mayor needn't have rushed to the scene, it was very unlikely that the bridge was falling apart. You see the viaduct was built by Canadian Pacific, not the province or the city and as such is probably one of the safest bridges in the city......
Quebec Communist movement losing steam ?
For the past couple of years, The Quebec Communist Party (Yes it still exists) has been holding a summer 'training' session at the chalet of the Khadir family in the Eastern Townships. Once again, Amir's wealthy capitalist father, (a bit of a contradiction for a communist) opened his home this last weekend to a celebration of Communist and socialist values, with the traditional slagging of Canada, the United States and you know which other country.
According to the pictures posted on this year's affair it was a modest attendance falling off dramatically from last year. In fact you can count the amount of participants using nothing but your ten fingers. Last year's event would have required toes as well.
Check out the story and picture gallery! HERE
Funny Quebec accent leads to vicious assault.
Quebeckers visiting France have long had the locals sneer and mock their Quebecois accent, but this is the first I ever heard of things turning violent.
A report from Dublin tells the sad story of a young French doctor on loan to a local hospital asking two Quebeckers for a cigarette in a local bar. An ensuing argument over the Quebecois' accent led to an altercation that sent the doctor to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. LINK
Minister not amused by mystery shoppers.
Minister lectures language commissioner
"Heritage Minister James Moore doesn't agree with the federal language watchdog's decision to spy on Ottawa businesses.
Moore, who oversees official languages, said his government believes
it's important to protect and promote both English and French in Canada,
but in this case, Official Languages commissioner Graham Fraser has
overstepped his mandate.
“It is not the federal government's business to police the language
in which private businesses communicate with their customers,” Read the story
Gilles Duceppe gets job with CBC, then gets fired
"With his party’s stunning defeat in the last federal election, which
included losing his own seat, behind him, former Bloc Québécois leader
Gilles Duceppe is poised to become a weekly commentator on Radio-Canada,
the CBC’s French-language division."Link
"You are getting sleepy. You will hire me. You will give me money."
It seemed that Gilles Duceppe endless pursuit of the federal gravy train had struck paydirt as it was announced that he secured an on-air job at the CBC French division. This coupled with a $140K Parliamentary pension (indexed) for life would assure that Canadians across the country would continue to fund the propagation of separatist ideology over the public airways.
Radio-Canada's mandate has always been to foster Canadian unity by providing an Canadian optic on the news and entertainment. But for the last forty years, the public broadcaster has been a hotbed of separatist sentiment and while Canadians in the ROC shook their heads in disbelief at the announcement of the Duceppe job at Radio-Canada, here in Quebec it made perfect sense.
Then on Thursday, the shit must have hit the fan in the Ivory Tower of Radio-Canada offices in east-end Montreal with senior management reconsidering the decision. Duceppe was unceremoniously dumped citing blah, blah, blah, reasons. Perhaps mindful of the Conservative governments latest blast at the English CBC, when Minister Vic Toews publicly rebuked the public broadcaster for refusing to air a most-wanted terrorist list, with the un-stated threat that there would be funding consequences, the CBC also reconsidered that decision. Perhaps the CBC and Radio-Canada's journalistic independence is not as strong as we are led to believe, as they remain mindful of the old dictum, that it's unwise to bite the hand that feeds you. Read a rant in the National Post
Minister backs down over Arab immigration
Quebec Immigration minister, Kathleen Weil, did an about face and has announced that the government has abandoned the idea of restricting immigration from North Africa (a euphamism for Arab Muslims)
In April, during a presentation on the orientations of Quebec
in immigration for period 2012-2015, Mrs Weil had said that she favoured more diversity as to the provenance of the immigrants.
This is in reaction to reports that Arab immigration to Quebec from North Africa had reached 37% of the total.
Mrs Weil noted on Wednesday that the plan to place limits based on 'geography' lacked "social
acceptability" and public support for the plan was just not there. LINK{Fr}
Vermont town proposes to accomodate Quebec tourists
The town of Burlington, Vermont announced a proposal in city council to encourage local business' to encourage Quebec tourists by offering some services in French.
The proposal is not binding, but asks everyone to try just a little bit to make the town a tourist destination for unilingual Quebeckers.
As you might guess, the francophone press in Quebec greeted the news with enthusiasm and likely approved of this 'reasonable accommodation." LINK{FR}
By the way, does anybody see the irony in this story?
The Quebec francophone press gushing over a language accommodation wherein they applaud the concept of merchants attempting to serve customers in the clients own language?
To most pundits and casual observers as well, the May 2,
federal election and the resulting collapse of the Bloc Quebecois,
signalled that Quebec voters were tired of being represented by
unproductive separatists in Ottawa or were exasperated with the constant
political obsession with a referendum and a sovereignty project that is
clearly unrealizable, a perceived waste of effort and political
capital (in the voter's mind.)
This second conclusion
may be the most dangerous development for separatist hard-liners.
Many of those who would vote 'YES' in a referendum signalled that
they have reached the pragmatic conclusion that given no
chance of winning, they'd rather forgo the humiliation of another
painful defeat.
Have these 'soft' separatists given up altogether or have they decided to forgo sovereignty for now and perhaps revisit the option at a later date?
Separatist
militants are desperately hoping for the latter, because accepting that
Quebeckers have given up on sovereignty is absolutely unthinkable.
It's taken the hardliners about three months to get over the initial shock of the election debacle and the resulting trauma, a period in wherein hardliners vented their anger rather nastily, describing those Quebec voters who opted for the Ndp as lazy, ignorant and politically naive betrayers.
The anger-filled columns in vigile.net and on other separatist websites all shared a common theme.
Rage, scorn and disbelief, remindful of the emotions that one can expect when dumped rather brutally and unexpectedly, by a longtime partner.
These hate-filled missives of the frustrated separatist been-done-wrongs, were actually fun reads. The acerbic prose dripping with angst, paints a vivid picture not of the subjects, but rather writers. Here's a good example{Fr}.
Judging by what's being published now, it appears that most of these separatist have gotten over the initial shock and disbelief. They've moved on from the first initial stages of grief, Denial and Anger (according to the Kubler-Ross description of the 5 stages of grief,) and now firmly reside in the third stage, Bargaining.
If only we do this........things will change. Yup, bargaining.
Trying desperately to come up with a solution to revive a sovereignty project on life-support, militants have descended into unreality, lurching from
one desperate solution to another, turning on each other in the process.
To a
federalist like myself, watching the movement fracture, with militants
ripping and tearing at each other's throats, is the very definition of schadenfreude.
Pauline Marois. Haughtiness or preparing for the guillotine?
For
the Parti Quebecois, times are decidedly tough, with desertions by
hardliners all the more painful as those who leave embark on a scorched earth campaign towards the party.
This coupled with the fiercest of
attacks by party militants, who believe that the party has lost its
relevancy and that the leader, Pauline Marois, has betrayed
them, is placing the party at risk, firmly betwixt a rock and a hard place.
But what's a girl to do?
If
Pauline embarks on the suicidal hardline path that militants demand,
the party will, come next election, in all likelihood, suffer the same
fate that its federal counterpart suffered.
That possibility is very real, as even hard line journalist Josee Legault admits. Link{Fr}Alternate link{Fr}
If the PQ maintains
its current course, waiting for those mythical 'winning conditions' it
risks losing more and more of it's radical wing.
The party is already bleeding members, hardliners who believe that if you're going to lose, you may as well stand on your principles. Hard to argue with that, I suppose.
For the Parti Quebecois, the choice it faces in determining it's future course (militancy versus pragmatism) is decidedly a lose/lose situation, maddeningly
reminiscent of Sophie's Choice
And so a new debate (Bargaining) is taking place among Quebec sovereigntists, one that has come to the rather startling consensus that the independence movement has failed because it is not radical enough!
I'm not kidding or making it up!
Jean-Martin Aussant, leading the charge!
Yup, these sovereigntists have concluded that they need to be more militant in order to succeed!
In other words, if nobody wants to buy your apples, you've got to raise the price to be successful!
Jean-Martin Aussant, one those deserter MPs from the Parti Quebecois is in the process of creating a new independence party- OPTION QUEBEC, which can best be described as the PQ on steroids.
New Movement + new flag = same old story.
Yesterday, Seventy-seven sovereigntist militants, signed a manifesto which was published online, entitled "Breaking the Impasse," another long-winded denunciation of the Parti Quebecois, Canada and federalism. Ho-Hum, not a particularly big deal.
Nowhere in the document does it propose how a new party will be successful pedalling what has been so forcefully rejected by the public already.
It's like adding more curry to a dish and returning it to a customer who previously sent it back to the kitchen because it was too spicy.
There is only one word to describe this new separatist initiative- FANTASY.
Me, I'm okay with all this.
Another separatist party will split the sovereignist vote into three instead of two and if they are hell-bent to embark on another self-destructive journey of discovery, far be it for me to complain.
All this won't save Jean Charest or the Liberal party, but it will insure a majority government for Francois Legault and his centrist party which has proposed to ignore the separatist question.
All in all, that's about the best we Anglos can hope for...
A couple of months ago, I was watching the local news and caught a story concerning a certain criminal trial. (For obvious reasons I won't mention which) A young lawyer (someone I know) was escorting his client out of the criminal court and as they made their way down the hall, they were pursued by reporters, asking for an on-air statement or interview. The lawyer waved them off and ushered his client into the safety of the elevator as quickly as he could. When I met him next, I asked him why he was so camera shy, after all, as a young lawyer embarking on a career, some face time on television would certainly have a salutary effect on his career.
"What about the client?" he replied. "Was it in the client's best interest? It's the policy of our law firm not to comment on the proceedings while the trial is unfolding, or in the sentencing phase."
Good answer.
I never thought of it that way and it's good to see that integrity still exists, especially among criminal lawyers who we generally hold in disdain.
With this in mind, watching Maitre Stephane Handfield use the press to attack the Immigration and Refugee Board over language issues, got me wondering whether Mr. Handfield is doing his client justice or is he just promoting himself and his language agenda on the back of someone trying desperately to land a spot in Canada.
Mr. Handfield is a lawyer who has been vociferous in his denunciation of the IRBC over the perceived language discrimination that he believes exists in the Montreal office. He is also a bit of a showboater, a lawyer who likes to argue his cases before the media. That being said, notwithstanding his efforts before the camera, his latest client Dany Villanueva lost the latest round in his deportation hearing.
Not to worry, Mr. Handfield has promised a final appeal, thus insuring his miscreant client many more moons in Canada and for Maitre Handfield, many more television interviews.
Mr. Handfield is also an avowed French language militant. In an opinion piece that he penned in La Presse last November, he made a litany of accusations against the board;
"...In
recent years, it becomes increasingly difficult to obtain services in
French before the IRB. Examples include: refusal to get a hearing in
French, refusal to forward documentation in French, Commissioners
(makers) unilingually English, communications in English, the inability to
obtain interpreter services in French...
....Moreover, how
can we explain that a person who arrives at the Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau
airport, who speaks neither French nor English and who is processed by a
French-speaking immigration agent, has his immigration file
completed in English! In these circumstances, it is not surprising that
50% of the decisions made by the IRB in Montréal in 2009 were in
English." LINK{Fr}
Some of his complaints may be valid and worth investigating, but it is his math that has me questioning his integrity (among other things.)
Mr Handfield claims that 50% of the decisions in Montreal are handled in English, as a result of those speaking no English or French, having half their case treated in English, representing prime face evidence that French is not being respected.
But perhaps the 50% figure is attributed to the fact that of those who do speak English or French, the vast majority speak English as opposed to French and as such it is normal that more cases are heard in English.
Perhaps the number of immigrants seeking status (who don't speak English or French) is very low and statistically less important, I don't know. Neither does he. He offers us no real insight other than faulty conclusions based on selective data and coloured opinions.
It's like doing a survey in the Fairview Shopping Mall in the west island of Montreal (in the decidedly English suburb of Pointe-Claire) to gauge what percentage of clerks serve customers in English or French and then concluding that French is not being respected because over fifty percent of the conversations are in English. Anybody see the problem?
As a language militant, Mr. Handfield is prone to suffer from the same statistical disease that Pierre Curzi and other French militants employ to falsely sell the idea that the sky is falling on the French language.
And so Mr. Handfield, with his newly-minted statistics, leaps to a self-serving conclusion, with the honesty and panache of a Three Card Monte card shark.
"No wonder several newcomers prefer sticking to Anglo-Saxon culture
rather than to a French-speaking culture. They note from their arrival
that it is in English that everything takes place in Quebec."
All this serves to underline Mr. Handfield's politics, an opinion which he has every right to militate for.
But is Maitre Handfield promoting his personal language agenda at the expense of a client?
Here's that story.
Mr. Handfield, not one to ever shy away from a camera, has been complaining that French rights are being denied to him and his client, a Cuban businessman seeking to remain in Canada, in a case before that very same Immigration and Refugee Board.
The Cuban businessman arrived in Canada and proceeded to ask for landed status. Speaking much more English than French, the case proceeded in English. For whatever reason, the claimant then changed lawyers midstream and hired Mr. Handfield, who demanded that the whole process be changed to French and that all the previous documents related to the trial also be translated.
In an article in La Presse a reporter Vincent Larouche, erroneously reports that when Mr. Hanfield took over the case, his request to have the hearing changed to French was refused.
"...But soon enough he (the client) changed lawyers to Maitre Stéphane Handfield, a
specialist in immigration law who requested that the process be changed to
French, which he was denied.Link{FR}
I don't know if the reporter failed to do his homework or tried to alter the facts to suit his slant on the story, but that is just not true. This false version is circulating in the French media, even in the main stream.
Mr. Handfield readily admits that he was allowed to proceed in French, but the Commission balked at translating what documents had already been accumulated in English, reasoning that it would delay the affair unreasonably.
That's the whole big deal. According to Mr. Handfield;
"We managed to get the hearings to take place in French, but we were denied our request that the 57-page document be translated into French"LINK{FR}
And so enter the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste and chief blowhard Mario Beaulieu who helped turn a translation issue into a federal case.
Maitre Handfield took part in a demonstration, organized by the SSJB, which protested the 'lamentable' and 'unacceptable' burden put upon Mr. Handfield and his client, all because the document wasn't translated.
Listening to Mario Beaulieu it was the injustice of the century!
And so Mr. Handfield and Mario Beaulieu landed a great language victory!
But was it a big win for the client?
Immigration hearings are highly subjective.
A good story presented by a sympathetic appellant is much more likely to succeed, given the wide latitude that adjudicators wield.
Let's hope that those ruling on the case are more generous than you or I, otherwise the client will be on the next flight to Cuba. After all, can any good come from attacking those who hold your client's future in their hands?
It's like insulting the bouncer at the door of a night club you're trying to get in.....not the best plan!
Using a client for one's own purpose is reprehensible, lawyers are sworn to put client's interests above all else, except the law.
The question remains. Was the client's best interest served by escalating the case from a simple immigration affair into a language confrontation?
Does the SSJB and Maitre Stephane Handfield really care about the client or are they promoting their own selfish agenda on his back?
By the way, the client's name is Leonardo Javier Bolanos Blanco, if anybody really cares.
