Separatists Destroy Sovereignty Movement

A depressing time for militant sovereigntists...

It's natural after an electoral massacre that the defeated party take the time necessary to take stock of the loss, reassess its position and fashion a new long-term plan to get back into the electorate's favour.

We're seeing this with the federal Liberal Party and while we cannot estimate the success of this long-term endeavour, it is the only course of action open to them, short of disbanding or merging with the Ndp.

It was to be expected that the same would occur on a broader basis within the sovereignty movement, after the crushing defeat of the Bloc Quebecois in the last federal election.

The rather blunt and brutal rejection of the Bloc was a shock to the separatist system and after a short period of aimlessness and rage, one would expect the separatists to embark on the same course of action as the federal Liberals.

But it hasn't happened.

In trying to make sense of the absolute chaos in the sovereigntist movement that we see today, we should understand that the election loss was as traumatic to hard-core separatists as either of the referendum losses, probably worse.
Militants came out of each referendum defeated but uncowed, secure and confident that they could do better next time. In other words, the referendum defeats could be viewed as a stepping stone towards future success.

But there's no way for separatists to put a positive spin on last May's debacle, it represents an enormous  step backward at the least and a fatal setback at the worst.

Instead of sucking it up, as the Liberal party is doing, the separatist movement has imploded, with factions spinning off in all directions in a monumentally stupid spiral of self-destruction. It reminds me of the Challenger space shuttle disaster where before our eyes, the aircraft blew up with parts blasted in all directions, the loosened rockets engines continuing to fire at full throttle, racing towards an ignominious end.

The separatist movement has embarked in an auto-destructive and out of control blame-a-thon and like a wild cafeteria food fight in high school, once started, there's no stopping it.

Militants, unwilling to accept the reality that the referendum option was rejected by its hitherto solid base, EVEN avowed separatists, created an alternate reality, one where the election loss could be blamed on the Parti Quebecois for not pushing the sovereignty and referendum option hard enough, instead of facing the truth, that the separatist option had lost favour.

Hmm...
Like an alcoholic who believes that his salvation lies in drinking more booze, militant sovereigntists pushing the fantasy that Quebecers need to discuss sovereignty more, are to be pitied rather than mocked.

With the Bloc decimated and its leader leader Gilles Duceppe withdrawing from the political scene, it fell to Pauline Marois to become the political fall-gal and so she and her party, were left holding the bag for the electoral debacle.  
Like a boss blaming the sales and marketing team because people are no longer interested in an outdated product, separatists concocted the idea that by blaming Pauline and the PQ, they could avoid facing the truth, preferring to believe the fantasy that with a couple of tweaks and adjustments, sovereignty can be revived.

And so the sovereignists have come to the unlikely conclusion that the PQ has to go.

As a federalist, I can only rub my hands in glee at the monumental stupidity and encourage them good luck in their endeavors.
Could you imagine the long-suffering Toronto Maple Leaf fans, after years of frustration, firing all the players and then bringing up the entire Marlies (minor league affiliate) roster to replace them, hoping they'll do better?

Ironically, those now destroying the sovereignist movement are its most ardent supporters. The cast of hardliners wreaking wanton destruction on the movement reads like a who's who.

Here's a brief rundown of the cast of Benedict Arnolds and their contribution the demise of the sovereignty movement.

The Three Rats

Beaudoin, Curzi and Lapointe. An undertone of nastiness

The  first to abandon ship were the trio of disloyal Parti Quebecois rats, each with a particular and personal reason to destroy Pauline Marois.
The first of these three is the frustrated wife of Jacques Parizeau, Lisette Lapointe, a nasty sort who remained a miserable pain in the side of Pauline from the beginning. Representing the Parizeau faction of the party, she worked tirelessly to undermine the leader.
For Louise Beadoin, the bane of Anglophones for over thirty years, the party had grown too 'authoritarian'. This from the most authoritarian hardliner Anglos have ever suffered under.
And then there is Pierre Curzi, the lowest of the low, who made no bones about his motives. He wasn't even shy to admit that he was leaving the party in order to destroy Marois so he could return later as leader.... the ultimate definition of a rat!

The Dreamer

Next to leave the PQ was MNA Jean-Martin Aussant,  a hardline sovereigntist who said he was disappointed with the decision to downplay sovereignty in hopes of winning electoral support.

"In my opinion there is no bad timing to talk about sovereignty, there are only bad messengers,"

Mr. Aussant later announced that he'd be starting up a new separatist party, one that would put a bigger emphasis on sovereignty (and split the vote.)
Again, good luck with that.....

The Mouvement Nouveau Québec
Frustrated hardliners decided to launch an alternate 'rainbow' coalition of separatists, one which would regroup all those who ardently believed in an independent Quebec and who pledged to work harder to convince Quebecers to support the Independence project.
The only problem is that they offered nothing in terms of policy to further that aim. In fact the only solution they tabled was the concept that a more frank and open discussion about sovereignty should be undertaken. Ugh!
After a founding convention in Montreal that attracted just three to four hundred people, this after massive publicity, the second meeting in Quebec City attracted less than a sixth of that total!
Since then, we've heard nothing more from this group and it's clear that the anti-PQ movement is foundering badly, as the inital energy seems to be gone.

Bernard Drainville
Even within the PQ caucus itself, there lies a certain desperation that things must change. A hitherto stalwart of the party, Bernard Drainville undertook a consultation with his constituents that led to a publication of proposed changes to Quebec's democracy.
The document had the gravitas of a closing memorandum of a high school mock Parliament.
Mr. Drainville embarrassed himself by making 10 ridiculous proposals meant to re-invigorate Quebec democracy, including the right of citizens to trigger their own binding referendums, on any subject,  by way of a petition bearing 15% of the electorates signatures.
He then proposed that the whole British parliamentary system be changed and that Quebecers vote directly for the Premier. Link{FR}
Stupid and desperate propositions came from all quarters of the party, in a lame attempt to deflect the current debate.
Matane MNA  Pascal Bérubé proposed that regular citizens be brought into Parliament to question politicians during question period and that an independent committee be established to verify if the government was living up to its electoral platform. LINK{FR}
Even Pauline Marois got into the deflection game, proposing an Estates General (public consultative meetings) to discuss a new sovereignty strategy, exactly what the public is dying for!!

If there is one term that both francophone and anglophones share to describe what is going on in the sovereignty movement, it is this- Free-for-all.

Readers, we are witnessing the end of the sovereignty movement as a political force. It has come to that!

It's true that there will always be a large minority of Quebecers who believe in sovereignty, but most of them have come to the realization that the project is no longer doable.

The next government of Quebec will not be run by the PQ, sovereigntists have botched any opportunity of that.
Had the PQ formed the next government, there might have been the slimmest of chance of re-igniting the independence movement. Because of the delay, the political realities of immigration will come into play and the last nail in the coffin of independence will be hammered in place.

Since the last referendum in 1995 and the next theoretical date possible for a referendum, say in the year 2018, Quebec will have accepted over a million new immigrants, 95% who will vote in favour of Canada.

The numbers just don't work and so.... the party's over.

Independence is no longer an option.

The mayhem in the sovereigntist movement that we are witnessing is nothing more than an energetic death rattle, a sad and desperate attempt to somehow stave off the inevitable.

Quebec is embarking on a new era, what it will be remains to be seen, but it will not include an Independence option.

Jacques Duchesneau Takes Revenge!

For years and years, decades and decades, Quebec has been saddled with the worst sort of public officials imaginable, corrupt, self-serving, destructively separatist or worse still, utterly incompetent.  These dreamers, bandits and fools have led Quebec down the garden path of mediocrity and without some steadying influence and an open cheque book from Ottawa, one shudders to think where the province would be today.

It isn't any wonder that in Quebec, the only profession that ranks lower than politicians in public trust, is the utterly despised used car salesmen. Ugh...

Many years ago, I was summoned, along with two other colleagues, to an early breakfast at the Delta hotel to meet with Jacques Duchesneau over some charity business, the subject of which, I can't actually recall.
What I do remember is that of the four seated at the table, only Jacques, resplendent in his Chief's uniform, was within his 5BX target weight zone.
And so it was a bit embarrassing when we all ordered to make an impression,...fruit, oatmeal or just coffee. Everyone, that is, except Jacques, who who ordered up a huge Quebecois breakfast of bacon and eggs.
No need to impress, no false pretense there. When you're the real McCoy, there's no need to put on airs!
That is Jacques Duchesneau, not a particularly complicated man, but honest, dogged, organized, disciplined, outrageously blunt and honest.

Now that Jacques is the flavour of the month, you don't need me to describe his career or upstanding nature, the newspapers, sensing the public mood,  are singing his praises, the hypocrites that they are.

In terms of quality, dedication and honesty, he is the antithesis of what we have come to expect from our public officials, but in typical Quebecois fashion, there are some voices that will try to tear him down.

Quebec has a long tradition of disdaining those who become rich, successful or famous and some journalists can't resist taking pot shots, including this story by Lysiane Gagnon who mocks Duchesneau as 'Mr. Clean.'

When, last November he was accused of being dishonest and was forced to temporarily step aside while the accusations were investigated, I told readers that the accusations were scurrilous and false.
Other than Yves Boisvert, who wrote a very supportive article in LaPresse there wasn't a mainstream journalist I can recall, who defended Duchesneau as bravely;

"I followed much of the career of Jacques Duchesneau, the policeman and briefly, the politician. He is a righteous man who spent his entire career in the fight against organized crime in the police. He is the first who dared to speak out publicly about the cartel of entrepreneurs who share the contracts with the City of Montreal."

This is what I wrote at the time;

"And so I was deeply saddened to see the picture of Jacques Duchesneau featured amid a rogues gallery on the front page of the Journal de Montreal last week.


Adding his name to the list was a cruel act, unworthy of a reputable newspaper. But of course, it was Le Journal de Montreal, where the truth never gets in the way of a good story.

It is a case of over-reaching on a monumental scale, because Jacques Duchesneau is not a crook." Read my post

When the Journal de Montreal pasted Duchesneau's picture up on the front page in a rogues gallery of alleged dirty politicians, it must have stung mightily.
Because no direct allegation was made, the newspaper could not be held for libellous defamation even though Duchesneau was absolved. But until recent events completely cleared his name, the stain on his reputation was  just as real as if he was convicted of corruption.

So here's where things get interesting.....

Last week Duchesneau went on a French talk show and made the allegation that some members of the Press were trying to 'get him' by publishing false allegations fed to them by those who want the corruption investigation shut down.
It wasn't a bombshell type of pronouncement because Duchesneau didn't name names, but last Friday, in an interview with Michèle Ouimet  of LaPresse  that all changed, when he did name those he felt were doing the bidding of others, trying to bring him and his investigation down.

And so he named Paul Larocque, Jean Lapierre (the ex-politician/reporter,) Andrew McIntosh. TVA, Le Journal de Montreal, QMI Agency.
Jean Lapierre had not worked on the story about the alleged election scandal but had reported that Duchesneau had played golf recently with Francois Legault, intimating that Duchesneau had political aspirations. That story turned out to be false.

The events that are unfolding eerily parallel  the story line in one of my favourite movies, ABSENCE OF MALICE, released over thirty years ago.

In that movie Michael Gallagher (played by Paul Newman) is the son of a dead Mafia boss who runs an honest business in South Florida. An aggressive US Attorney, unable to solve a murder, leaks a false story to a reporter (Sally Field) that Gallagher is a target of the murder investigation, hoping that he will cooperate in return for protection. The fallout is devastating and someone close to Gallagher  kills herself.
The reporter realizes the story she wrote was false but is assured that she cannot be sued. Gallagher plots revenge by leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that the reporter follows indicating corruption among those that hurt him.
In the end the accusations are proved false again, but this time, the careers of the District Attorney, the reporter and the US Attorney are destroyed in the fallout. Sweet revenge!

Watch this interesting clip from the movie where the reporter is given a lesson on how to destroy someone in print by making false accusation while avoiding legal repercussions.

And so Jacques Duchesneau has decided, like the Paul Newman character in Absence of Malice to  return the favour to those that hurt his reputation.

The reporters have had the tables turned on them rather neatly, now accused in public of something they probably never did (work to discredit Duchesneau's corruption investigation)

Those named by Duchesneau are squealing like stuck pigs and cease and desist letters have been sent warning the ex-Chief to stop making these accusations.

The reporters are now in the unfamiliar position of being the target of newspaper stories, not the instigators.
Andrew McIntosh, one of those named, defended himself. "Our investigation began before Mr. Duchesneau was appointed head of his unit. We do our job seriously. "

Mr. McIntosh should be careful what he says, he may have to justify his statement later on in court. Does he expect us to believe that the story he wrote was developing before Mr. Duchesneau's appointment?
How long before? Thirteen years?.. Five Years?.. Two Years?  
Is it really likely that the story came together now after lying dormant for so many years?
For reporters used to asking tough questions, answering them may not be so easy.

But the accusation itself, true or false is what will be damaging to the journalists, just like their false allegations were damaging to Mr. Duchesneau and as Shakespeare wrote, there's the rub.

The reporters involved may sue, but they'll have an uphill task in getting satisfaction. Mr. Duchesneau can make a pretty good primae facie case that the reporters tried to hurt his reputation.
Mr. Duchesneau will argue that the allegations made in the newspapers were false and they were made over an alleged transgression dating back thirteen years. The thrust and timing of the story has the look and the feel of a crude stitch up.
Without contradictory evidence offered by the journalists, Mr. Duchesneau's case will probably carry.

In fact the only way to prove that the case against them false, is to produce the source of the story, something that is extremely unlikely because it breaks journalistic ethics as well as the fact that the source would be putting himself in jeopardy by testifying.

In any case, any victory won by the journalists would be Pyrrhic in nature, the trial would just
expose the journos to prolonged public exposure of the accusations!

Like a pedophile acquitted after a long public trial, the damage to one's reputation is already done.  

For Duchesneau, revenge is sweet, for the reporters involved, payback's a bitch.

Montreal Town Makes Noise over Religious Accommodation

One of Hampstead's finest -  on sale for just $4.9 million

Ask 100 random Quebecers from outside the island of Montreal, where the tiny town of Hampstead is and I'd venture to say that 99 would tell you they never heard of it.
But it seems that the small town of very wealthy Anglos, 85% of them Jewish, finds itself in the spotlight for making a 'dreaded' religious accommodation.

To say that Hampstead is atypical of what we expect of a small town in Quebec to be, is bit of an understatement, its residents live blissful existence in a wealthy Anglophone oasis smack dab in the middle of the city.

How English is the town?
Well, the mayor cannot even speak French and it seems that the townsfolk are just fine with it, they've elected him twice.
The few residents that have French as a mother tongue (Sephardic Jews) may speak French at home, but it's English in the streets, while their children go to private English Hebrew schools.

Hampstead, easy to miss on Montreal island!

The town is enjoying it's unwanted fifteen minutes of fame over a municipal regulation that bans noise on the the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

 "A mainly Jewish Montreal suburb has raised hackles by instituting a noise ban for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

The town of Hampstead had already banned lawnmowers, pneumatic drills and other noise-makers on statutory holidays. But the council's decision to add Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to the law has made waves all the way to the provincial legislature."  Read the rest of the story

Of course the idea of making a religious accommodation is an anathema in Quebec, especially when it involves Jews or Muslims.

The story is one of those that French language militants latch onto because it is representative, according to them, of the province falling under the influence of heathen religions and culture.

Two ministers have already weighed in on the issue, with Municipal Affairs Minister Laurent Lessard questioning whether the Hampstead regulation is legal.

"Kathleen Weil, the minister in charge of cultural communities, said she was "surprised" that Hampstead added Jewish holidays to its noise bylaw.
"I've never seen a municipal noise law based on religion," she told reporters prior to question period." Same story

 I had a good laugh over the blowhard at the centre of the story, a Hampstead resident named  Fred Chano, who told the QMI Agency that he's outraged.
"I think the city has been taken over by religious extremists," he said. "It's a racist law."
And here is the jewel.
"Enough is enough," he said. "I'll cut my grass like everyone else does.

Readers, trust me, open any garage in Hampstead and you might find a Rolls, Jaguar, BMW or Mercedes.
But you will be at a loss to find a lawn mower, that's what gardeners are for!!

Nope, there aren't too many residents riding on the back of a John Deere lawn mower in Hampstead, that's for sure!

At any rate, the whole story is another tempest in a teapot.

What the article cited above and every other article about the noise ban fails to mention is that the restriction also applies to Sundays and has for as long as residents can remember.

In a town that is almost completely Jewish, a gardener may use a lawn mower, a maintenance or construction worker can work inside or outside the house and make make noise on the Jewish Sabbath, but not the Christian Sunday!
And so the noise ban applies to fifty-two Sundays a year, plus Christmas and Easter, based on respect for the Christian religion, as opposed to the three days of Jewish holidays.

So isn't it interesting that nobody is challenging, or for that matter even mentioning, the Sunday ban on noise.

Julius Grey, a big shot Montreal lawyer who often defends Hasids and other underdogs in accommodation cases remains unsympathetic.
"But this idea of ​​a Jewish city, no, I am against it," . "If someone wants to mow his lawn, I do not see how you could prevent it." said the lawyer, adding that one can not impose a holiday.

....Hmmm. what about Christmas and Easter?

In Quebec accommodations that favour Christians, like Christian civic holidays or the Crucifix on Mount Royal or above the Speaker's chair in Parliament, are not considered religious in nature, but rather a question of respecting the province's heritage.
Accommodation that favour Jews or Muslims, like a noise ban on Jewish holidays in an overwhelmingly Jewish town is a shocking abuse of the principle of a secular state.

It's really just another case of two-faced Quebec ethnic bashing.....

So Really, What's Wrong with Bill 101?

After eight hundred posts on this blog, it occurs to me I've never tackled Bill 101 head on. We've had (readers and I) some lively discussions on aspects of the law but never really faced the issue head on.

I imagine that everybody who  comes to this blog on an ongoing basis has some pretty strong opinions on Bill 101 and I'm not here to convince anyone to change their position towards mine.

That being said, I'm going to give offer my point of view on the major elements, step by step and give you all weekend to make your opinions known in the comments section.

I think that there are four overriding positions that represent the opinions of most Quebecers.

POSITION 1 -There are those who want the law completely abolished because they believe that it is an affront to our democratic freedoms

POSITION 2 -There are those who want the law strengthened, because they believe that French is more threatened than ever and needs even more protection than is now provided

POSITION 3 -There are those believe that although not perfect, the law is an acceptable compromise.

POSITION 4 -There are those that believe the law should be softened

So what is your poison? 

Door  #1,  Door #2,  Door #3 or Door  #4

Regardless of how you feel, it's a foregone conclusion that the law isn't going away. There is zero chance that Bill 101 will be softened, somewhat of a chance that it will be made more restrictive.

That being said we can all fantasize about what we would like to see.

Here are some major bones of contention in relation to Bill 101 and my take on the subject.


MANDATORY FRENCH SCHOOLING
Freedom of choice restrictions apply to immigrants and francophones, but anglophones have the option of going to any school they please. The law makes second class citizens out of francophones and immigrants, but the vast majority of francophones support the idea that their children should be obliged to go to French publicly funded school, at least through high school.
Who am I to argue with those who want to put restrictions on themselves?
And selfishly, it makes no difference to me or my Anglophone family.

As for immigrants being forced into French schools, well, those are the rules that they agreed to abide by before coming to Quebec and so I also don't really have a problem with that either. They can always choose Ontario before coming if they don't like it.. It isn't as if it is a big surprise, sort of like winter, part of what they should expect. And so  I remain unsympathetic.

The one bugbear that I have is those immigrants whose first language is English, like someone from Great Britain, Ireland, Australia or New Zealand. Forcing these people into French schools is utterly vindictive.
Is there one chance in hell they will become francophones?

All that being said, the English minority in the province hovers around 10% -13%, but our primary school system is being fed 0% of the newly arrived immigrants. Because we are in the same boat as our francophone brethren in terms of reproduction, the number of students in the system will continue to diminish and the English primary school system will eventually collapse.
Somehow, 10% of the immigrants must be allowed into the English school system to balance things out.
How? ....perhaps a lottery, like the U.S. government does with visas.
As is the case now, anyone wanting an English education, but who is not eligible for publicly funded English school, can pay for private education. That seems legit.

As for 'bridging schools' I can't really say I'm in favour of using a trick to defy the law.

As per applying Bill 101 to cegeps and universities, the vast majority of francophones are against this idea and since a government is supposedly elected to reflect the will of the people, institutions of higher learning must remain open to all.

FRENCH AS THE COMMON LANGUAGE
I haven't got a problem with this, Francophones shouldn't be forced to address bosses in English like the good old days on the plantation. The head offices that refused to adopt French as the working language have long ago fled à la SUN LIFE and they ain't coming back.

As for imposing Bill 101 on small companies, nothing could be stupider or more vindictive.
Imagine a small English family business being forced to add French software that nobody is going to use just to satisfy the OQLF?


FRENCH OUTDOOR SIGNAGE 

I have to come down on freedom of choice. Merchants should be free to advertise in the language or languages of their choice and consumers can shop where they want to and avoid stores that offend them. In this case let the DOLLAR rule.

Since the government has already moved towards unilingual French signage, be it road signs, or it's own advertising, the face of the province won't change much.
The rule that French must be twice as large as the English is unacceptable. Were the shoe on the other foot, francophones would be rioting over that humiliation.
The two for one ration between English French is as silly as the picture on the right....

Even if the law changed to allow English signage, how many companies would have the guts to go bilingual or English?....Not many, I presume.
In fact, few companies avail themselves of what rights they have now to use English.

SERVICE IN FRENCH
Most of the complaints concerning clerks who can't serve in French have to do with newly arrived immigrants who are working their asses off trying survive without the benefit of welfare or unemployment insurance. Being a clerk is just about the most unrewarding job, offering poor pay, long and inconvenient hours. Who else is going to take the job?
Stores that don't offer service in French are run by idiots who are only hurting themselves by alienating  francophone clients.
There's an easy solution for those offended......Shop somewhere else. No law required here.


SERVICE IN ENGLISH
Aside for Revenue Quebec, which will take your money quite happily English, most government services are not really offered in English even if they are supposed to be. Government web sites are slowly losing what English they have and within a few years will be unilingually French.

Yes you can receive most forms in English, but English service at government offices is hard to come by. While I don't think it's reasonable to walk into a license bureau in Alma and expect to be served in English, for anglophones with difficulty with French, arrangement should be made upon request.

At any rate, nobody can deny that Bill 101 changed the face of Quebec and certainly transformed it from a bilingual society into a French society, with English reduced to the island of Montreal.

Has Bill 101 served its purpose?
Has the language issue been redressed in favour of French and has Bill 101 passed its shelf life like  Affirmative Action laws in the USA?

Opinions about Bill 101 remind me of pizza.
Go to a real pizzeria with a dozen friends and you'll order 12 different  pizzas.

And so, the above post is just one Anglo's opinion.

It's your chance to sound off.
We have all weekend. How about a thoughtful comment on Bill 101.

Let's try lay off the #$#@$#!!!!

BTW......How contentious and emotional is Bill 101?
Here's a photo essay to remind us how touchy we all are over the issue of language.

 

 

 

More Anglo Bashing on Quebec Television

Many readers caught a story on the French J.E. television program on the TVA network that was particularly annoying in its wholly biased coverage on a story about English signs in Laval

You can catch the whole report in French on the TVA website, but I've pulled out and subtitled the essential elements here.

The story, as you can view above, complains that many signs in the largely Greek/Italian/Jewish neighbourhoods of Laval are not following Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF ) regulations that require English text to be subordinate to the French.

Any story that interviews Mario Beaulieu as an expert on the subject of language rights, is automatically biased. The militant anglophobe believes that there are already too many francophone Quebecers who speak English and that English instruction should be limited, not encouraged. He just returned from Europe where he spent time telling anyone who would listen that Canada is an evil place and Anglo Canadians a vicious race of colonizers.
The only good news on that front, is that the Europeans couldn't care less.

The story also cited as a contributing factor in the 'deteriorating' sign situation, the fact that Anglos are moving to Laval in increasing numbers and even provided a graph to highlight the 'problem.'
I wonder if it would be acceptable in any other province for a television program to offer a similar graph showing an alarming influx of Tamils, Chinese, Muslims, Jews, Natives or Blacks!
Could you imagine an Ontario television station putting up a graph highlighting a Francophone invasion of a particular neighbourhood in Ottawa and intimating that it is upsetting the linguistic balance!

I don't think so.....

The graph on  the J.E. show underlines the sad fact that complaining about Anglos moving into a neighbourhood is perfectly acceptable as long as it is framed in context of the defence of the French language.
And this isn't an isolated case, the French language militant group Imperatif-francais blasted the City of Laval officials over the same issue and accused them of doing nothing to counter this 'alarming' influx. LINK

Then there's the lovely woman interviewed for the story who told viewers that English shouldn't be allowed on signs anywhere in Quebec, an excellent way to frame the story.. ahem...

Now the gist of the story is about the size of English text on signs, with the commentator reminding viewers that the law demands that the French text be twice as big as the English text.

I've had a problem with this very issue ever since the 'rule' was put in place, because it doesn't make sense as a regulation and it doesn't really satisfy the Supreme Court ruling.

"In 1993, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled that Quebec's sign laws broke an international covenant on civil and political rights. "A State may choose one or more official languages," the committee wrote, "but it may not exclude outside the spheres of public life, the freedom to express oneself in a certain language."

Reacting to these events, Bourassa introduced new legislation in 1993. This law allowed English on outdoor commercial signs only if the French lettering was at least twice as large as the English." LINK

Actually the last part about French being twice as large as English is NOT part of the law. It is a common misconception.

What the law  actually says;

Article 18

Les articles 58 58.2 de cette charte sont remplacés par le suivant:

«58. L'affichage public et la publicité commerciale doivent se faire en français.

Ils peuvent également êre faits la fois en français et dans une autre langue pourvu que le français y figure de façon nettement prédominante.

Toutefois, le gouvernement peut déterminer, par règlement, les lieux, les cas, les conditions ou les circonstances o l'affichage public et la publicité commerciale doivent se faire uniquement en français ou peuvent se faire sans prédominance du français ou uniquement dans une autre langue.». LINK

In other words, the law says that French must be clearly predominant. It says nothing about size and leaves that determination to be fixed later by regulation.

The OQLF was given the mandate to enforce the language law and it was the agency that came up with the interpretation of the two to one ratio rule for text on signs, French versus English.

There has been a couple of cases that went to court and subsequently backed up the OQLF position, but the issue has never been tested on the level that I describe below.

At what point does 'nettement predominante' become so overbearing that it has the effect of rendering the English unreadable and so ipso facto, in contravention of the United Nations covenant that English be allowed?

Here's the example the J.E story uses itself. It shows an actual sign in Laval (on top) that contravenes the 2/1 ratio regulation and shows an artist's conception (below) of how the sign should appear to abide by the regulation.

This montage is not my work, it was offered on the television story as a teaching aid and you can see clearly (or unclearly) what the problem is.

When the French text is set to the minimum size that can be reasonably read from the distance from which the sign is expected to be seen, reducing the English to half that size makes it unreadable, something that clearly violates the UN convention.

When the 2/1 ratio rule is applied to large signs, it may be in conformity, but when it comes to smaller text, the application of the rule becomes ridiculous.

Here's another sign featured in the story, it's a sign in front of a professional office.
This time I did the photo manipulation myself to show you what would be required under the 2/1 ratio regulation.

From the distance that the sign would be viewed normally, the English text looks like the bottom line of an eye-chart, the line that nobody can read!

Watching the story on television and looking at the examples provided, convinces me that the regulation, in instances where the size of French is smallish, cannot be enforced legally.

It may be time to take another run at Bill 101 in court concerning this 2/1 ratio issue, but we'd have to find a business that was fined over the issue of ratios in small sized text on a commercial sign.

I'm not sure that the OQLF is fining anyone over this 'small text' issue at all,  perhaps concerned that to do so, would place them at risk of having the regulation overturned.

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Dear Readers...

A special Happy New Year to Jewish readers of this blog and their families.

As is the tradition, the family gathers around a special dinner to celebrate the Jewish calendar's version of the new year over two nights, tonight and tomorrow. Shana Tova!