Radio Commentater Breeds Hate

If you ask Benoit Dutrisac, he'd tell you he hasn't got anything against Jews, but listening to his recent radio show, a rant against the Jewish religion, one would have to draw a different conclusion.

Mr. Dutrisac was furious over a Hampstead bylaw that forbids noise on the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashona and Yom Kippor, railing against the idea of the overwhelmingly Jewish town imposing their religious beliefs on the minority citizens who are not Jewish.

Hmmm.....
So Mr. Dutrisac is bent out of shape because the town is imposing the will of the majority on the minority... Isn't the irony delicious?

Now one can agree or disagree with the bylaw and express one's opinion without delving into hate, but that's not what Mr. Dutirsac decided to do.

Interviewing his guest, Alain Pronkin, he asked for an explanation of the holidays when he was told that Rosh Hashona celebrated the New Year he just went off on the Jewish religion.

In Quebec he informed listeners nastily, the New Year falls on January 1st. Period.

I wonder if Mr. Dutrisac is also offended by celebrations of the Chinese New Year and whether he also believes that that the annual parade in Chinatown, celebrating the occasion, also should be banned because it is 'un-Quebecois.'

He then poked fun at Judaism asking what sort of God Jews prayed to and when informed that the name of the Jewish God is 'Adonai', sarcastically asked if that was the name of Celine Dion's father.

Mr. Dutrisac then invited listeners to go to Hampstead on Rosh Hashona and Yom Kipper and honk their horns and make all sorts of noise to show the Jewish community that they don't run things in Quebec.

"Honk your horn, make some noise, fart, whatever, any kind of noise to show the Jewish community that it is not the Jewish community that is in charge in Quebec. It’s not them who will determine how we will live as a society in Quebec. That’s just not true. It’s not true that they are going to impose their religious concepts, their religious precepts on the entire society. There are some damned limits.”

The interview ends rather abruptly when Mr. Pronkin reminds Mr. Dutrisac that there are towns (including Hampstead) that ban noise on Sunday.

CLICK.   Interview over.  Mr. Dutrisac did not want the conversation to go in that direction.

If you understand French listen to the interview HERE

Of course there are those inspired by Mr. Dutrisac exhortations who did exactly what he asked them to do. Here from a FACEBOOK page devoted to the demonstration, is a reference to Mr. Dutisac,  

"Even Dutrisac is asking us to make noise today"

A small convoy of cars drove through the Jewish town honking and blasting their radios on Saturday.
A modern Quebec version of a POGROM.

Graeme Hamilton of the National post recounts the affair better than I can, do please read his story HERE

David Ouellet is a popular Quebec blogger who defends Jewish Quebecers against hate and disinformation. He posted a bunch of the hate messages that went up on the FACEBOOK page of the television network that aired a program by Quebec journalist Richard Martineau, another blowhard, who of course, aired a slanted and disparaging report on the Hampstead bylaw.

Although the network removed most of the offensive comments, which are not pre-moderated, some remain.
I thought I'd share  a translated version of them with you;

"Was Adolf right?"

"Me, I'm tempted to place a 42 foot long truck full of pigs on its territory"

"LET'S SHOW THESE DIRTY JEWS WHO IS MASTER HERE!"

"It's time to to show them who is boss, this shitty band of Jews."

"The next Jew who knocks on my door is going to be shown some rough justice."

"That's why there is war wherever Jews are."

"According to Hitler, Jews are a race of 'parasites' and 'vermin' which we need to get rid of, (I didn't invent this) but it says it all. "

"It doesn't surprise me that the Jews control the world."

"We're sick of these f--king parasites who do what they want in Quebec. We need to send then to a concentration camp in the Olympic Stadium and get rid of them."

"I can't get over that there are people who defend theses Jews. We need to gas them all, that will take care of the problem."

Remember, these comments were made on the FACEBOOK page of a major television network.

Yup, there's no racism in Quebec.

Housekeeping- Comments Not Working

It's been a frustrating week, trying to restore commenting to the many users using INTERNET EXPLORER as their browser of choice. It seems that changes in BLOGGER's anti-spam filtering has rendered these users unable to deposit comment.  This applies only to Explorer.

But 35% of readers of this blog use IE as their browser and so it is an unpleasant situation for them as well as all readers who are deprived of the comments that are an integral part of this blog.

I've tried on my end to apply the recommended tweaks, to no avail and short of re-doing the whole blog template there is nothing more for me to do.
BLOGGER has promised a fix shortly and I'll give it another week to see success, otherwise I'll take more drastic measures.

However EXPLORER users can take matters into their own hands to restore comments, it's easy!

The first advice to readers is to make sure that your browser is allowing third party cookies to be accepted.  If that doesn't work, you might be advised to used the FIREFOX or  CHROME browsers to read this blog.

There isn't any problem with running two different browser on your computer and its easy to install. It takes about two minutes to download and install the whole thing and you'll probably be pleasantly surprised at how much better these two browser are as compared to Explorer.
You can easily import your bookmarks and saved pages if you choose to make the new browser your permanent choice, or you can just use it to read this and other BLOGGER  blogs.
You can keep two browser open at the same time, they won't interfere with each other.

One reader who downloaded FIREFOX reports that he's much happier with the new browser which runs much faster!

"I downloaded Firefox, made sure that all cookies, including third party cookies were enabled, and it worked!!!  It appears the problem may be with Explorer.
As an added bonus, Firefox is much faster for me than Explorer."

Your trusty editor has been using FIREFOX on his Mac for over a year and prefers it over Safari, Mac's native browser. The features and add-ons are outstanding, especially the interactive Canadian spelling checker, without which I'd be in trouble.

As you write your comments, this add-on, underlines in real-time, words you've misspelled and with a click of the option key offers the correction. It's genius!!! and it uses Canadian spelling. Eh!

Click below to start the process, it's dead easy.

Watch an instruction video and then download FIREFOX

or download Chrome.

Download Chrome

I sincerely hope you'll make an effort to get back into the comments sections. Most readers will tell you  that the comment section is what drives them to this blog!

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.....