School Board and Hospital Humiliate Anglo Community

Quebec subsidies this week{FR}

Each week the Journal de Montreal devotes a page to highlight the millions and millions of taxpayer dollars given away, sometimes rather foolishly in subsidies that can mostly be characterized as pork.

Going down the list is almost as amusing disappointing as reading about the various school boards around the province which blow taxpayer money on 'educational' trips to the Caribbean or waste precious resources on 'training' sessions in luxurious spas and retreats.
As our school population dwindles, the amount of money spent on school board administrations continues to spiral, taking an ever bigger bite out of education resources.

Between 1999 and 2009, the province lost 140,000 students and gained 700 more school board administrators. Link{FR}
 
The utter disdain shown by public institutions towards the public purse is by no means a Francophone phenomenon, as our English institutions have sadly shown themselves to be the same fatted pigs at the trough.

In Quebec, waste, greed and indifference towards the public purse transcends the language and cultural barrier. Last week, two news items reminded us of this sad reality.

Perhaps the most disdained Anglo Quebec institution of all, is the English Montreal School Board, whose main function it seems, is to decide which English schools get padlocked each year.

Born out of the reorganization of Quebec's school system that eliminated religiously based schools, from the gitgo, the handwriting was on the wall for Anglo education, when the government imposed the backward name of  'English Montreal School Board' over the more natural Montreal English School Board.
Ever since then, the EMSB's chief occupation is to react to the disastrous decline in enrolment, due largely  to Bill 101 and lately Bill 115, which serve to limit those who can go to English school.

And so, the EMSB replaced the old Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal in 1998, which in its heyday, ran at least twice as many schools as th EMSB does today (but still uses the same amount of office space.)
In its short history, the EMSB can best be characterized by its infighting and incompetence.
In 2009 the government had to hire a lawyer to try to mediate between feuding officials at a cost of over $100,000. Read :Infighting still divides EMSB

I've written before on the extravagant waste and maddening sense of entitlement whereby school officials, with the blessing of elected school board politicians, abuse the public purse.

Read my previous posts,  Quebec Anglos Prove We Are Pigs as Well  and Stupidity and Greed Cross Language Divide where I describe reckless spending on foreign trips by the EMSB.

Well it seems they are at it again, sending no less than seven officials to China on a recruiting trip.

"The English Montreal School Board is defending its decision to send a delegation of seven people to China this month to try to recruit new students.

The board says the 18-day trip will cost $25,000 and revenue generated from its international students will be used to pay for the trip - not money from its regular operating budget...."

"The group of seven includes three elected commissioners - an addition to the delegation that commissioner Julien Feldman called "a boondoggle and a waste of taxpayer funds."

"Jetting off to China in the middle of the (EMSB's) crucial school closure consultation period is not only wasteful of precious public resources, but irresponsible and disrespectful to the students that may be affected by their political decisions,"

Read:English school board defends trip to China  Alternate Link

By the way readers, do school board officials really believe that we lowly observers are so dumb that we cannot do the math? Is it at all possible to send seven people to China for 18 days for $25,000?
Let's see;
A quick visit to Expedia.ca shows that the cheapest airline ticket to China costs, with taxes and airport fees, in the neighborhood of $3,000, or $21,000 for the group.
That leaves only $4,000 ($222 per day) to pay for eighteen days of hotels, meals and transportation for seven people!
HaHa!!!!
I wish the EMSB was as careful with the rest of its budget.

Editor's Rule 37- Don't trust anyone with a bow-tie

Next comes the story of the McGill University Health Centre's decision to keep the insufferable Dr. Arthur Porter, its current Director General, in place as the institution's top banana after a rocky closed door session of the board of directors decided that it would be less of a fuss to let Dr. Porter finish out his last months as president of the hospital rather than take the heat over the embarrassment of firing him.

An utterly gutless decision in light of the facts.

That Dr. Porter was hired a number of years ago to the top job at the MUHC was more a triumph of image over substance. Dr. Porter had the right stuff, a talented minority, extremely well spoken with an elusive snooty accent that bestowed upon the hospital an image of inclusiveness, modernity and gravitas. 
Too bad he hardly worked, turning over the day to day operations on his staff while he spent his time galavanting around the world, using his vaunted position to boost his personal position.

While working for the MUHC, Dr. Porter remains deeply involved in other for profit projects in Canada, Africa, the Caribbean and Great Britain.
He has collected corporate directorships like baseball cards and while he was supposed to be working full time for the MUHC, he opened his own cancer clinic in the Bahamas, where incredibly, he is listed as the managing directer.
 
In Great Britain he is listed as chairman of CancerPartners UK®. LINK
Check out his many, many other business interests HERE

Jetting between his various preoccupations, he became an absentee boss at the MUHC, (a 12,000 people organization) all without any objection from the board of directors, which was paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars at the time.

It all unravelled when his relationship with murky ex-Israeli lobbyist consultant and purported arms merchant Ari Ben-Menashe, came to light, over a purported 'charitable' project they were working on together. LINK

The explanation offered by Dr. Porter describing his relationship with Mr. Ben-Menashe, was so lame and unbelievable that the president of the banana republic involved, Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, felt it neccessary to distance himself from the whole affair. LINK
Read Ben-Menashe's version of the deal, which is most unflattering to Porter. HERE
That being said I wouldn't put much stock in the story of a con man.

By the way, Dr. Porter holds an unpaid yet powerful diplomatic position from that country, this contrary to his contention that the position is honorary, as underlined by his offer of another Sierra Leonine diplomatic position, to David Angus, Chairman of the Board of the MUHC.
What was that about?

At any rate, Dr. Porter was forced to resign from his job as chief civilian overseer of Canada's spy watchdog committee. Link

Too bad the MUHC didnt' take the hint and dump Porter as well.
Instead the board of directors took the coward's way out and let Dr. Porter finish his mandate, allowing him to collect his lucritive salary while he twiddles his thumbs for the hospital.

Incidently the MUHC is facing a massive deficit this year again.

"The MUHC has an accumulated operating fund deficit of $39.2 million. But it used to be much worse: $216 million that had piled up since 2002, said Stephane Beaudry, director of financial resources at the MUHC.

This year, the government stepped in and gave a grant to the MUHC of $188 million." LINK

 KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK, BOYS AND GIRLS!

Postscript......readers;
The Porter affair has badly blackened the image of Canada's spy agency, CSIS, which is seen in the international spy community as a sad-sack organization, unable to properly vet those given its highest security clearance.
It is painfully embarrassing that Canada's spy agency allowed a civilian with dual loyalties to oversee its most sensitive activities.

Mr. Porter's position as a Sierra Leonine diplomat is anything but honorary, as those in consular and diplomatic community understand.

In the diplomatic world an 'Honorary' title means unpaid, but it is a real functioning diplomatic position, unlike an honorary degree from a university.

Honorary Consuls and Consuls General toil the world over, even for Canada, representing the home country in the place of a permanent consular mission.
They have limited diplomatic immunity and undertake the same work as professional consular personnel, but on a much more limited scale.

Honorary Consuls and Consuls General do this work for the prestige, a diplomatic passport and sometimes dual citizenship. There are other perks as well.
By the way, many of these positions are bought and paid for, by those looking to spruce up their social image. It is not uncommon for high elected officials or bureaucrats in banana republics to accept cash payments, which can run into tens of thousands of dollars, in exchange for an Honorary Consulship.

All this leads me to predict that in Canada, Porter is toast.
In April, he'll likely leave Canada, his reputation in tatters.

French versus English Volume 39

Three siblings ousted from English School.    

"When he went home after the first day of school in August, Grade 11 student Emiliano Morales-Espinosa learned he'd have to leave Royal West Academy.

After doing all his schooling in English in Quebec - including four years at Royal West - Emiliano was no longer allowed to attend English school. The verdict from the Quebec government has meant leaving his friends at Royal West and enrolling in a French school, where he didn't know a soul, for his last year of high school." Read the rest of the story Alternate Link

This is what happens when bureaucrats make rules and regulations in a vacuum......

'Civil Servant?' 'Public servant?' or just plain 'consultant?'    

"Top staffer resigns in protest as storm grows over unilingual auditor general" 

LINK to National Post

"Veteran civil servant quits over AG pick" LINK to CBC

Michel Dorais-Not a civil Servant

Is it media spin or just getting the facts wrong?
These headlines in the National Post and the CBC are typical of the dozens of stories in newspapers across the country, that by accident or design gave the impression that Michel Dorais was at the time of his resignation, an active and experienced employee of the government. IT ISN'T TRUE!

Mr. Dorais is no more a staffer at the Auditor General's office than I am.
Imagine you own a company and hire a lawyer to fight a zoning problem or an accountant to do your taxes.
Are these professionals 'staffers' or your  'employees'?

The story about his principled resignation over the appointment of a unilingual Auditor General was used to underline the indignation over the recent Conservative party pattern of hiring on the basis of merit, not bilingualism.
But the impression left by the media  that Mr. Dorais was a high-ranking  permanent employee of the Auditor-General's department just isn't true.

This from Mr. Dorais' own company website;

"Michel Dorais retired from the Public Service in April 2007 after 31 years in both federal and provincial governments. He has recently founded the Groupe Listal and provides services related to governance and management of public institutions." LINK

Mr. Dorais sits on the internal audit committee which is composed of three employees of the Auditor General's Office and two "outside" members, Peter Boomgaardt and until his resignation, Michel Dorais.
Both of these men are not employees of the the Auditor General's Office.

Quebec's war on Christians

"Quebec's continued determination to stamp out religion, as if it were some pestiferous bug in need of squashing, is as mystifying as it is alarming and paranoid.

In the latest episode, the Montreal borough of Lachine has fined Paula Celani $144 because she and her 80-member Catholic lay group, a registered charity, prayed and held mass in a city-owned hall they rented.

It's good to know that Celani plans to fight the constitutionality of the ticket in court. It's about time someone challenged this insidious mania over secularism that has led to the ludicrous scenario of a private party being fined for worshipping in a hall they paid to rent.

The Parti Quebecois wants a ban on civil servants wearing what they term "ostentatious" religious symbols, which includes necklaces with crosses or yarmulkas, something many Jewish men wear...." Read the rest of the story

Question to readers.... If the group involved was Muslim or Jewish, would the borough have issued a ticket?

OQLF investigates English at Caisse de Depot

"It is the ultimate symbol of Quebec pride — of francophones exerting influence within their own economy.

So there was some surprise at news Tuesday that two senior managers at Quebec's Caisse de depot et placement can't speak French.

Montreal La Presse newspaper reported that meetings are frequently held in English at the giant pension-fund manager, because two senior execs can't speak the language of Moliere....." Read the rest of the story

Separatist mayor removes Canadian flag

Mayor Claude Boucher

"In a province where the fleur-de-lis flies proudly, there is one small town in Quebec's eastern townships where some residents are rallying around a flag of a different colour – the red Maple Leaf.

The battle over the Canadian flag actually began two years ago when former Parti Quebecois MNA Claude Boucher was elected mayor of Saint-Denis-de-Brompton. The mayor quickly removed the Canadian flag from outside the town hall and from inside the council chamber...." Read the rest of the story

Negative Fallout over OQLF sign campaign    
On Wednesday I wrote about the Office québécois de la langue française's campaign to force companies to adopt descriptors to 'explain' their English trademarks.
As you can imagine most of the comments by readers were decidedly negative.  See the post

But a lot of negative reactions came out of the French side of the language equations where many found fault with the initiative for a variety of reasons.
Instead of applauding, Mario Beaulieu of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, complained bitterly that the OQLF was rewarding non-compliance of the law by offering subsidies to small companies to help them get in line with the law. He along with a colleague wrote a letter to the Minister in charge;

"We are writing you to  denounce the creation of an awareness campaign coupled with a new grant program aimed at companies not complying with the Charter of the French language, as the President, Louise Marchand of the Office québécois de la langue française announced in Quebec, in a letter received last Friday.

Is it really the will of your government to provide up to $50,000 to companies in order that they can comply with the Act? This seems unacceptable and odious to say the least. Companies that break the law while showing contempt for our language should have to pay a fine (up to $ 20,000) rather than be  rewarded with a grant of up to $50,000. These businesses should fill the government coffers instead of receiving such generous and abnormal  subsidies.

Le président du Mouvement Québec français, Mario Beaulieu
Le président du Mouvement Montréal français, Denis Trudel  LINK

While such  reactions from militants is to be expected an opinion piece in LE DEVOIR by  Carole Lavallée made an interesting point.


Madame Lavallée pondered if the whole campaign was really about convincing Francophones that the signage problem is not as big a deal as is made out to be.

Huh?
At first I thought the article was to be another diatribe by another paranoid French-language militant, racked by a persecution complex. 
But wait.....She makes some excellent points.

Here's what she contends;
Why on Earth run the advertising campaign in French only, if it is English stores that are the problem? Surely the bosses in Toronto or New York aren't going to pay attention to a French campaign in Quebec.
Instead of contacting the offending companies at their headquarters, she asks, why is the OQLF undertaking an advertising campaign in French and organizing a tour in the boonies (where English signs don't exist)  to explain the law?
She quotes a passage in one of the advertisements that explains which English phrases are acceptable under the law. 
Why do this, rather then implore companies to use French?

Her conclusion is that the OQLF is really attempting to educate consumers over the rights of businesses to display their brand name in English, so as to reduce the number of complaints.


Hmm..... She's got a few good points. Read the article in French


Readers, in preparing my Wednesday post, I downloaded the rules (Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business, RRQ, c C-11, r 9) concerning this issue and in educating myself I was surprised that there is a lot more latitude in the law than I had assumed.

Remember the piece I wrote about complaints at a French hospital over a sign in Spanish. LINK
Turns out the sign is completely legal!

 18.   Public signs and posters concerning health or public safety may be both in French and in another language provided that French appears at least as prominently.

So technically, are bilingual streets signs that deal with safety legal?
Here are some other interesting regulations;

19.   Public signs and posters of a museum, botanical garden, zoo or cultural or scientific exhibition may, on the premises thereof, be both in French and in another language provided that French appears at least as prominently.

21.   A public sign or poster bearing directions for the use of a device permanently installed in a public place may be both in French and in another language provided that French appears at least as prominently. (What does this actually mean????)

23.   Public signs and posters displayed by a natural person for non-professional and non-commercial purposes may be in the language of the person's choice. 

10.   Catalogues, brochures, folders, commercial directories and any similar publications may be in 2 separate versions, one exclusively in French, the other exclusively in another language, provided that the material presentation of the French version is available under no less favourable conditions of accessibility and quality than the version in the other language.

However, the version exclusively in another language may be inserted in a news publication published exclusively in that language; it may also be sent to any natural person having made a written request to receive such documents in that other language.

In addition, catalogues, brochures, folders, commercial directories and any similar publications intended for persons belonging to the same ethnical group may be written only in the language of such group.

 (Remember the guy who complained about an English SAQ flyer included within an English newspaper.---It's legal!)

Have a good weekend!!!!

Further reading: French versus English Volume 38

OQLF Sign Directive Not Neccessarily Legal

Quebec's language watchdog agency, the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF,) has announced that it is cracking down on stores that display unilingual English names without a French 'descriptors,' a phrase that precedes or follows the actual name and describes what is being sold.

"The Brick" and "Second Cup" are a no-no, but "Brick meubles et électroniques" and "Les cafés Second Cup" are fine, according to a new campaign by the Office québécois de la langue française.

Starting Monday, French TV commercials and an Internet site will induce companies to add French descriptions or slogans to their brand names, said Louise Marchand, president of the provincial agency in charge of protecting the French language.

"We will take all necessary measures so that at a very minimum, businesses will put up a description," Marchand told a news conference Sunday."
Read the rest of the story in the Montreal Gazette  or this  Alternate Link

Militants protesting a legal store sign...

The knee-jerk reaction by the language cops was to be expected as language militants have been ratcheting up the pressure, especially active these last weeks, culminating with a noisy march along Montreal's Ste. Catherine street, the main shopping drag, where marchers symbolically 're-baptised' the offending signs with French only versions.

And so the OQLF O-feece has mounted a new campaign to force merchants into line with directives that require,'English' store names attach a French descriptor.

The first question we must ask ourselves is why these descriptors are necessary, since everyone knows what is sold in Canadian Tire, Best Buy, The Brick etc.etc.
Even the staunchest of French-language militants will readily admit that the imposition of descriptors is based solely on desire to publicly aver that in Quebec, French is the king of the castle and English, the dirty rascal.

The demand that 'English' signs be defaced prefaced with French descriptors is more about humiliating English and anglophones than promoting French. It's simply a question of showing anglos their place.

Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business, RRQ, c C-11, r 9

25. On public signs and posters and in commercial advertising, the following may appear exclusively in a language other than French: 

(4) a recognized trade mark within the meaning of the Trade Marks Act (R.S.C. 1985, c. T-13), unless a French version has been registered

EXPRESSION THAT MAY SPECIFY FIRM NAME

27.   An expression taken from a language other than French may appear in a firm name to specify it provided that the expression is used with a generic term in the French language. LINK

According to my research, the above regulations have been on the books since 2003 and likely long before, but the OQLF until now, has never demanded that stores using English trade-marks modify their signs.

Readers, I'm no lawyer, but over the years I have become somewhat expert at reading laws, rules and regulations and have discovered rather surprisingly that not everything is as well written clear and precise as one would imagine.

In my humble opinion, Regulation 25(4) and Regulation 27 are not concordant.

First things, first.
There is a principle that in law, that holds that the specific trumps the general and this clearly is the case between the two regulations.
Nothing can be clearer than Regulation 25(4), while Regulation 27 uses the undefined term "expression."

Is a trademark an 'expression'?
Most likely not, because in using the term 'trade mark' in one rule and the word 'expression' in another, the writers imply that there is a difference.

If the intention of the writers was to make trademarks subject to descriptors, they should have said so unequivocally.
And so Regulation 27 should have read that when companies avail themselves of the benefits of rule 25(4) (that is, to use trademarks in their banner), they must add descriptors, but it doesn't.

And so, the current interpretation of the regulations by the OQLF may very well be faulty and hasn't, as of yet been tested in court, because the provisions have never been imposed.
It remains a legal question as to whether  the OQLF is over-reaching and misinterpreting its own regulations.

That being said, there remains a more important legal issue as to whether a provincial government  may impose limitation on the commercial use of trademarks at all, since trademarks belong in the federal jurisdiction.

Aside from all this, there remains the utter stupidity of telling a company like Canadian Tire that after 60 years of operation in Quebec, that its name is offensive.

The 'O-feece' published a guide this week, detailing what stores must do to fall in line with their interpretation of the rules and even here, one has to question the competency of the agency.

At the right is an example provided to the media by the O-feece describing a fictional merchant named "DAILY LIVING' and examples on how it can comply with the OQLF's current interpretation of the regulations.
Readers, how on earth does "DAILY LIVING" translate to "LES BEAUX JOURS"?
Utter, utter nonsense!....

Going back to the photo of the demonstrators above who are protesting the signage at the SECOND CUP, which is actually 100% in line with these new regulations, it underlines that separatists and language fanatics aren't interested in anything else except the total eradication of English in public.
They make no bones about it.

Incidentally, the O-feece announced that banners like 'Harveys' are exempt because they are proper names, but technically that isn't really true.
While 'Harvey' is a proper name, 'Harveys' with an 'S' acts as an English possessive, even though the apostrophe is gone.
In French no 'S' is added to indicate the possessive.

Readers of a certain age will recall that 'EATON'S' was forced to become 'EATON.'
And so unless the 'S' refers to a plural, such as in the McDonalds brothers who started the hamburger chain, the names should actually be disallowed!

Now the Wendy's hamburger chain has taken a page out of the Liberal Party handbook and replaced the apostrophe with a little Canadian Maple leaf.
Very clever, but I'm sure the O-feece will look closely at that and perhaps demand that a Fleur-de-lys replace the hated Canadian symbol!
You never know how ridiculous plays out in Quebec.

Such are the deep and esoteric questions that the O-feece must ponder.

I've nothing more to say except to express a profound sadness at the utter mindlessness and vindictiveness that drives people to hate.
This sign initiative is not driven by the desire to preserve the French language but rather motivated by a desire by one portion of society to impose its will on the other, solely because it can.

When language militants tell us self-satisfyingly to 'respect' an unjust law, I'm reminded of all the minorities around the world who are discriminated against on a daily basis, based only on the tyranny of numbers.

An unjust law need not be 'respected' and to language militants who tells us to obey or suffer the consequences, we should choose to suffer the consequences.

Remember the utter humiliation that language militants suffered by one article in the New York Times and one interview on 60 Minutes by Mordechai Richler. It still reverberates today.
I'm not sure that Quebec could stand a concerted publicity campaign in the USA decrying the rule that forces American companies to forsake or bastardize their names.

In the end Quebec Anglos have the power to resist and resist we should.

None of we Quebec anglos want to impose English on Quebec, but we'll be damned if militants attempt to take away what is ours, our names........

**************************************

To save the O-feece, much time and effort, I'd like to humorously propose some descriptors of my own; 

McDONALDS- Malbouef
THE GAP- Vetements pour les nuls.
TACO BELL- TACO BELLE
WINNERS - Vetements pour les perdants.
BANANA REPUBLIC- Republique du Quebec

Readers......How about some suggestions to help out the OQLF?

Equalization & Deficits Fuel Quebec's Disconnect with Reality

One of my oldest memories is that of my mother gathering the children around the old Formica kitchen table and announcing solemnly that my father had lost his job and that money would be very tight until he found work again.
As a six year old, I really didn't understand what all this meant, but was frightened by the sight of my obviously distressed mother.
Over the next couple of weeks nothing really changed, we ate dinner each night as before and the quality and quantity of the food didn't change. My mother even continued to pay my allowance of 10¢ and the initial fear that I felt at that first family meeting faded. Eventually my dad found work and I'd like to say that everything returned to normal, but normal never really changed.

I'm reminded of this story, because watching events unfold in Quebec, there seems to be an uncanny parallel.
I can't help but feel that Quebecers remain unhealthily insulated and sadly oblivious to the coming financial meltdown because they haven't really felt the effects as of yet. Their allowance hasn't been cut and they haven't had food taken off the table.

Just as my parents used their savings to paper over the fact that there wasn't enough money coming in, the Quebec government has used deficit spending and equalization payments from the rest of Canada to maintain the fiction that the collective Quebec lifestyle can be maintained.

Last week, college and university students across Quebec left their classes to hit the streets in one of the very rare student protests.

The issue that roused them to action wasn't global warming or their position against war.
It wasn't about justice for minorities or a redistribution of wealth towards the poor, but rather sadly, a protest for redistribution of wealth towards themselves.
Two years ago over 100,000 students hit the streets to protest against the government's decision to cut bursaries.

Already enjoying the lowest tuition in Canada, students were outraged that the government was hiking fees over several years, which by the way, would still leave Quebec university students with the best deal in Canada, when all would be said and done.

But the ability to maintain such generous tuition fees in the face of a crushing and mounting deficit is of no import to students, because having been insulated from reality (like my mother did to me) they cannot fathom the government running out of money.
In interview after interview, not one student leader addressed the issue of how low tuition rates can be paid for, as if the issue was entirely beside the point.

In blithely ignoring our financial reality, students are really no different from most of Quebecers, who are deaf to talk of deficits and dwindling resources, because the government just keeps paying and paying.

In recklessly spending beyond the financial capacity of the province, both separatist and federalist Quebec governments are equally to blame, not only for the dire financial consequences but the social consequences of allowing citizens to believe that the government has an unlimited source of funds and that a gravy train will always exist.

How bad is the situation?
Let's pretend the Province of Quebec is one single family.
It spends $70,000 a year, while earning just $57,500. The mother-in-law kicks in $8,500 to help, which leaves the family to borrow $4,000 from the bank, which it already owes a whopping $242,000.
 
Read this story in the Financial Post. (Thank you JASON for the link)

And so students continue to demand that their fees be frozen (some demanding that the fees should even be lowered) as well as demanding that the university increase salaries to support staff in a fantasy world where money grows on trees.

Now I'm not going to review Quebec's ruinous social spending programs, you can read an excellent analysis is a book that came out this week, by Joanne Marcotte entitled 'Gouvernemaman,' a very appropriate term that describes Quebec's 'Nanny State'

In the face of criticism, especially from commentators in the rest of Canada who decry Quebec's expensive social experiment, defenders claim that Quebec, as the highest taxed people in North America are paying for their own programs and that they are proud of the society that they have built.

But Quebecers aren't really paying for their social experiment at all, rather it's Canadians through equalization payments and the children of Quebecers who will bear the burden of one of the world's highest public debt.

Those who defend the grand social experiment remain fiercely defensive and proud, the fact that Quebec marches to a different tune, a badge of honour.

But let us ignore for the moment the fact the this grand social experiment is not only unsustainable, but has seriously impacted the future financial well-being of generations yet unborn.

Has all this social spending made Quebec a better society?

The sad truth is that Quebec has evolved into an unproductive and lazy society which lags Canada and the OECD average in almost every benchmark of success.
This more than anything else is the tragedy of Quebec's social plan.

It seems that over-generous entitlements have had the effect of replacing industry with indolence. The easier it is to get free money, the harder it is to get people to work hard on their own account.

It is an accepted fact that children of long time welfare recipients are much more likely to be welfare recipients themselves, much as children of professionals are much more likely to follow in the footsteps of their successful parents.

As entitlements grow, the standard of living falls. It's a natural and insidious consequnce.
The more money the government of Quebec gives out or re-distributes, the poorer its citizens become..

Click to download PDF in French

"In 2010, the standard of living in Quebec (measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita) amounted to $ 40 174, or about US$6,000 dollars less than the average among the 20 member countries of the OECD, and only $4,742 more than the lowest standard of living of these countries recorded, namely, that of South Korea.

Québec's performance in terms of labour productivity is very similar. In 2010, labour productivity in Quebec (measured by GDP per hour worked) was $ 49.90, while the average among 20 OECD countries reached $ 59.96. "In other words, an hour worked in these countries generates an average $ 10 more than an hour worked in Quebec," the study shows."

But the attraction of easy money is hard to give up and for many Quebecers working to make a good living doesn't seem worth the effort when one can get by on government handouts doing nothing.

For those born into a society where government handouts are part of daily life, dependence is as addictive as crack.

So the question remains.
What will happen when the inevitable collapse of the nanny state occurs when the government just plain runs out of money and the ability to borrow?

In 2014 the Federal Equalization agreement comes up for renewal, and the $8.6 billion or 12% of the Quebec budget will be put into jeopardy.
If Quebecers believe that Prime Minister Harper will blindly sign off again on the massive transfer of wealth from the RoC to Quebec, they are deluding themselves badly.

What will happen when the Quebec government's deficit (currently at $4 billion or 7% of the budget) spending can no longer be supported?
Deficit spending and equalization payments account for almost 13 billion dollars, or 20% of the Quebec budget.


The day of reckoning is not that far off and the spending cuts, required to stave of bankruptcy, while not on a scale that we've seen in Greece, will nevertheless be massive.

If students are protesting over a couple of hundred dollars of increase a year, what will happen when they will be forced to pay thousands more.
What will happen when $7 a day childcare goes up to $40 or more and what will happen when welfare and pension benefits are cut.
What will happen when the provincial tax is increased by 50% and personal taxes raised by ten or twenty percent.

Quebecers, having been coddled their whole lives, will react much as the Greeks, bewildered and flustered, unable to fathom how the government could actually run out of money,

I daresay the collapse of the nanny state will be as traumatic for Quebec society as it is today in Greece.

Can't happen?
To believe otherwise is to ignore reality.

In Quebec, Counting Anglophones is an Art Form

Institut de recherche sur le français en Amérique

Many, many years ago, my son was a grade one student having bit of trouble with spelling. Back then, spelling was considered an important element of a proper education and as such, students were treated to spelling bees, spelling drills and spelling tests on an ongoing basis.
Today spelling has joined home economics, shop and history in the trash heap of the education system, but I digress.

My son's teacher asked that as parents we help out at home by honing his spelling skills before the next test, a task which my wife dutifully undertook.
After the results of the next test were announced, she asked him how he did;
"Eight"
"Eight out of what?" she asked suspiciously.
"Ten"
"Hmm....Not bad....not bad at all!"

A few weeks later at a school conference, the teacher once again implored my wife to work on spelling.
"Whatever for? He got eight out ten on the last test"
"EIGHT OUT OF TEN??? He got eight out of ten wrong!!!"

And so as parents we suffered from statistical manipulation, by our six year-old!
That's how easy it is to be fooled by numbers, when you trust the deliverer.

So it isn't any surprise that when studies and statistics are prepared and served up by someone or some organization with a political agenda to promote, what we are provided with is statistical trash.

Such is the case of the insufferable Institut de recherche sur le français en Amérique (IRFA) an organization that uses the word "Institute" to give itself a false and bloated appearance of something which it is not. Aside from its minuscule size, it mimics the work of the SSJB, Mouvement Quebec Francais and Imperatif Francais in promoting the French language and the cause of sovereignty.

THE IFRA is a tiny French language lobby group, run by a university student consisting of a website, post-office box and a personal cellular telephone number.
The website shows a couple of academic separatists forming a 'scientific committee' which includes Marc Termote, a demographer and renowned language militant, and employee of the OQLF.

 "The decline of French in Quebec is so relentless that demographer Marc Termote says the government will have no choice but to consider taking drastic measures if it wants to turn the tide: a halt to immigration or the imposition of unilingual French throughout its territory." Link{FR}

Mr. Termotte is joined on the committee with Claude Castonguay, a retired professor of mathematics from the University of Ottawa and OQLF veteran.

The IFRA commissioned and recently published a study by another like-minded 'Institute" the 'Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine (IREC) which concluded, not surprisingly that English is over-represented in the Public Service in Quebec.
Checking the IREC's website I was not surprised to find that Jacques Parizeau, is the honorary President of the Board of Directors so you can imagine its political bent. 

The impartiality of these types of organizations and their ability to deliver non-biased statistically  based reports is more than questionable and when newspapers reprint their conclusions as fact, it breaks the very tenants of what good journalism should be.
You wouldn't expect a newspaper to reprint as fact, the conclusion that there is no link between cancer and smoking, based on a report prepared by the tobacco industry, nor would you expect a newspaper to reprint as fact, a positive link between prayer and good health, based on a report prepared by the Church.
But when a group of militant French-language separatists, offers a study on the dire situation of the French language in Quebec, it is printed in our newspapers as gospel.  Shame!

The impartiality of those preparing reports and studies on any publicly debated issue has recently become a hot issue in relation to climate change. Competing groups of scientists have muddied up the issue by allowing personal or group bias affect how they collected, prepared and interpreted data. It has had a devastating effect on the debate with the public unsure of who to believe.

Last year, here in Quebec, we were treated to a lively public debate between anglo rights defender Jack Jedwab and French language militant Claude Castonguay over which group, anglophones or Francophones enjoy a higher income, with both claiming that statistics supported their opposite positions. What nonsense!

And so, before ever putting stock in a study, one has to consider the bias and impartiality of those who prepared the report or study.
Readers, they don't come much more biased than the IRFA.

I've  previously written on the skewed conclusions of another report prepared by the IRFA and its contention that English cegeps (junior colleges) are a danger to the French language.

Read: English Cegep Study - A Case of Weird Science

And so when the IRFA recently published a report that describes Quebec's public sector as overly friendly to anglophones, I almost fell out of my chair laughing, not only because its conclusions were so skewed, but because the media lapped up the report without question.
Download the PDF in French

The report concludes that with 8.7% of the population 13.9% of the jobs in the public service are English.
Both of these numbers are false and misleading.

I didn't have to go deep into the report to realize that we were to be treated to a statistical sleight-of-hand leading to dubious and unsupportable conclusions.

There in the Resume;

And there it is..... 'historical anglophones,' a term used by ultra-separatists to magically reduce the real number of anglophones that they count.
I thought it was only zealots like Louis Prefontaine that use terms like that, but its seems to have crept into the language debate as something legitimate.

There really is no definitive way to describe who is an Anglo and so separatists use critera that suits them, where numbers are reduced.

Through voodoo statistical analysis, language extremists like Prefontaine can claim that 'historical' anglophones' represent just 5.6% of the Quebec population, while the author of this report can claim that the number of 'historical' anglophones is about 8.7%.

I much prefer the numbers of Statistics Canada, an organization which is arguably just about as unbiased as you can get.

So the English minority is actually 13.4%!
The explanation for the higher number is clearly spelled out.

Now before defenders of the report start attacking the integrity of Statisitcs Canada, I'd point out that much of the study itself is based on StatsCan data.

If one accepts this 13.4% figure, the conclusion of the report that English at 13.9% is vastly over-represented is proven false.

But wait, there's more! (as they say in the infomercials!)

I've gone through the whole report and cannot fathom how the author arrived at his conclusion that 13.9% of public jobs are English.

He claims that there are 31,000 jobs where public employees use English exclusively or English majorly while working. I'd love to see a list.

Now these jobs are not in Education and Health and Social services fields, which are treated separately in the report.
Here directly from the study;

"In Quebec 31,334 of the 237,209 public administration jobs are unilingually English or bilingual English/French, representing 13%"

I'd like to know where these unilingual English jobs exist in Quebec's public Administration.

Perhaps there's a couple of thousand of employees working in English at the Ministère des Transports or the Sûreté du Québec? Maybe there's a few more thousand stashed at Revenue Québec or  Environment Quebec.
Or maybe these employees toil tirelessly in Télé-Québec or the Ministère de l'Agriculture where they speak English all day and write and file English reports to their superiors who reply in English.

Really?? Are you kidding me?

Anglophones make up less than 2% of the civil service and I bet they speak French almost all of the time.

Even if this fanciful idea was true (which it certainly is not) working the majority of the time in English, means working some of the time in French and so the effective rate of English services offered by the 13.9% is reduced in consequence.

I shall be bringing you more statistical nonsense from the IRFA in the near future but until then, rest assured that as they say on the French language version of Mythbusters, this report is 'bidon!'