Does Partition Make Sense for Sovereigntists?

There's little doubt that most Francophone Quebecers abhor the idea of partition and when it comes to militant sovereigntists, just the mention of the word is enough to get their mouths frothing in rage.

I don't know if many readers recall a letter campaign back in 1998 directed at Westmounters by a nationalist group, in which some dire threats were made against the town for even thinking about partition.

The letter was all the more frightening because it was distributed by a militant group that included Rhéal Mathieu a member of the FLQ in the sixties, who served nine years for terrorist activities and who again was convicted in 2000 in relation to the bombing of the Second Cup Coffee shop. In a piece on vigile.net, he gives an account of that operation. Link{Fr}
I've gone ahead and translated the threatening diatribe, since I've wasn't able to find an English version online.
It may well be the first translation of the document. I've posted the French original online and you can read it by clicking under the image below.

THOUGHTS ON CANADIAN UNITY

See the original document in French

ON THE OCCASION OF THE CELEBRATION OF VICTORIA DAY

On May 5, 1997, the City of Westmount adopted a resolution on Canadian unity proposed by militants and described by the media as 'partitionist.' Mayor Peter Trent himself has repeatedly stated that these unity resolutions, in and of themselves, are partitionist. This resolution is actually a 'Sword of Damocles' hanging over your head. This letter is intended to make you aware of the immediate and long-term consequences of adoption of such a resolution.

In effect, you must now consider what you will do when Quebec becomes a sovereign state. You should think carefully before acting, because if your city is considering partition, it is likely that your life will become a Hell. Your situation may be similar to that of the American hostages in the embassy in Tehran, or at best, to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

In the very real world, what would life in a partitionist regime be like? You should be aware that should Westmount decide on the partition, the situation would be entirely different from that of Northern Ireland where there are airports and seaports. Westmount is an enclave within the city of Montreal, compared to Northern Ireland which is on a peninsula. Londonderry, Belfast and Newcastle are seaports, a stone's throw from England.

The strategic position of Westmount looks much more like that of West Berlin under Soviet blockade than that of Northern Ireland. With one exception, however, because in Westmount you could not even attempt to move across the wall, because you are surrounded by Québec!

If you tried to partition, refusing to pay your taxes to the government of Quebec, it is foreseeable that the worst of disasters could befall you and your families. You could run out of drinking water, fuel, electricity and in short, all the amenities you need to ensure your daily survival. A political hailstorm on the city.

Is not, the first responsibility of a municipal government to provide the population basic services, such as protection against fire, water supply, traffic management, and disposal of waste water? The constitution is outside municipal jurisdiction. By adopting such a resolution, your municipality does a disservice to your best interests. It puts you in a rather untenable position.

After any attempt to partition, it is clear that collaborative arrangements with the city of Montreal on the protection against fire, the water supply, waste management, sewage and traffic would fail. Westmount Square could go up in smoke and no firefighter from Montreal would come to the rescue.

From where does the water that your firefighters need come from? Westmount does not even have potable water of its own. Why would the city of Montreal or the Quebec government provide drinking water, filtered and disinfected, to people who want to extract a piece of territory? As citizens, you would be forced to collect rain water for your household needs.

With regard to traffic management, the situation would be unbearable. To prevent smuggling as in Kahnawake, Quebec would have to establish a security cordon with  several customs stations mounted at key locations in Montreal and forcing citizens who wished to enter or leave to lose several hours a day in order to present themselves to Quebec Customs officers.

If we consider the issue of domestic waste management, what would happen? Within two weeks, Westmount would become a dump, because the government would refuse a Canadian city, in this case Westmount, to export its waste to Quebec.

Today, do you think you would easily find a buyer for your home if Keith Henderson, Tyler and Galganov continue to say, in agreement with your local council, they will partition Westmount, build a wall around it to isolate it from the city of Montreal? Do not let these racist idiots speak for you!

You know the motto of Quebec: "I remember." Well! We remind you that today is the 35th anniversary of Operation mailboxes in Westmount, led by the Front de Liberation du Quebec, May 17, 1963: 10 bombs, five explosions, an officer of the Canadian Army seriously injured.

Today, in Westmount, Quebec patriots came to your house to your mailbox, with an olive branch in hand, not with dynamite. As in Northern Ireland, we want peace. We took our pen to appeal to your reason.
- We demand that the Mayor Peter Trent declare that the City of Westmount is not partitionist.

 -We demand that the citizens of the city of Westmount appear before the City Council and adopt a resolution confirming that they agree to submit to any democratic decision of the Quebec people.

If the council persists in its anti-democratic path, legal action to boycott the city of Westmount could be undertaken in the coming months. These actions would be aimed at teaching Westmounters what everyday life would be in an partitionist enclave. Obviously, in addition to the disadvantages that would befall everyone, one would expect that the market value of your residential and commercial buildings in Westmount would be greatly affected.

We do not want that to happen. Rather, we hope to receive a positive response to this call, otherwise you and we, will live with the consequences.                                        National Liberation Movement of Quebec

I'm not going to critique the letter, readers are welcome to do so, suffice to say that I reproduced it here as an extreme example of how seriously sovereigntists consider the partition threat.

But I'd like to present a different scenario today, one where maybe, just maybe, sovereigntists could possibily consider the idea of partition viable.

Here goes;
Let us for the sake of argument consider a PQ majority victory in an election sometime next year, followed by an unsuccessful referendum which again, for the sake of argument, was lost 55% to 45% margin.

Nobody can dispute that this third kick at the can will be devastating. It would be unthinkable for Pauline Marois (like Parizeau before her) to give a speech promising another referendum.

The referendum would cool the ardor of that younger generation of militants that never had a chance to vote for independence. For the older generation of sovereigntists, it would signal the end of their dream.

So where to go from there?
With the vote for independence going backwards, coupled with the demographics of immigration that sees another 40,000 federalists entering Quebec each year, even the most ardent of sovereigntists would be demoralized.

As the old saying goes, Half a loaf is better than none.


At that point the only way to achieve sovereignty would be partition.
Allow the island of Montreal to become Canada's eleventh (then tenth) province and remove all those anglos and Ethnics from voting in a new referendum, which I have no doubt will pass.

Quebec minus Montreal would be painful but would return Quebec to what sovereigntists dream it should be.
Eliminating English altogether in Quebec would force new immigrants to adopt French.

Those Francophone Montrealers who wished to remain in Quebec would merely have to move to Laval and vice versa for federalist Quebecers who wished to remain in Canada.

It's a rather neat solution, don't you think?

By the way, all those threats above......hogwash.
It cuts both ways.
It would be in everyone's interest to cooperate.

Language Hotheads Breed Violence

The day after Benoit Dutrizac aired the infamous recording of a Verdun depanneur cussing out his Francophone customers, he followed up the story with an interview with Quebec's most renowned Anglophobe, Gilles Proulx, who reminded listeners rather seriously that if the store was located in Northern Ireland, it would long ago have been burned down via a Molotov cocktail. Listen{Fr}

The next day a militant language group demonstrated in front of the depanneur, hurling not only insults, but feces as well.
The police had to advise the owner to close up shop for his own security. Link

Of course Mr. Proulx would be the first to tell you that he didn't incite anyone to violence, he was just stating a fact in referring to violence in Northern Ireland.
He did the same thing back in 1995 during the Mohawk blockade of the Mercier bridge, hissing on the radio that the Mohawks involved, couldn't even speak French, fanning the flames of hate in an unstable and potentially violent situation.

That scene ended shamefully with vigilantes attacking a convoy of cars full of Indian women and children trying to escape.
I hope the Jeunes Patriotes du Québec who participated in the attack on the depanneur have a chance to watch this video, so that they can see the consequences of their actions and perhaps understand what is to be hated by a gang of racists.
This video isn't of Palestine, Syria or Tibet. This was Quebec 1995.

Pathetic...

At any rate I'm not really sure what Mr. Proulx was so upset about, it certainly couldn't be the statement that had every one else riled up, the one made by the depanneur owner, impinging the reputation of his customers;

"You stay at home, you drink beer, you smoke cigarettes, you take welfare," he said. "I am an immigrant here. I have a business. I take care of you people."

You see readers, Gilles Proulx made a similar statement himself on the radio, (one which he was reproached for by Quebec's Press council) when he said this about Quebecoise women on welfare.

"grosses torches qui mangent des chips et boivent du cola en écoutant les émissions les plus stupides"

I'll let our Francophone readers do the translation for you......

At any rate it isn't surprising that Stéphane Gendron, the controversial mayor of Huntingdon who characterized Bill 101 as racist, had his home and automobile vandalized last week.

No doubt language militants including some of those who habituate the comments sections of this blog applaud the action.
All this over an opinion in a province that is supposed to encourage free speech.
To all of you who think that the depanneur and Mr. Gendron got what they deserved, you should understand that you are a testament to savagery and a shining example of the same intolerance displayed in the video above.
I hope you are proud of yourselves. I wonder where you learned your democratic principles.

But unfortunately, it's not only the shock jocks, the Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste, or militant bloggers who are raising  the level of language tension here in Quebec, shamefully it is the OQLF which is stirring up the pot in a dishonest campaign of misinformation meant to dispel it's image as ineffective.

For many months now, ever since the OQLF came out with a new policy whereby stores using a registered trademark would be required to add a French 'modifier' I've been telling you that they had no legal basis to do so.

I also ruminated that it was wrong that nobody in the mainstream Press seemed to be interested in that aspect of the story. And so perhaps my interpretation was wrong, it's happened before.

But FINALLY somebody agrees and does so in print.
Yesterday in LaPRESSE,  Denis Lessard has written an article that says that the OQLF has no legal basis to force 'modifiers' on store names.

"Yesterday, the spokesperson of the Office, Martin Bergeron, argued that it was too early to announce the number of complaints made ​​on the question of name displays as a result of the campaign organization. "We checked our legal interpretation before moving forward. We understand that there are people who do not have the same interpretation as us, "he said.

 That readers is the closest you're going to get to an admission that the OQLF knows that it is wrong.
Mr Lessard went on to say this on the subject.

"This new campaign of the OQLF ignored a formal opinion of the Conseil de la langue, provided the government of Lucien Bouchard in 2000, at a time when  Louise Beaudoin was the minister in charge. The PQ government was told then that it was advisable to use incentives to get companies to francize their names, since according to the law, they were not on solid ground." Link{Fr}

And so the OQLF is out of line and knows that it is on thin ice, the question  remains as to why it pursues this course of action.
Can it be that it is doing exactly what Camille Laurin did when he introduced Bill 101, thirty-five years ago, that is, advancing policies that cannot stand a court test in order to foster discord and thus further the cause of sovereignty?

What is clear is that this new aggressiveness has whipped up language militants into a frenzy, triggering a slew of new complaints by militants emboldened by the actions of the OQLF.

Our intrepid defender of the French language, Louis Prefontaine, is so riled up that he has promised to head down to Huntingdon to search out and denounce to the OQLF all illegal English signs.

I hope he is received politely, you might remember what happened to the OQLF inspector who was given quite the welcome in a small English town, a few years ago.
'In 1999, a group of militant Shawville English-speakers gave a provincial “language” inspector quite a rude welcome and finally chased him out of town during a showdown over English on business signs.'

You see Mr. Proulx, two can play the innocent incitement game. It isn't nice.

Finally some push back.
In an article in LaPresse, Yves Boisvert writes;

"In several cities in Quebec, as Huntingdon, the two linguistic communities live in perfect harmony, many couples are "bicultural", there are English and French schools and no one is fainting because they heard a word of English at the convenience store .

What harm does it cause to French if some cities adopt a bilingual policy in their communications, even if "only" 44% of citizens are English speaking?

Can we not imagine some flexibility in applying the law to take into account local traditions, the size of the municipality....."

These things apparently cannot be said."  Link

Yup, rationality is out the window, when language fanatics, encouraged by the government itself, run riot over free speech and free choice.

It seems that all is fair in the language debate in Quebec.

I wonder if Dutrizac or Proulx would be offended if someone planted a microphone in their homes or under a table in a restaurant where they were dining and aired some of their injudicious remarks on the radio. I'm sure they wouldn't like it.

But how can you blame these shock jocks for ethical lapses when an official arm of the government is leading the crusade against English by totally abandoning all sense of fair play, by advancing policies that cannot be defended legally.

Such is where we are.

If something isn't done to stop the insanity we are headed down a road that will hurt Quebec badly and I mean the Francophone majority.

I shall turn things around and remind militants who are raining down hate down on Anglos and ethnics that it is a sure-fire  formula for making 350 million enemies around you.

In order to survive in a free and independent state, as you hope, Quebec will depend on the good will of neighbors and like the poor depanner in Verdun, spitting on your customers is decidedly bad business.

Is OQLF Making it Up As it Goes Along?

I know I promised a blog piece today on partition, but I think that the order of the day should be rearranged to accommodate a followup to Monday's post.

No doubt you heard about the Chinese Nigerian depanneur in Verdun who was secretly recorded in a telephone call by a researcher for Benoît Dutrizac, a noted Quebec shock-jock widely known for his rabid Anglophobia.
The Chinese immigrant was castigated for his lack of French and given a lesson in Bill 101, but the shopkeeper wasn't having any of it and unloaded on his accuser, in no uncertain terms.
It was actually quite hilarious.. Give a listen;
If you don't speak French it doesn't matter, most of the action is in English.

As you can imagine when the call was aired on the radio, it evoked quite a reaction.

Here's a video of a demonstration mounted in front of the convenience store by Les Jeunes patriotes du Québec. YouTube

Here's a story over CTV.

Read some of the comments below the article for a laugh!

Thanks to Andrew for the story.

Now I mention all this because the next day, Mr.  Dutrizac interviewed none other than the esteemed Madame Louise Marchand, head of the l'Office québécois de la langue française, who tut-tutted  at the extreme disrespect shown by this immigrant to the francophone majority.

It's one thing for a renowned Anglo-hater like Dutrizac to unload on an immigrant, taping a conversation surreptitiously and airing it without permission. Picking on the most vulnerable, an immigrant shopkeeper who probably works a hundred hours a week, may be par for the course for this self-important sleazebag, BUT......
the head of the OQLF dumping on the shopkeeper goes beyond the pale.

It seems that Madame Marchand is doing a lot of talking lately and I am fast coming to the realization that a lot of it is misdirection and malarkey.

Her latest campaign of 'persuasion' instead of enforcement in the matter of English store names and 'descriptives' has me thinking that the lady has no case at all.

It's like a cop making a friendly 'suggestion,' ....it only happens when he has no legal way to force you to do what he wants you to do.

Let's go back to the beginning.
Bill 101 was drafted almost thirty-five years ago by the famous Dr. Camille Laurin, who made no bones about the fact that it was a more than a law about protecting and promoting the French  language but rather a political instrument designed to further the cause of sovereignty.

It is important to understand this aspect, Bill 101 was created to promote sovereignty, as the good doctor freely admitted.

When Rene Levesque first saw the draft version of the law presented to his cabinet, barely three months after the PQ won the election, he was quite honestly appalled and pointed out to Laurin that many parts of it were clearly unconstitutional, plain to see, even to non-lawyer.
One of the original clauses in the act actually outlawed English in the courts and the legislature, something directly contravening the B.N.A Act.

Laurin told Levesque that it was part of the strategy, to create a law that would be attacked by the Anglos.
Those court challenges which would ultimately succeed, would engender a sense of rage among francophones, feeding the fire of sovereignty.
The strategy worked magnificently, over the years, some 70 clauses have been repealed, rejected or rewritten, representing about one-third of the law.

Today it is an integral part of the sovereigntists narrative that the evil Supreme Court has taken an axe to the law in revenge against Franco-Quebecer nationalism.
In that respect Mr. Laurin is to be congratulated for his grand deception, a marvel of cynical manipulation.
But pardon me if I don't clap.

When Laurin first presented his draft law to reporters at a press conference, a young reporter at the time, Don Macpherson, asked Dr. Laurin if he was prepared, and if he would indeed welcome the exodus of minorities that would surely ensue. A deadpan Laurin answered that he would regret such an exodus, but clearly it was lie.

Although Levesque objected to the law, he was overwhelmed by his own cabinet and when Laurin presented Bill 101 to Parliament Levesque signaled his displeasure by walking out on the presentation, but the law passed anyway.
Bill 101 was conceived as a weapon for sovereignty and remains such today, to pretend otherwise is pure fantasy. Ask any of the mayor players involved in its creation and they will freely admit it.

Unfortunately most francophones have bought into the lie that Bill 101 is only about protecting the French language, not persecuting minorities.

It is in this context we can understand why the OQLF attempts to restrict, eliminate and render minorities uncomfortable, in any way it can. It is all about sovereignty.

It still goes on today. Anglophones being told they cannot buy English products because they are in Quebec.

Thanks to Susan for the link...

I don't even know what this product is, but does it mean that you cannot order a book or a film over the Internet if there is no French version available?
I don't think that the law provides for that, but I'm sure the OQLF is creating a climate of fear, scaring manufacturers with misinformation, then claiming they had nothing to do with it.

Not only does it make no sense, it's petty and vindictive, meant purely to harass English speakers.

Now the law provides many rules and regulations for the use of French and places limits on minority languages rights, but a lot is left unsaid and so Bill 101 actually provides for the government to add definition to the law by means of regulations that the OQLF may provide from time to time.

Two of these regulations, or interpretations are quite interesting.

One concerns the name of businesses and the right to use a registered trademark on its masthead and in advertising.
Now here are the regulations directly from the OQLF website, I'm not making any of it up.

Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business

Charter of the French language

 (R.S.Q., c. C-11, ss. 54.1, 58 and 67)

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

  (1)    the firm name of a firm established exclusively outside Québec;

  (2)    a name of origin, the denomination of an exotic product or foreign specialty, a heraldic motto or any other non-commercial motto;

  (3)    a place name designating a place situated outside Québec or a place name in such other language as officialized by the Commission de toponymie du Québec, a family name, a given name or the name of a personality or character or a distinctive name of a cultural nature; and

  (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.     OQLF LINK

 Clearly, there is no such requirement for a 'descriptive' phrase to be added to a trademark.
I have no idea by virtue of what rule or regulation the OQLF is now demanding that companies do so.
I also believe that trifling with international law vis-a-vis trademarks is a losing proposition if the OQLF decides to add a rule to provide a requirement for modifiers.
As of now, I believe none exists.

Secondly is the concern over English communication in Huntingdon.
The OQLF has said that it is illegal for the city to add English in addition to French in its communication with citizens.
As I told you on Monday, (after Hugo S. pointed it out) this goes against the OQLF's own interpretation.

Link to original OQLF web page

So it seems that municipalities do have the right to communicate with townsfolk in another language as long as French is included.
I don't think the above notice could be much clearer.

I'm not a lawyer, but these two examples seem to run completely opposite what Madame Marchand is saying in public.

Is the OQLF out of control, making things up as it goes along?

Does Madame Marchand actually know what the heck she is talking about, when she tells us that Canadian Tire must by law add a descriptive, where no law or regulation exists requiring it to do so?

Why isn't anybody calling out for clarification?

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UPDATE!

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Here is a story on the depanneur that was aired on CBC.  Listen here

Huntingdon Mayor Shows Up Gutless Anglo Community

When it comes to defending our own language rights, it's embarrassing to say that one gutsy Francophone, Stéphane Gendron, has more gumption than almost all our Anglo community.

An editorial piece in the Montreal Gazette last week typifies the defeatist attitude that permeates the Anglo community, where even those in leadership positions choose to give up rather than fight. 

"Gendron has proposed that municipalities with an anglophone population of 10 per cent or more be required to provide bilingual service. That’s asking a lot. A more reasonable proposal would be to require municipalities with 50 per cent or more anglo residents to provide bilingual service, and give other towns the option of doing so.
But the sad reality, as demonstrated by the all-party reaction to Gendron’s campaign, is that under present circumstances asking for any change in the language law that would benefit the province’s English-speaking minority is asking too much." Link

 Five years ago, on the thirtieth anniversary of Bill 101, the Gazette published this drivel.

Bill 101 paved way for peace

"A generation later, the language charter is widely accepted as an intrinsic part of Quebec’s social fabric. Both anglos and francophones of moderate persuasion say the law has engendered an unprecedented era of social peace and easing of language tensions and fostered a cross-cultural communication between English and French Quebecers that has served as an important bridge between the storied "two solitudes" of the bad old days." Link

Social peace...

The collective wisdom of our Anglo intelligentsia, spearheaded by the Montreal Gazette, Hubert Bauch and Anne Lagacé Dowson is that whatever rights we give up each day is a small price to pay for the peaceful coexistence we have achieved.
Put that way, it sounds pretty neat.

But if one considers that it is really no different from paying a weekly protection fee to the local street gang in order to 'insure' that the goons don't beat the crap out of us, it doesn't sound so noble, but that is what we have done, bargained away our rights in the name of security.

Those of us in the English community who advocate appeasement, conveniently forget that hundreds of thousands of our fellow Anglos were chased out of this province by language persecution. When reminded that this was the price of this so-called 'social peace,' they make the case that those who left were no better than Rhodesians, unwilling to downgrade their status to second class citizenship in the name of safety and expediency.

The appeasers have bought into the narrative that somehow the English, the Irish, the Scots and later the Ethnics are all evil anglicizers, exploiters and colonialists of the innocent and naïve Francophone nation, when reality tells us that proportionally, it is the industry of these minorities that actually made the greatest contribution to the building of the province.

Slowly over the last forty years Anglos went from being full and respected partners in Quebec society to an afterthought, a people whose rights as a founding nation were cast aside, replaced by the notion that we are a bother, interlopers who have overstayed our welcome and where our Francophone hosts begrudgingly tolerate us because they have to, not because they want to.
Like an unwanted longtime resident in a rent controlled apartment building our Francophone landlords wait rather impatiently for us to die off or leave, turning off the electricity every now and then or cutting off the heat in an effort to hurry up the process.

Like the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water, our status and rights were incrementally chipped away until we became what we are today, a second class element of society along with the immigrants and ethnics, reminded on a daily basis that we are not what Quebec is supposed to be.

It's sadly amusing to read justifications in the press describing how necessary and reasonable provisions of Bill 101 are and that the restrictions and denial of civil liberties imposed on the English and ethnics are not that big a deal.
It's not surprising that the law is popular among Francophones, the price for defending the French language is paid by our community, not theirs.

The issue of bilingual status for towns is one of Bill 101's cruelest and most vindictive elements.
The law demands that a city or town have an outright majority of Anglophones before it can use the English publicly, alongside French, of course.
To Francophone militants this seems eminently generous, but the provision was actually put in place in an attempt to avoid a human rights outcry at the United Nations where the Quebec government would be obliged to explain how a town like Montreal West with 80% anglophone population would be barred from using English.

And so when it comes to rights, it seems that fairness is in the eye of the beholder.

Somehow it is fair that a town in Quebec with a 49% Anglophone population be denied the right to communicate with citizens in English, but an Air Canada flight with no French passengers aboard be obliged to have French speaking personnel to communicate and make announcements to passengers in both languages.

Each day, we are told that Francophones, as the church lady used to say on SNL are "Special" and as such deserve extended language rights in Canada which they deny their English citizens in Quebec.
Imagine if Air Canada or Via Rail were free to impose that same 50% threshold rule in their operations and so be required to offer French only in the case where there was a clear majority of Francophones aboard an airplane or train.
In cases where there weren't enough Francophones aboard, a passenger could still order a Seven-Up in French.
All she'd have to do is wait for the crew to finish serving everyone in English and then send a written request to the pilot requesting service in French. How convenient and fair!
Such is the stupidity of the argument made by French militants who tell us that English townsfolk can get English documentation, available on request!

Should the 50% rule be applied by Ontario and New Brunswick, Francophones in cities like Moncton (34% French) and Ottawa (21% French) would lose the right to receive French communication alongside English, from the city as a matter of course.
In fact just about every city or town in Canada outside Quebec would fall short of a Francophone majority and as such, would be ineligible for bilingual communication, a situation that would be described as unfair, by French language boosters.

To these French language defenders there is nothing discordant in supporting the requirement for bilingual personnel in a Cornwall hospital, while defending the principle that nobody be 'forced'  to speak English on the job in Quebec.

Incredibly, in Quebec, it remains public policy that minority rights are to be tolerated only in cases where the minority is the majority, a convoluted notion if ever there was one.
Again, perfect sense in this province....

The unmitigated effrontery of the double standard is maddening.
I could go on and on.... so could you.

And so that brings me back around to the likes of Stéphane Gendron, a man clearly tilting at windmills.

You know you've struck a nerve when the whole Quebec establishment, both sovereigntist and federalist attacks you.
That the Francophone community is furiously denouncing him in a vitriolic campaign of denigration is understandable.
The story has already spilled out across Canada and the fear remains that the story could spread to the United States with the province again subjected to ridicule and derision, perhaps by another '60 Minutes' fiasco.

But it is the reaction in the English media that is saddest, where Gendron is portrayed as a pitiful figure fighting a losing battle and discredited because he made some injudicious remarks about Israel (for which he later apologized for) therefore disqualifying him now from being taken seriously.
But as Jonathan Kay wrote in the National Post 'sometimes devils dance on the side of angels'

Like those merchants in the neighborhood who continue to pay the street gang protection money while rationalizing it as a good business decision, seeing somebody stand up to the hoodlums is embarrassing.

When he ultimately fails, the Anglo detractors will say 'I told you so' as if their chosen path of appeasement is validated.

History abounds with stories of heroic, yet futile resistance and those of shameless collaboration.
History judges the appeasers and collaborationists harshly, it is the resisters who we admire, whether those efforts are futile or not.

Stéphane Gendron is a hero very much because he is bound to lose his fight.

One thing remains indisputable, the longer he lasts on the battlefield, the more harm he does to the credibility of his opponents and like Rocky Balboa boxing against Apollo Creed, just standing on his feet for the full fifteen rounds, is victory in and of itself.

For those apologists who say his fight is useless, I tell them that they are wrong.

Everyday that Stéphane Gendron continues the fight and keeps the story in the news, the issue of minority English rights in Quebec remains unsettled and that so-called 'social peace' declared by appeasers, remains an illusion.

That is what the other side understands better than we, and that is why they hate Gendron so much.

Ultimately, it remains humiliating that a francophone is fighting a battle that we are too afraid to engage in ourselves.

All I can offer is this brief passage from one of my favorite poems;

"And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"

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It  has been pointed out in the comments section that perhaps Huntingdon is NOT breaking the law!

This according to a memo written by l'Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) itself, in  1999.

Click Here for the original at the  OQLF website

"ALL of Quebec's municipalities can put out information in both languages and it wouldn't break the law. (nice research Steve) So the OQLF harassing him at all is ridiculous, even from their own text."

Thanks to Hugo  for pointing this out.

French versus English Volume 49

Fear of 'English jobs' leads to decline in English vocational funding.

“....Someone who is very highly placed in the world of Quebec education told me at the Quebec Federation of Home and School Associations annual meeting last fall in Beaconsfield that English school boards are having a terrible time getting Quebec to approve new student spaces in English vocational education.

“The problem,” the person told me, “is that the ministry has started to say to us, ‘You’re trying to get us to create English jobs,’ but we’re not. Vocational training is part of the education system, but the government has started to decouple the two.” Read the rest of the story

Furious demand shrinks access to English cegep.

“...The other day I was talking to a colleague who told me she's been hearing anglophone parents of high-school students expressing hope that Bill 101 is toughened to keep francophones and immigrants out of English-language CEGEPs.

Normally, language crackdowns aren't something anglophones like to see in Quebec. But competition for limited spots in English CEGEPs, which are not bound by Bill 101, has become more intense as applications have risen through the ongoing economic sluggishness.

The access quandary is politically amplified by the fact that old attitudes toward English in Quebec are breaking down. Bright, ambitious young francophones and children of immigrants increasingly see English CEGEPs as stepping stones out into the wider world. Read the rest of the story

Don Cherry complains about lack of "Ontario" players on Maple Leafs

Many readers are of the opposite opinion of mine when I say that there are not enough Francophone hockey players on the Montreal Canadiens.

It remains my position that a NHL hockey team is a business and as such, must serve its clients as best it can.
Listening to what customers want and delivering a product in tune with those desires, is what makes businesses SUCCE$$FUL.
There remains those who believe that language or national origin should have no place in any decision to hire one player over the other.......Fair enough, we've each got a right to our opinion.

 But those who complain that it's only Quebecers who complain about such issues are wrong. I bet most teams would love to have local talent.
Here's the proof that Quebec is not alone in this desire.

Listen to Don Cherry complain about a lack of Ontario players on the Toronto Maple Leafs and listen to Brian Burke's (the Leafs' general manager) defend himself from allegation that he is anti-Ontario.  HERE

By the way, I had lunch this week with a former coach of the Canadiens, (I won't drop his name because it was a private conversation.)  He told me, as we were discussing the French/English issue,  that French players do try harder when wearing a Habs jersey. He said some players who had a bad game were too scared to go out and face the public. Oh Boy!
No need to motivate them!!!

Gilles Duceppe wins Waste award

"Former Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe received a lifetime achievement accolades in the 14th annual Teddy Waste Award ceremony, put on by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to highlight what it deems to be wasteful government spending.

At 2:50 Montreal is skewered for it snowplows plowing bare sidewalks
At 9:10 Gilles Duceppe receives a lifetime achievement award

Read  the story

Small Quebec town  to challenge Bill 101

"The city of Huntingdon is vowing to keep serving its citizens in the “two official languages” after the Office québécois de la langue française asked it to transmit its communications to residents in French only.

In an email to the municipality in January, the OQLF noted it had received a complaint against the city.

It was a written, bilingual publication from the city that sparked the complaint, although Huntingdon Mayor Stéphane Gendron said that’s all they know. The city’s communication with citizens is always bilingual, Gendron said.

By transmitting bilingual communications to its residents, the city of Huntingdon gives the impression of being a bilingual city and, as a result, “doesn’t fully play the exemplary role expected of a public administration body” in terms of the French-language Charter, the OQLF’s email said. It also noted a publication can be transmitted in another language afterward to people who make the request.

“I don’t understand. Does it hurt someone to receive a bilingual publication,” Gendron asked? Link

Remaining adamant, the mayor, Stéphane Gendron hasn't backed down in the face of a furious backlash. He has however said he's going to step down early as mayor to concentrate on a media career.

Protest over Bilingual Hospital continues

"Ryan Alguire is a student at St. Lawrence College who wants to work as a water technician for the city but he's been told that he needs to be bilingual. "It's frustrating to have to pay money to go to school here, pay taxes and everything and live here my entire life, but not actually work in the province that I love," he says.
 St. Lawrence College nursing student Colleen Rudowski came to voice her opinion even though she says a lot of students are afraid to speak up. "I find a lot of students or people in general are just apprehensive to speak up about it for the fear of not getting hired at the hospital in Cornwall, not finding employment or somebody holding a grudge against them. I'm already planning on leaving because I can't speak French fluently," she says. " Read the rest of the story

Quebecer asks Queen to 'fire' Harper

“.. Somebody wrote to the Queen asking her to fire Stephen Harper as Prime Minister Link{Fr}

Quebec versus Alberta

"Three years after global energy prices tanked, Alberta’s oilsands are booming once again.

But industry players say they’re already bracing for what they fear lies ahead: chronic labour shortages and soaring cost pressures, two factors that caused so much havoc during the last boom.

As 2012 began, the number of workers employed in the province was already five per cent above its pre-recession high, the Conference Board of Canada says, handily outstripping the national growth rate.

Over the next two years, the board predicts Alberta will create 132,900 net new jobs — or about 40,000 more people than the entire population of Red Deer — cutting the province’s unemployment rate to 4.5 per cent by 2013. That’s just one per cent above the pre-recession lows of 2007." Link

Sounds like good news?

Not if you are  Françoise David, co-president of socialist Quebec Solidaire.

In an interview she showed concern that Quebec's  'Plan Nord will be too successful and thus depopulate areas south of the St. Lawrence river, its workers tempted by high wages in the North.

"Young people might be tempted to leave school to go north. What will they eventually become without formal training?" Ms. David wonders. 
Madame David also expressed concern for families who will be separated because of the far-away jobs. Link{Fr}

By the way, Quebec's unemployment rate..... 8.4%

Here's another interesting comparison, this time between Quebec and North Dakota over at antagonist.net

It is comprised of two videos, one showing the benefits of shale gas production in North Dakota followed by a video by Quebec 'zartistes' demanding a moratorium on any development.
SEE IT HERE

Radio-Canada now working for the OQLF?

It seems that the French CBC has undertaken an investigative report concerning the existence of stores that allegedly contravene Bill 101's provision that an English store name must have a French modifier.
Horror of horrors, 26% of the stores were found delinquent.
The funniest part of the story was when the interviewer asked a passerby what he thought of the situation. The man replied that he was from Paris and all the store names there were in English!!!!
 
The report was so anti-English, you'd think Mario Beaulieu was the editor.
Your federal tax dollars at work! LINK{Fr}      Watch the news report{Fr}

Montreal film director camps it up in 'GOON.'

Montrealer Jay Baruchel, co-writer, producer and star of Goon, had his tongue firmly in cheek when offered this scene of a hockey arena in Quebec.

The scene flashed by, almost unnoticed, but not to this eagle-eye.

"I swear I'm not making this up!

Just when you thought government waste couldn't get any sillier, here is a story that will have you shaking your head in disbelief.

The Journal de Montreal ran a story last week detailing the wasteful spending habits of Quebec's school commissions charged with running the provinces education system up until the end of high school.
Detailing a litany of dubious spending practices where expense reimbursement is out of control, including golf tournaments galore, or hiring a separate service to water plants in offices, the horrors go on and on.
But one last item caught my eye.
The Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys pays employees 44¢ per kilometer when they use their vehicle to attend meetings outside the office.
Now here's the kicker...
If at the same time, they give a lift to another employee, THAT EMPLOYEE receives10¢ per kilometer as a gesture of good will for ride-sharing! LINK{Fr}



The school commissioners who are elected,  have a pretty good gig controlling a $9 billion budget.
By the way the turnout in recent school elections of 2007 was 7.9% and 67% of Commissioners (879 of 1305) were elected by acclamation.

  In Monday's Wednesday's post we continue our discussion of Partition;

'Does Partition Make Sense for Sovereigntists?'

Monday's Post- 
'Huntingdon Mayor Humiliates Gutless Anglos'

Further reading:

French versus English Volume 48

 Have a great weekend!