The True Effect Of Language Intolerance

I'll let you in on a little secret, my shopping street of choice is a stretch of Somerled Avenue (a good Scottish name) in the NDG (Notre Dame de Grace) district of Montreal.

This isn't the more affluent yuppified neighborhood of NDG bordering Monkland Ave, it's more of a transition area that leads to the decidedly working class area around Cavendish/Benny Farm.
For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the area, it is home to a chunk of Montreal's Anglo black community, most hailing from the Caribbean islands, as well as other anglos and francophones members of the lower middle and working class. It still remains about ⅔ anglophone, the community's history reflected in the name of the streets and schools.

I shop there because there's a bunch of small merchants that I love to encourage, patronizing locals is something that I take as a personal source of pride.

Seen on Somerled- My all-time favorite sign!

My greengrocer of choice is run by a lovely extended Tamil family, who various members toil seven days a week from early morning to God knows how late. The sisters man the cash, the husbands do the heavy lifting and on the weekend, the ladies are given off to attend to family matters, while the men take over.
They speak perfect English which they learned in school back in Sri Lanka and yes, they have started to master French quite well.
They always advise me on the ripeness of cantaloupes and are never wrong. I would never shop elsewhere.
Lately I've noticed a 'Canadianized' teenager who is starting to help out as well. He goes to French school as per Bill 101, but somehow speaks perfect English. No doubt a Dawson and McGill candidate in a couple of years!
There's a bilingual poster on the glass door advising customers about something or other concerning the NDG food co-op. I hope the OQLF and their minions of frustrated retards don't complain.

Across the street there is a government SAQ (liquor monopoly), which believe it or not, offers English speakers a first rate service.
A mixture of bilingual anglophone and francophones work there and none of them are hung up on language, speaking to the clients in the language of choice, where the familiar Montreal greeting of Bonjour/Hi still reigns supreme.
Documents and literature are all available in English and the translations are excellent, done by native English speakers, you can tell.
Hats off to the SAQ, the most English friendly service of the government.

Weather permitting, on the terrace of the bar across the street, gruffy patrons lounge over a beer or sometimes, but rarely, a glass of wine. They discuss the affairs of the day bilingually and rage against each other in the language of Shakespeare and Moliere.
Back across the street is a little grocery store run by Russians which features eastern European specialties.
I particularly enjoy selecting from the ten or twelve varieties of frozen perogies which I pick up from time to time.
The clerks speak wonderful English and French, all with an adoring thick Russian accent. I always say "Zarosevo d-nja!"(Have a nice day!) before I leave.

Sadly, the M&Ms franchise just next door is closed, the family which bought the franchise likely  losing their life savings on a failed Canadian dream.
Let's face it, this isn't the district for fancy frozen expensive food and the company should have known it. It falls on the small investor, essentially buying a job, to take the fall for a marketing error.

Life is unforgiving in the retail marketplace and everyone's business on the street here is tenuous.
A couple of bad weeks and.....well.
Alas a Subway franchise has taken over and I hope the owner ekes out a living. So far it doesn't look too busy.

Down the street is a pizza joint that is busy. It serves cheap food, two slices for the price of one. I don't know if the owner is English, French or Greek, he toils in the back whipping out the pies while a young bilingual counter clerk serves out the plates.
It's a favorite of the area's young Anglophone black community and working class families.

Across the street from the pizza store is a Chinese food counter where you can order takeout. I haven't bought anything there in years, but back then, the Chinese cook (a one-man-show) didn't speak much English or French. You pointed out the dishes you wanted on the menu, which he cooked up right in front of you.
One thing I can say, even those who don't speak English or French understand the universal language of money and all can ring up a register and give proper change!

Here in this part of NDG, people are not wealthy, but rich in culture.

They don't care or think much about language, because almost all are bilingual.The immigrants are learning English and French, on the job. Some have more difficulty than others, but it doesn't matter when clients and neighbors are of good will.

The last time I was in the SAQ a francophone patron helped out an elderly English couple, by carrying out a heavy box of booze to the car. On this street, people are down to Earth and generally kind and cooperative.

It's the kind of district where you can overhear that quintessential Montreal conversation, the one where one half of the conversation is in French and the other in English. Alternately, there's the conversation where the speaker actually switches mid-sentence between languages.
And of course, many of us have had the experience of addressing someone in French and receiving a reply in French, only to realize that both are English!
This happens to me in the Rona Hardware on St. Jacques all the time!
Ah NDG!

It's a down to Earth part of town where people don't get hung up over language and transact with each other ignoring the differences,
When your store of choice is Dollarama (just down the street), you're not going to bitch about a clerk who has a bit of trouble with your language.
You're also not apt to complain about someone serving you who is wearing a Hijab, Turban, Sari or someone who sports a distracting piercing.
It's cruelly ignoble to complain about someone who is grinding it out for minimum wage, just trying to bring in a few bucks to help make ends meet..

This is NDG.....the impossible dream.
If you choose to live here it is because you are a 'live and let live' sort of person. You enjoy diversity and take pride in your bilingualism.

Why am I telling you this story of a nice street with nice merchants and similarly nice customers?

Because this is the street that the two punks from the SSJB decided to terrorize.

One of the merchants they decided to 'teach a lesson', is another fruit and vegetable store, all for the unpardonable sin of posting a copy of an English newspaper advertisement which the store had run, heralding the specials of the week.

Here is a picture of the sign over the grocery store that got the young SSJB rat boys so worked up.
I don't know what upset them so much, there's actually a descriptor in front of the name of the store,  just like the liars at the OQLF pretend that is required.

Oh oh! There it is !
Now I see the problem, do you?

As people try to scratch out an honest living, many working twelve and fourteen hour days, the intrusion by language rats is just another reason in the long list of the many hardships faced and why 25% of immigrants leave Quebec shortly after arriving here.

Quebec nationalists and those critical of this blog continue to peddle the fantasy that Quebec is open and welcoming to immigrants as long as they speak French.
The language issue is just the most visible aspect of the ethnocentrism that is the fabric of Quebec society which is bolstered by the constant bashing of the English language and the religious customs, dress and culture of immigrants.
The constant reminder of the Us/Them syndrome has left Quebec a polarized and unforgiving society.

Just this week the Montreal police were again sanctioned for racial profiling and ordered to pay an Arab businessman $18,000 for harassment. You'd think this stuff was something from the 1950's, but it's par for the course as police continue their war on minorities. Read how the city of Montreal 'handles' these cases. Link

What French language bashers fail to understand or care, is that there is someone on the receiving end of their vitriol. Someone who honestly means no harm and is just trying to make a living.

Here on Somerled Avenue, it isn't corporate Quebec/Canada that is being attacked, rather vulnerable micro businesses that are the soft and easy target that language militants like to attack.
An immigrant breaking the language laws represents the perfect villain for Benoît Dutrizac and company.
Like a hunt on the Serengeti, the language militants adhere to the policy of going after the weakest of the herd.
It is nothing short of sickening.

I'll say it again, when that young Black SSJB volunteer who terrorized the neighborhood grows up and realizes that even with his French, he is a second class citizen, it will be a rude and sad awakening.

 **************************

Readers, in order to encourage commenters to adopt screen names,  I'll be putting up this announcement periodically;

Anglo-Bashing Hits New Heights of Absurdity

A couple of stories last week had me scratching my head and asking myself if the water in Quebec has been laced with some sort of a hallucinogen that causes mass hysteria.

All over the television and across newspapers were alarmist stories about an English invasion, so shrill and panicky were the reports that they took on the proportions of the reaction to Orson Well's radio broadcast of the "War of the Worlds"

It seems every French newspaper and every television news channel was filled with  frightening stories of Anglos invading Quebec like an alien life force determined to suck out the lifeblood of the indigenous population.

The Journal de Montreal devoted a quarter of a page to denounce a French hospital for having the audacity to use a linen basket that was labelled in English only.
So deep was the insult that the paper elicited a reaction from Jean-Paul Perreault, the president of the militant  Imperatif Francais, who said that "It's unpardonable! With the tax money we pay our suppliers, they mock us!"
A slight sur-reaction,  one would think?

Then there's the story of a Young Turk who went on the radio to rant and rage that an usher  asked him to remove his feet from the chair in front of him, in English, notwithstanding that he was in an English language theatre, attending an English movie.
His complaint--He couldn't understand what the usher said in English and so demanded to be served in French.
Anybody see the flaw in this unlikely story?

A report on TVA's curent affairs show J.E, has a story about an ederly patient suffering from Alzheimer's,  placed temporarily in an English seniors residence, unable to get service in French.

In Sept-Iles a gateway town to Quebec's northern mining region, it seems there's nobody to take service jobs, because the mining industry is paying so much. There is actually a critical labor shortage here, despite the province's 9% unemployment rate.

"In Sept-Îles on Quebec's North Shore, McDonald's customers are struggling to get service in French. The reason: the restaurant is so short of staff it had to hire immigrants from the Philippines.

The shortage of employees is explained by economic growth of the region and the fact that the locals prefer to work in the mining sector which offers higher hourly rates. To counter this problem, the restaurant was able to get employees in the Philippines through a program of international recruitment.

The contract stipulates that the employee is hired for two years, his ticket is paid, he/she is housed, and that the hourly rate ranges from  $ 9.60  to $12 per hour, and the ​ first grocery store order is paid for.

The Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste as well as many clients find this unacceptable.

"I know they take courses in French, except that she was not able to speak French. A youth who is not able to speak French should not be hired, said Manon, a client. 

It's been 42 years since I live here and there is no question that I won't return to a restaurant where I can not get served in my language. "

Mario Beaulieu, president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montreal this is a very disappointing situation.
"It's disrespectful for Quebecers. I think knowledge of French would be an essential criterion to be engaged. French is seriously threatened right now, especially in Montreal, but it extends throughout all regions. " Link{Fr}

And so outraged clients are fuming that they cannot purchase their 'Beeg Macs' in French.
It's a big problem because, let's face it, there aren't many fast food alternatives in Sept-Iles and  95% of the clients actually don't have enough English to order a glass of water. I'm not kidding. 

French language militants from the south were lining up to remind the northerners that now they too finally have a taste of what it is to live under the relentless wave of Anglicization.

But wait.....

"Francophone immigrants are at an impasse as soon as they start looking for a job in Montreal: no English, no job. They understand that they must quickly learn the language which, in their eyes allow them to earn a living in Quebec.

That's where Quebec comes to the rescue, devoting millions of dollars of public funds to teaching francophone immigrants English, according to research by The Associated Press.. Link{Fr}

Let's see......
Montreal has a large surplus of immigrants who speak French, but supposedly cannot find a job because they speak no English....
Sept-Iles has decent jobs going a begging, where the only skill requirement is speaking French.

Readers, can you think of a solution? Think hard... Tick-Tock ......Tick-Tock.......Tick-Tock.......
I know, here's the perfect Quebec style solution!

Import English only immigrants from the Philippines and send them to Sept-Iles where they will be given French courses.
Give the French speaking immigrants in Montreal English lessons so that they can join the local job market.

No joke....this is Quebec. And who is to blame for all this...
The Anglos who are forcing English down everyone's throat........ Sigh..

At any rate can I offer this much easier solution;
Send the unemployed French-speaking immigrants from Montreal to fill the jobs in Sept-Iles......or this nifty Chinese solution;

If nothing is done to thwart the insidious spread of English it soon may come down to this;

All this hysteria is having a very sad impact on the general francophone  public, teaching them through a relentless campaign of hate that English is an evil enemy which will engulf them if not checked.

Listen to this, where a talk-show caller describes her experience getting bashed over English, for no particular reason.(Thanks to Mark and Frank for the link)  CJAD

In the meantime, Quebec's immigration minister, Kathleen Weil, is preaching tolerance towards minorities, or so it seems;

 "Quebec’s immigration minister, and herself the daughter of a doctor who immigrated to Montreal from the United States, has had enough of constant suggestions by Yves-François Blanchet, the Parti Québécois language and immigration critic, that newcomers embracing English threaten Quebec’s French character.“I find it really destructive to constantly target the other, the person that has come here,”  Link

 But the minister is getting set to to release a new declaration;

• Promote French as the common language and an instrument of social cohesion.
• Pay constant attention to the quality of the French language.
• Reinforce the use of French as the language of the public administration, work, greetings and service, signs, shopping, business and education.
• Reinforce the knowledge and mastery of French by immigrants and communicate with them in French to favour their integration into Quebec society.
• Facilitate the full participation, by all, in French in the democratic, economic, social and cultural life of Quebec.
• Consolidate the identity of Montreal as a francophone metropolis, cosmopolitan, diversified and inclusive.
• Ensure respect for the Charter of the French Language.
• Build together our future in French. LINK
  

But not every francophone is drinking the kool-aid.

Read this beautiful piece about being a modern, confident and successful francophone, living in Montreal, by Lise Ravary.

Are Anglos Ready to Push Back?

They say that every man has a breaking point and I'm wondering if Anglos in Quebec are getting ready to push back against the rising tide of intolerance.

The naked ethnocentric attack on Anglos in L'acualite magizine has anglos finally asking themselves if there is anything they can do, short of suicide, that would satisfy the language racists who are now demanding that not only must we speak French, but embrace and promote French culture as well.

For the very first time, the Montreal Gazette is publishing articles that would have been considered heretical and dangerous, a short while ago.

Don McPherson's Op-Ed piece was so defiant, you'd think his piece was a product of this blog, instead of the Montreal Gazette, better known for appeasement than defiance.

“I call them “the new angryphones.” I’ve heard from quite a few of them in the past couple of months, since I wrote what some of them call “that column,” about the social acceptability of anglo-bashing in Quebec.

This new genus of angryphone is younger than the ones who attended partitionist meetings after the sovereignists’ near-victory in the 1995 referendum. Many of them are baby boomers who heard John F. Kennedy tell Americans to ask themselves what they could do for their country, and the answer Pierre Trudeau gave English Canadians for theirs: learn French.

So, out of the idealism of the 1960s, long before Bill 101, they did what speakers of the world’s dominant language normally don’t do: they began to learn another language, and to have it taught to their children. And when others fled the first Parti Québécois government, they stayed; they bet their futures, and those of their children, on Quebec.

So they’re still here to read and hear what’s said about them by Québécois politicians, media commentators and entertainers, and they’re fluent enough in French to understand it. They can read L’actualité’s “dossier” on them on the magazine’s website and decide for themselves whether it’s journalism or something closer to high-class hate literature on the glossy paper of a quality magazine.

With age and experience, the idealism of their youth has given way to realism. They know they have been left politically voiceless, not by a lack of the right leadership or representation, but by fear of political separation.

So they – we – realize that conditions for our community are not likely to improve....” Read the rest of the story

Less than a week later, the Montreal Gazette printed this Op-Ed piece by Robert Libman, a gentleman and one of the calmest and most level-headed politicians I ever dealt with.

“Unfortunately, the L’actualité package has turned up the heat under a linguistic pot that has been reheated in recent months by some French-language media outlets. Snippets of language-related information based on false assumptions are being sewn together to give the impression of an irreversible trend unfavourable to French. The conclusion that L’actualité draws is that the French language is in grave danger in Montreal – and that the anglophone community is gleefully unsupportive of efforts to stem this irreversible tide of anglicization.

Not only is this not true, but it is like blaming someone who has just been kicked and beaten by a bully for not empathizing with the bully because he dented his steel-toe boots.

We don’t have to apologize for anything. On the contrary, the impact of Quebec’s French Language Charter (Bill 101) on the anglophone community of Quebec has been unjustly severe.” Read the rest of the story

Language paranoia is setting new heights, with the latest action, a Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste attack on stores displaying the tiniest of hand-painted English signs.
TVA proudly dubbed the operation " Chasse aux commerces déliquants" (Hunting down delinquent businesses")

Two young language punks set upon a bunch of small businesses in the very English and ethnic neighborhoods of NDG and Cote-de-Neiges in Montreal, scaring one fruit store into taking down a copy of an advertisement from a local English newspaper that it had placed in its windows.

And so the latest proud gambit of these intolerants, is the terrorizing of small micro businesses that cater to an English or ethnic clientele, run by first generation immigrants who are trying to make a living cutting hair, selling fruits and vegetables or small electronics.
All of these merchants have a couple of things in common, most importantly...working, instead of being on the dole.

Many of theses immigrants, come from countries where repression was real and danger a way of life.
Being cornered and denounced by a couple of  punks may not be a big deal to you or me, but to them it is a frightening affair.

I was sad to see that one of the vigilantes was a young Black man, who somehow felt it necessary to roam the neighborhood of Cote-de-Neiges, (where many Blacks live) not unlike a Kapo, denouncing stores owned by fellow Blacks.
Such is the brainwashing that youngsters receive in school where ethnics can actually be fooled into believing that they are considered equals by ethnocentrics.

Perhaps when Master Virtue applies for his first job in Herouxville, he'll find out exactly what ethnocentrism means.

And before I get a slew of comments telling me how open and embracing Quebec society is towards ethnics, especially Blacks, read about another case of police brutality against a Black couple for the crime of 'driving while Black.'

All these stories have a common thread, Black people stopped in the street or in their car on the flimsiest excuse. When they object and refuse to cooperate, they are hammered with thousands of dollars in fines. For every case like the one here, there must be twenty that go unreported.

Please read the story and watch the video report, it is a must.  HERE 

Now if Master Virtue thinks that his biggest problem in life is the fact that  there are English signs up in Anglo neighborhoods, he should read this.
It's a story about how Blacks and minorities are treated in the Montreal offices of the Public Service.

"An anonymous letter shattered what had started as a normal Monday morning at the office for “Joel,” a union organizer at the Montreal office of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

“SPEAK NEGER BLACK,” it started.

Copies of the racist screed – obtained by The Montreal  Gazette – were placed in the mail slots of the office’s only two black employees on Feb. 21." Link

"Luc said no one in the office said anything when a union member who frequently visited the office remarked that he got his job because he is black.
When staff dine out together, black employees are often not included in the conversation, he said.
"You come to realize that you're not part of the gang and you never will be," Luc said.
Other employees frequently badmouth anglophones and other minorities at work, Luc said. They say: "Those têtes carrées. Why should we have to follow their directives?"
Luc said that colleagues often criticize employment equity programs for favouring minorities. "They say, 'Why give jobs to blacks?'"
Luc said one staff member called Arab union members "dogs" and said of the executive of a union: "I'm going to kick out those damn Arabs!"   Link

I hope young Master Virtue learns the facts of life sooner than later.

At any rate, a while back, sovereigntists rightfully mocked the meager turnout at Hugo Shebbeare's  anti-Bill 101 rally.
Truthfully it wasn't much of a success, other than the fact of the wildly out of proportion reaction by militant sovereigntists.
It was a good effort on Hugo's behalf, but truthfully Anglos are too comfortable in their ghetto to care.
We have our own hospitals, our own schools, our own television and media, our own cities run by Anglos in English and most of these assets are as good or better than what is on the other side.

Until now, we've been too comfortable to rock the boat.

I think Hugo was a bit ahead of the times, that's all. There is a shifting of the sands.

Once again, I watched that great rant by a fictional newsman Howard Beal, fed up with life in that great movie, 'Network.' I posted the video last Sunday. Watch it here

In the video, the newscaster rants that the world is going crazy, but as long as it stays out of his own living room, he'd be fine.

But when the craziness of the world enters his living room, he rants that it's time to get 'Mad as Hell"

Are Anglos finally realizing that the racist language rhetoric that has always been part of the militant French first movement is now entering their living room and that there is no use cooperating?

Readers, I want to be clear.
I have no problem with measures protecting French and promoting its use.
But nobody has ever made a cogent argument that has convinced me that an English sign in a predominantly English neighborhood is a threat.
Nobody has ever convinced me that the English minority of Quebec, celebrating their language and culture is a threat as well.

Those who wish to wipe out English in the public domain are ethnocentrics, nothing less than racist haters who should be denounced.

When language cops start making the rounds with a ticket book in hand, I think that there'll be a reaction..

Woe is to the language inspector who wanders into an Anglo enclave unescorted by the police. I'm not calling for violence, but readers should be reminded of the 'Shawville' experience;

"In 1999, a posse of militant Shawville English-speakers chased a provincial “language police” inspector out of town during a showdown over French on business signs."  Link

I think that French language militants are pushing for this.  Confrontation with 'les maudits anglais' is what they want.
Their plan is to prod and poke anglos until there is a violent reaction.
I think they are going to get it.

When a full scale language war breaks out, they believe it will pave the way for independence as Quebecers are forced to choose sides.

They might be right.

Sovereignty's Dirty Propaganda War

Two weeks ago Quebecers were treated to another rather obvious propaganda attack by French language militants, a completely dishonest and manipulative poll, published in l'Actualite magazine, an effort conceived in dishonesty and dedicated to the principle that Quebecers are dumb enough to believe anything, as long as it is wrapped up, packaged and presented as the real McCoy.

The manipulation was so blatant that the author more or less admitted as such in an article in the Montreal Gazette, but made no apology for the underhanded motives.

The questions in the poll were so designed to elicit certain responses, thus adding 'scientific proof' supporting the authors perverted and dishonest position that anglos are aloof and arrogant.

Unfortunately, this is no isolated case in the ongoing fraud to slander Anglophones and misrepresent the facts.
It has become the game plan of sovereigntists to use a relentless and deceitful propaganda campaign to convince brainwash Quebecers into believing that culturally and linguistically, they are in dire straights.

Long ago sovereigntists gave up the economic argument as a means to promote sovereignty. After the Quiet Revolution of the sixties, Quebecers recaptured the instruments and tools of their economy and became masters of their own economic fate, for better or worse. (Insert comment here)
There's nary a separatist today who would seriously promote a sovereignty campaign based on the idea that Quebec would be better off economically outside Canada, especially with the annual 8 billion equalization payment hanging over the province's head like the proverbial Sword of Damocles.

And so a new narrative was invented, one where Quebec is desperate to achieve sovereignty as the only remedy to save the French language and culture, doomed to extinction because of the relentless and inevitable creep of Anglicization.

But Quebec francophones are a hardy bunch, not overly prone to blindly agree with what they are told by politicians or by so-called intellectuals, at any rate much more so than anglo Canadians.

Consider that after forty years of relentless propaganda by sovereigntists, a media full of sympathizers hammering home the separatist case on a daily basis, there remains enough francophone federalists non-separatists to doom any chance that a sovereignty referendum will succeed.

And so in an effort to ramp up the pressure on these recalcitrants, sovereigntist strategists have descended into using deception and outright lies in order to get them on board, it's all that's left to them after forty years of failure.

Front and center in propaganda campaign are Pierre Curzi and Jean-François Lisée, who pump out alarmist drivel, misinformation and outright leaps of fantasy on an ongoing basis, with the charm, poise and confidence of a con artist like Earl Jones.

Mr. Lisée uses his blog to propagate a steady stream of nonsense, describing Quebec as rich, solvent, well-run and fairly taxed, where citizens are well-rewarded for their taxes and where the deficit is but a trifle.
His fantasies are so badly contrived that its hard to believe that a fair-minded and honest editor would allow such drivel to go to Press, but when the editor is a separatist too...well.

He has even written a book consisting of fifteen arguments which as he immodestly proclaims, 'puts a 'KO' on the right.'
His cherry-picked statistics and theories don't stand up to the most rudimentary of critiques and his laughable attempt to blatantly mislead would be sad, were it not so widely distributed.

The very able blogger DAVID has over the last few weeks,  demolished every one of Mr. Lisée's flights of fancy.
In the latest round, DAVID puts paid to the ridiculous notion advanced by Mr. Lisée in his treatise that redefines the notion of debt.
There, Mr. Lisée proposes that since Quebec owns Hydro-Quebec and other money making state corporations, the value of those assets should reduce the provinces 'net' debt.
In other words, if Hydro Quebec is worth 100 billion and the Quebec government owes 225 billion, than the 'net' debt' is $125 billion.
According to DAVID, this is like buying a half a million dollar home and declaring the transaction neutral because the value of the asset is equal to the debt.
Well and good says DAVID, but you've still got to pay off a mortgage that you can't afford!! Read more blog pieces demolishing Lisee's 15 arguments{Fr}.

Such is the nature of sovereigntist purveyors of snake oil, shucking and jiving around the facts with the sole purpose of confusing the public, by muddying the waters.

As for Mr. Curzi, no brainiac to begin with, his modus operendi is to build sovereigntist arguments based on, as the lawyers say,  'facts not in evidence.'

I've written about Mr. Curzi and his reliance on studies created by other fantasists in a blog piece entitled- English Cegep Study - A Case of Weird Science

In that piece I expose the separatist propaganda organ known as the "Institut de recherche sur le français en Amérique (IRFA) as a group less worthy of its moniker than 'Institute of Hair Replacement''

Let's just say that with no fixed address or employees, it is a sham created  by a tiny group of separatist volunteers, closely aligned to the OQLF and radical French language positions, to pump out sovereigntist propaganda under the pseudo-legitimacy of a real think tank.

Only Mr.Curzi and the separatist Le Devoir newspaper dare to maintain the fiction that the 'Institute' is in any way something more than a separatist propaganda front.

Now before I go on to expose the newest fraud perpetrated in the propaganda war, I'd like to share something that I became aware of since writing the aforementioned blog piece.
It illustrates perfectly the depths of dishonest deception that these separatist propagandists will go to in order to manufacture dissent.

In an article in Le Devoir, written by the IRFA's president, Patrick Sabourin, the author  does a magnificent job trying to discredit a very well prepared and researched study by the very reputable Institut de la statistique du Québec, (Quebec's version of Statistics Canada) exposing the lamentable graduation rate of francophones from Quebec universities.

Mr. Sabourin presents readers with a smorgasbord of statistical nonsense meant to create an alternate universe, one where any fact or figure can be interpreted to Quebec's advantage.
In that article, in which he tried to prove that Ontario francophones don't have a higher university graduation rate than francophones in Quebec, he admits to the fact that when it comes to being highly educated, Quebec francophones lag Quebec anglophones by 7.9%.

"......à celui des francophones au Québec, dont la proportion d'individus fortement scolarisés demeure 7,9 points de pourcentage inférieure à celle des anglophones du Québec." 

He doesn't back up that figure or describe how he came to this number, probably because it is by any stretch of the imagination, a complete misrepresentation.
The real number is almost five times as high!

Now I've reprinted this table from the report I mentioned earlier, which shows that in the 25 to 44 years old category, 31.3% of Anglos are highly educated, while francophones have a rate of 22.4.%

Perhaps if all demographic age groups were taken into consideration the difference would narrow down to where Mr. Sabourin could make the outrageous claim that the difference between English and French is 7.9%

But is the difference between say, 30% and say 22.1%, just 7.9%?
Any statistician, would laugh at the contention.

Let us consider a company which has a million dollar payroll and pays one of its employees, John Smith, $100,000 a year or 10% of it's entire payroll.
Pierre Paquette, another employee is paid $25,000 a year or 2.5% of the entire payroll.

According to voodoo statistics, one can say and perhaps Mr Sabourin would agree, that Paquette makes 7.5% less than John based on the math (10% minus 2.5% equals 7.5%)
But the reality is that John makes four time as much as Pierre or 400%!

At any rate, if you made 25K a year and your co-worker made a 100k a year, would you have the audacity to contend that he made just 7.5% more than you?

Now look at the graph above to see how one can come to the conclusion that Anglos are only 8.9% more highly educated than Francophones. (31.3% minus 22.4% = 8.9%)

The reality is that when proper math is used, Anglophones are more highly educated to the tune of 40%.

By the way, Mr. Sabourin claims in the article that francophones aren't really undereducated, it's just that anglophones are over educated.
Maybe.
Perhaps that may be why he conveniently forgets to include statistics on those pesky ethnics who out perform even the Anglos.  Comparing the graduation rate of ethnics to francophones would be utterly humiliating!

And so we go round and round the merry-go-round of statistical manipulation and misinterpretation, until we are too dizzy to realize that we are being utterly conned.

Now as I promised, let me introduce you to the latest player in the sovereigntist propaganda war.

A while back I was reading an article in the Globe and Mail about the incredible opportunities and the untold riches to be mined in Quebec's north and the benefits of Premier Charest's Plan Nord, an ambitious 30 year program conceived to upgrade the infrastructure in order to allow the exploitation of the mineral wealth;

"Think of the Quebec economy, and the traditional drivers are energy, forestry and manufacturing. But there’s a new engine in Quebec – mining – and it’s reshaping the economy of both the province, and the country.

Investment in the province’s mining industry is expected to reach $4.4-billion this year, up 62 per cent from 2011. That’s nearly equal to the capital that will be poured into manufacturing ($5-billion), a remarkable 27 per cent of all business investment in the province and represents half of all mining investment in the country, according to a National Bank of Canada analysis of recent Statistics Canada figures.

“That’s never happened before,” National Bank of Canada chief economist Stéfane Marion said in an interview. “It’s a huge growth driver for the province this year, and in the future.”

It’s not the only first. Quebec will lead the country in mining investment this year, outpacing Ontario, Mr. Marion said.

Mining investment is expected to hit $3.7-billion in Ontario, $2.8-billion in B.C. and $500-million in Alberta.

For Quebec, the money pouring into dozens of iron ore, gold, copper and other mining projects could add a full percentage to GDP this year and cause an unexpected boost in royalty revenue for the cash-strapped government. It will also have spinoff benefits for Montreal-area manufacturers, who will help supply mining-related equipment. Globe and Mail

This on the heels of a government report by SECOR describing the Plan Nord in some very glowing terms:

"The primary authors of the study, Jean-Pierre Lessard and Guillaume Caudron, both managers at SECOR, estimate that these projects will generate $148B in economic benefits over 25 years.

Wealth creation stemming from the Plan Nord will reach about $5.9B per year, or 1.8% of Quebec's GDP. The projects could sustain 37,000 jobs per year, at an average annual salary of $65,000. Each job created in the North should result in another being created in the South." Link

Now I'm a cynic by nature and don't have much faith in the contentions above, conceived by so-called experts, the same people who told us that the Metro extension to Laval would cost 190 million, only to find out a few short years later that the true cost was over 800 million. Link.
It seems that Quebec uses the same planners and experts as those who built the Titanic.

Predicting what will be in 25 years is an exercise in wishful thinking. The exercise a laughable attempt at political manipulation.
Let's just say that it's a crapshoot, but one which I support and you should too, because if it pans out, it will be a Godsend for the Quebec economy, which is deeply in trouble.
Let's face it, we are in desperate need of a 'Jed Clampett' type of windfall.

Of course this automatically means that the PQ and other separatists are deeply opposed to the project.
A meaningful and perhaps highly successful project led by Jean Charest and the Liberals could prove disastrous at the polls and so the propaganda machine is wound up, disparaging the project with warnings of the dire consequences of selling out Quebec's resources to big bad business.
Rinse, Repeat, Rinse.

Leading the attack on the Plan Nord, is a relatively new player, an organization that's been around for a while, but which is making waves of late.

It too is another phoney-baloney "Institute,' another group of sovereignty/socialist propagandist volunteers, this time with the very weighty name of 'Institut de Recherche et d’Informations Socio-économiques'

The group put out it's own report describing the Plan Nord as a disaster. Of course it's anti government message got a big play in Le Devoir.

“In our most optimistic scenario, the shortfall between revenues and expenditures by the government is 2.3 billion over 25 years, calculated Bertrand Schepper, author of this analysis and a degree in business administration at HEC Montreal. Link

Bernard Schepper...err..."No Comment"

There's an easy explanation for the discrepancy between the glowing reports above and the "Institute's" gloom and doom report.
How the press could give credence and publish a report prepared by a lowly graduate student from UQAM, Quebec's very own version of Greendale Community College, is beyond belief, especially considering that the author, Bertrand Schepper, is a radical Quebec solidaire militant and close associate of Amir Khadir.

Publishing the report without challenging Mr. Schepper's bone fides over his limited credentials and failing to mention his close and active connection to the Quebec Solidaire political party is an act of journalistic fraud laxity.

"Who still believes in the American dream? Who still believes that all citizens are born equal and have the same opportunities in life? Surely not Bertrand Schepper." Link{Fr}

Mr Schepper was a senior member of Khadir's Mercier re-election committee and once actually defended a robo-call campaign on Khadir's behalf, one that broke CRTC rules. Link{Fr}

In fact the whole" Institut de Recherche et d’Informations Socio-économiques' is but a Quebec Solidaire adjunct, where almost all the researchers are active members of the radical socialist/sovereigntist Quebec solidaire, a party that promotes all manner of pie-in-the-sky socialist fantasies.
For a good laugh, read about Quebec Solidaire's fantasical political positions HERE.

While nobody denies Quebec Solidaire the right to create it's own reports and studies, when its studies are quoted, it should be treated as the product of ultra partisan left-wing/separtists.

Many questions arise over the Institut de Recherche et d’Informations Socio-économiques' and  exactly who it represents and who is behind its financing. 
Unfortunately, it falls to bloggers to expose the truth and ask the hard questions.
Read this excellent blog piece entitled  Plan Nord: quand l’IRIS ne voit pas clair{Fr}

The saddest aspect in all this, is the creeping acceptance of the above-mentioned 'Institutes' as legitimate sources of research.
The latest pearl from IRIS is a paper warning that Quebec is heading towards a debt bubble because of increased student loans, which will trigger a financial meltdown as seen in the United States over the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
I first thought it was an April Fool's joke, but apparently not. Have you ever heard such drivel?

The real problem is that mainstream newspapers EVEN THE MONTREAL GAZETTE are giving credence to these nonsensical ideas.
In an article written by Karen Seidman and Kevin Dougherty in the Gazette, they repeat the monumentally cretinous idea of a student loan debt bubble that threatens the financial stability of the province, without describing the true nature of IRIS, the radical unofficial propaganda arm of Quebec solidaire. 

It's like writing a newspaper article quoting a report which finds no link between cigarettes and lung cancer, without mentioning that the story was commissioned by a think tank owned by a tobacco company!

 If ever sovereignty is achieved, Quebec's new propagandists will serve the new country of Quebec well, where they will quickly be hired by the new Department of Information and where they can put their consummate skills at twisting the facts to good use.

When Quebecers find themselves being flushed down the toilet, it will be described by the spinners as a delightful 'bain toubillion.'

Good night and Bonne Chance!

McGuire for Habs GM, Carbonneau for Coach

As we enter in the NHL playoffs with no dog in the fight, the letdown for Canadiens fan is utterly disheartening and depressing.
If this is what life is for Leafs fans on a permanent basis, I want no part of it.

The NHL playoffs is the most exhilarating sports championship, bar none.
It combines the endurance of a marathon, the bloodlust of the Roman Coliseum, the innate finesse of a high wire artist, the passion of a religious cult, the strategy of a chess grandmaster, the mayhem of a roller derby and the team spirit of a combat unit.
What sets hockey apart from all other team sports playoffs series is the creation of villains. The relentless bashing, retaliation, dirty questionable hits and outright brawling satisfies the innate bloodlust of fans that is only equaled rivaled in MMF.

Saturday's game between Ottawa and New York best exemplifies why hockey can excite the emotions like no other sport, where rivalry tinged with genuine hate, allows fans to embark on an emotional hate-a-thon.

All professional sports leagues provide plenty of heroes, but no sport furnishes as many detestable villains and lets face it, a villain is more interesting emotionally than any hero.

Then there's the actual brawling and fighting. We love it. There's more action in a 90 second NHL slugfest than many a ten-rounder.
Now, no pooh-poohing, even baseball and basketball fans love a good bench clearing brawl, but unfortunately, they are all too rare in those sports.
And so there is truth to the old dictum - "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out!"

I defy anyone to tell me that the electricity in a hockey arena is rivaled anywhere in sports.
NHL playoffs provide an adrenaline rush, that can only be recreated by actually participating.

True fans from any NHL city, will testify that a lengthy hockey playoff run, even when it falls short, is the most satisfying fan experience in all of sports. There is simply no comparison.

A real hockey fan with a team in the playoff hunt, whether he or she be at work, at home or at play always has the team close to heart. Like a junkie, true fan needs their fix of playoff hockey delivered every second day and when for scheduling reasons, the wait between games stretches to three days, symptoms of withdrawal, including nervousness and anxiety are apt to appear.

Now I know hockey is a business like anything else in the entertainment world, but in a certain sense it is not.
Hockey is a passion that the average Joe or Jane can enjoy for free.
Being a fan doesn't cost money and that's what makes its appeal so universal. Yes in a sense we pay for by watching commercials on TV during the games, but that's putting too fine a point on it.
That's also why I'm not against government subsidizing pro sports teams to a certain degree, but that's another discussion...

First, let's bury the past.
There isn't any doubt that the once mighty and proud Habs are a shadow of what they once were. The Gainey/Gauthier era was the most destructive force ever unleashed on the team, a tandem that should have been forced to swear a Hippocratic oath (Do No Harm.)

I am not a fan who lives and breathes hockey or the Canadiens, but if you were to ask me about the Thomas Kaberle trade I'd have never have done it based not only on his outrageous salary but for the fact that he was a Toronto Maple Leaf reject.
I mean if you're going to sign players who were rejected by the Leafs, you've sunk pretty low and are not only demonstrating poor hockey judgement, but also that there isn't much pride left in the organization.

I was dumbfounded when it surfaced that Gauthier dealt away Mike Cammalleri, without contacting most NHL general managers and settled for what he could get from Calgary.
Was he too busy to call?
Even the most inept seller knows that if you want to move something for value, you've got to advertise.
And so it seems that Gauthier traded away a pain in the ass, in Cammalleri, for a cancer in the name of  Rene Bourque.
I bet all the other general managers were disappointed that they weren't contacted, after all they each had some mistake to pass off on the hapless Gauthier.

Listening to the sports talk shows on TSN radio, I'm convinced that every idiot who calls in offering advice to the Habs, actually makes more sense then Gainey and Gauthier.
It remains a sad truth that all these fans, many of them broke and many who can't even balance their chequebook, can better mange the salary cap than the Habs management!

I don't know all the candidates for coach or general manager that are being tossed around and that in and of itself is a problem. We need a coach with experience and a general manager who knows something about hockey players.

And so I nominate Carbo to come back, he wasn't half bad and was only fired as a sacrificial lamb, as were those before him including Claude Julien and Alain Vigneault. Need I say more?

Who's got more experience and can speak English and French purr-fect-ly?
And realistically there's no better candidate out there.

As for GM, my choice is Pierre McGuire, an anglo from Montreal who's got that distinctive LCC French, which should allow him to pass muster.

He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of player personnel and is guaranteed not to make idiotic deals.

I've heard him on TSN radio over the past years and he wasn't shy to tell listeners that the Gionta, Gomez and Cammalleri deals were all bad for the team, based on various reasons, either talent-wise, term or salary.
He told us all this upfront, before the players all bombed and the crap hit the fan.

He also seems strong-willed and confident, as well as comfortable with the Press, something the Habs desperately need.

Now Pierre has just taken a great job working for the new NBC Sports Network, moving his family to Hartford, so I would have assumed he'd not be interested in the job, but after checking with a family insider who I know, he'll definitely take the job, if offered!

That readers by the way is a NODOG scoop and it is entirely reliable!

The Canadiens aren't going to make a big comeback soon, they are saddled with too many bad contracts and so will have to wait them out for a couple of years.
That being said I definitely see them making the playoffs next year, if they get rid of some deadwood.

Here's a couple of suggestions:

Buy out Scott Gomez's contract.
He's only making $5.5 million this year, but the Cap hit is $7.3 million. By paying him out, the Cap hit would be reduced to $3.5 million this year and $4.5 million next year.
In 2014/15 and 2015/16, the team would still be punished to the tune of $1.5 million towards the Cap, but it'd be worth it. CapGeek.com

Same thing for Kaberle who has only has two years left on his contract. His $4.5 million contract and Cap hit could be reduced to $1.5 million by buying him out. CapGeek.com

Time for Molson to roll out the chequebook and pay for the idiotic mistakes of the past.

By the way, bring back a character player like Hal Gill and restore some pride in the team

What say you all?

 ********************************

Congratulations to Canada's National women's hockey team on winning the World Championship.

 The winning overtime goal was scored by none other than bilingual Montrealer Caroline Ouellette (pictured on the left,)

It doesn't get any sweeter than that!

Please feel free to offer the team your congratulations in the comments section....