Pauline Marois Making Lemonade from Lemons

Pauline Marois, Quebec's most dangerous Premier.

It's a political reality that elected officials need to project an aura of calm control, even in the face of bad news.
Depending on the situation, politicians uphold that truism by sometimes telling the truth, sometimes spinning or colouring the truth and more rarely, ignoring the truth and outright lying.

It's part of the game based on three incontrovertible political truths, the first that voters are generally not too bright, secondly, that partisan supporters of any particular political party will accept just about any nonsense spouted by their leader and thirdly, that the press is uncomfortable in calling out politicians as liars, as it may lead, more often than not, to the reporter losing access, something that will affect his or her ability to make a living.

Let me offer a couple of examples that illustrate the above.

Telling the truth.
This is the easiest concept to understand and when the truth lines up with what a politician's and political party's agenda, than truth it is. Unfortunately, it's rare.

Preaching to the converted
When Pauline Marois and the Parti Quebecois tell the faithful that they are working towards sovereignty, despite the fact that support for the option is practically at its nadir, they are providing a false and cynical view that only the faithful buy.  But buy it the faithful do, and keeping the party base satisfied is rule number one in politics.
So Pauline has now decided to spend waste $15 million on a new government department whose task is to promote an option that is a strictly no-go.

Lying
When an elected official is positively sure that a lie cannot be discovered and that the lie is more convenient than the truth, then lie it is.

My favourite possible examples are these two. I say possible, because nobody can disprove the stories, regardless of how implausible and unrealistic, therein lies the beauty.

Back before the last provincial election, Pierre Duchesne told the press that he never had a conversation about becoming a PQ candidate while working as a reporter for Radio-Canada.
According to him, he quit his job as the network's chief correspondent at the legislature in Quebec after 25 years without any prospects.
Both he and Pauline swore up and down that there were no conversations about a PQ offer to run, yet another potential PQ candidate, who asked for a chance to run in the riding that Duschene now represents, told reporters that she was told months before the announcement that it was reserved for a  “star candidate from Radio-Canada” Hmmmm....

And then there is poor Olivia Chow, I cannot help but remember her impassioned defence of her husband, Jack Layton, when she sucked it up and said this;

"Sixteen years ago, my husband went for a massage at a massage clinic that is registered with the City of Toronto," Chow wrote. "He exercises regularly; he was and remains in great shape; and he needed a massage."

Of course, the massage therapist wasn't exactly licensed, she was a young Chinese immigrant who police said they observed throwing a wet Kleenex in the trash bin while a naked Layton was confronted by police in the washy-washy. Yuch! Read the hilarious story and denial

Years later, after the death of her husband, in an interview with Peter Mansbridge, Chow insisted that Layton didn't want to reveal the type of cancer he had  in order to give others, similarly afflicted, hope. LINK
Really? Did Chow expect us to believe that drivel?
A more likely suggestion was that Layton lied by omission about the extent of cancer before and during his last federal election and Chow was protecting his legacy.
But in Chow's defence, we all know that dead men tell no tales.

The 'Perfect Storm' that combines every element of political dishonesty.
When Thomas Mulcair proposed that the high Canadian dollar caused by the Alberta oil boom is hurting the economy by attriting manufacturing jobs, he hit on a perfect issue.
Too bad it wasn't true.
This so-called 'Dutch Disease' played well to the faithful, especially in Quebec where the concept of job disappearance caused by Alberta's boom economy was music to the ears of separatists and leftists.

"Yet another study has found that a Canadian dollar boosted by high oil prices isn't a big factor in manufacturing declines, but NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair isn't buying it." Link

The fact that the theory is outdated and discredited doesn't faze Mulcair at all, who continues to defend the concept, because well, those who support the NDP, so want it to be true.
Thomas Mulcair is the consummate political operator, where spinning the truth, deluding the deluded and defending the undefendable is not only possible but probable, when voters are cynically told what they want to hear, irrespective of the truth.

At any rate, all of the above negative political traits apply to Pauline Marois to a degree that I have never in my life witnessed in any Canadian politician.
When it comes to Quebec's Premier, obfuscation, misdirection and outright prevarication are practices that she has raised to an art form and in this respect she is a cut above any politician I have ever followed, even Mulcair.

Now before I am accused of launching a partisan screed against separatists, the above description does not apply to any of the previous PQ leaders, even Bernard Landry, who while a dedicated and committed separatist was never any guiltier than the average Canadian politician when it comes to political honesty. As for the rest of the PQ leaders, none can compare to Pauline, who is the darkest, most dishonest and treacherous Quebecois political leader in my memory.

I remember being told, by a highly placed source in the real estate industry, that after shaking the hand of Pauline's husband, Claude Blanchet, one would be advised to count your fingers. 
How Marois dared complain about Charest's 'secret' salary (which was altogether legal) in light of the dubious circumstances by which she and her husband managed to get the agricultural land on which they were to build their famous chateau, re-zoned, is a story that reeks of sliminess.
The PQ government of the day, of which she was then a member, approved the unlikely re-zoning making the couple instant millionaires.
Let us not forget the circumstances by which Blanchet was named the head of a government investment agency.

"In 1997, in contrast to 20 rules, the PQ cabinet, instead of the elected Board of Directors,  appointed the husband of Pauline Marois (then Finance Minister) as Chairman of Société Générale de Financement, a bizarre resemblance to Elvis Gratton. It's was Marois herself that established his contract and his salary,  contrary to the rule that specifies that this must be done by the elected Board of Directors.  Link{fr}

Blanchet, by the way, led this agency, the SGF, to over $500 million in losses. When he was pushed out of the job, Pauline got him a lifetime pension of $90K. Link{fr}
After all this, with a straight face, she gallingly dares call the Liberal Party corrupt!

Aside from her dubious personal ethics, in all the years I've watched politicians, none have so cynically mislead the public and in fact her own political party as does Pauline Marois on a daily basis.

In the face of a deteriorating economy, crumbling infrastructure, rampant corruption, a failing health system and deficit spending that will soon have the province facing a crisis, Pauline chooses to offer an alternate view of reality, one where every failing is a golden opportunity and like Eric Idle, in Monty Python's The Life of Brian, Pauline has her minions looking on the bright side of life, singing an unrealistic song of fantasy and self-deception.

For Pauline making lemonade out of lemons has become an exercise in spin, misdirection, deception and outright prevarication, elevated to the nth degree.
While attending the economic summit in Davos, Switzerland, she unloaded this beauty concerning Quebec's growing electricity surplus, a statement that nobody, but nobody in the mainstream press, called her out on.

"We have surpluses at the moment," Marois said. "I don't  see that as being negatives. These surpluses are available to attract investment to Quebec. And I think that's a comparative advantage we have to use." Link

 "Whaaat???"
That's like saying having cancer is a good thing because it allows you to try out all the new treatments and remedies available!
Electricity, like airline seats is a perishable item. If an Air Canada jet flies with empty seats on Monday, those seats can't be sold Tuesday.
Could you imagine an airline executive explaining to shareholders that having lots of empty seats is an opportunity to attract more customers in the future, because they can be sold cheaply? Such utter nonsense would have shareholders out for his scalp!

There was a story in the Montreal Gazette about public figures lying and our ability to observe body language that indicates dishonesty. Link
Notwithstanding, it's my opinion based on a lifetime of observation that con artists and experienced public officials who lie, are impervious to this method of detection.
They are so used to lying that is natural and so they feel no guilt or tension at all.

And so when Pauline unloaded this whopper in an interview aired on the BBC, she didn't flinch one bit.

 "If you have a poll, you can see that the approval of the sovereignty is at maybe 42, 44%."

Yikes!!!!
By the way, nobody but nobody in the mainstream press has called her out on her obviously misstatement of the truth.

She's a dangerous character, able and willing to advance her own agenda by any means, which is not sovereignty, but rather maintaining her position as Premier, a job like her predecessor, that she relishes.

She will say and do anything, damn the consequences. She is an operator extraordinaire.

She is perhaps the most evil and destructive Premier this province has ever seen, having no qualms about destroying Quebec in order to advance her personal agenda of mindless and reckless power.

Equality Party 2.0 Selects Interim Leader

As I mentioned a while back, The Equality party is in the process of re-forming, now going through the necessary steps to become certified with the Directeur général des élections  du Québec (DEG), a process that gives official standing and allows the party to run candidates in the next provincial election.
It seems that in the eyes of the election commissioner the old Equality Party has lapsed and cannot be resurrected.

And so the whole process of creating a political party must start from scratch, including collecting memberships, filling out forms, providing a deposit, etc. etc.

Until the time that the party is official, posts will be filled on an interim basis, pending a general membership vote.

This last weekend, the interim committee selected Mark S. Bergeron as the interim leader and if you are not familiar with the name, let me refresh your memory.

"A Quebec couple has lodged a complaint with the province’s ambulance service after they say a paramedic refused to speak to them in English as their daughter suffered a seizure.
Last weekend, Mark Bergeron and Stephanie Hansen of Vaudreuil, just outside Montreal, called an ambulance for their two-year-old daughter Ella, who was convulsing and unresponsive with a febrile seizure. Children can have these types of seizures when they develop a fever and their body temperature rises quickly."
“Her eyes were closed, she was unconscious,” Bergeron told CTV Montreal. “She wasn’t responding to anything (the paramedics) were doing.”

Two-year-old Ella tries out a slide in Montreal on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012.

Bergeron is bilingual, but began having trouble understanding medical terms the paramedics were using in French, and so asked if they could all switch to English.
“With a lot of hostility in his voice he basically said to me, ‘No, moi je parle francais,’ meaning that I had to address him in the language that he was comfortable with in this situation, which in my opinion was absolutely unacceptable,” Bergeron said. Read and watch an interview with Mark

The incident convinced Mark to get involved with this new version of the Equality Party, one that will speak up for individual rights as well as other economic and social issues from a federalist standpoint.

 Here is a bio provided to me;

I was born in Montreal on February 23, 1976 to an Anglophone father and Italian mother.

My paternal grandfather was a rare Anglo Bergeron and my paternal grandmother was Hungarian. My father, however, was raised by his Hungarian grandparents and only learned to speak English at the age of 6.

My mother was born in Italy and her family came to Canada in search of a better life when she was young. My grandfather passed away shortly after arriving in Canada and my grandmother raised 5 children on her own in Montreal, speaking nothing but Italian her entire life.

We were raised in the West Island, born in Kirkland, spent my teenage years in Beaconsfield, and finally settled in Hudson in 1993.

I attended French school throughout my formative years, from Pre-School to Grade 4, at École St. Rémi in Beaconsfield. From there, I attended private school, Lower Canada College, in NDG until graduation in 1993. In 1994, I opted for LCC’s Pre-University program in lieu of CEGEP, which allowed me advanced placement in University, outside of Quebec. The program is not recognized by Quebec institutions.

In the fall of 1995, I left Quebec for the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton campus. My first two years were in the Science program, specializing in Biology. My father, however, convinced me to switch into the Business Administration Program so that I could run the family business. I graduated in the Spring of 2000 with a BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration) with a Major in Finance.

In April 2001, shortly following my return to Montreal, I completed both the Canadian Securities Course (with High Honours) and the Insurance of Persons course offered by La Chambre de la Sécurité Financière.

My return to Montreal included my wife, a unilingual, Anglo New Brunswicker, and  we settled down in Montreal West. We lived there for eleven years until our family (We have 3 children) outgrew our place and moved to Vaudreuil-Dorion.

I work alongside my father as a Financial Security Advisor, managing a client base of over 2,000 individuals, and approaching $70 million of assets under management. Essentially, I am a self-employed financial services broker, but the aforementioned is my official title. In addition, I am Vice-President of my father’s corporation.

A while back, I wrote a piece describing why I think a political party representing equal rights is important and why a seat in Parliament is not as important as one would intuitively think.

Firstly, as a bone fide political party, the leader could not be kept off the airwaves and would naturally have the "right of reply" to those who propose limits on personal freedom.
As of now, despite the best efforts of those in the Anglo/Ethnic community who have organized lobby groups, nobody is called upon to offer a defence of individual rights in the mainstream media, when those rights are attacked by franco-supremacists.

Let me put it bluntly, when loudmouths, like Mario Beaulieu spout their nonsensical ethnocentric rhetoric on television, the Equality party can rightfully demand (and in my opinion will receive) the right to counter those arguments. The media, like it or not, will have no other choice but to present a response from a bone fide political party in the interests of fairness.

Secondly, the leader of a bone fide political party can speak with some authority across Canada, bringing the message to Canadians that personal rights are being infringed in Quebec and that it is the duty of those in the ROC to defend those rights, rather than just give up on Quebec and the millions of Canadians living here who don't want to be abandoned and who do not wish to flee.

The coming per vote subsidy can provide tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding, money that can be used to build support in Ottawa and the ROC for a defence of our individual and collective rights.

As for specific policies I'm not going to presume to speak for the party or the leader, the former and the latter will no doubt apprise the public as to what it is the Equality Party 2.0 stands for.

I have been provided this quick policy comparison which you can peruse in detail by clicking on the illustration.

FAIR DISCLOSURE:
As a political organizer, I have been asked to provide advice to those creating the new Equality party and have done so willingly.
I have filled out a membership form and will certainly vote Equality in the next provincial election.

That being said, I HAVE NO OFFICIAL capacity and do not speak for party. That will be up to the leader and the executive, again of which, I am not a member.

I hope you will take up membership and support the party whichever way you can.

While the party gets its ducks in a row by going the the process of becoming 'official' in the eyes of the law, you contact the party through this email that was provided to me.

equalityparty2.0@gmail.com

French versus English Volume 73

A picture of mental health!

Bain fit to stand trial

As I predicted Richard Bain has been found competent to stand trial.

It made no difference to the court whether Bain was certifiable or not, the public just wouldn't stand for him getting off on the insanity defence à la Guy Turcotte and any shrink who would sign off to the fact that Bain is a nutter and unfit to stand trial, would in all likelihood, be publicly lynched. Read my post The FLQ versus Richard Bain

  ".....psychiatrist Chantal Bouchard told the court that Bain refused to speak with her during two meetings at the Pinel Institute.
She said Bain politely explained to her he would rather have an anglophone psychiatrist.
Bouchard told the court she could not find any reason to declare Bain unfit to stand trial." Link

 Hmmm... that's a novel approach....a psychiatrist who doesn't examine the patient, yet makes a diagnosis attesting to his sanity!

But perhaps the psychiatrist was right and Richard Bain is saner than us all, his wearing of a bathrobe on his political assassination mission a brilliant ruse.
After all, his innovative disguise worked like a charm, Bain sliced through the police cordon like a hot knife through butter and if not for the fact that his rifle jammed, Pauline might very be well be pushing up dasies now.
Perhaps Bain was inspired by the Fredrick Forsythe novel the The Day of the Jackal, a thriller where an assassin takes on the persona of an old, raggedy, ex-soldier amputee in order to get close to his target, the very well protected Charles DeGalle.

All that being said, it shapes up to be an amusing interesting trial, especially if Bain gets to defend himself.

Not withstanding the unlikely and fanciful scenario that I describe above, and the expert psychiatric opinion that confirms that Bain is sane, between you, me and the lamppost, he is nuttier than an Oh Henry! bar.

I'm reminded of the line in the movie Silverado where Sherif Cobb unloaded this memorable line;
"We're gonna give you a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging."

Will the fact that he is an Anglo 'terrorist' instead of a francophone 'terrorist' make a difference in his sentence?

Yup, Bain is going to prison all day, unlike the three FLQ murderers of Pierre Laporte, who served just five, seven and eleven years.

Now I'm going to make a confession, even though I believe Bain is nuttier than a fruitcake, I have no problem sending him to jail forever. That little three-year old girl whose father was killed capriciously, will grow up without a father and the idea that Bain will get out of prison one day to mock her loss is just unacceptable.
Oops, sorry for the mini-rant.

Marois bombs in Europe, tells 2 lies in television interview

First Pauline attended the famous Davos economic conference where she gave a speech to a room empty to all but those from Canada. It seems that every Canadian body available was seconded to duty in order that the room be filled.
Then she had to defend her separatist politics before multinationals;

"Quebec Premier Pauline Marois says she has made an effort to reassure multinational corporations concerned about the policies of her Parti Quebecois government." Link

Then it was her highly touted visit to Scotland that bombed rather badly.
This from The Scotsman.

"Independence: Alex Salmond turns down Quebec offer"

"ALEX Salmond declined an offer from Quebec premier Pauline Marois to share information and documents on the two referendums that narrowly failed to give the province independence from Canada.
Despite suggestions that Ms Marois would be willing to pass on information about the votes with the SNP leader, the Quebec premier last night disclosed that Mr Salmond did not take up the offer.
Yesterday’s meeting in Edinburgh had been dubbed a “separatism summit” by some sections of the Canadian media following Ms Marois, leader of the nationalist Partis Quebecois, when she met Mr Salmond for the first time.
Mr Salmond, on the other hand, appeared to be keen to keep the meeting relatively low key. Television cameras were not allowed access to the meeting and a terse joint statement was issued afterwards." Link

But even worse, was this humiliating assessment of the visit in  The Guardian;

"Alex Salmond takes spotlight away from nationalists' 'summit'"

"It was billed as a "historic meeting" between two senior nationalist leaders, the premiers of Québec and Scotland. So Pauline Marois, leader of the French-speaking province in Canada, arrived in Edinburgh to meet Alex Salmond with great expectations of high political theatre.
Instead, it became, in the words of one mystified Québécois journalist who has followed Marois's short European tour after last week's Davos world summit, "anything but". Their meeting was in private, squeezed between Salmond's existing diary commitments.
The large press corp that had travelled from Canada to Switzerland, then to London and finally Edinburgh, were irritated: they were expecting a public event with both leaders, something with historic significance....

...It seemed that Scotland's first minister, a shrewd political operator with an often exquisite sense of political timing, was far less enthralled. His officials were puzzled by the heavy billing that their meeting was getting in the Québécois and Canadian media.
"It's purely a courtesy event: 'very nice to meet you'," said one bemused civil servant in Edinburgh.
"The Quebecois are making more of this. We've a photographer in there who will take a handshake, [a] greeting; he's meeting her in between running votes, so it will be short." Read the rest of the humiliating story

Marois lies in BBC interview CLICK TO WATCH

Now the CBC and others reviewed an interview she gave to the BBC, but all failed to report that her much improved English was still humiliatingly sub-par. Worse still, nobody reported that in the interview she outright lied.

Watch the interview in halting English 
Some beauties;
"We are very interesting in your festival in Edinburgh (sic)."
"We will split....er partage....informations."
"Scotland is a people with a strange identity ."

At 2:55 minutes into interview Pauline said that the YES side lost the referendum by just 36,000 votes when the real figure was 54,000 vote.

You migh be inclined to pardon this small blunder but how about the whopper where she tells the interviewer that sovereignty support is running at between 44% and 42%. (3:10mins.)

That wasn't a little error, it was a big lie.

 Franco-supremacist gaining influence in PQ government

Up to now Mario Beaulieu, a man who never read or heard an English word he liked, was nothing more than a media personality, the buffoon running the extremist Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Mouvement Québec français, two radical language groups that seek the eradication of English in Quebec.

But with the  new PQ government he is being elevated to a status of outside language advisor and sat in on a meeting with the health minister and hospital officials concerning control of the Lachine hospital, which he and the PQ government want to take control away from the MUHC, in order that a French governing body run the hospital, much to the dismay of patients and doctors

"Health Minister Réjean Hébert met with French-language activist Mario Beaulieu, among others, to discuss Lachine Hospital before deciding to pull it out of the bilingual McGill University Health Centre and reintegrate it into “a local (francophone) health network,” The Gazette has learned....

Saba said he was stunned that Hébert chose to focus on language in justifying a transfer of Lachine Hospital to the Centre de santé et des services sociaux (CSSS) of Dorval-Lachine-LaSalle.

Saba warned the minister at the meeting that doctors at Lachine Hospital did not want to be reintegrated into the CSSS. “It’s like you’re asking me to go back with my ex-wife,” is what Saba recalls telling the minister

Saba noted that under the jurisdiction of the CSSS, Lachine Hospital’s intensive-care unit was going to close and ambulances were no longer allowed to transport patients to its emergency room because of insufficient staffing. Read more

Then Mr. Beaulieu gave lessons to Jean-François Lisée;

"In a recent radio interview, Jean-François Lisée suggested that the STM should make more of an effort to hire bilingual employees. "STM are you listening?" said Lisée on CJAD's Tommy Schnurmacher's show, "simply call the Office Québécoise de la langue française make that case and you will be able to hire bilingual employees."
That statement isn't sitting well with the Société St-Jean-Baptiste, who wrote an open letter to Lisée this week, condemning the PQ minister's push for more English in Montreal's public transit system. "We have the impression Mr. Lisée is going back on his word" said Beaulieu, “it's upsetting because the STM gives a good service to tourists and anglophones”.
Plus, he noted that most complaints over language come from anglophone Montrealers, not out-of-towners." Read the rest of the story

By the way the STM, Montreal's bus and metro company made a strongly worded statement re-iterating that they are vehemly opposed to biligualism.

The STM is currently analyzing the need for bilingual employees and will report to the OQLF in the spring. However, there is no question of plunging into full bilingualism, said spokesperson Odile Paradis. "There is not a single bus driver in Quebec who will be required to have a knowledge of English, not even in Outaouais and Sherbrooke," says Ms. Paradis.

"We are not go towards bilingualism for everyone, but our service has always been exemplary," says she. "Bill 14 will tighten the law even more, she sees it as a an affirmation of the French fact in Quebec. This is not going to open more bilingualism," says Ms. Paradis. The current law makes us demonstrate that the "necessity" of bilingualism for a position.
Link{fr}

In a rare rare language defeat, Metro food chain shareholders voted by a massive 98% not to add an accent to in order to francicize its name. LINK

OQLF Cupcake war

A West Island cupcake shop is the latest small business to have drawn the ire of the province's language watchdog.

For six years, Tanya Bouzaglo has been known as the Crazy About Cupcakes lady, selling her culinary creations from her Pointe Claire village storefront.
But last April, she appeared on the OQLF's radar and a few months later she was hit with four violations, including her company's name which would have to include a French descriptor such as pâtisserie to make it conform. Read more

Pauline buys 200 jobs, misleads the public over subsidy

"Marois also attended an announcement by British special-effects firm Framestore, which says it will create 200 jobs in Montreal.
Quebec will give the firm an interest-free loan of $900,000 over five years and although Marois said it would get no tax credits, company CEO William Sargent said tax credits were one of the reasons Framestone decided to set up in Montreal. " Link

According to Premier Marois, the cost of the interest free loan for the government is about $35,000;

"This is a modest cost for us, but for the company it is the boost that makes the difference," she argued. Link

I've noticed that Marois is fast becoming very adept at misleading the public, if not outright lying, this is just one example of how she doesn't tell the real story.
Do you honestly believe that the company would move to Montreal over a $35,000 yearly subsidy?
 
According to the president of Framestore, Sir William Sargent, tax credits are really the key to the decision to move to Montreal.

"Like all other special effects companies in Quebec, Framestore also benefits from the Quebec tax credit of 45% of the contract value for special effects made ​​in Quebec. Framestore does not directly pocket the tax credit, it is usually reserved for film producers doing business with these Quebec special effects companies (like Framestore). This tax credit makes it possible to reduce the actual cost of special effects for Hollywood producers. "It is important for our customers," said Sir Sargent. Link

So Marois technically told the truth that Framestore won't directly get tax credits, but failed  to mention that its customers will get the tax credit, allowing Framestore to charge more for its services, the bill to the customer subsidized by the government indirectly.
The Quebec government currently spends $117 million a year to finance its refundable tax credit for multimedia firms. Read the story 

Incidentally, Framestore's job-posting website is advertising job openings in Montreal. The web site is entirely in English with the promise that a French version is on its way. (Perhaps after all the jobs are filled!) Framestore career website
Of course the company is setting up in the Mile-End district of Montreal, centre of the video game and special effect industry and perhaps the trendiest, hippest, most dynamically creative neighbourhood in all of Canada. Mile-End is also home to the best bagels in the world.

Minister Diane De Courcy unloads some beauts;

Diane De Courcy, PQ minister in charge of Bill 101  Link{fr}

"At this moment, students go to English cegeps because they believe that English is necessary for employment. We want to change this vision.
(En ce moment, les étudiants vont dans les cégeps anglophones parce qu’ils jugent que l’anglais est nécessaire pour travailler. Nous voulons changer cette vision."


"The population has evolved over the last decades, some municipalities risk losing their bilingual status. To the contrary, other cities could gain this status."
("La population ayant évolué depuis les dernières décennies, certaines municipalités risquent de perdre leur statut bilingue. Au contraire, d’autres villes pourraient se voir attribuer ce statut.")  

Corruption watch this week.

It's almost getting boring, hearing about the thoroughly corrupt nature of Quebec politics, but the hits just keep coming.
This week, it was Michel Lalonde of the consulting/engineering firm, Génius Conseil  to unload, admitting to being a crook and telling all.
(Those who confess are given immunity)

He told the Crime commision that he was in charge of splitting up contracts between the other consulting/engineering firms which oversaw projects on behalf of the government, approving overcharges of up to 30%.
These firms were supposed to act on the government behalf to ensure projects were well run and on budget, but were all thoroughly corrupt approving overcharges of up to 30% and paying off politicians to look the other way.
He also named the various Montreal politicians on the take, including many borough mayors.
You can read the sordid details. HERE

On another front Quebec's powerful SNC-Lavalin, Canada's biggest and most successful consulting/engineering firm is subject to some pretty serious fraud allegations.

"A former SNC-Lavalin executive allegedly paid the son of dictator Moammar Gadhafi $160 million in kickbacks to obtain major contracts in Libya, according to an unsealed affidavit from the RCMP's anti-corruption squad." Link

Readers may recall, that the RCMP is also probing possible bribes paid out by the company, in relation to the awarding of the control for Montreal's superhospital. Police are also interested in the link to the infamous Arthur Porter Link

According to an analyst at Canaccord Genuity, it's only a matter of time before SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. faces criminal charges under Canada’s corruption laws LINK

Mulcair bumps heads with Trudeau over Clarity act.

"Liberal leadership candidate Justin Trudeau slammed NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair's stance on introducing a new bill that would combine the NDP's Sherbrooke Declaration on sovereignty in Quebec with the Clarity Act, keeping the NDP's resolution to recognize a 50-per-cent-plus-one vote in any future referendum. LINK   

It reminds me of a discussion on the The Big Bang Theory where the nerds argue over which superhero is stronger.

The whole subject is a bit tedious and I only included this item because it is something clever that the redoubtable Stéphane Dion contributed to the discussion.

The new bill tabled Monday by the NDP will state that 50-per-cent-plus-one is a clear majority, if the vote count has been done correctly. We all know that the Clarity Act calls for a clear (yet undefined) majority.

"Speaking in defence of the Clarity Act, its author Liberal MP Stéphane Dion asked if 50-per-cent-plus-one is a clear majority, then what could be an unclear majority?" Link

Ha! Touché!

LeavingQuebec.com

The very successful website Quitterlequebec.com now has a sister English site, Leavingquebec.com, dedicated to helping those leave Quebec.
Here's one of the testimonials;

My little story is as follows. I’m Scots, fully bilingual and spent 42 years around St Lambert. I was a school principal in that area for 22 years, and retired in ’97. I spend my winters in S. Carolina.
So I come back from there on April 2 , 2010, and go out to buy some grocery items. I drive down Victoria, St Lambert’s main drag and come past a favourite little restaurant, The Canada Drive -In, there since 19oatcake
And the name has been taped over, nobbled by our language police
I get home and say to my wife “Je m’en calisse! We’re outta here.
She agreed, and by June 11 we were in Brockville Ontario. So, ten grand a year less in taxes, no stupid 30km limits, ardently pursued by blue uniforms with guns, no silly petty nonsense about language, and believe me, I have spent a lot of time in France, and even they laugh about it all.
I golf , at 70, now, at the Brockville Country Club, which is full of “refugees” like me.
Enjoying peace and quiet now
HUGH SUTHERLAND

(credit for the story to UN GARS BIEN SYMPATHIQUE DE CALGARY)

To those militants who wish Mr. Sutherland good riddance, be advised that he and his wife are probably removing twenty thousand in annual Quebec taxes, but as they say....
"We don't need no stinking anglo tax money!"

Impoverished Quebec town rejects prosperity.

The town of Gaspé is a sleepy village at the tip of the Gaspé peninsula and can best be decribed as one of Quebec's premier economic basket cases, with over 50% of househould income dependent on the government,

You'd think that when an energy company partly owned by the Quebec gevernment announcs that quite possibly the town was sitting on a mother lode of oil and gas, the townsfolk would rejoice.

Instead, city council revoked the permits to drill exploratory wells, just in case the wells affected the town's water supply;

"When the Quebec government took a 10% stake in Pétrolia Inc. last year, its chief executive said he expected the move would open doors for the junior exploration company in its bid to become the province’s first major oil producer. He definitely wasn’t expecting a group of city councillors in Gaspé, population: 15,163, to ruin the party.
Pétrolia was surprised to learn on Thursday that the municipality in December voted in new rules banning oil drilling in its proximity, saying it intends to protect its drinking water supply. The company, which has exploration permits validated by the provincial government, was set to begin drilling on its Haldimand site near Gaspé sometime next week." LINK

Perhaps the good townsfolk of Gaspe should read this article, a story of incredible economic revival due to a boom in the discovery of oil and gas in North Dakota;

"Twelve years ago, Williston's population stood at a little more than 12,500 people. Now, officials there estimate the town services 38,000 on a daily basis, based partly on water and sewer use. They expect it could hit 50,000 by 2017...."...But Brevig's enthusiasm trumps his exhaustion. With an economy fueled by new oil-drilling techniques, "It's a land of opportunity, by all means," he said. "You can grow into whatever you want here. 

The Brevigs of the world are flocking to North Dakota in droves, modern frontiersmen transforming this recently dying flyover land into the fastest-growing state in the nation, according to the Census Bureau. Storefront signs scream "now hiring." Pickups and semis jam long stretches of two-lane highways. Backhoes claw the ground even in frozen January. Recreational vehicles occupy former farm field 

North Dakota's population grew 2.2 percent to 699,628 in the year ending July 1, according to the Census Bureau. Many newcomers are from Minnesota. For years, more people moved from North Dakota to Minnesota than vice versa. That trend has changed in recent years, with North Dakota gaining approximately 4,500 to 6,500 Minnesotans each year between 2009 and 2011... 

...Gordon Weyrauch, manager of Williston Home & Lumber, said it's hard to keep good employees even at $16 an hour: "Seems like when you get somebody that's really good, there's always another company stealing them away." A sign outside the local Wal-Mart advertises starting wages of $17 an hour." Read more

That's it for this week, as for a little fun here goes.

Here's a video of the flood that hit Montreal this week because of a broken water main. The water ran down from the mountain and flooded McGill University and caught this unfortunate in its roiling waters.
By the way,  the young lady swept away was a little frozen, but unhurt.

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On a personal sad note, I played garage league hockey here at the Bonaventure hockey arena at the Côte-de-Liesse arena in St.Laurent for 30 odd years, I even curled there as a lad when it was a curling club.
It was sad to see today's vicious wind storm take down the iconic sign....

Do you have a Google search box in the top right-hand corner of your browser?
Try typing in; “Do a barrel roll”
Cool!
Here's a few more neat tricks for the Google search box. LINK

Bonne fin de Semaine!
Have a good weekend!

What Will Pauline Promise Next?

As you have likely heard, Pauline Marois and the PQ have, for the umpteenth time, promised to make a new push for sovereignty.

Considering the PQ's very minority position in the National Assembly and its standing in the polls, somewhere in the low thirty percents, it's a presumptuous undertaking for a government that is supposed to represent all Quebecers. Perhaps the motivation is nothing more than an attempt to fire up the faithful, to believe otherwise is to accept that the PQ is badly in need of a reality check.

"Pauline Marois' surprise announcement Tuesday that her party is preparing a strategy to push sovereignty has raised eyebrows at the National Assembly......
This newest strategy, Marois says, will be presented at the PQ's convention in Drummondville on February 9th. About 2,000 PQ members will vote on the idea of launching a vast advertising campaign to sell the merits of sovereignty...
Premier Marois will only say the "strategy" she'll unveil will focus on selling the advantages of sovereignty. " Link  

"The advantages of sovereignty?" You've got to be kidding!

On Monday I wrote about the Employment Insurance program, which Marois and the PQ want to repatriate from federal jurisdiction, part of the party's overall strategy to wrest political control from Ottawa, one program at a time.
It came as a surprise to me in researching the blog piece that Quebec contributes about $800 million less to the program than it gets out. The fact that Quebecers make up 40% of EI claimants is another shocking revelation.
The idea of taking over this program from Ottawa is akin to asking to take over your neighbours alimony payments...not too bright.

And yet the PQ persists, the question being , WHY?

In making the electoral promise to repatriate the EI program to Quebec jurisdiction I can think of only three scenarios;

1. Pauline and the PQ made the promise knowing full well that it was just an 'election promise,' something that played well in a sound bite, but something that a reasonable government would never really consider.
2. Pauline and the PQ weighed the consequences of adding at least $800 million to the Quebec deficit and deemed the cost worth the price of winning some power back from Ottawa.
3. The PQ shot their mouth off, without ever considering the consequences.

I'll let readers weigh in on which of the above three options is the most plausible, but before you reject the third option as being too unlikely, I'd remind you that even Jean Charest sometimes went off book in an election campaign, saying something that his political staffers never approved or vetted.
It happened in the 2008 campaign where Charest promised to abolish the provincial sales tax of 7.5% on Quebec culture-related products.
What Charest was unaware of, or ignored, was the fact that this provision would contravene the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA.)
Suffice to say that when his government was elected, the idea was never mentioned again.

So I'm wondering what Pauline can promise Quebecers, reality or fantasy that can make the slightest difference to influence them after all these years of debate, that sovereignty could actually be a viable option.

Let us start with the only thing that has been floated so far, the right of sixteen year-olds to vote in a referendum.
Again I'll let readers chime in as to the appropriateness of children voting, considering that half of them couldn't, in all likelihood, name the ten provinces.
Perhaps Pauline should take on one of the proposals that I read on vigile.net, that only Quebec born natives be allowed to vote in a referendum.
Perhaps she could also consider awarding  two votes per francophone voter to counteract historical injustices.

So what Pauline promises, aside from repatriating the money-pit Employment Insurance program, can she make?
First off, the economics;
No doubt, Pauline will trot out the foundation lie of the sovereignty movement, which is that Quebec sends more taxes to Ottawa than it receives back.
This oft-repeated lie is the hallmark of a PQ campaign touting financial viability, but to those who actually pay taxes, the argument is just plain unbelievable.
Those who want to believe that it so, are the militants that will, quite honestly, believe anything. But for the majority, the idea that Quebec is a net contributor to Canada just doesn't fly, because it is patently untrue.
The big bad equalization payment of close to eight billion dollars is a powerful symbol of Quebec's indebtedness to Canada that the PQ has difficulty explaining away.

As for more generous social programs in an independent Quebec, the idea is laughable.
Just yesterday the minister in charge of higher education rejected the notion of a free education system from kindergarten to university, telling students the truth, that the province cannot possibly afford it.

In terms of promises in relation to more generous social programs, the PQ is actually out of options, there is no money to be had and everybody knows it, even the die-hards.

So what is left?
Clean energy?
A rejection of the Oil Sands?
A new gun registry?
A revised more lenient criminal justice system?

Hardly compelling arguments for the creation of a new and uncertain independent state.
And so I'm going to stop discussing the PQ's nonsensical economic arguments, it is like promoting the health benefits of cancer.

So what is left? What can Pauline promise?
Well readers, unfortunately, quite a lot.
Get ready for an unremitting campaign of disinformation and outright hate.
The PQ will play the only card it has left and it will play it to the hilt.

Language and culture.

Those old enough to remember, will recall Lucien Bouchard's pooh-poohing reports of Quebec's economic ruin during the last referendum in favour of language and culture. It almost worked.

No doubt we are in for an onslaught of dire warnings by the PQ that independence is the last chance for Quebec to save its language and culture.

Franco-supremacists will do the dirty work, reminding Quebecers that they are on the road to irreversible Anglicization and that within a few years they will be subjected to Sharia law, Kosher and Halal food, policeman  in turbans, driving instructors in veils, and minarets, shrines and temples in every neighbourhood.
Worst of all, Quebecers will be warned that they will be overrun with unilingual English bus drivers and ticket sellers in the metro as well as 'speak white' clerks in Eatons Quebec department stores. They'll be reminded that they will face English government and para-public employees who will completely bilingualize the public service, a harbinger of French cultural death.

Quebecers living in the sticks will be told that the Anglo/Ethnic infection that has overtaken Montreal is spreading to the regions and that without independence, the die is cast with French in North America on an inexorable road to destruction.
In essence, francophones will be given the choice between prosperity or cultural and linguistic survival, a battle that the PQ discerns to be their only slim chance of winning.

Using a take on the famous American credo, the cry of "Live French or die" will become the rallying point to which the PQ pins their hopes of success.

An ugly campaign of Us versus Them, is what the PQ is preparing, helped along by bolder proxies like French language linguicist, Mario Beaulieu who is starting to become a force, spearheading campaigns to trump a French language agenda over economic or social benefits, as we have seen in the recent Lachine Hospital debate.  Link

More of the same is coming, it is all that is left for the flickering notion of sovereignty.

It's going to be ugly, brutal and divisive, exactly what the PQ wants...

Quebec's Employment Insurance Nightmare

Somewhere along the line, UI or Unemployment Insurance became the more politically correct Employment Insurance, but just the same, Quebecers haven't given up the term "chômeur" to describe being out of work or 'Assurance chômage' to describe the  government insurance plan that pays benefits related to loss of employment.

The Harper government enacted a massive reform of the system that came into effect early this month, which will have an important impact on Quebec and the Maritimes.
It targets those who repeatedly go on and off benefits, forcing them to seek alternative employment under strict new rules.
It not only seeks to get rid of freeloaders who only work long enough to become eligible for payments, and then return to the workforce to repeat the cycle over and over again, it attacks another big sector of the benefits pie, that of 'seasonal' workers, who legitimately work only part of the year, in industries like fishing or tourism that can't offer steady year-round employment.
For seasonal workers, EI benefits are less an insurance program than an income maintenance plan.

Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party was just such a worker for many years.

Ms. May said that from 1975 to 1980, she received what was then called unemployment insurance during the off-season while working as a waitress and cook at her family’s restaurant and gift shop business in Cape Breton, she says.
Labelling regular users of EI, such as herself, as lazy or abusing the system is unfair, she said.
“I paid into employment insurance. When I needed it, I used it. When I didn’t, I didn’t. I raise my personal experience because I don’t think anyone should be ashamed that seasonal businesses in this country that are big, or small, have benefited from a legal system of insurance that pays for itself....”

“I’m coming out myself and saying this was my life. If you want to say this is a wrong way to live, fine,” she said. “Let’s have that conversation....” Read the whole story

The National Post explains these changes clearly.
Read: What exactly are the changes to the Employment Insurance system?

One thing is painfully clear, the reform will affect seasonal workers in the Quebec fishing industry in the Gaspé and Îles de la Madeleine, where fishermen work about four months and remain on EI the rest of the year.
This has set off a panic in the regions affected with demonstrations protesting the new rules held in several Quebec towns.
One demonstration against these EI changes brought out 4,000 of the 14,000 residents of Îles de la Madeleine, an island in the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence that depends on the seasonal fishing and tourist industry to survive. Fully 40% of the workforce collects EI during the 'off' season.
One of the fears is that the changes will lead to an exodus out of the region, something that happened in Newfoundland after the failure of the fishery.

The Quebec minister responsible, Agnes Maltais, in a televised interview was absolutely furious with the Conservatives decision, going so far as calling the changes illegitimate because Ottawa never consulted Quebec.

Why is Quebec so angry?
Because those who will fall off the EI payroll may just fall onto the province's welfare role, a downloading of responsibility that Quebec doesn't want.
How much will all this cost?
Nobody knows, the Marois government hasn't even evaluated the effect of these new changes, another sad remark on its competence.

Before the election that brought Marois to power, Pauline made it an election promise to repatriate the Employment Insurance program from Ottawa to Quebec jurisdiction.

"One of the first battles that a Parti Québécois government will undertake is the return the Employment Insurance program.
On Wednesday, Pauline Marois reiterated its commitment to implement its own Québec program because it believes that the workers are not sufficiently protected.
Marois noted that the reform recently announced by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper on tightening eligibility criteria for EI makes the return even more urgent." Link{Fr}

Not many of us, smart or dumb, will put our hand into a flame. It only takes one bad experience to understand the negative consequences.
Yes, even stupid people can learn from experience, unfortunately Pauline Marois is not one of them.

Let's go back a bit when the Quebec government of Jean Charest followed up on a longtime PQ initiative led by Pauline Marois to repatriate the parental leave program from Ottawa to Quebec jurisdiction.
When Marois was a PQ minister she promised that this eventual transfer would be paid for entirely by the repatriation of the $350 million in annual taxes that Ottawa would forgo in Quebec's favour, for taking the program off it's hands.

In 2009, Quebec's repatriated parental leave program didn't cost the $450 million (adjusted for inflation) that Marois predicted, but rather $1.7 billion, this while taking in only $1.4 billion in premiums.

Today, the cost of the parental leave program run by Quebec has skyrocketed to $1.9 billion dollars.
In the first five years of the program, premiums went up on an average of about 6% a year, but still not high enough to reach an equilibrium between revenues and expenditures.
Despite these massive increases in employer and employee contributions, the program will have accumulated a $713 million dollar deficit by the end of 2013. Link{fr}
Add to this deficit another $349 million that Quebec owes Ottawa for a loan the province made when the program was transferred to its jurisdiction. The money was used to reimburse Ottawa for furture payments owed by Ottawa to claimants that would survive the transfer.
Quebec has never paid back the loan and so has paid about $29 million to Ottawa each year in interest. Link{fr}
That puts the program's deficit to over a billion dollars since the its inception.

You'd think that the debacle would serve as a cautionary tale, but alas, no.

Which brings us to the proposed repatriation of the Employment Insurance program from Ottawa to Quebec, an idea so financially ruinous that any Quebec politician who advocates such folly, should be fitted for a straight jacket and sent to the loony bin.

Quebec with 23.9% of the Canadian population, receives about  40% of the total benefits paid out by the federal program.
In fact Quebec 'chomeurs' and 'chomeuses' receive $800 million more  each year than Quebec workers contribute to the Employment Insurance fund! Link{fr}

If Quebec takes over the program from Ottawa, it would have to double premiums paid by employers and employees just to offer the same benefits.

If as the PQ promises, that its version of EI will be more generous than Ottawa's, it could mean a tripling of premiums!
A transfer of the EI program to Quebec will cost the province close to a billion dollars a year, at a minimum and if the parental leave program is any example it could easily balloon to two billion dollars a year extra.

I'm sure if Pauline makes a formal request to Prime Minister Harper to take over the program, the Conservatives would be fine with it, unlike Pauline and the PQ, federalists can do their sums.

So where does that leave Quebec?
Well, firmly between a rock and a hard place, its only option is to lose with the present cuts or lose more by taking over the program.

Considering that Quebec has a higher percentage of seasonal workers collecting EI benefits than most other provinces, it means that up to half of all those struck from the EI rolls across Canada in relation to the proposed changes, will come from Quebec. That's quite a pill!

Aside from that, the losses will hit certain coastal regions of Quebec especially hard, Gaspé and Îles de la Madeleine where its been a way of life for a couple of generations to combine EI benefits with seasonal work.
As for alternate employment, don't hold your breath finding it in the boonies.
One of the provisions of the new rules is that workers be required to travel up to 60 miles if a job is available, and for those islanders living in Îles de la Madeleine, travelling sixty miles puts them smack dab in the middle of the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence!

For the PQ and the Quebec government this EI debacle is a painful lose/lose situation with Quebec taking  the biggest hit of any province, by far!

One can only wonder if it isn't political payback courtesy one Stephen Harper.

Readers, is the Prime Minister that evil and conniving?