Harper's Delivers PQ a Bitter Lesson in Realpolitik

More decades ago than I'd like to remember, I played garage league hockey in Montreal's Bonaventure arena, where a motley crew of hockey aficionados got together to partake in Canada's greatest pastime.
The ice sheet was the great equalizer, where it didn't matter whether you were rich or poor, English, French or ethnic, young or old, professional or blue collar, or even talented or not, in garage league the only entrance requirement is showing up.

On the ice, I learned many life lessons about hard work, coöperation, respect and yes, even confrontation.
The most enduring lesson I was taught was the one I received after being manhandled in the corner. I told the offending adversary who had roughed me up and who was now skating away that I'd catch up to him later. To my utter surprise, he screeched to a halt, dropped his gloves and popped me a right hook across the mouth.
As I stared up at him from the ice, bewildered and in shock, I remember his words to this day;
"Don't ever threaten!"

I never forgot that lesson and have heeded his advice all my life...."Don't ever threaten!"

I was reminded of that lesson during the Quebec provincial election when Pauline announced rather injudiciously, on more than one occasion, that a potential PQ government would seek confrontation with Ottawa in an effort to create a 'chicane' which would hopefully serve to enrage Quebecers and perhaps boost support for sovereignty.

It was a singularly stupid statement to make for two reasons, first because it revealed that Quebec would be bargaining in bad faith and second it warned Harper of the potential trap being set.

What Pauline didn't bargain for, was that like the fellow on the ice who slugged me preemptively, Harper wasn't waiting around for the shoe to drop.

After Pauline's victory, we didn't hear anything from Harper except platitudes and a magnanimous affirmation that he'd be happy to work with whatever government was elected in Quebec.
He acted as if he never heard Pauline's threats or perhaps graciously chose to ignore them.
But trust me readers, he did hear the threats and most certainly did not ignore them. Our Prime Minister is not that generous, he's a politician who lives in a Nixonian world of friends who are to be rewarded and enemies to be punished.

No, there would be no verbal riposte to Pauline's nasty invitation to squabble, no argument or complaint, just feigned indifference, and for Pauline, the most self-absorbed, deluded and inept Premier Quebec has ever seen, her interpretation that Stephen hadn't got the message was perhaps the greatest misjudgment of all.

And so Pauline continues to bait Stephen Harper and the Conservative government repeating once more the nonsense of seeking a squabble. Just last week, a Quebec City newspaper reported this;

"The Quebec government is preparing to initiate hostilities with the federal government in order to obtain new powers and combat the  interference of Ottawa in its areas of jurisdiction.

the Marois government in the coming days will reveal its game plan in relation to  sovereignist governance,  Le Journal de Québec learned from reliable sources not wishing to be identified.

"The government will not hesitate to force the game and push the limits of its sovereignty on all fronts," We have been entrusted. New powers will be claimed for culture, training and labour on the power of the federal government to spend." Link{fr}

What our politically-challenged Premier fails to acknowledge or understand is that Harper has already opened the war with Quebec, but on his own terms and that he has been waging the battle long before Pauline was even elected.

For years Harper tried in vain to seek a majority government through Quebec, at one point dumping almost a billion dollars in the lap of Jean Charest to help bolster the Conservative's image.
We all know how that turned out and the successive wave of Bloc Quebecois members of Parliament sent to Ottawa convinced Harper to pick up his marbles and move on to friendlier environs.

The decision by Quebec voters to snub Harper electorally after the billion dollar gift, may have been smugly self-satisfying, but like calling your professor an idiot in front of the whole class, it ultimately has devastating consequences and as we all know, payback can sometimes be a nasty bitch.

When Jean Charest betrayed Harper a second time, this time with his humiliating, back-stabbing position at a Copenhagen environmental conference, it was as if Charest sealed Quebec's fate.

And so Harper initiated his plan to cut Quebec out of the national conversation, a plan whereby Harper would find his majority outside Quebec, something pundits agreed couldn't be done.

But did it he did, pulling off a stunning political feat in achieving a majority government with no help from Quebec.
To the victor goes the spoils, in this case utter political power without any obligation to cater to Quebec. For Harper it was the sweetest political victory which provided him, in his winners and losers world, the golden opportunity to exact his pound of flesh.

Unlike Pauline, Harper never announced his intentions. His subsequent anti-Quebec policies were enacted slowly and without much fanfare as if he didn't want attention to be called to his machinations.
And so Harper has;
Added thirty seats to Parliament, only three of which are in Quebec, further reducing Quebec's ability to act as kingmaker in a federal election.

While Quebec is making noises about making French the official, official, official language of Quebec, Harper has reminded the province exactly what country they live in and has sent a powerful signal by re-instating the "ROYAL" moniker to the armed forces as well as hoisting the portrait of the Queen in foreign embassies. Let us not forget his plan to share embassy space with the British, a cost saving plan bound to outrage Quebec nationalist.

Then there are those unilingual Parliamentary officers as well as those highly placed employees working in his office with nary a word of French.
But the two most devastating anti-Quebec measures are the continued immigration stampede and the changes to Employment Insurance, both absolutely crushing anti-Quebec measures.

Let us recognize that Canada has the highest immigration level of any important western democracy, double, triple or even four times as high as those in our economic position.
In 2010, for every 100,000 citizens, the United States took in 28 immigrants, while Canada took in a whopping 80, almost three times as much.

Why?
Of the over one million immigrants that come to Canada every four years, less than 8-9% are assimilated into the French side of the linguistic equation.
Nobody in Quebec seems to understand or care that French Canada is being eroded, steadily but surly through immigration and with the continued trend, Francophones will be reduced to under 20% of Canada's population within a few short decades.
Although this massive immigration policy was started by the Liberals, surely it's cumulative effect has been gauged by the present government who's only rationale to continue the stampede is to dilute francophone numbers.

Then there's the latest blast from Harper, the changes to the Employment Insurance program that will devastate the outer reaches of Quebec, where seasonal workers abound and who depend on the largess of the program as an income supplement program.

When a furious and desperate PQ minister Agnes Maltais went to Ottawa, cap in hand to beg for relief, her counterpart, Diane Finley, gave her an eight minute meeting, then politely showed Maltais the door.

On and on it goes, a cruel and vindictive lesson in realpolitik, dished out by the Harper government to  a hapless Quebec, which is unable to fight back and unwilling to acknowledge the hurt being put on it for fear of being shown up as powerless.

Pauline's bravado in the face of such a deadly and over-matched assault is sadly reminiscent of a famous Monty Python skit, where the hapless Black knight defends his turf while being ripped apart by a more powerful opponent. As the black knight is hacked to pieces, he continues to bait and challenge the superior force.
It is devastatingly appropos;

If Pauline doesn't realize that she is already in the fight of her life to preserve Quebec power, she is indeed the most deluded and naïve politician I know.

Instead of seeking new powers from Ottawa that she will never get,  she should perhaps, as they say in French, concentrate on 'saving the furniture,' that is, preserving what little powers Quebec already has.

PQ Language Dog Finally Put Down

Minister to OQLF "Woah! Les moteurs"

Diane de Courcy, the PQ minister in charge of the language dossier, made no bones about it, the disastrous public relations nightmare concerning Pastagate had to be addressed one way or another.

The OQLF position that the pasta incident at the Buonanote restaurant was just an isolated case of an over-zealous inspector didn't quite fly and after a few days of trying to ride out the storm, during which time more and more incidents of language intolerance became public, it became clear that some action was required to restore public confidence.

The indefensible attack on Pasta and the subsequent public humiliation of Quebec in the international press so infuriated the general public that without a major reaction by the government , the OQLF and the PQ itself risked becoming the butt of a permanent joke.

And so De Courcy did what all politicians who find themselves in such a pickle do .....throw a scapegoat under the bus, in this case the head of the OQLF, Louise Marchand.

Now the media portrayed her removal as a resignation, but nothing could be farther from the truth, the announcement of Marchand's departure came from the minister herself in a press conference devoted to shoring up confidence in the PQ government.
When politicians or highly placed civil servants actually resign on their own, it is usual for them to call a press conference and give the reasons why, thank their co-workers and employees and otherwise wind up things professionally.
In this case, Marchand was shown the door like a fired employee frog marched out of the company premises with a box of personal effects under her arm, escorted by a trailing security agent.

"Ba-bye, don't talk to anybody and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!"

Anyways, I'm not sad to see her go, quite the opposite.
Marchand was the embodiment of everything evil about the OQLF, which under her reign became even more repressive, turning the agency into a dogmatic and cruel organization that reminds me of religious police in Islamic fundementalist countries where inspectors roam the streets, verifying the modesty of women's clothing.
Madame Marchand is your classic anglophobe, somone who let her true feelings surface once in a while as exemplified in this statement.

"Greeting a client in two languages isn't against the Charter, but it's an irritant.... Link

And so it's not hard to understand in what direction the anglophobic Marchand led the OQLF.
As we say in English...."Good riddance to bad rubbish."

Of course Louise Marchand will preserve a high-paying government job, we would expect no less, after all this is Quebec.
But she will end her career as damaged goods, like a pilot who crashes her airplane, killing the passengers, but who herself survives.
She will always be looked upon as a pariah, a bureaucrat who brought shame and humiliation to her province, because that is what the public demands, an individual scapegoat to carry the burden of what should be a collective shame.
The fiasco can't be laid at the PQ's knee exclusively, let's remember that Madame Marchand was a Liberal government appointee and that her particular reign of terror was tolerated by the party that was supposedly the defender of minority rights.

At any rate, De Courcy was surprisingly honest about the whole affair, telling reporters that it wasn't in fact a case of one or two over-zealous inspectors, but rather an institutional problem, where strict application of the law across the board, damn the consequences, was the order of the day.

The minister promises changes and a gentler approach. In fact de Courcy is just getting ahead of the prevailing wind, like a pompous ass standing at the sea shore at the beginning of low tide, ordering the waters to recede.
In light of Pastagate, the OQLF could never continue in its previous iteration.

The unfortunate inspector who triggered Pastagate may not be officially sanctioned, but I don't think she should hold her breath waiting for much in the way of career advancement.
Inspectors don't need De Courcy telling them to be gentler, the message has been made loud and clear.
If anything, government workers are resilient and these inspectors will shrug their shoulders and carry on according to the new rules.
As for over-zealousness, it is a thing of the past, no inspector or supervisor in the OQLF is going to risk getting their ass waxed over an English or Italian word or two.
For the OQLF, an agency hitherto obsessed with the elimination of English and now Italian from public purview, I can sum it all up with this simple remark from the dreaded Italiano.... '“Finita la commedia” (the farce is over..)

Also to consider is the fact that potential business targets have been emboldened and in many cases are spoiling for a fight with the sad-sack OQLF.
Make no mistake about it, the restaurants involved in the latest fiasco reaped invaluable publicity, so much so that others, like the shameless self-promoter David McMillan of Joe Beef restaurant, jumped on the bandwagon claiming that his restaurant was also a victim, hoping for a similar public relations windfall!
And guess what? He was justly rewarded by an obliging press, with OQLF language horror stories generating gads of media interest. You've got to admit it's a little comical. Link

Political cartoonist  Marc Beaudot elegantly captures the spirit of Pastagate

As I said in a previous post, we've crossed a critical tipping point, where the OQLF will never again spread fear and reap havoc to the extent it did so for these last years.

By the way, the insufferable Minister De Courcy gave another speech in which she proposed giving the Commission de Normes de Travail, the government agency mandated to protect workers rights, the new task of protecting workers right to work in French. I can only imagine the boondoggle as anyone pissed off with his or her boss can sic the dogs of the agency renowned for its unmitigated hatred of bosses.

At any rate I digress, the only reason I bring up the above is because of another statement she made during that presentation;

"I believe it is time that we in Quebec adapt to the reality of the twenty-first century, and we encourage the learning of a third language, or even a fourth, a fifth, in schools and colleges, "said the minister." Link 

That's a pretty bold statement, especially from the indefatigable Madame De Courcy who speaks nothing but French and warns reporters before her press conferences that she will take no questions in English. It actually would be funny if not so sad.

But let's go on.....I'd like to offer the OQLF an olive branch, a project where they can actually help promote French with the blessing of this blog and the entire English and Ethnic community.

The subject concerns the bad French that some consumer products bear because the company used Google or some other free Internet service to translate the French on the packaging.

The results are sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad and always disrespectful.

While small companies in China can be forgiven, I'll start the photo roll with a picture of a truck from that Canadian furniture institution LEONS.
The company translated the phrase, "Serving Canada",  painted on its familiar yellow truck into the French "Canada de portion,"  a moronic mistake that invokes the other meaning of portion (like a meal portion)
I'm not even mentioning the other dog's breakfast of a translation, on the bottom of the truck.
Laziness, stupidity, disrespect?
All of the above.

Picture credits Fail.Qc.com

For those who don't speak French, I'm reserving the explanations to the comments section so that readers can have some fun describing the gaffes.

Now wouldn't it be neat if the OQLF opened a website where small companies could get some help with French used on packaging.
They could  submit some French text and the OQLF could verify and offer appropriate changes quickly and without much fanfare.

The whole project could be funded with two or three employees and a webmaster at a cost of a two- hundred thousand dollars, tops. This in an agency with a budget of over $25 million.

It's a positive project that can make a meaningful difference, at a relatively low cost and one which we can all support.

But this is Quebec where no-brainers don't often make sense......

Seven Dirty Lies of the Sovereignty Movement

I'm going to forgo the usual bustle of the French versus English Friday post this week because quite honestly, I've been out of the country and just haven't had the necessary time to devote to culling the many, many stories that have propagated in the news pages concerning the ongoing linguistic war being waged by the PQ government and its dark minions of evil on the English and Ethnic citizens of Quebec.

And so I'm presenting this post, which I wrote a while back for just such an occasion. It concerns the vast campaign of disinformation being waged by Franco-supremacists in order to brainwash the masses into believing that they are a sad, exploited and put upon nation, living in imminent danger of having its values, culture and language destroyed by the evil Anglos.


Lie # 1
Quebec Anglos are the best treated minority in the world
I've started out with this oft-repeated bit of nonsense because it is without a doubt the easiest to refute.
Every time I hear a Franco-supremacist repeat this bit of drivel, I ask but one question....

"What about the Natives?"

Hmmm.... That has them backpedalling fast, but no matter, Anglo-Quebecers aren't even the second best treated minority in Canada, that would be of course French-speaking Canadians.

It boggles the mind that this ridiculous myth has any legs at all.
Let us remember that on an Air Canada flight between Victoria and Vancouver (in a province where less than 1.6% of citizens are French,) a passenger has the absolute right to be served in French, while on a city bus driving between Montreal West and Hampstead, (where 80% of citizens are English-speaking,) the driver is protected by law from answering any question in English.

From coast to coast, Quebec Francophones seem to be oblivious to the protection afforded their language by the federal government and official bilingualism.

I flew into Montreal a couple of nights ago on a Westjet flight from the United States where the cabin crew barely spoke a word of French but had at least one member of the crew who did speak some French, because the law demanded that it be that way.
Whether in a Via train in Saskatchewan or a Westjet flight to Montreal, French is under the judicious protection of the federal government.
That is why a box of corn flakes or a bottle of ketchup  is bilingual, even in Nunivat.
An international conference sponsored by the federal government in Toronto will be forced to be bilingual and the cost of this national bilingualism is borne largely by English citizens across Canada, who in reality have little or no use for French, other than respect.

For Francophones who don't understand, imagine the benefit to Spanish culture if the United States government imposed the same official language act that we live under in Canada, in that case, in favour of Spanish.

Them's the facts.

Lie #2
Quebec is Anglicizing
How is it that the PQ government can make the startling claim that the province is Anglicizing without a shred of evidence?

There exists not one bona fide study or report prepared by any reputable organization that so much as hints that Quebec is becoming more English.
It is in fact one of the great lies of Franco-supremacists that English is on the upswing in Quebec.

Every single report that I've seen, maintains that after decades of decline, the best the English community can hope for is to see their numbers stabilize. This even includes those immigrants who are absorbed into the English side of the linguistic equation.

As for the 'pernicious' growing influence of English in Montreal, it really has to do with altered perceptions, where the sight of one English or bilingual sign sends militants into convulsions. The overreaction is based in fact on how well the city has been sanitized.
 As for the other complaint that workers are being asked to speak English as well as French on the job, a fate worse than death, there is no documentary evidence that this is on the increase.
In fact, it is more likely on the decline, a view every bit as valid as those that believe that bilingualism is on the upswing, because, once again, there is ABSOLUTELY NO DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE.

Looking back 150 years, there is no period of time where English had less of an influence in Quebec than today and I defy anyone to present documentary evidence to the contrary.

As for the idea that any perceived increase in the use of English by francophones will lead Quebecers to abandon their culture and language, I would ask any of our militant commenters whether anyone in their family has turned into a tea-drinking, Queen-loving Anglo turncoat because they learned to order breakfast in English.
Even those highly educated francophones who speak flawless English, like Jacques Parizeau or Jean-François Lisée don't seem to be in much danger of abandoning their roots and so I must conclude that according to them,  it is only weak-minded Hoi-polloi who are in danger.

These cries that French is in danger is nothing more than a separatist ploy to whip up support for sovereignty through fear, and reminds me of the folk tale of Chicken Little who falsely propagated the hysterical and mistaken belief that the sky was falling, all because an acorn fell on its head.


Lie#3
Anglos stole the 1995 referendum
Once more a case of wishful thinking.
The argument is that Ottawa and murky underground anglo groups illegally funded anti-sovereignty activities in direct contravention of the referendum law, with the famous pre-referendum Unity Rally in Montreal, which became known as the infamous 'Love-In' serving as the best example.

There is no doubt that forces outside Quebec spent money, but the referendum law that prohibited these acts was itself found overly restrictive by the courts and those charged with contravening the spending aspect of the act saw the charges against them dropped.
If anyone tried to steal the referendum it was the PQ with its ridiculous referendum law which they knew could never stand a legal test.
Their thinking was that the referendum would be over before a court challenge could ever be resolved and in this respect their thinking was bang on. Separatists are angry because some of us refused to play by their crooked rules.
I distinctly remember our group receiving at least two private legal opinions before the referendum that the law could not be upheld and that spending by outsiders was perfectly legal.
Separatists who complain that Anglos stole the referendum remind me of a bank robber who complains that his partner in crime divided up the booty unfairly.  Tough noogies!

After the referendum, the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec, Pierre F. Côté, filed 20 criminal charges of illegal expenditures by Option Canada and others on behalf of the "No" side, which were dropped after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that parts of the referendum law were too restrictive on third-party spending. Wikipedia

"All the big fuss is based on two fallacies : First, that it was illegal for Ottawa to spend money defending federalism, unless it was authorized by the Non umbrella committee. Secondly, that private citizens or companies from outside Quebec could not spend money on a trip to Montreal unless it was also authorized and included in the spending permitted by Quebec’s Referendum Act.
In fact, during the 1980 referendum on sovereignty-association, federal government spending was challenged before the Referendum Council, set up under the Referendum Act. The decision rendered May 16, 1980, in Boucher vs. Mediacom, written by Chief Justice Alan Gold of the Quebec Superior Court was that the federal government was in no way bound by the spending restrictions imposed by the Referendum Act. "No law affects the rights of the Crown, unless they are specifically included, or again unless (the Crown) accepted it, which is not the case here, so that even the government of Quebec is not bound by the Referendum Act, 1978, Chapter 6. A fortiori, the government of Canada is not bound by the Quebec legislation unless it has accepted to be bound, which likewise is not the case."  Read more by William Johnson

The other complaint by sovereigntists is that new immigrants had their citizenship applications allegedly speeded up by Ottawa to make them eligible to vote in the referendum.
The other complaint is that students from outside the province voted illegally, both groups tipping the balance in favour of the NO side.

Even if this was true, which it was not, the numbers just don't add up to 54,000 votes, enough to tip the balance and in fact only 32 students were ever fined for voting illegally.

Also forgotten in all this is the 10,000 votes that were stricken from English ridings by scrutineers chosen by the PQ.

"Controversy arose over whether the scrutineers of the Chomedey, Marguerite-Bourgeois and Laurier-Dorion ridings had rejected numerous ballots without valid reasons, mostly by being overly strict on what marks voters could use to indicate their choices (for instance, rejecting ballots with check-marks or "X"s that were crooked, too large, made with a pen instead of a pencil, etc.). In these ridings the "No" vote was dominant, and the proportion of rejected ballots was 12%, 5.5% and 3.6%. In the riding of Chomedey, an average of 1 of every 9 ballots were rejected. Thomas Mulcair, member of the Quebec National Assembly for Chomedey, told reporters after the vote that there was "an orchestrated attempt to steal the vote" in his riding. Wikipedia

Lie#4
Quebec pays more to Ottawa than it receives
This pearl is laughable because only those who with the mentality of someone who believes in the tooth fairy or a flat Earth can muster the blind faith to adhere to a precept so patently false.
A leading Quebec economist has reported that for every $1.00 Quebec contributes to Ottawa, it receives back $1.45.
One of the more interesting ploys of Quebec separatists is to harp upon the programs where Quebec is short-changed, never willing to add up the total benefits/contributions of all the programs to come to a fair conclusion.
Every time you hear Pauline or other separatists rail against Ottawa's over-contribution to the shipbuilding programs in other provinces, or support for auto workers in Ontario or tax breaks for the Oil sands, you are seeing the dishonest process of cherry-picking.

 Most Quebecers know in their hearts where the truth lies and the fact that they don't really believe in this lie is in fact, the biggest impediment to sovereignty.
If it were true that Quebec was a net contributor to Canada's finances, the province would have been independent long ago.
Imagine if Alberta's Oil Sands were located in Quebec. Arggghhhh!........

Lie#5
Quebec's poor financial state is overstated
Separatists will always find a way to deny reality, especially when that reality is unpleasant.
Quebec's poor financial situation is one area that they have been working overtime to cherry-pick and massage data to create an alternate universe.

My favourite is the case made that Quebec's debt is not so serious because assets that would appear on a corporate balance sheet, mitigating debt, are not considered by the enemies of Quebec.

In other words it is unfair to say Quebec's debt is high if one doesn't consider it's assets or to put it simply, it's like considering a house mortgage as a liability without offsetting it by the value of the house.
And so we are told that Quebec's relative debt is really much, much smaller because of the massive asset that is represented by Hydro-Quebec, valued by militants at over $100 billion. To them, when considering the province's indebtedness (which is about $150 billion,)  one needs to subtract the value of Hydro-Quebec.

It's a neat argument that sounds good but one that fails on many grounds.
Firstly, you can't count the value of the cow and the value of it's milk production at the same time. It's one or the other.

The $100 billion valuation for Hydro-Quebec is vastly exaggerated, the state-run power agency only produces about $3 billion in profit which would place the real value on the market at a lot less unless electricity fees would be allowed to rise to market rates, not likely.
Anyways, Quebecers have been brainwashed into believing that Hydro-Quebec is a national treasure and there is no scenario that can realistically envision it being sold off.

Secondly, almost half the profit generated by Hydro comes from power obtained cheaply from Newfoundland and with the deal set to expire in twenty-five years, investors, especially institutions would discount the value of the company substantially.
Thirdly, electricity prices are collapsing in the USA, Hydro's main export market, due to conservation efforts and the vast pools of shale gas coming to market, undercutting the cost of power from Hydro-Quebec for the first time ever.
Hydro-Quebec is fast  becoming 'old expensive power'

Each year Hydro-Quebec contributes about $3 billion to the Quebec budget and if it were to be sold, that money would have to be replaced. Quebec would pay less interest as it paid down the debt with the proceeds of the Hydro-Quebec sale, but it wouldn't be much farther ahead.

Evolution of Equalization payments to Quebec in billions of $$

It is also a question of cash-flow.
Think of the proverbial aristocratic English family, living in an expensive-to-run castle that has lots of expensive heirlooms and paintings, perhaps worth millions of pounds, but without selling them off there is not enough money to pay the bills.

Between public service pension obligations that are skyrocketing and an over-bloated public service, coupled with a Cadillac entitlement  program, Quebec is not generating enough funds to pay for it's spending.
Over the last two decades the shortfall in revenue has been filled by public borrowing and an increasingly generous bailout program from Ottawa via equalization payments, now standing at $8.5 billion a year. It is only a matter of a few short years before Quebec reaches its very own fiscal cliff.

 Quebec may not be Greece, but it is no Switzerland, that is for sure.
To believe that Quebec is in decent financial shape is a case of whistling through the graveyard.

Lie#6
Montreal is a French city 

The depiction by the OQLF and French language militants  of Montreal as a French city under attack by English forces determined to bilingualize and thus conquer the city is perhaps the greatest and most pernicious lie of the sovereignty movement.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Montreal was built by the English and Scots, with most of the heavy lifting done by the Irish.
It is a historical fact, evidenced by the almost exclusively English-named streets that crisscross the downtown core.

Again to quote French militant numbers, Montreal has only 49% French speaking citizens with French as mother-tongue, with most of them living in the inconspicuous wasteland of the East end.
Parts west of St. Denis, including the dynamic downtown core, the university districts and the artistically creative neighbourhoods, and in fact anything of interest in Montreal, lies in what may be the most bilingual city in the world.... Montreal, west of St. Denis.
When I say bilingual, it is because you can find Francophones, Anglophones and Ethnics, perfectly comfortable speaking English and French.
If you visited Montreal from Canada or abroad , I'm sure you'll attest to that fact.

Montreal's bilingualism makes it one of the most dynamic and exciting places to live in North America and it's no accident that the serendipitous mix has led Montreal to remain the creative capital of Canada and in fact one of the most influential centres of culture, art and music in North America.

To French language militants, the success of McGill University, Arcade Fire, Montreal smoked meat and world famous bagels are humiliations, rather than sources of pride.

To them all I can say is Bah, Humbug!

Lie#7
Quebec's English population makes up just 8.5% of Quebec's population.
Here is another neat trick employed by militants to alter reality, by claiming that Quebec's Anglo population is only 8.5% while Statistics Canada pegs that number at 13.5%
How do  the separatists justify the lower number?
By cleverly using the mother-tongue argument to sidestep reality.
It is indeed a fact that only 8.5% of Quebecers have English as a mother tongue, but many Quebecers without English as a mother tongue use English day to day, making them Anglophones by fact.

Let's go by the numbers provided by militants themselves, who claim that Quebecers with French as a mother-tongue has fallen to 79% of the total population of Quebec .
Add the 79% number of Francophones 'de souche' to the 8.5% English 'de souche', (numbers that these militants themselves offer,) and it yields a total of 87.5% of the total Quebec population.
That leaves the remainder, or 12.5% of Quebecers as those with neither French or English as a mother tongue.

French militants have long complained that close to half of 'les autres' (45%) are integrating into the Anglophone community. (these are their own numbers, not mine) and so about 45% of the 12.5% or  5.65%, align themselves with the English community and the other 6.85% align themselves with the francophone majority.
Do the math, even separatists can do their sums when they want to..
8.5% Anglophone English speakers,  plus 5.65% Ethnic English speakers yields 14.15% English speakers in Quebec.
Hmm.... that number corresponds closely with what Statistics Canada tells us!

Every time you hear the separatist talking about English as a mother tongue, it is just another device to lower the numbers of those who prefer to speak English.

Statistical manipulation and cherry-picking, lies and outright bullshit is stock in trade for Franco-supremacists.
Remeber these few facts when confronted with their cruel attempts to mislead.

That's it for now, I've got a lot more but have run out of time.

Have a great week-end!
Bonne fin de semaine!

Quebec Language Cops - It's Time to Push Back Hard

Montreal courthouse forced to tape over English

 Over the last fifteen years, I've been watching with some disappointment the English community's acquiescence to the tyranny of the OQLF.
I've always recognized the language police as paper tigers, but understood that for most companies the fear of being exposed by the OQLF as non-cooperating is a burden that they didn't want to bear and so it was, as they say, more expedient to git along, in order to get along.

I don't agree, but those decisions weren't mine to make.

After all these years, it comes as a fortuitous turn of events that one idiot language inspector created a public relations nightmare that exposed the OQLF as the xenophobic, ethnocentric and bigoted gang of racists that they really are.

I dare say most right thinking francophones were shocked at the utter stupidity and dogmatism displayed by an agency which they assumed was doing a fair and reasonable job at protecting the French language.
Other than Franco-supremacists, who never saw an English (now foreign) word that they did not want to remove from public purview, what reasonable Francophone could not shake their head in disbelief at the ridiculous excess carried out in the collective name and what reasonable Francophone could not help but feel a sense of outrage and shame that Quebec's reputation was sullied in the international press, through mocking and condescending stories of bureaucratic stupidity and excess.

More importantly, Pastagate led to a fortuitous and wholly unexpected tipping point where one day we were afraid of the OQLF and the next day no longer.

Like the bully in the schoolyards who rules through intimidation and fear, it takes but one 'DAVID' to defeat the 'GOLIATH' reducing the said bully, so feared  before, to the butt of derision, a laughingstock to be mocked.

Slowly but surely the business community is stiffening its backbone and taking courage from others who have decided to fight back. 
It is this resistance that must be nurtured and developed, rendering the OQLF impotent and irrelevant.

THE OQLF is proud to tell us that when it comes to compliance with its edicts, 98% of business comply meekly, when confronted by the dreaded inspector.
If that percentage was reduced to just 75%, the OQLF would grind to a halt, bogged down in paperwork and time-consuming letter exchanges and litigation.

Business people have told me many times over  that it is the utter waste of time and resources that leads them to just give in to the OQLF, considering that the object of a business is to make money and where exhausting battles with and an idiot agency with seemingly endless resources, is counter-productive to that goal.

But business people should consider that for every time-consuming engagement they expend with the OQLF,  a commensurate (if not larger) amount of energy is expended by the OQLF, which contrary to popular belief does not have unlimited resources, in fact, quite the opposite.

Let us consider the poor cows, docilely trundling up the ramp to the slaughterhouse, encouraged by a just few handlers to keep on moving like good little doggies, cooperating meekly on the march to their ultimate demise.
What would happen if even ten or twenty percent of the cows revolted and stampeded?
It would create utter mayhem!
Obviously, the amount of animals processed in a certain given period would plummet, as handlers would be overwhelmed by the now uncooperative and ornery beasts.

The meat processor would be faced with the choice of injecting a massive amount of new resources to get back control or accept that productivity would fall massively.
In either case, the cost of processing would skyrocket.

An inappropriate analogy? I think not.

The OQLF will always enjoy success in browbeating government and semi-government organizations to comply with their filthy edicts, as evidenced in the sign pictured above wherein the English portion of a Montreal courthouse sign which has been sanitized by order of the OQLF.
Considering that the courts are one of the few places where English is still 'tolerated' because of protections afforded in the BNA act, it is particularly telling that the OQLF is removing English in the halls immediately outside these courtrooms, reminding all that their goal is to eradicate English as best they can.
Like telling English school boards that they must communicate in French, it is the embodiment of ill-will and malice.
For francophones who tell Anglos that resisting the OQLF is a manifestation of bad citizenship, I can only tell them that resisting hate and intolerance is never a manifestation of bad citizenship, rather the opposite.

Make no mistake about it, Pastagate has exposed the OQLF for what it is, the evil embodiment of xenophobic hate, an agency to be confronted through democratic resistance and public shaming.
Just because the organization carries the cachet of legitimacy by being state-sanctioned, it doesn't change the fact that ordinary citizens should blithely accept its excesses.

 It is important that we continue the exercise of exposing the true nature of the beast in the international community, where stories like Pastagate sap the energy and the bonds of legitimacy, humiliating and shaming Quebec, like the process whereby photos of 'Johns' are published by law enforcement in local media in order to shame them for their behaviour.
When French language militants tell all who will listen that the stories published in the international press is an English plot to discredit the OQLF, I can tell them wholeheartedly that they are right.

Yes Mario Beaulieu, we are intent on breaking the bck of the OQLF and make no bones about it!

While he and other Franco-supremacists have no problem living with the attached bad publicity, not so ordinary Quebecers who at a certain point will demand that the OQLF be reigned in and that the nightmare of international humiliation be ended.

Here are two examples of that process, a satirical song offered by Quebec's very own Boswer and Blue and an advertising campaign launched by the restaurant attacked over 'pasta'

 

The restaurant is embarking on a billboard and print campaign whereby the definition of 'pasta' is defined in French. link{Fr}

As for not cooperating with the OQLF here are a few hints for businessmen.

ALWAYS ASK FOR ID BEFORE ENGAGING ANYONE CLAIMING TO BE AN INSPECTOR.

Don't be nice. Cooperation with the OQLF will get you nothing. The inspectors who visit your store have the mentality of a Mafia collector, where the level of polite cooperation is irrelevant to the task at hand, which is to shake you down.
If the inspector becomes abusive, tell them to leave. You have the right according to Quebec labour law to be free from intimidation and harassment.
Call 911 and summon the police. Tell them that you are being subjected to psychological abuse, if you feel such is the case.

When an inspector enters your establishment and demands your immediate attention, tell them that you are busy if you are, that they are welcome to carry out their duties on their own but you don't have time for them right now. Ask them to come back.
The regulation provides that an inspection can be carried out any time it is 'convenient', but it fails to elaborate as to convenient for whom.
Even Revenue Quebec phones for an appointment before showing up, so don't jump through hoops just because an inspector tells you to.

Ask for identification and either write down the name of the inspector and the particulars on the identification badge. Use your camera phone to take a picture and if confronted remind the inspector that there are many fake OQLF agents going around, terrorizing English businesses.
If you are gutsy, turn on your cameraphone, telling the inspector that for clarity, you wish to document the intervention.

Don't engage in useless arguments with inspectors, shrug your shoulders politely and tell the inspector your going to refer everything to your attorney.
REMEMBER, cooperation buys you nothing, these are zealots.

As for the case with ordinary citizen-activists confronting you about signs in your establishment, always demand that they identify themselves before engaging in conversation. Demand to see ID and if they refuse tell them to leave, you have the absolute right to remove someone from your establishment if they are not there to conduct business.

By the way, you can always comply with the OQLF demand at a later date, if you so choose, but remember, making the OQLF expend oodles of time and energy is the object.
If they have to visit your establishment four or five times instead of just once, it means three or four less visits elsewhere.

Here's what happens when someone fights back. The story is hilarious and hats off to the merchant who made the OQLF and the court spend upwards of $50,000 to $100,000 to fine him $500 over 16 sex toys that didn't have enough French.

What follows is how Superior Court Justice Johanne St-Gelais described the facts in a 2011 ruling.
The product in question, she wrote, is a ring used on the male sexual organ to enhance a female partner’s pleasure. During Mr. Picard’s first visit, he noted that the packaging and safety label were in English only. Ever vigilant, he made three subsequent visits and noted “partial corrections” but not enough to make the product conform to the law.
The store’s manager wrote to the Office asking for an exemption on the grounds that the product is imported from the United States, that it is impossible to find a similar product manufactured in Canada and that she sells fewer than two per month.
After her request was refused, the shop offered to translate the safety warning into French and place it on a sticker over the English warning. Not good enough, the Office replied after consulting its lawyers: All packaging had to be translated.
Mr. Picard returned to the store in July, 2005, more than a year after his initial inspection. He was not pleased with what he found: “writing only in English on the front . . . and containing writing only in English on the reverse of some. . . Moreover, the English writings on the reverse of certain packaging prevailed over the French version,” he wrote in his report. Read the rest of the hilarious story  (Credit R.S.)

I hope that our community will consider building a website resource in order to apprise victims of their rights and to provide successful strategies to dealing with the fools at the OQLF.

Anyone listening?

Do Quebec Language Cops Hate Italians?

 I've been writing this blog for about three years now and I can say that no missive in the comments section got my attention as much as this one attacking Quebec's Italian community.

Translation: Undoubtedly the Italians were once a great people. But we're forced to admit that they have been rotten for a long time. Take for example, their adherence to fascism and their chronic inability to form a stable government. Besides this, consider the Mafia that plagues their social and economic life.

This same decay can be found in Italian Quebec. Because of this, we have enough evidence to conclude that all Italians with English as a common language should be excluded from any executive position in public administration and in ownership of any construction company. Italians who use English as their everyday language should content themselves to remaining in the drug trafficking business, an activity in which the community already excels.

Now I waited a full two days to allow this active poster to either remove the post or ask that it be removed by myself, the editor, a request with which I would have complied with.
After all, most of us have shot off our mouths only to regret what we have said, especially in a drunk dial or ill advised text or tweet. In such cases, we all could benefit by a sympathetic DELETE.
But apparently, such was not the case here, the poster unapologetic and so I let the post stand.

Some will argue that it is a failing of this blog to allow such racist drivel to remain online, but respectfully, I disagree.

The vast, vast majority of Canadians (including Quebecers of all ethnicities, language and religion) are not racists and recognize garbage like this for what it is.....pure hate.
So it's important not to sanitize the minority who hold these racist views because sometimes, just sometimes it represents the common view of a discernible political group or organization and we the public are better served by being aware of their  opinions

I much prefer to hear the hateful missives of White supremacist groups who rail against Jews, Blacks and Browns, so that I can fully understand the depths of their depravity.
You and I and almost all Canadians are mature enough to handle the truth and in this respect I much prefer the American version of free speech.

I recall the stupid racist rant against Jews by David Ahenikew, a Saskatchewan native leader whose ill-advised comments brought down a firestorm of criticism and censure in the Press which resulted in his professional life being effectively ruined.
Had the reporter, to which the remarks were made, decided not to print what Ahenikew said, we the public would never have known the truth about the man and it would have allowed him to continue on in a leadership role, something he did not deserve.

So I much prefer to know what our poster Y.L. is really thinking, it clears things up for us.

The same goes for the OQLF, the incident known as 'Pastagate'  that exploded last week on the pages of newspapers around the world, which shows us exactly what the OQLF is really about and clears up any myth or misconception that the agency is anything else but an organ of state-sanctioned ethnocentric oppression.

For those who are unaware, last week the OQLF (sarcastically known as the language police) censured an Italian restaurant because it had the temerity to use the word 'PASTA' on the menu, instead of the politically correct "Pate,' the French equivalent.
In the face of worldwide ridicule, the government intervened and ordered the agency to  backtrack, claiming that the whole affair was a rare and regrettable mistake, just a small overreaction by an individual inspector, to a legitimate complaint.

Both those statements are outright lies.

First of all, the original complaint that the OQLF received about the restaurant, never mentioned the word 'PASTA,' only that the complainer was annoyed at receiving an all-English menu (the restaurant offers a separate English and French version.)
When the inspector from the OQLF arrived at the restaurant to check out the complaint, she was handed the required French menu and so had nothing to proceed on.
All by her lonesome, this OQLF inspector attacked the restaurant over the Italian words on the menu, giving birth to 'Pastagate.'

But in the fallout of Pastagate we learned that this wasn't a case of one overzealous inspector, as the OQLF claimed, in fact OQLF inspectors have harassed at least two other Italian themed restaurants over the fact that they were using Italian words to create an atmosphere. So it's no leap to conclude that the actions of the inspectors were no aberration, just par for the course.

Like the comment above from Y.L., which exposes his true racist nature, the blitzkrieg (oh no, not another foreign word!) against the Italian eateries exposes la vrai nature de l'OQLF.

The enmity demonstrated by Y.L. in his comment is not atypical of Franco-supremacists who base their disdain on the fact that the Italian community of Quebec has almost exclusively integrated into the English side of the language equation, something they are furious over.
Italians, along with Jews and Greeks are particular targets of Franco-supremacists from Yves Michaud to Mario Beaulieu for this exact reason, the failure of these communities to integrate in Franco-Quebec society. For them it remains a painful and festering sore.

And so the OQLF, an agency that defines and applies its very own twisted version of the Nuremburg laws, has a particular hate-on for these enemy communities and it is no mistake that the word 'PASTA' was censured, while 'TAPAS,'  'PHO,' 'SEVICHE,' are not, because the Spanish and Vietnamese communities are considered 'allies' in the war on the English.

The great lie of Pastagate is one told by the OQLF stating that the attack on the Italian restaurant was a case of an over-zealous inspector, it clearly was policy,  an organized attempt by the OQLF to eradicate Italian influence in public, because the Italians are allies of the English.

"The friend of my enemy is my enemy."
 It makes sense only to the the twisted ethnocentric minds of the OQLF.

How evil and polluting is the mindset of the OQLF?
It's gotten to the point that ordinary citizens are being whipped up into a language frenzy.

HERE'S JUST the latest citizen-language warrior incident;

 READ THE STORY ON FACEBOOK   (credit to R.S)