Ignoring English.... a Disastrous choice for Young Quebecers

An argument recently raged in the comment section where an American family who visited Quebec was angry that English wasn't spoken to them.

True?...An urban myth?....dunno.

Let's not quibble over details and if it is not true, it could very well be.

On the surface it seems a bit outrageous that strangers come to your country and expect you to speak their language (yes, Canada is a French language country as well) and the moral outrage by unilingual Quebecers may be justified, but unfortunately, wrong-headed just the same.

Over the last twenty years or so, it is a fact that English has evolved into the lingua franca of the world. Wherever you go in the civilized world, you'll find somebody in the room who speaks English and for the hospitality industry, the political class and international business set, it is an imperative.

I'm a polyglot, and at ease in several languages. When I used to travel, it was with phrasebooks and I always made an effort to speak the local language,
Visiting Mexico often, where our company had a factory and where the locals, living in the hinterland, spoke no English, I took up Spanish and got by quite well, but alas have given up for practical reasons.

I remember one such trip to the beautiful boonie town of Zacatecas, where my wife remarked on how surprised she was that nobody spoke English, to which I remarked that she'd never been to Chicoutimi. Hmmm.

But this is twenty years later, I hope the Mexicans made some progress but I'm pretty sure that the
Saguenéens have not.

Now when I check into a hotel or eat in a foreign restaurant of a decent calibre, I actually expect service in English...

Arrogant.... I don't think so.

English is as necessary to a big city hotel or restaurant as clean linens or good food. Those that don't offer the service are suspect and lazy, so I wouldn't trust what I was being sold.

For francophone parents in Quebec who fail to ensure that their children learn English, it is akin to keeping them illiterate or without basic math skills, a dereliction of parental duty.

Quebec remains an oddball society, the only one that I can think of that has made public policy the persecution of all things English.
It's a clever campaign, where politicians and language militants profess encouragement for francophones to learn English, but actually hope they don't.
Through subtle and not so subtle attacks on all things English, the message is passed down rather successfully that those who don't learn English are just fine.

The Mario Beaulieus of Quebec are no better than the Ayatollahs who instruct to their flock that schooling is irrelevant to girls, who after all, are expected to stay home and make babies, and so, education an utter waste of time.
We hear this all the time, that English is unnecessary if a francophone sets a goal to become a barista in a Tim Horton's in Matane.
That is the nationalist version of reaching for the stars.

It reminds me of bygone days where school guidance councilors would regularly tell parents of poor students to send them to technical or secretarial school.
I thought that behaviour went out in the sixties, but apparently language militants in Quebec are of the same mindset.
"Don't bother learning English, it's too big an effort and since you're going nowhere in life, it's unnecessary."

Tell me you haven't heard the Quebecois version of that argument often enough.

And so a generation of children have been told by their government that learning a foreign language like English is nice but not entirely necessary.
Read the anglophobes on vigile.net who tell readers that it's more important to learn Spanish or Chinese and  one can understand the fantasy world of the anti-English militants.

Now to those sovereigntists who believe that the only answer is independence, the sad fact is that it will not make English less important, but rather more.

As the rest of Canaeda de-bilingualizes, it means the protection of French in a bilingual Canada will disappear.
Quebec will be all alone, the 7 million francophones facing off against 375 million instead of the 35 million who protect French officially.
Hitherto bilingual Canadian companies with head offices in Toronto will de bilingualize, a natural progression based on the new reality.
Some companies selling into Canada, who were forced to keep French on the label and on the instructions even if it didn't pay, will eliminate translation.
Many companies will continue with French if it pays, but those who believe that it always pays are dead wrong.

Today there is an issue wherein Toronto or Calgary based public companies making public offerings are not bothering to issue documents in French, because they don't see enough  interest or aren't interested in selling in Quebec under the rules of the AMT.
French language militants celebrated a great victory when the Quebec government ruled that the practice of making French summaries of English documents will no longer be tolerated and full translations will be required before companies can trade in Quebec.
The question remains whether this new rule will increase or decrease the amount of stock offerings in Quebec?
Those who believe the former are dreaming in technicolor.
It is like those who want to ban plastic water bottles, believing that everyone will alternatively switch to water fountains instead of bottles of soft drinks or juices.

Because of the protective bubble that Canada provides to the French language, francophones have come under the impression that there is an equivalency between languages, the need for anglophone Canadians to learn French, as necessary as francophones to learn English.
French language militants always boast that francophones are more bilingual than Anglophones, but fail to understand that the need for an Anglophone to speak French can in no way compare to a francophones's need to speak English.
It's like boasting that more girls use makeup than boys....there is no equivalency.
Sorry for the painful truth.....

The reality is that French is protected by all 35 million Canadians, like it or not.
Those who believe that Quebec stands alone protecting French are like the toddler whose training wheels are taken off her bicycle for the first time, and who pedals furiously and successfully, unaware that her father is running behind her with a firm hand holding the whole thing upright.

I want to share this tweet as an example of the arrogance of the ignorant, who believe the world revolves around French Quebec.

Pierre Trudel, a retired Quebec sports commentator took offence at Eugenie Bouchard for Tweeting to her followers in English only.

His missive is typical of the ignorance of those who live in the cloistered world of the unilingually French and denotes a not so subtle level of hatred directed at the English.

First, Mr. Trudel assumes or wishes that Ms. Bouchard would be a francophone, which she is not. He adds an accent 'egu' to her name because it fulfils his fantasy.

The product of a French/English family, Eugenie speaks both English and French, but is decidedly Anglophone, having attended school at the very upper class and English "The Study"  in Westmount.
Listening to her interviews in both French and English, it is clear that English and the English culture is her preference.
But still, at ease in both languages, (she has a French coach) she is the embodiment of the bilingual class of Quebecers. A fine testament to the young successful bilinguals of Quebec (be they English or French).

But read into Mr. Trudel's tweet and we see quite the frustration. He sarcastically mentions Westmount 'Kwibec,'  a pejorative that francophones use, to describe how Anglos pronounce Quebec.

Now on what level is an Anglophone Canadian, who lives in Quebec, but plays on the international world tennis tour (which operates in English,) obliged to tweet in French.
Is it not the height of entitlement of Francophone Quebecers to assume that she should?

Such is the reality of French language militants.
It is sad and destructive, the painful reason so few francophones are really bilingual.
Listening to politicians, police or industry spokesman on television and on the street, it is more than clear that the level of English comprehension is abysmally low.

Thank the government and the Mario Beaulieus for keeping Quebec francophones barefoot and stupid, after all, like the Afghani girls who don't need education, so too are Quebecers, who don't really need English.

And so the rate of real bilingualism of francophone Quebecers is pitiful, with the majority of those claiming to speak and understand English basing that rating largely on the ability to order breakfast in English.

How many can watch a Hollywood movie and fully understand and appreciate what is said?

Francophones reading this blog, and who are truly bilingual, know the truth.
To those who actually achieve real bilingualism, I salute you.
You've done so despite your government and society, which actually resents your success and views your bilingualism as some sort of treason.

Sad but true.....

Is There a Sovereigntist in the House?

"So long...suckers!"

First, let me gloat a little bit over a prediction I made when Jean-Martin Aussant quit politics, telling everyone that it was time for him to take care of his family.
What he didn't say then, is what is obvious today, he already had a job lined up and the fiction that he was starting a job search, political malarkey.
Read: Founder of Quebec independence party moves to England

I've told readers before, when a politician leaves a cushy job, especially a young family man, it is because he's got something lined up.
When you hear a politician tell you that he or she is quitting a political position mid-term, to 'explore other possibilities,' your baloney detector should go off.

I remember laughing at the absurd news conference given by Frank Zampino, who quit his job as deputy mayor of Montreal to 'explore other opportunities.' Hah!
He already had a job lined up with the infamous Tony Accurso and was leaving the city job because of the impending investigation into his corruption.
Not one reporter called him out on the obvious lie, I wish I was there to put the question to him.

The same for Jean-Martin Aussant
And so I'll remind readers of what I said in June, when Aussant announced his retirement;

"Does a committed father of twins really leave a secure job just like that without having something lined up?
Look for a well deserved summer vacation for a month or two, followed by the announcement that to nobody's surprise, Aussant has 'found' a new position.
Care to bet a two/four?" Link

By the way, all this BS about not being able to find a job in Quebec is just a red herring, a story put out by Aussant to mislead us over his decision to dump Option Nationale, which was going nowhere. And so he reached out to his old friends in London and asked for or was offered a job, before he quit.

There was no summer job search, all was settled beforehand. It's perfectly logical.
But sovereigntists are weaving the fiction that he was blackballed in Quebec for his sovereigntist views, all this without a shred of evidence. Link {fr}

I'll repeat what I said before, a family man does not abandon a good and secure job on the 'if-come.'

While in the gloating mood, I'd like to remind readers that I was THREE years ahead of the Montreal Gazette in exposing the fact that the McGill University medical school was abandoning anglos in search of political safety.

Last week the Montreal Gazette published a good story about the situation and in fact the writer reached out to me for background.

I'm glad this story finally hit the main street press as Montreal Gazette journalist Karen Seidman reported;

"MONTREAL - With only about 10 per cent of all applicants getting into medical schools across the country, the dream of becoming a doctor is one filled with lots of heartache for even some of the brightest students.
And the dream seems to be a castle in the air for more and more anglophone students in Montreal who are competing to get into the one English medicine program in the province, at McGill University, where an increasing emphasis on diversity has many urban anglophones grumbling that they aren’t the cohort McGill is courting these days.
A growing list of anglophone students rejected from medicine at McGill — many with GPAs ranging from 3.95 to 4.0 who didn’t even get interviews — are wondering if they are too English, too urban and too affluent to get one of the 185 or so highly coveted spots in the program. Read the rest of the story in the Montreal Gazette

Three years ago, I wrote this;

McGill Caves in to Language Pressure- Affirmative action Arrives  -August 4, 2010 

"In one fell swoop McGill has destroyed its reputation. It is in the process of turning itself from an elite program into a run of the mill secondary medical school......

.....Shockingly, in an announcement last week, McGill said that it is dropping the MCAT, much to the derision of the traditional medical community.
.....The decision is one of the most blatant cases of caving in to language militants, an  abrogation of responsibility to maintain high standards that shames the school and will likely lead to the school losing its status as the best medical school in Canada. Read more.

Last year, I wrote this; 

McGill University Medical School Decline was Inevitable  -July 4, 2012

Sadly my prediction has come true, McGill's medical school's world ranking has plummeted and it likely has to do with that dreadful decision to cave in to language extremists.  Read More

I liked the story written by Ms. Seidman, except for the fact that McGill honchos failed to tell her truth, the real reason for which they decided to lower standards.
For that answer, go back and read the above two posts.

At any rate, with John-Martin Ossant off to merry old England where his children, whose welfare he so dearly professes to protect, can become truly anglicized, it begs the question....

Is there a real sovereigntist leader left in Quebec?

With Pauline and her crew fully committed to sovereignty sometime in the distant future, in a galaxy far, far away, and with Option Nationale about to collapse, there doesn't seem to be many options left, unless you call Amir Khadir a serious contender.

By the way, Khadir seems to be a little burned out, his family legal problems perhaps too much of a distraction. He is keeping a decidedly low profile these days.

And so who will take up the torch of the sovereignty NOW movement, or is it all over.

Does the capitulation of Jean Martin Aussant mark a tipping point where the sovereignty movement goes from the possible to the impossible, where everybody, even the sovereigntists realize in their heart of hearts, that the dream is over?

There is gentle readers, a silent and profound humiliation in the sovereignty movement today over the Aussant defection. It isn't being articulated because it is just too painful and so, better not to discuss it in public.
That malaise was clear to Aussant, who felt compelled to write an article in the Journal de Montreal defending his decision.  Read: Au fait, je ne mangerai pas de bébés{fr}

I'm pretty sure that Aussant's defection to England will be a lot more devastating than sovereigntists comprehend today, he will forever be remembered as the symbol of the broken sovereignty dream.

After all, if Quebec's most dedicated and militant sovereigntist leader can give up, what hope is there for everyone else?

Montreal's Extrajudicial Police

extrajudicial [ˌɛkstrədʒuːˈdɪʃəl]
adj

1. outside the ordinary course of legal proceedings 

2. outside the usual procedure of justice; legally unwarranted.

This week we heard the story of Montreal political activist Katie Nelson, who is being targeted and harassed by Montreal police in a story that should have garnered more attention and public outrage.

Sadly the story was largely dismissed and mostly ignored  because most of us have little sympathy or use for this dedicated anarchist.

It's too bad, I always thought that the hallmark of a great democracy was the commitment of the majority to support and defend those wronged, notwithstanding their political opinions and actions which may be in direct opposition to popular opinion. 

"Katie Nelson is a twenty-one year old Anarcho-Syndicalist, insurrectionist, and anti-fascist, organizing against neo-nazism and combating Police repression. She was raised on the Mexican Border in Texas, moved back to Alberta at eight years old, and last year moved to Montreal to support the student strike and never left. To date she has racked up almost $6,000 in fines, almost all to do with peaceful participation in protests." Link

 It seems that Nelson started a Facebook page documenting what she and others deemed to be police brutality during the student protest last Spring and published photos of 'offending' individual officers as well as some contact information.
As you can imagine, the police didn't take kindly to the publicity and embarked on a campaign of pure harassment and intimidation in a juvenile act of reprisal.

"Katie Nelson says she’s been ticketed so many times, Montreal police have stopped asking for her address when handing her a citation. They know it by heart. The 21-year-old Concordia student racked up over $6,500 in fines during the 2012 student protests. The litany of charges include jaywalking, swearing, spitting on the ground, flicking cigarette ashes and “emitting a noise” in public.
One ticket reads: “for having professed insults in a park.” That $146 fine came after Nelson apparently said “bastard” in Émilie-Gamelin Park.
At first, Nelson found her predicament funny.
“I actually hung (the tickets) up on the fridge at my apartment. It was kind of a joke,” Nelson told The Gazette. “Eventually we ran out of room on the fridge.”
Nelson isn’t laughing anymore.
Now she’s busy looking for a lawyer willing to work her case pro-bono and attempting to work out a schedule that won’t involve her having to go to court hundreds of times over the next few years. On Wednesday, the 21-year-old was in court to contest her spitting charge and she’ll appear before a judge on Aug. 23 to fight another citation.
Read more and watch a video news story : Meet the Montreal protester with $6,500 in fines after she outed cops for misconduct

There are those of you reading this blog who might say good on the police because she deserved a little payback.
If you believe that you should be ashamed.

Katie Nelson is in fact an avowed anti-'everything' and has crossed the line more often than not. I don't agree with just about everything she stands for, but as the quotation inaccurately attributed to Voltaire goes;
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

As I researched Ms. Nelson across the net, I was saddened to learn of the poor state of mind of this obsessive-compulsive activist. It's hard to comprehend such a young, brilliant, articulate and energetic sole descending  into such a dark and forbidding place.
Read this disturbing article written by her, to get a limited understanding of what she is about.

"Letter from a young activist on her 21st birthday

I want to thank the people who have supported me this past year. It is for your courage and trust that I am grateful today. I didn't think I would ever live to be twenty-one. For me, this is an unbelievably impossible day, one that five years ago, I didn't think I would ever see and that a month ago I didn't think I would live to experience. But despite every dark hour and every night that I got close, I am here. And for now, I'm not going anywhere.
So if I don't live for the twenty-second birthday, remember my only request: What you are fighting is the most honest and amazing thing, and no matter how many people tell you different, you are doing the right thing. So take this system by the balls and burn the mother fucking city to the ground. 
In love and in rage, -Katie." Read the entire piece 

To get her point of view, read this; Eyewitness account of Montreal police repression of monthly bike ride

Now I want to preface this next part with a defence of the Montreal police for their actions in relation to the student street actions in opposition to tuition hikes.
It is true that the police crossed the line, using methods like 'kettling' and preemptive arrest and over-exuberant arrests, but harsh times call for harsh measures.
The students were determined to cause mayhem, for no other reason but because they could.
There was a distinct possibility that the police would 'lose' the streets and that would have brought on even more repression with authorities forced to invoke Martial law, akin to what happened in the October crisis.
The students didn't get what they deserved, they got what they wanted, violent confrontation. 

So I'm not going to take police to task over their harsh methods in putting down the student insurrection and as for the students, including Ms. Nelson, I've no sympathy for the bruises, bumps, fines and tickets they incurred in the act of rioting or demonstrating illegally.

That being said, this current campaign of harassment against Ms. Nelson is completely unwarranted, immoral and patently illegal.
There is no 'greater good' to be argued and the police action against her should be seen for what it is, an illegal action of intimidation and harassment.

I would hope that the police chief of Montreal would rein in his activist cops, but alas, every Montreal police chief in the last twenty years has been held hostage by the policeman's union, who actually rule the roost.

Now that the story of this harassment has become public it remains to be seem what remedial action will be taken.
I would hope the Quebec Justice Minister, looking down from his office in Quebec City will call the Montreal police to order and demand a return to the strict rule of law.
The extrajudicial punishment meted out by Montreal cops, tolerated and perhaps encouraged by superiors cannot be acceptable in a truly democratic and free society.

Last week a Montreal man was given a $147 ticket for sitting under a tree in a Montreal park, which is supposedly forbidden.
The policeman explained that since ticketing was a standard operating procedure for keeping vagrants from sleeping in the park, it was only fair to ticket 'regular' people once in a while... Link

And so Montreal police have an arsenal of 'ticket' weapons to be used against those they don't like.
Spitting, swearing in public, sitting on the grass and jaywalking are but a few nonsensical offences used by police to harass those they don't like.

If all else fails, our glorious police will stop and search people based only on their skin colour, as every Black Montrealer can attest.
Montreal remains one of the few cities where 'driving while Black' is automatic probable cause for an identification check. All of this, completely reprehensible and entirely illegal.

I don't see many people sympathetic to the likes of Katie Nelson, but we should be.
Tolerating this type of extrajudicial behaviour by our police diminishes us all.

An ex-assistant director of the SPVM once told me that the public has no problem when police use extrajudicial force on criminals and as long as those measures are used against those who 'deserve it,'
well, ....nudge, nudge, wink, wink, let's all pretend we didn't see it or know about it.
A heinous dereliction of civic and social duty.

I hope Katie Nelson finds a sympathetic lawyer to take her case and sues the pants off the Montreal police. She might get a big payday.
While police spokesmen stonewall us and tell us with a straight face that nothing untoward is going on or that they can't comment on the case, that baloney won't stand up in court in front of a judge who has heard this type of bullshit before.
Any judge worth his salt will see the situation for what it is and will no doubt come down hard on the police.
Judges generally don't like the police using the courts as a weapon against its own citizens and actually consider themselves guardians of the justice system.

Read some of my previous posts on the Montreal Police;

Montreal Police Harass Entire Black Community 
Montreal Police Go Beyond Racial Profiling 
Montreal Police Get the Respect They Deserve

And so I defend Katie Nelson on principle and I hope you do too.
Why?......  Because I am reminded and live by this quote;

The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing

...Edmund Burke

Pauline's Chickens Come Home to Roost

It is one of the more curious attributes of our system of government, that is, the generally irresponsible and unrealistic braying and sniping coming from opposition benches in Parliament, from politicians utterly disconnected or unconcerned with reality.

It isn't a Quebec phenomenon, it is part and parcel of our democracy, the British Parliamentary system of government.

For politicians in opposition, it's a make-believe world, where what you say and do makes no difference or never-mind, and where with the passage of time, the irrelevancy of it all either wears you down into a cynical wretch or turns you into a zombie-like creature disconnected from reality, living in a fantasy world.

Listening to the Utopian drivel that spouts from the mouths of Thomas Mulcair and his gang of Ndp career bench-warmers, the constant gratuitous bellyaching, nit-picking and outright distortions, is enough to turn ones stomach, but alas its part of the game.
Mulcair hasn't been there long, but already displays the classic symptoms of 'oppositionitis,' his latest irresponsible outburst, the unfounded and contemptuous claim that rail deregulation, instituted by the Conservatives, was a contributing factor in the Lac-Megantic train wreck disaster.
When faced with the evidence that the incidence of train wrecks has actually gone down since deregulation, Mulcair did the honorable thing and denied ever having made the assertion.
Nobody paid much mind to his gaffe, at best it received a condescending chuckle in the Press, because what Mulcair and the Ndp think or say affects our lives not a whit.

It's a pet theory of mine, that long bouts in opposition render politicians unfit for power, their minds permanently hobbled by the numbing forces of obscurity and irrelevancy, where imaginary battles long fought, make real ones impossible to face.

God help Canada if the NDP ever attained power.
I cannot imagine the harm that the arrogant (Do you know who I am!) Mulcair, abetted by the insufferable Libby Davis and the likes of the injudicious and nasty Pat Martin could cause.

Wait a second!
I can imagine what it would be like to suffer under an Ndp government.... We've got our own not-ready-for-prime-time gang of PQ fools wreaking havoc here in Quebec, right now!
And what glorious and destructive havoc it is!

I'm not sure why pundits expected  from Pauline Marois' motley crew of amateurs, I wrote about  the inevitable disaster to be anticipated courtesy of the talentless hacks and nobodies that make up her cabinet, long before the gaffes manifested.
Read: Pauline Steers a PQ Ship of Fools

The only real surprise was Pauline herself, who should have had enough experience to carry the ball as Premier, but she too, it seems, has suffered from the long years in obscurity and has developed a healthy dose of 'oppositionitis,' the numbing and debilitating condition that renders politicians useless and ineffective.

Now let us consider Pauline's first goal, to convince Quebecers that sovereignty aside, her government could and would provide honest, capable and effective government.

As the modern vernacular puts it.... 'How's that going for you, Pauline?'

So like Lucien Bouchard before her, the goal of convincing Quebecers that the PQ is responsible started with balancing the budget, surely an achievement that the electorate would have to take notice of.
Back in the day, Bouchard nearly destroyed the health care system in a wrong-headed attempt to balance his budget, reducing staff, buying out doctors and nurses contracts in a self-harming and long-reaching debacle that has repercussions today. 

Pauline is going back to that same playbook, doing a balanced budget variation that is just as destructive and futile as Bouchard's folly. I wonder if she expects a different result?

And so Pauline asked the Education department to take over $200 million in cuts, knowing full well that  the various School Commissions which would be affected have the ability to tax homeowners directly and that they could raise the difference in funding on their own and this, without affecting the provincial budget.
That's exactly what happened, with announced school taxes rising by up to 60% in some unlucky districts.

In adding additional capacity to the province's money-losing wind generation power program, Pauline knows that it will be Hydro-Quebec, not her government, which will bear the financial burden.
And so Hydro-Quebec has announced that it has no choice but to raise rates substantially to pay for Marois' promises.

How clever of our Premier!
Forcing other agencies to hike taxes and rates in order to help her balance her budget. A not-so-sophisticated political game of Three Card Monte, where like the elusive Queen of Hearts, the taxes are always hidden from the suckers.

The politics of these issues  are usually above the public's capacity to understand and so, a little political rope-a-dope is usually all it takes to tire the public of the issue..

But alas, this issue may be the exception that proves the rule, somehow the white elephant that is the wind-power program has ignited and resonated with the public.
Taxpayers are not bright, but recognize a simple swindle when they see one, especially when it is they who are being conned.
The issue of the egregious political pork, benefiting a small PQ constituency in the boonies, while the rest of us pay the obscene bill, is something that will not pass unopposed.

There is a rising crescendo of rage in the Press, the Premier's sneaky attempt to have her cake and eat it too, not passing the mustard of acceptable governance.

As the issue gathers traction, more and more horror stories are appearing in the Press every day and so it seems that Premier Marois' chickens have come home to roost.

There will be Hell to pay in the Fall when Parliament resumes sitting. The Liberals smell blood, but more importantly the Press smells a story that will spark interest.

Either the Premier does a quick reversal on the wind energy project (entirely possible), or her government is in deep, deep trouble, the CAQ cannot on principle support that kind of waste and so with the Liberals lapping at the PQ heals, something may just give.

 Pauline has demonstrated but one political talent, the ability to survive, but like the Teflon Don, sometimes your number is up.

Back to the Future..."No Klingon in Quebec"

Readers I'm out of town and still loafing around, enjoying family, especially my grandkids in Brooklyn.
In such a happy frame of mind, it hard to turn attention to the dismal affairs of state back home.
Instead of a blank, I'd like to reprint some pieces that I wrote early in the history of this blog, pieces that most of you haven't read and those that I am most proud of.
This one was written almost four years ago and it is a personal favourite.

Not many of you read it, as the blog was new back then and had few followers.
Enjoy..

Imagine that scientists discover a 'wormhole' in space, one that allows humans unlimited access to the universe. The United Nations sends an exploratory team through this portal that finds thousands upon thousands of inhabited planets, most of them teeming with intelligent and sophisticated life.

As one would expect, each of these societies use their own unique and particular manner of communication. Some use telepathy, some speak orally and others use touch. All have their own unique language.
It's also discovered, that when planetary societies interact with each other across the universe, one common second language is employed.
That language is determined to be 'KLINGON.'

The explorers return to Earth and report their findings. Contact with the Universe promises unparallelled advancement. The world is moved to action.

If Earth is to communicate with the universe, Klingon needs to be adopted as the secondary common language of Earth.
The nations of the world react. Comprehensive programs in Klingon language instruction are initiated in all the nations of the world.

Everybody is excited to embrace the new language, nobody wants to be left behind..... well almost nobody....

In the obscure and sparsely populated province of Quebec, in Canada, the common consensus amongst intellectuals, educators and political leaders is that speaking Klingon is unnecessary. In fact, they hold that learning Klingon represents a threat to the preservation of the indigenous French language.

"While it's nice to speak other languages, it's certainly not necessary" they say.

'A Quebecker doesn't need to speak Klingon to work in Tim Hortons or to be mayor of Montreal, or even Premier of Quebec for that matter! We can live quite nicely in French alone!"

But there's a minority who object, they remind the French language zealots that the whole world has embraced Klingon.

The naysayers are dumbfounded."Doesn't it make sense to do the same?"

"Non! Non!" answer the zealots" Those who want to interact with us, can learn French as easily as we can learn Klingon."

"But that makes no sense! What if we want to travel around the universe? What if we want to sell our products to other planets? How will we communicate?" French is a small language and Klingon is universal, do you really believe that the onus is on them to learn French, rather than on us learning Klingon?"

"MAIS OUI, BEN SUR!!!"

Argghhh.........
Louis Prefontaine is a Quebec blogger who typifies Quebec French language radicalism, those who share a common and dangerous philosophy- "Better to be mediocre in French, than successful bilingually."

Mr. Prefontaine complains in his blog about the students of a French language university in Montreal, the Université du Québec à Montréal(UQAM), who created a video sensation on YouTube.
The students produced a humorous and catchy one-take tribute video that has recently gone viral. The video is a takeoff of the Black-Eyed Peas song "I Got a Feeling

I first became aware of the video when I saw it touted on CNN, where commentators raved. To date close to a million people have viewed it on YouTube. Not bad.

You'd think that Mr. Prefontaine would be happy for the Quebec students' international success, but if you thought that, you'd be wrong.

Here's what Mr. Prefontaine had to say about the video;

"Even our university bred elite of the future are infatuated with English, as proven by this video created by students of UQAM with it's bilingual presentation, English song and text in English. We need to restore a French complexion to the city."

"Même notre future élite universitaire s’entiche de l’anglais; à preuve cette vidéo de l’UQAM, avec présentation bilingue, chanson anglophone, textes anglophones… Il faut redonner un visage francophone à la ville."

Grrrrrr.!!!!......The students of UQAM appear to be more realistic and worldly than Mr. Prefontaine. They wanted to make an successful video and chose a catchy tune by a popular music group for maximum impact. Judging by the results, it seems that their decision was right, notwithstanding the annoying braying of French language militants.

The students understood intuitively what Mr Prefontaine and other French language militants fail to understand or accept, that artistic success on a word-wide level, means singing, dancing or writing in English.
That's the way it is. Tough luck.
Ask Celine Dion.

I imagine that Mr. Prefontaine would have preferred that the students sang 'Allouette, gentile Alloutte' I'm not sure that it would have gone over quite as big......

Should the mayor of Montreal speak English? Perhaps not, but Klingon, ah, that would be nice....