Mario Beaulieu Unleashes the Dogs

Back in 1969, the then vice-president of the United States, Spiro Agnew,  undertook a fierce anti-press campaign, believing that the media was left-leaning, anti-war and anti-Nixon.
Agnew had the gift of gab, or at least the benefit of a heck of a speech writer in one Pat Buchanan, making a famous jibe, in which he called his opponents,
"an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

The phrase is just about all that remains of the man, things went downhill from there, with the press eagerly feeding and reporting on his misery as he fell from grace and the vice-presidency, charged with corruption and tax evasion.

Mr. Agnew contended that the Press didn't fairly represent the conservative body of Americans that he believed were in the majority.
Perhaps he was right, but picking on the media is never a winning strategy.

As for our Press, I don't believe that the corps accurately represents how annoyed Canadians actually are with the petulant enfant terrible that they perceive Quebec to be. Notwithstanding what Mr. Beaulieu says, if our media actually reflected the anger of English Canada towards Quebec.....Mr. Beaulieu's Quebec bashing report would be 1000 pages long.

If Mario Beaulieu, like Agnew before him, thinks he can browbeat the Press into submission, he couldn't be more miserably mistaken.

In fact, I'd venture to say that Beaulieu's campaign to vilify the media over perceived Quebec-bashing has the unintended consequence of unleashing the press dogs, ready, willing and able to rip into the hapless buffoon.
I am reminded of the Shakespearean line in Coriolanus;

"Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt with modest warrant." 

In other words......do not provoke, that which should best be left alone.

Yup. Beaulieu has declared open season on himself, poking the eye of the media beast, giving it a fair excuse to rip him a new one, where telling journalists what and how to report is tantamount to challenging them to do the opposite.
Some of those Beaulieu held responsible were absolutely giddy, relishing the chance to take on the buffoon directly, instead of just reporting on his actions.
One of his favorite targets is Don Macpherson of the Montreal Gazette who took particular enjoyment in penning a scornful rebuke, words palpably steeped in sarcasm, that virtually dripped off the page.

"My name is mentioned twice in the text and four more times in footnotes. That’s more than anybody else who is named in the report, so I guess that makes me Francophobe Public Enemy Number One.
I was delighted to learn that what I write in The Gazette has so often got under the skin of the likes of Beaulieu, notorious minority-baiting commentator Gilles Proulx, and the kind of people who would associate with them." Link

So maladroit was Beaulieu's action in baiting the Press, I was left wondering if he devilishly prescribed to the principle that any publicity even bad publicity, is good publicity .

But nope, Mario is no brain surgeon, he's someone who makes it up as he goes along, like the interpreter at Nelson Mandela's funeral.
Check out this video I made a while back, exploring Beaulieu's creative interpretation of the facts.

And check out the video that proves once and for all that Beaulieu is a racist, calling on his minions to boycott stores named after their English founders (Reitmans, Birks etc.) Youtube

Beaulieu's an enthusiastic keener, like the kid in grade school with her hand permanently in the air, beseeching the teacher to "Oooh,Ooh! Ask me Ask me!"
He makes the rounds of the TV news channels, never flinching, always grinning like the Cheshire Cat, a polished whinger, who bounces off all criticism with aplomb.

Give him credit for getting on TV despite being roundly considered by the public to be an amusing imbecile.
Although he pretends to speak for a great many Quebecers, he doesn't really speak for anyone except a small coterie of haters.
Of the dozen or so videos of himself on Youtube, most have less than 100 views, and ironically, the most popular of all, is the one posted above, created by myself.

The insulting part in all of this, is that the Quebec government keeps him on as  Président du Comité de la Fête nationale à Montréal essentially running the St. Jean Baptiste Day. Fête nationale celebration.

With Mario on board as president of the annual Quebec day celebrations, a note to all those with non-francophone names, like Reitmans, Birks or Tony Hillfinger..... you are not welcome!

Quebec Bashing....You're Welcome!

Beaulieu and his out of touch silver-haired followers

When I was in the 8th grade, the schoolyard bully terrorized a bunch of weaklings and finally, fed up, a couple of the victims chipped in and paid an Eleventh grader to put a hurt on him.

After the thrashing, the bully complained to the school principal about the beating and was told in no uncertain terms that he basically got what he deserved.

And so, as Quebec's most prolific Anglo and Ethnic basher Mario Beaulieu is complaining that Quebec is getting rough treatment at the hands of the dastardly English press, I don't know whether to  laugh or .....wait....laugh.

For once I actually agree with him, Quebec is certainly getting bashed in the English media, but deservedly so, like the schoolyard bully who can't understand the concept of payback, complaining about it only makes the revenge that much sweeter.

I don't know what type of fantasy world he and the hundred and one idiots who signed the manifesto live in, but it must be a place where you can enter the boxing ring, throw punch after punch and expect no retort.

To those of you who believe that Quebec is being unfairly vilified, you're only half right, Quebec is being vilified, but not unfairly. For forty years Quebec nationalists have savagely bashed Canada, while Canadians have patiently indulged their bad manners.
As the old joke goes, a divorce court judge asks a man why he wants a divorce after forty years of marriage...
'Enough is enough.'

Perhaps I should have titled this piece "When bashers get bashed" which is essentially what is happening after years upon years of merciless Canada and Anglo bashing across Quebec.

See more examples of anglo-bashing HERE

You can't turn on a French television news show without enduring diatribe after diatribe, denigrating Canada, the evil English language and the colonialist Anglos who have exploited Quebec for 250 years.

This incessant bashing is so omnipresent in Quebec that most people don't notice.

On Sunday Pauline Marois gave a speech in Monaco to a room of businesspeople and trashed Canada over the environment, telling the room that Ottawa is out of step with the world, while Quebec is on board with climate change. She took particular joy in Canada-bashing and her manner was just about as nasty as nasty could be. Link{fr}

Could you imagine the stink if Prime Minister Harper gave a speech in Europe describing Quebec as a financial drag on Canada, a province which cannot control spending and which remains dependent on the rich provinces for charity?
It's funny how things look from the opposite perspective.

Those who complain about Quebec-bashing by Canada, are extraordinary hypocrites.
Mario Beaulieu complaining about Quebec-bashing, is like Hitler complaining that the Jews never supported him.
And yes, I'll make plenty of Nazi references here so that in the next edition of Beaulieu's Quebec-bashers, I too can proudly make the list.

Mario Beaulieu is a man who complains that Jewish, English and other foreign proper names shouldn't be allowed on stores in Quebec and encourages his followers to boycott them.
He is a man who has complained that English Churches should post their announcements in French and that French students be barred from English cegep, à la apartheid.

He is a  man who calls for the boycott of stores like "TONY HILL FINGER" and "BELL CANADA."
Who but an idiot doesn't know that the name is Tommy Hilfiger  and who but a deceiver pretends not to know that Bell got rid of the 'Canada' in its name in Quebec, ages ago?

Watch a video of Beaulieu asking a parade of like minded racists to boycott stores like Birks because they are English-named, just like 'Tony Hill Finger.'
He magnanimously tells marchers that it's okay to shop at LEVI'S, as long as it is pronounced LEE-VEE.
I'm not making this up.  Watch the video  or read my post about the parade

It's becoming clearer and clearer that except for a handful of hardcore xenophobic ethnocentrics, Mario Beaulieu is becoming an embarrassment to the mainstream sovereignty movement which apparently wants nothing to do with the hate that he and his minion spew on a daily basis.

I promised a critique of his campaign to indict English Canada for so-called Quebec bashing, but a cursory examination of the 101 signatories on his manifesto had me scratching my head at the utter banality of the list. 
Almost all are unrecognizable to this author, and I am someone who aced a perfect score in the Gazette quiz on recognizing French 'stars.'

Of those I did recognize, a few names popped, including Gilles Proulx, Quebec's most recognizable Anglo and Native-basher, as well as Tania Longpré, the failed PQ candidate who called for the Jewish General Hospital to change its name.
As they say, people in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones.
The rest of the list is two-thirds filled with zartistes and writers, the rest separatist stalwarts, has-beens and never-weres.

If the 101 names on the list proved anything, it is that nobody of importance wants to touch Beaulieu with a ten foot pole. He is toxic.

Nobody in the PQ signed his manifesto, nobody in the Bloc Quebecois. Not even Thomas Mulcair, who hardly ever misses an opportunity to curry favour with nationalists.
Beaulieu has been writing letters since September soliciting signatures for his list and has little to show for it. His ragamuffin crew of signatories says more about his irrelevance than anything else.

His invitation to the general public to sign his petition seems to have fallen on deaf ears, with less than 2,500 signatures so far,  in a province of eight million.
I do recall that an online petition calling on Kijiji to ban the advertisement of animals for sale as pets, in Quebec, garnered over fifty thousand signatures in a few short days.

In short, Quebec does get bashed in the English media, deservedly so.

For Beaulieu and his brownshirts (Yes! another Nazi reference) his campaign to vilify the English media has largely fallen on deaf ears.
Most Quebecers don't really give a rat's ass what is being said about them in English Canada and don't give Mario Beaulieu the time of day.
Beaulieu is a self-defeating nincompoop, launching his campaign just two weeks before Christmas.

Really.....who can get worked up over language at this time of year?

Mario Beaulieu-Separatist Idiot-Child Strikes Again

I wasn't going to write a piece for today, but dashed this off in the interest of spurring a weekend debate.

I wonder how sovereigntists of good faith, people who aren't racist, people who don't hate Canada and who believe in the sovereignty movement as a progressive and inclusive ideology, feel about having a blithering idiot like Mario Beaulieu represent them as the public face of the sovereignty and language movement.

Mario Beaulieu isn't very bright, he can't add subtract or make any real sense of statistics. He appeals to the uneducated, the rabidly paranoid English haters who lap up any nonsense he puts forward as long as it's trashing Canada, Anglophones or Ethnics.

Back in January, he and his various organizations championed a movement to force stores to add English descriptors to their names (that case is now before the courts) telling us that it is only normal because all over the world, local languages take precedence over trade names and trade marks.

At a news conference held by the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de la Mauricie (SSJB), Guy Rousseau, told us;

 "The OQLF requires merchants whose image is English, to add a generic term or slogan in French.
For example, "Toys 'R' Us" could become '"Toys 'R' Us Magasin pour enfants'
"If you're in Norway, it is normal to display in Norwegian, likewise in Japan. Why would it be different here? Link{fr}

It took this blogger just one afternoon visiting stores all around the world (via Google Street View) to test the veracity of the assertion.

Low and behold, nothing could be further from the truth. Toys R Us, is Toys R Us all around the world, in Norway, Japan and even in France.

Bullshitting comes easy to the SSJB, because few in the media call them out on their distortions, fantasy and outright lies, but one commenter under that story did. 

"Before commenting, Mr. Rousseau would do well to check the facts... It's funny, we spent 17 days last summer in the Scandinavian countries, including Norway. One thing that struck us was the number of Burger King, Subway, McDonalds we saw, all displaying the name in English. In Copenhagen we even saw the prestigious Royal Copenhagen - more English than that ... Also, I'm sure that Mr. Rousseau would be disappointed to learn that in all the shops we visited, staff were happy to serve us In English." Link{fr}

What a bunch of dopes.
I published a blog piece debunking the myth that the world uses local descriptions of internationally known stores, and readers, after that humble blog piece was published, the SSJB never made ridiculous argument again.
Read the blog piece for yourself, especially if you are inclined to accept the SSJB as any sort of authority. OQLF Demands Descriptors, the World Laughs

Mr Beaulieu and his ilk are so rabidly anti-English, that even store names composed of proper names, (which the law allows for) gets his goat.
And so he demands that Reitmans change its name or add a descriptor, perhaps morphing into Reithomme.
As for Simon, the clothing retailer named after its Scottish founder, Mr. Beaulieu would probably deem the name acceptable as long as everybody used the French pronunciation of Cee-Mo.
Such is the pettiness of the man and the movement.

Beaulieu showed his worldliness while conducting a march in downtown Montreal demanding that all non-French sounding names be changed and encouraging people not to shop in the like of Tony Hillfinger (sic) or Inside Exchange.(sic) He also implores shoppers to boycott MEXX , Bell, Birks, and Levis, to name just a few.
Why?...   Read : Language Militants Fiddle While Quebec Burns

Now Beaulieu is undertaking another fantasy campaign that posits that Canada is undertaking a vicious campaign of Quebec-bashing that has gone so far, that it very well may have contributed to Richard Bain's attack at the Metropolis night club.
Hmm.

Mr. Beaulieu held a splashy news conference denouncing this insipid Quebec-Bashing to much media attention as is always the case.
The campaign is centered around 101 signatories to the manifesto, a symbolic number alluding to Bill 101, but the truth is that precious few public figures were willing to sign on.

Mario Beaulieu started soliciting big names to sign his manifesto back in September, writing hundreds of letters, with little success.
In fact, most 'names' are staying away with a ten foot pole.
Here Sophie Durocher, of Le Journal de Montreal, explains why she won't sign the manifesto. Link{FR}

You can consult the names of those who signed on, where you'll find the usual suspects of artists,  writers, failed politicians and journalists, none but a handful known outside the borders of Quebec . Link

I'm going to take the weekend to study the manifesto and those who signed on and will provide a new blog in the spirit of that which debunked the French descriptor initiative.

Just in passing the first name that caught my eye on the list was no other than Gilles Proulx, Quebec's most virulent and hateful Anglophobe, who should know that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
The second name that caught my eye was failed PQ candidate Tania Longpré who became famous when her Facebook conversation attacking the Jewish General Hospital made headlines.

All this hoopla over manufactured and phony slights serves only to cloud Quebec's financial meltdown, especially on a day where Quebec's credit rating was downgraded.

But hey... let's not talk about that.

Fitch Ratings has downgraded its outlook on Quebec’s credit rating to negative from stable. Link

PQ Faces Disastrous 2014

When the PQ was first elected last year, I wrote a couple of pieces describing how grossly under-qualified I believed the Marois cabinet was. I'm sure some wrote off my missives as the rantings of a disgruntled angryphone, strumming on the harp of discord and finding fault, no matter what.

But it's not really the case.
In the past we've had PQ governments that were largely competent or at least as competent as any Liberal government (which isn't saying much.) The fact that they were sovereigntist was largely beside the point.

It's hard to compare the likes of René Levesque, Pierre-Marc Johnson, Lucien Bouchard and even Bernard Landry and Jacques Parizeau and their governments, to that of Pauline Marois and her merry band of incompetents.
It's not a case of comparing apples to oranges, but rather a case of comparing dollars to donuts.

I know I'll catch a lot of crap for saying that in my estimation the above-mentioned gentlemen towered over Despicable She in so many ways that to compare her intelligence, political savvyiness and sense of public duty with them, an exercise in futility.

All these ex-Premiers were ardent separatists, but never forgot that they were the Premier of ALL Quebecers and always strived to be as inclusive as they could and never singled out the Anglos or Ethnics in order to practice the wedge politics of division.
When Parizeau slipped up and in the heat of the moment whilst in the cups and made some injudicious statements after the referendum, he did the honourable thing and resigned.
Could you imagine under which circumstances la Pauline would resign over an ethical question? NEVER!
I remain convinced that Parizeau wasn't a racist or language supremacist nor any of the other Premiers, who all shared the common trait of being highly intelligent and socially and politically responsible.

But Pauline is different.
A racist, supremacist, ethno-centrist, or a virulent and uncompromising separatist?

Nope, she is none of the above...she is worse.

Pauline has no idea and no ideology other than the preservation and advancement of herself as Premier.
Power for power's sake and damn the consequences (and there are plenty of negative consequences!)

She reminds me of those current world leaders who would rather see their country go down the tube, rather than give up power. There's at least half a dozen idiots, running their respective countries into the ground that I think can of, off the top of my head.
I won't mention those leaders here, I'll leave that up to the readers to do so in the comments section, because  if I compare her mentality to that of those destructive megalomaniacs, it will be misconstrued as the ranting of a angryphone à la Galganov.

The other day I caught a show with one of my favourite political commentators, Jean Lapierre, a straight shooter, who has the political experience as an ex-Liberal party cabinet minister and Paul Martin's Quebec lieutenant, to back up his observations with authority.
He told his interviewer that its time to dump the sad sack minister of the Environment, Martine Ouellet who has as he claimed demonstrated herself to be incredibly inept.

Now I've told you way back when that despite her education, she seems to be completely lost in the real world, someone who may be book smart, but woefully asea..

For those who haven't seen this clip of her floundering badly in an interview with a Radio-Canada reporter, who is visibly stunned at the minister's lack of comprehension, give a look.
In this clip, the minister fails to understand what a loan guarantee is, as the polite, but incredulous reporter, gently tries to explain exactly what it is, to Quebec's very own version of James Hacker.

Let me make it simple for our idiot minister.

Imagine your brother going to the bank for a car loan and being told that if he could get you to guarantee the loan, (because he hasn't got good credit and you do,) he'd be eligible for a reduced interest rate, saving him $900 in interest over the term of the loan.
And so you, being a good sister, sign the loan guarantee, understanding that you'll only be liable to pay, in the case of default.
If your brother makes good on all the payments in a timely manner, it costs you nothing.......

Somehow, Madame Ouellet figures that the $900 in interest that your brother saved, is coming out of your pocket. She repeats that notion several times! I'm surprised the interviewer didn't break out laughing.
And this is the idiot charged with developing policy for the future of Quebec's resource industry. 

She is but an example of the team of lightweights in the Marois cabinet, all punching above their weight.
From the Minister of Revenue who can't do addition and subtraction and resorts to a number of 'oopsys' to explain his miscalculations,  to the the Family Minister who would rather create new daycare slots when empty ones already exist within the system, to Pauline herself who insists on investing in costly new wind power electricity projects when Quebec is sitting on a surplus of electricity and perfectly good  power plants, mothballed because of over-capacity.

But aside from this crisis in leadership and competence, the PQ government is also facing deteriorating market and employment conditions, an aging population as well as an approaching debt ceiling and a finite tax base, the confluence of negative conditions, the harbinger of  an economic Perfect Storm.

Now in a rare moment of lucidity, the finance minister, Nicholas Marceau has told us that he cannot raise taxes any higher, admitting that there is just no more room to gouge Quebecers further without affecting Quebec's competitive position.
There is already a 10 cent difference in the price of gas between Montreal and Toronto, and so how much higher can the gap be raised before the rules of economics kick in?
Provincial sales tax just jumped to almost 10% and the health tax brought in by Charest hasn't been repealed, a promise made by Pauline during the last provincial election campaign.

Aside from that, homeowners were targeted by massive increases in school taxes, a result of Marois cutting the educational budgets and telling the school boards to tax the difference back directly.
After that fiasco and the public outrage that ensued over the increases, Marois demanded that the school boards give the money back, but never explained how to make up the shortfall.
How's that for improvisation!

In fact, since 2010, the government has added over 5 billion in new taxes, yet still cannot balance the budget.
Quebec's  $2.5 billion deficit this year would have almost doubled if not for an extraordinary $2.2 billion payment made by Ottawa in relation to the harmonization of sales tax, but that won't happen again next year.

To make matters worse, the bottom has fallen out of the electricity market, ironically because of the Americans fully embracing shale gas development, an energy source that undercuts production costs of standard hydro-electric generation, Quebec's bailiwick.

While Quebec soldiers on with wasteful wind-farms and the unneeded development of the massive La Romaine power project, the message hasn't sunk in that the hydro-electric ship has sailed.

Quite simply Quebec is out of financial options. At least Jean Charest realized that natural resource development was the last chance towards prosperity and so created the 'Plan Nord,' which the PQ and environmentalists fought tooth and nail.

After three failed attempts to pass a mining Bill, one that started out with the goal of gouging developers out of existence, our enlightened Natural Resource Minister (who doesn't understand what a loan guarantee is)  was finally forced on her fourth attempt into a humiliating compromise, which at any rate, may be too little and too late.

"The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based think tank, ranked Quebec as the most attractive jurisdiction in the world for mining activity between 2007 and 2010 but the province has since slipped to 11th place." Link

Under the PQ, business is wary to invest and who can honestly blame them?
Between long regulatory delays, endless BAPE hearings, shifting regulations and high taxes and labour costs, investing in banana republics and war-torn countries, actually becomes a more attractive alternative!

And so going into next year, we have already been promised another deficit, as well as the year after. The finance minister, crossing his fingers, predicts that in 2017 perhaps the budget will be balanced but really, who can believe that.

The truth is that the province can no longer generate enough revenues to cover the budget, this even after massive transfers from Ottawa and the future looks bleaker as health costs (our biggest expense
continues) to rise with our aging population,
While the PQ is talking about putting a cap on expenses, it hasn't really worked out with spending increasing beyond revenue growth.

There is no solution but deep cuts to existing programs, but what PQ government is going to do that, an admission that the Quebec social model has failed?

So what will 2014 bring?...............More of the same I'm afraid.

Political expediency being what it is, the CAQ is deathly afraid of being voted out of existence,and so will support any nonsense put forward by the Marois government, as long as they are allowed to save face and given the opportunity to 'contribute' to the proposed legislation, something La Pauline will certainly allow.
After all, remaining in power is the be all and end all.

As the economy deteriorates, and the financial situation sinks further, look to the PQ to ramp up  the rhetoric against Ottawa, blaming the financial problems on the  mythical 'fiscal imbalance' ( a concept where Ottawa takes too large a slice of the available national tax pie.)
The narrative to be woven is that the evil ROC is stealing the hard-earned tax money of Quebecers to support a military-industrial complex which Quebec eschews, the Oil Sands which drives up the value of the dollar, expensive ship-building projects in other provinces and financial support of the hated Queen, the effect, short-changing Quebecers on every level.

This is going to be the debate of the future, because frankly, Quebec is unsustainable and when all else fails...Blame Canada.

Laughable?.......wait for it...it's coming.

Activist Knocks French Language Militants For a Loop

One thing political commentators, social observers and especially advertisers cannot predict, is why some campaigns fizzle, some are ho-hum and some catch fire.

If somebody could bottle and replicate at will, the essential elements of a formula that would fire the public's imagination and interest at will, they could become fabulously successful and wealthy, perhaps displacing Don Draper of Sterling Cooper as the top adman on Madison Avenue.
If somebody could with any accuracy and consistency, tap into the public consciousness and produce a positive response, he or she could ask for millions in consulting fees as a strategist on any presidential political campaign.

In fact I do recall one presidential campaign which largely turned on a television commercial that captured the nation's attention and turned enough voters away from Michael Dukakis to give George H. Bush the presidency.
That commercial featured a mugshot of a black criminal, convicted for a brutal murder,  who while on weekend furlough from prison, raped and robbed once again, outraging middle Americans and igniting a negative reaction towards Dukakis. Read the story.

That commercial was perhaps the most famous and successful attack ad ever run and nobody could have foreseen that it would become the key element in giving George Bush the presidency.

As I said, it's well nigh impossible to predict or understand why some things capture the public's imagination, like the success of PET ROCKS or the RUBIC CUBE or advertising slogan's like "WHERE'S THE BEEF?"

These last months in Quebec we've witnessed a multitude of public demonstrations by citizens, for or against the Charter, against world domination, unemployment insurance cuts, electricity rates, police brutality, etc. etc., all sharing the ignominious fate of being irrelevant the day after.
Whether those demonstrations were well-organized or produced ad hoc, whether attended by hundreds or thousands or a few dozens, other then to those who participated, the story lasted barely one news cycle, soon forgotten and largely without impact on public opinion.

So what is it about a tiny demonstration by a committed activist leading with a handful of cohorts protesting the lack of English signs in a Montreal shopping centre that has so gripped the French media and raised the hackles of the mainstream media as well as radical French language militants.

Murry Levine took offence to the fact that stores in the giant  Fairview Pointe-Claire mall, where the majority of customers are anglophones, were posting signs in French only, despite the fact that the law allows for bilingual signage.

The tiny demonstrations consisting of under a dozen protesters would have largely gone unnoticed if not for the virulent reaction in the French media over the issue, which somehow triggered a certain outrage at the 'impertinence' of Anglophones demonstrating for their rights.

First there was the expected blowback from French language militant groups like Impératif français;

Francophobia : a shopping Centre boycotted

"Anglophone  residents of Dorval are upset that Quebec is French.¹. They are offended with customer service in French in Quebec, specifically in Dorval,² Fairview Mall. They are demanding the anglicisation of commercial establishments.³What Murray Levine and his acolytes don't understand in calling for a boycott of the mall, is everything in Quebec is French in and any and all residents must understand  French, otherwise one must learn it urgently! This, in addition, is fully consistent with the law.⁴Refusing to learn or speak French,⁵ these supremacists,⁶ seek, through a system pressure to impose systematic anglicization on Quebec to accommodate 3% of unilingual English Quebecers. What do they expect ? They have the right and duty to learn French.Impératif français encourages customers to monitor this situation closely and demand  that the Fairview Mall accelerate its good business practices in all its stores. As for us, we encourage all residents of Quebec to ensure that French is everywhere and at all times, without exception the language of public use in Quebec and also to share and spread this message:In Quebec French is where it's at!The economy and the Quebec nation does not need to undergo this type of defrancisation pressure. " Link

Now I've taken the liberty of offering a few critiques;

1. Nowhere, but nowhere has Mr. Levine and his group made any such statement. This is fantasy, an attempt to frame the rest of the screed.
2.  The shopping centre is not in Dorval. This goes to fact-checking, something utterly lacking in any missive from Impératif français
3. Nobody is demanding that stores become anglicised, they are asking for a few English signs allowed by the law. Blatant hyperbole and exaggeration.
4. Just totally false.  No law forces anglophones to speak French.
5. Who says that Murray Levine and his group don't speak French? (they do) Did anyone at Impératif français bother checking befor making the assertion or is publishing untruths just par for the course. Again, as they say in court, 'entering facts not in evidence'
6. Is a Francophone in Ontario or New Brunswick who demonstrates for their legal rights, a 'supremicist?'

Now  Impératif français is a lobby group  and so can be excused its extreme position, but when bias creeps into mainstream reporting, it's important that the practice be denounced.
If newspapers want to write articles for or against certain issues, they should restrict themselves to the editorial pages.
Here is a story by Louise Leduc from La Presse, a newspaper which should know better than to editorialize within what should be a straight news story;

"There is too much French in the Fairview mall. That at least is the view of a Dorval resident¹ demanding more bilingual signs and to achieve its ends , there will be demonstrations and calls for boycotts. Fairview mall as in others like the names of the stores are mostly in English and English only, in contravention of the Charter of the French language.²

But the posters announcing sales, such as " Buy one , get one free" are all in French or nearly so, and this is what makes  Murray Levine wince."We must respect the majority of customers and the majority of customers in the west of the island speak English ," he said in an interview ......
.....The Charter of the French language does not prohibit the display in English, but states that the French must be predominant.Finally, note that the Quebec Office of the French language has made ​​several representations in recent times for shops to add a description in French to store names in English.".³ Link

1. Absolutely false and misleading, Mr. Levine's contention that there is not enough English at the mall cannot be construed to mean that there is too much French. It is like asserting that because there is too little salt in a dish, there must be too much sugar.....Does not compute.....
2. This bit of editorializing is completely out of line and demonstrates an attempt to sway opinion. Could you imagine a La Presse story about student demonstrations over tuition starting off by reminding readers that students pay the lowest rates in Canada?
3. Same argument as in the second point I made. This is editorializing and has nothing to do with the issue at hand, a sad attempt to deflect. This is definitely not an unbiased report

 Strangely the same article was reprinted in Le Soleil without attribution to the original author, certainly a breach of ethics, because the name André Pichette seems to be attached to the story .
Link {fr} Link{fr}

At  any rate it was the granddaddy of all whiners, Gilles Proulx,  that waded into the debate with this fine missive in Le Journal de Montreal. A sublime exercise in sarcasm, self-pityand wit;

Mon pauvre petit Gilles.....

"Perhaps inspired by Howard Galganov's uplifting bestseller, a book published in 1998 called 'Bastards,' about the bastards that Quebecers are, one certain Murray Levine protested outside a shopping center in the West Island demanding more signage in English!

The fight of a lifetime!

When will our oh so very aggressive Quebec government, once and for all stop harassing, diminishing and trampling on the beautiful culture of our good friends the Anglo-Quebecers, so much in peril and so badly abused, it no longer makes sense. Especially when you consider that the poor shoppers of the Fairview Pointe-Claire shopping centre are forced to fight to save their language, constantly weakened by the ruthless and powerful government of Quebec. The wicked Bill 101 would change the name of 'Fairview' into 'Centre de la Juste-Vue'(sic)- which would just be terrible. Let us rejoice that Murray Levine is rallying his minions to his crusade. In fact, at the beginning of the initiative, there were but two or three valiant defenders of the Anglo-American culture, now its grown to a few hundred supporters. Let's all rally behind Murray!

PITY ON THE ENGLISH

By launching a Facebook group and alerting the sleeping English media in the face of  this harmful francisation, Murray reminds us that enough is enough. So, through this newspaper and its hundreds of thousands of readers, I ask you once again, dear friends, I repeat: do something to help these victims of the arrogance of the people of Quebec who threaten to invade America and obliterate all traces of anemic Anglo-Saxon culture.

Actually, the ideal would be to eliminate French at home. It would be in our own interest. Then we could succeed in the North American life .

Understand once and for all that Fairview Point Claire is not in Pointe-Claire. Long live Claire Point City!"

LET'S  SUPPORT MURRAY

Luckily, the municipality of Hampstead has denounced the Charter of values ​​, calling it "racist and immoral !" What is the relationship with bilingual signs ? There is none. But ... any or all  reasons are good to trash Quebec. Fortunately Justin Trudeau also condemns the unjust Bill 101 which poses a serious threat to the universe. Fortunately there are people who stand up to the supremacy of Quebec. It is important that newcomers not speak our language, not fit in, not identify themselves, stick together, locked in their communities. It seems to me that bilingual signs could help them understand that fluency in French is not more important than the future of Quebec. Come one and all to sing in chorus to show our love of endangered English.  Let's support Murray Levine and his friends. Their epic demonstration will continue today and tomorrow from 11 am to 13 pm, in front of the 'View Point Claire City' mall

Ha1 Ha!
What a hilarious screed.
Nobody, but nobody plays the whinging victim like Gilles Proulx who associates a few English signs with the utter destruction of French in Quebec.

The only comment I'll make on the piece (It speaks for itself) is to say that like most francophone writers who choose to add English in their pieces, they invariably muddle it up.

'Fairview Pointe Claire' does not translate (if a translation is required) into; View Point Claire" it would be  Clearpoint Mall.

Now in all this, not one francophone commentator actually addressed the real issue at hand.

Given that Bill 101 provides for English signage (as long as it is smaller than the accompanying French text,) is it reasonable to provide such signage in areas where anglophones are clearly in the majority?

We know what the answer is from the likes of Impérati français, which wants English completely abolished in Quebec, but I'm interested in the position of La Presse and even Mr Proulx, both of which and whom expertly avoid taking a position.

As for Mr. Levine and his small band of followers, their success could not be predicted. By luck or design, they struck a nerve and accomplished something all of us could not do before.

That is to bring an English language argument to the mainstream French press in a significant and meaningful manner.