Humiliation and Rage Fuel Rise in PQ Power

Quebec's human reaction to humiliation

Its a long drive to South Florida from Montreal, one that I've made only once, some fifteen years ago, an ordeal I swore never to do again.
But never is a long time and like the pain of childbirth long forgotten(so I'm told) it is easy to remember the good and toss the bad.
After an overnight stop in Brooklyn to see our grandchildren, my wife and I set out on the long drive, as prepared as we could be with our newly installed E-Z-Pass to breeze our way through the various toll plazas as well as the trusty GPS  to guide us effortlessly to our destination, hopefully avoiding any wrong turn, the bain of any long road trip.

The hours were long despite the excellent company and as the playlist on my IPhone became exhausted, it fell to the radio to keep us from boredom, Unfortunately the only voices we found on the radio dial were the
über-conservative trio of Rush Limbaugh, Mike Savage and Laura Ingram variously ranting over Hillary, Obamacare and in Savage's case, the entire younger generation, which according to him, deserves a collective smack across the mouth.
Even a suggested rise in the national minimum wage brought down a firestorm of criticism, as if the right of Walmart to underpay its workforce, a sacred God-given American virtue.
It was embarrassing and decidedly hard to take, forcing me to the realization that Conservatives in Canada are equivalent to soft socialists in the United States!

After so much venom, it behooved us to seek out something less toxic on the radio dial and lo and behold an interview with a journalist from no less an august magazine,the National Enquirer seemed to fit the bill.
Call it a pleasant serving of audio pulp fiction or mindless pap, gossip seemed to fit the bill and for an hour or so, we were immersed in the trials and tribulations of the Justin, Miley and the ever entertaining Khardashians.

The talk then turned to Julia Roberts and her supposedly nasty side and reputation for being difficult to work with.
But the real interesting segment was the story of Julia's estrangement from her sister, Nancy Motes, an obese under-performer, someone who Julia battled with over the years over the less successful sister's inability to get her life together.
The two sisters were diametrically opposed, one beautiful, rich and successful, the other anything but.
The Enquirer reporter reminded listeners that this is the case with many successful Hollywood types, their family often ne'er–do–wells with Madonna's family, a prime example.

It seems that Julia tried to get her sister to improve herself and the more she tried to help (even financially) the angrier and more resentful the sister got.
Julia even got the sad-sack a production assistant job, but rather than empower Nancy, it seemed to make her angrier and angrier, blaming Julia for all her problems, her lack of productivity, discipline and over consumption.

“When I was in high school and she was an adult, she would just let me know that I was definitely overweight,” Motes said, according to the New York Daily News. “It just makes me feel incredibly hurt and very sad.” 

It reminded me of that Pantene shampoo commercial, circa 1980, which boasted the ever memorable tag line... "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!"  

At any rate, when Julia confronted the sister over her indolence and lack of self restraint things turned decidedly ugly and the two became estranged, never talking again.

It was quite a poignant story and driving down the road it occurred to me that the story is a useful analogy to the relationship between Quebec and Canada and explains perfectly why in the face of so much  evidence that Quebec is on the wrong life track, it continues to embrace the Dark Side represented by the PQ.

In other words Quebec has come to the realization that it cannot compete with Canada and rather than strive to improve, has thrown in the towel and like Julia's sister, committed to blame Canada for its failures.

This all can be traced back to the Maclean's article about Quebec being the most corrupt province in Canada, a contention that brought howls of outrage and disbelief across Quebec and universal condemnation
Call it a watershed moment or tipping point, but from that day forward, events would unfold to confirm that status beyond a shadow of a doubt, and for Quebecers it was a painful and humiliating dish of humble pie served up by Canada, like Julia castigating her sister, thank you very much.

In a take on the five stages of grief, Quebec's reaction was actually textbook;
DENIAL(It isn't true that Quebec is the most corrupt)   
ANGER (How dare they!)
BARGAINING(Canada is also corrupt)
DEPRESSION( These never-ending Charbonneau Commission revelations are agonizing and depressing)
ACCEPTANCE( Yes it's true, but we hate you Canada  for pointing this all out)

There is something thoroughly enraging about being humiliated by a sibling and worse still, having a parent tell you to act more like your more 'successful' brother or sister.

For most under-achievers  it's easier to withdraw into a fantasy world where all that is wrong with life is the fault of others, especially successful  family members who sanctimoniously point out your failures to you, ad nauseum.
Like Nancy who accuses Julie of bashing her unfairly, so  does Quebec to all its detractors, regardless of the veracity or truth of the argument and like a petulant child, Quebec is sticking its fingers in its ears, shouting I can't hear you!, I can't hear you!

And so here we are, and the above explains all.
It explains why Quebec hates Canada.
It explains why Quebec is embracing the PQ and the Charter of Values, an in-your-face reaction to the humiliation Quebec feels over its under-achievement.

It explains why the more Canada belittles Quebec over its failures, the more estranged Quebec becomes from Canada.
Quebec knows what it is and refuses to be reminded of it by Canada.
Anything it can do to push back is on the table and if voting for the PQ is something that will royally annoy Canada ....all the better...

By the way, for those of you who don't know how it turned out for Julia and her sister, it isn't a fairy tale ending.
In the end, Nancy killed herself and in the suicide note blamed it all on Julia.
Let's hope things don't turn out that way for Quebec.

Quebec Fantasy Budget Prelude to Election

I'm on vacation down south, hoping to take a break from the endless debate and soak up some rays, rebuilding my mental strength and resolve which has been sorely tested this last year, observing and commenting upon the maddeningly fantastical Wonderland of Quebec politics

At any rate,on the way down, on this protracted road trip, somewhere in South Carolina, my computer kicked the bucket and now reposes in the Apple store in Aventura, Florida, a Genius Bar nerd techie informing me that the motherboard would have to be changed and that the computer will will not be fixed before Monday.

This very short post comes courtesy of my smartphone and I now can sympathize with anyone trying to post something of significance on the tiny platform.

Please use this post to comment on the budget and the proposed general election, rumoured to be on the way.

I'll be monitoring the comments board periodically, so I'd appreciate a little consideration in publishing stuff that knowingly violates the terms of this blog.
I actually have confidence in all of you to act respectfully.

In the meantime, congratulations to our women's curling and hockey teams on their golden moment and destiny with history...

PQ Anticosti Oil Gamble, a Hail Mary Pass

These last weeks have seen some pretty dire economic predictions for Quebec's future with two important studies postulating that Quebec is living beyond its means, unable to generate enough funds to balance its budget.

The shortfall has been described as 'structural' a word that strikes fear into the hearts of finance ministers, because it means that the state has no way to balance its budget in 'normal' times.

Governments usually go into debt during a recession, trying to spend their way out as did all western governments in the great depression caused by Wall Street's collapse in 2008.

The theory is that in good times, governments make up the deficit by piling up surpluses.

That is what finance minister Jim Flaherty is promising for next year, a budgetary surplus of about $6 billion, which is a start at eating away at the federal government's $600 billion debt.

But for Quebec there is really no light at the end of the tunnel, with a projected provincial deficit of about $3 billion last year and again projected for next year, with promises of a balanced budget past that, an impossibility under Quebec's circumstances.

The two economic studies were pooh-poohed by the finance minister but when Jacques Parizeau came out with an opinion piece that backed the theory that Quebec is in economic trouble, the PQ realized that it had to act, lest the debate about the deficit become the topic du jour in the upcoming election.

"It's the first time in 30 years that I'm so concerned about Quebec's economic future," Parizeau wrote in an opinion piece that appeared in Monday's Le Journal de Montreal.
He points to a study done by HEC, the Montreal business school. The former economist called the study "tough, but fair." He wrote that "what hits the hardest is the slow and persistent deterioration of the province's economic outlook over the last 10 to 12 years." Link

The other provinces as well as Ottawa (which pay into Quebec to the tune of about $15 billion a year)  lately have been carping that the only way out for Quebec to become a 'have' province is to exploit its natural resources .
Denis Lebel, the Conservative cabinet minister, summed up Ottawa' position rather succinctly

"The time has come, he said, to take steps to create wealth in Quebec. One of these ways is to exploit the rich natural wealth embodied in the province.
"What should we do to keep a strong Quebec? I am a proponent of a strong Quebec within a united Canada. Quebec has vast natural resources. I am in favour of a sustainable and responsible development to create wealth, "commented Mr. Lebel." Link{fr}

This past year has seen mining investment fall by 30%, with companies scared off by by the PQs promise of higher tariffs and the imposition of more expensive regulation and so wealth development through resource exploitation seems to be going in the opposite direction.

As for oil, Quebec has placed exploration of the St. Lawrence valley off limits because the area which is rich in shale oil, is also densely populated, making fracking an impossibiliy in current Quebec society.
That leaves two options, the Old Harry deposit in the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, already under fierce environmental attack and Anticosti Island, a vast uninhabited island, isolated in the middle of nowhere about the size of Crete. Unlike Crete, which has a population of over 600,000 people, Anticosti is practically uninhabited and isolated, a perfect venue for resource development, yet in Quebec, there are still those that believe that all resource development is bad.

Feeling the pressure to produce wealth through resource development, Pauline and the PQ have opted for a magicians trick, going through the motions of resource exploitation, in order to keep the fiscal wolves at bay, giving the illusion that Quebec is not loafing and can somehow tame the deficit demon.

The oil industry has long looked at Anticosti's potential and universally passed on the project, deeming the risk to reward, quite unattractive.

Yet Pauline is going full-speed ahead, not really for fiscal gain, but rather for political gain, taking all the risk, while giving private enterprise a shot at the eventual prize, on the slim chance that the gamble will pay off like a desperate Hail Mary pass.

"A plan launched by the Quebec government to help fund oil exploration on a remote Gulf of St. Lawrence island is raising concerns the province is taking too big a risk with taxpayer cash.
Premier Pauline Marois announced Thursday her government would finance up to $115 million in joint ventures with several oil companies to drill on Anticosti Island, an endeavour she says could bring $45 billion in benefits to Quebecers over the next 30 years.
Marois unveiled the project at a time when her minority Parti Quebecois government is facing attacks over its economic record. It also came amid the expectation she will call an election in the coming weeks.
But one critic of the project says the amount of recoverable unconventional oil locked underneath Anticosti has been exaggerated, insisting no more than 1.5 per cent of its estimated 30-billion-plus barrels can actually be extracted.
Marc Durand, a retired geological engineer, says the government's plan has the potential to bring in around $40 billion.

Jean François Hénin

Jean François Hénin

But he added it would cost roughly three times that amount — $120 billion — to employ the technology needed to get it out of the ground and to market.

Durand urged the PQ to exercise more caution when it comes to the taxpayer's dime.
"We are so far from any possible profitability in Anticosti that investing public money is like saying, 'I will fix my budgetary problems by buying a lottery ticket,' " Durand, a former professor at Universite du Quebec in Montreal, said Friday.
"There's much less than a one-in-1,000 chance of recouping this investment and these are public funds." Read the rest of the story

Mr. Durand has been a fierce critic of the Anticosti project for a long time and points out that reputable companies from 'Big Oil' wouldn't touch the project with the proverbial ten foot pole. And so the partners that Quebec has teamed up with are dubious players at best. The Journal de Montreal ran a story detailing the past of the two principle players.
  
Jean François Hénin of the French company Maurel & Prom a partner in the project was convicted in 2006 in the United States having lied to the U.S. Federal Reserve. In addition to a fine of one million dollars, he was forbidden to enter the U.S. for five years.

Maurel & Prom is a company specializing in the extraction of oil and natural gas. It deals mainly in the Congo and Colombia, on sites where the oil giants refuse to set foot.



Loïk Le Floch-Prigent, nicknamed "Le Moutin Noir" ("The Black Sheep") by former French President Francois Mitterrand, is the former CEO of the the French oil company Elf-Aquitaine, involved in a vast corruption scandal in the 90s.

In 2003, his role in the scandal earned him a sentence of five years in prison and €375,000 fine for misuse of corporate assets, concealment and breach of trust.

More recently, in September 2012, he was arrested in the Ivory Coast and imprisoned in Togo where he was facing charges of fraud. He was finally released a little less than six months after his arrest for health reasons. Link{fr}

When this whole thing eventually blows up à la Gaspésia, (a failed PQ pulp and paper project that cost taxpayers $300 million) the PQ will have long benefited from the short lived electoral bump.

Quebec taxpayers deserve what they get when they close their eyes to reality and accept on faith ridiculous projects like electric wind-farms and co-generation boondoggles.

Anticosti will actually be nothing more than a $100 million waste of time and money, but well worth the expense to the PQ if it sells the idea to Quebecers that the separatists are serious about creating wealth through resource development.

An expert illusionist, Pauline Marois, craftily exploits self-delusional separatists, willing to believe any fantasy as long it holds the faint promise of independence.

And so it seems that it we are living through another Groundhog Day in Quebec, where waking up to the same failed plans of yesterday is repeated over and over again.

I only wish we can cope as well as Bill Murray.

French versus English Volume 103

Life imitates Art...'The Sopranos' Style!

A "no-show job" is a paid position that ostensibly requires the holder to perform duties, but for which no work, or even attendance, is actually expected.
The awarding of no-show jobs is a form of political or corporate corruption. Wikipedia

No-Show jobs on the Sopranos

ART:
(The Sopranos Episode 2 Season 4)
While Paulie Walnuts is incarcerated, Patsy Parisi and Little Paulie Germani have arranged a sit-down on his behalf to discuss Ralphie's division of jobs at the Esplanade site. It takes place at Nuovo Vesuvio and Silvio Dante presides. After some haggling, they settle with five jobs: three no-works and two no-shows. Capo Paulie receives the first no-show job. Silvio announces that Tony wants Christopher Moltisanti as acting capo of Paulie's crew during his absence and gives Chris the second no-show job. This upsets Patsy, who believes he has seniority over Chris, as he has been a made man longer. Indeed, it was Patsy and not Christopher who negotiated the jobs in the meeting. The three no-work jobs are given to Paulie to distribute, and they go to Patsy, Benny, and Little Paulie. As they leave the meeting, Chris jokes to Silvio that the first thing he will do is get wings in his hair—much like the gray "wing-like" hair Paulie has on the side of his head. Silvio is not amused; he is also put out by the promotion as he realizes that Chris is starting to usurp his place in Tony's inner circle. Chris later visits the construction site where Patsy, Benny Fazio, Little Paulie, Donny K. and Vito Spatafore are enjoying their no-work jobs. Wikipedia


QUEBEC:
A group of 12 unionized crane operators collected paycheques for two years to watch television, play cards, and even to stay home because they weren’t qualified to work on highly specialized cranes, the Charbonneau Commission heard Monday.
The workers were even paid double time on weekends and an hour and a half of travel time each day, even though in some cases, they didn’t bother to show up for work.
That was the testimony of Michel Comeau, an investigator at the commission, which is looking into corruption in Quebec’s construction industry.
Comeau said the workers were assigned to supervise six German crane operators brought in by Germany-based company Bauer, which won the contract to build a hydroelectric dam on the Péribonka River, between 2005 and 2007.
The workers were paid by Bauer, which passed on the bill to Hydro-Québec.
“Hydro-Québec closed its eyes,” to the situation, Comeau said...
"Hydro-Québec negotiated a deal with executives from the Quebec Federation of Labour for labour peace by agreeing that each of the three cranes would be operated by one German worker and two unionized “observers,” on 12-hour shifts, 24 hours per day, including weekends. Several workers were sent back to Germany as a result. The observers weren’t allowed anywhere near the specialized cranes, but they were still paid the normal rate of crane operators in the province: between $82,000 and $92,000 a year." Link

And so it seems that the Quebec Federation of Labour is a better negotiator than the mob!
Hydro-Quebec justified its actions by employing a clever euphemism...."managing risk."

Montreal Police....another one bites the dust

How many women cops does it take to shoot a nutter?

Another Montreal police shooting worthy of a Keystone Kops.

Seven Montreal cops confronted an obviously disturbed hammer-wielding sad sack and shot him dead, rather than neutralize him using less lethal methods.

The victim's brother was rightfully outraged that his brother died at the hands of under-equipped and clearly under-trained cops.

"There are reports police asked for an officer with a taser to come to the area, but before someone with a non-lethal weapon arrived officers shot the man at least once." Watch a video report

"Car 54 is asking for a TASER. What the heck is that?"

It seems that Montreal police aren't trusted to use tasers, but are given free rein with guns...Hmmm..

This shooting is reminiscent of one two years ago when Montreal police opened fire on another deranged homeless man, this time armed with a knife. In that shooting, an innocent bicyclist was also killed by a ricocheting bullet. Link

A coroner was asked to look into the matter and issued a report;

"Dr. Jean Brochu recommends that the Minister of Health Canada, in collaboration with the Agency for Health and Social Services of Montreal:
 
Put in place psychosocial frontline services tailored to the needs of people in distress; 
Increase mobile teams of specialized stakeholders to support the police and patrollers who work with people who are homeless or who have a mental illness or addiction.  
A recommendation to avoid litigation of people with mental disorders;

It is also recommended that the National Police Academy of Quebec:  
Continue its research to propose new strategies and tactics specific to police intervention and violent people in crisis;
Updates standards and re-qualification in shooting for police;" Link{fr}

Well that advice seems to have been ignored.....

Reading the story about this latest shooting and reviewing the entire coroner's report on the first double-shooting, I couldn't help but thinking of those big butterfly nets used by hospital orderlies in the comics to chase down and capture mental patients running amok in the loony-bin!
It would be neat if this was a real-life option, so I did a little web-surfing and found the perfect product for chickenshit  fraidy-cat  overly- cautious Montreal police.

Lo and behold, there actually exists an air-fired net for police enforcement, entirely appropriate for use against deranged nutters who are armed with anything but a gun.

 This product has the outer appearance similar to that of a large electric torch. The operator can put it in the car or carry it on the shoulder, featuring convenient carriage and simple operation. Within 2 seconds, the launching can be completed. With one hand holding the upper barrel and the other hand to open the safety pin. By just pressing the launching button, an intensively powerful umbrella-shaped net will be fired with the diameter up to 2-3 meters and the coverage space as much as 16 square meters. Once the suspect is covered by the net, he will be immediately bound by the net strings or even pulled down to the ground, which results in no chance of escaping. The net can be reused after some repairs or maintenance and the air storage tank can be recharged by way of special-purpose air refilling device. Link

Come to think of it, who remembers Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory getting caught in a Wolowitz's electrified anti-burglar net?
Also an option!

At any rate, It seems that the only highly-developed and effective tactics that the Montreal police have adopted is how to control a shooting scene so that the police themselves come out as innocent.

All seven of the police officers involved in the shooting conveniently suffered from nervous shock, and promptly went to the hospital before facing shooting investigators, no doubt to buy time and get their stories straight.

In the Fredy Villanueva shooting, the coroner complained that the officers involved in the shooting weren't separated and were only interviewed days after the shooting.

"The coroner's inquest into the death of Fredy Villanueva finds that many of the people involved made mistakes, some due to lack of training, and that  investigators looking into the death took steps that made it more difficult to determine what truly happened. 
It was a week later when Lapointe and Pilotte were finally asked to provide written testimony about what occurred, something Pilotte did without referring to her notes from the night of the shooting.
This is contrary to provincial guidelines, which state that all witnesses, including police officers, should be kept apart before being questioned by investigators.
All the non-police witnesses were in fact kept separate from each other being before questioned. Read more

So things never really change at what must be Canada's most ineffective and amateur police force and perhaps the force's motto should be changed to;

SHOOT FIRST..... WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK!

****************

Here's another embarrassing story about the Montreal police.
Montreal's police Brotherhood(union) has come out strongly against the idea of introducing lie detector tests for organized crime investigators.
The force said it is considering whether or not to implement the idea following a series of allegations connecting senior investigators to organized crime. CJAD Radio

Readers might remember that the Montreal police force has suffered some horrific leaks as at least two or three senior detectives are accused of being moles (fr='taupe'), passing off information to organized crime.
So if the union won't allow polygraphs for officers in sensitive areas, perhaps the only alternative is to bring George Smiley out of retirement à la Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

At any rate, let me assure readers that installing a polygraph policy is devilishly effective, the fact that the police don't have this policy in place is mind-boggling.
You don't even have to polygraph anyone regularly, the threat is so frightening, that employees generally keep to the straight and narrow.

Readers, take a moment.
Imagine you that knew you were subject to the polygraph, would your behavior change?
And I'm just talking about expense padding and phoney sick days! I can't imagine how foolhardy it would be to steal or pass secrets, under the threat of a lie-detector test.

Had the Montreal police had a policy of using it, NONE of the secrets would have been passed, so what exactly is the union's objection based on?

Let me regale readers with my very own lie detector story which dates back fifteen years, but is probably not out of date.
Two very junior employees accused a senior manager of theft, the senior manager claiming it was retaliation for a workplace incident.
I questioned everyone at length but was unable to find any anomolies, both versions were plausible and all stood by their stories convincingly, but somebody or somebodies were clearly lying.
I asked all three if they would take a polygraph and surprisingly all agreed.
This was strange, because threatening someone with a polygraph, even voluntary, usually scares out the truth. When a polygraph test is strictly voluntary, not many liars agree to the test.

So I reluctantly called a polygrapher who did contract work for the RCMP, someone who I knew through my police contacts.

He told me to call the employees to the main office on the next Saturday morning to see who actually showed up.
If the two accusers showed up and the manager did not, or vice-verso, no test would be required, the truth self-evident.

One of the young accusers phoned the night before to say that her boyfriend told her not to take the test, because it was unreliable, not a shock, but surprisingly the other accuser and the manger both did show up.

And so my expert was called in and before applying the test, he interviewed both parties separately.

He came out of the interviews and told me no polygraph was necessary, it was the accuser who was lying, with 100% certainty.

WHAT?  HOW?

He told both employees (separately) that  before administering the test he had to know if either was suffering from a headache which would invalidate the test (a trap!)
The accuser admitted to a powerful migrane while the manager said that she was fine, ready and motivated to take the test to clear her good name..... Case closed!!!!

So are polygraphs effective?
You bet... even when you don't actually use them!

Okay readers, admit it....that was a good story and I swear it was all true.

Marois showers voters with money in run-up to election

It seems that Pauline is so busy showering potential PQ ridings with money that she needed to charter a helicopter to speed up her itinerary.

Here's how one cartoonist saw it.

And yes., taxpayers paid for the charter as it was considered government business....

Sun News  embarrasses itself over French pronunciation...

"Hey, Sun News, how do you pronounce mind-bogglingly stupid? Offensive? Disgusting?
Or, as Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre so nicely put it, “franchement dégueulasse?”
Gosh, that’s an awfully big mouthful of French for commentator Brian Lilley and his Halifax-based linguistics ‘expert’ Harvey Sims to have to swallow. Those triple-vowel lutzes can be murder. Ask any Montreal anglo who has ever been tempted to cheat and say Lawn-gail and Bell-oil.
Mostly, though, we happily plead guilty to the same “irritating” habits as those CBC reporters and news anchors who’ve been getting under Lilley’s skin during the Winter Olympics at Sochi.
Seems like the athletes take the time and trouble to go out in the cold and win Canada some shiny medals, the very least the rest of us can do is make an effort to say their names properly.
Nope, said Lilley. In a video op-ed piece Monday night titled “CBC’s Hard French accent,” he blasted the national broadcaster for going “all native” with those “ridiculous,” accurate pronunciations of names like Hamelin, Bilodeau and Dufour-Lapointe. Link

The original video has been puilled from the sun News website.

Now far be it for me to defend Sun News, they are fast becoming their own worst enemy with silly and outrageous commentaries perhaps meant to shock the ratings which have been abysmal.
....but
The francophone media got on its high horse to denounce the idiocy of a commentary that complains about the proper pronunciation of names.

YOU-GEE-KNEE-BOO-SHARD

While the English media goes out of its way to pronounce French names as they are spoken in French, it isn't exactly the same in reverse.
The French media is notorious for putting a French twist on English names, even adding accents to written names where there is none, like Eugénie Bouchard, who to this day is referred to as Ooh-JZEN-ee  instead of the proper You-GEE-Knee.

In fact. I don't think I have ever heard a francophone interviewer use the proper English pronunciation of her name and I also have never heard a francophone interviewer refer to her as "Genie" (as in I Dream of Jeanie) because it is particularly alien to French tongues, even though she goes mostly by that shortened version.

For those who don't know, she is named after Princess Eugenie, while her twin sister is named after Princess Beatrice, daughters of Prince Andrew of the British royal family. 
Despite her second name and a mixed English/French parents, the tennis star is definitely an anglophone.

Just sayin....

Journal de Montreal ...Comment of the Week

 

Habs Duck language Issue

If there's anything the Montreal Canadiens don't want the francophone base to know, is that the team is ENGLISH...from top to bottom.

While the Francophone coaches meet the media in French, it is business as usual in English throughout the organization.
Now the Canadiens have made some cosmetic changes, adding French signage in the dressing room to accommodate  the fact that they are being filmed for the vanity television series 24/CH which offers a sanitized behind the scene look at the team.

But every now and then, the truth comes out, and so editors do their best to mask the fact that French isn't really a part of the team.

I was watching a recent episode and my keen eye caught this scene where something was blurred out, something entirely unacceptable, according to producers.

So what was it that producers were so desperate to hide.
I caught a glimpse in a split second frame that wasn't censored.

"Welcome in Montreal"

In an article in La Presse a reader complained that there was too much English at Montreal's winter carnival, the Fête des neiges.

The writer, who turns out to be an employee of the Société Saint-Jean Baptiste, (but where no mention of that fact is made in the piece,) complains about the traditional Montreal bilingual greeting to which he was subjected to.

"Bienvenue à Montréal/Welcome in Montreal, Bonjour/Hi!"

Of course my bullshit detector went off immediately because there isn't a bilingual person in the world who would say "Welcome in Montreal' and even if the greeter was a francophone, he or she would have been coached to say the proper  "Welcome to Montreal"
The error is egregious, like saying 'Bienvenue dans Montreal' instead of 'Bienvenue à Montréal.'

Most of these type of stories are flights of fancy, like the Jews who refused to be served by a francophone waitress or the airline stewardess who didn't understand a request for a Seven-Up in French. As they say in French 'Boulchite.'

I always look at these anecdotes with a decidedly skeptical eye, most are embellished or outright inventions, like the Speak white clerks at Eatons.

By the way the writer also complained about English songs being played on the radio, preferring second rate music in the name of French nationalism.
Yup...I said it....second rate.
And if you object or are insulted, understand that people vote with their actions. The radio was tuned to an English station because that is what the vast majority want to hear.
Live with it.... Link{fr}

Olympic notes

PQ minister Pierre Duchesne was red-faced for twittering a Photoshopped picture of Chloé and Justine Dufour-Lapointe, wearing the Quebec Fleur-de-Lys.
The minister captioned the tweet with one word SUPERB!, actually believing that the photo was real.
Great hilarity as the minister was forced to defend himself, telling reporters that it wasn't him who Photoshopped the picture.

Original

PhotoShopped version

The inevitable pay back.... "OK! OK! We're EVEN!"

Now readers, I am one of those nasty people who watch car races to see the crashes and figure skating in anticipation of one of those Humpty-Dumpty type falls.
It's cruel, but we all revel in a little schadenfreude.
Anyhoo...
I watched a pair of Russian skaters get a point deduction for a costume malfunction, it seems that a lowly feather fell to the ice, a big crime in the sport of ice-dancing, where feathers abound.
But I digress.
I offer this screen grab of Canadian skaters and wonder out loud if there should not be a point deduction for sticking you finger up your partner's butt? Hmmmm.

They always said that a Canadian passport is a valuable thing and opens up many possibilities, including this fridge at the Sochi Olympics dispensing free beer!

Canadian Coach displays true Olympic spirit
Helps opposing skier in trouble.

And the mean-spirited Americans keeps ragging on the Russians over Olympic fails, especially this memorable one, when one of the Olympic rings failed to unfurl during the opening ceremonies.

You know its over the top when Walmart gets into the taunting.

Pictures of the week

 The PQ released some videos on Youtube promoting sovereignty. Here's a screen grab of one of those and as you can see the Crucifix is front and center, reminding viewers, not so subtly, that an independent Quebec would remain true to its Catholic heritage.
By hey, its only about heritage.....

***************

In a story on the CTV Montreal website about the Zombie testimony which embedded the video I uploaded I found this picture of last year's Montreal zombie walk.
So I ask readers, what do you think the punishment should be for a Zombie who wears an ostentatious religious symbol in Quebec?
Stoning?.....Hanging?......Shaming?......Orthodontry?......or worse of all, a six month forced confinement in Herouxville?

By the way, I was pleased to notice proof positive in the above photo that Zombie parents can create 'normal' children, just like  Marilyn of 'The Munsters'

 ****************

Speaking of Photoshop.....
This was the woman who testified at the Charter of Values hearings about her visit to a mosque where she couldn't believe that people prayed on all fours.

Here's a photo that I myself snapped at a recent game at the Bell Centre, just for hockey fans.

During the anthems, Tim Thomas stood as far away from teammates as he could. What's up with that?

While the local media was shy to produce a picture of the Ukrainian hijacker who tried to commandeer a plane to Sochi, bedecked in a Habs sweater,  I've no such qualms.

By the way the hijacker was wearing the number 11, with 'KOIVU' proudly emblazoned on his back. Yikes!!
Don't think the Habs will be showing this photo on the Jumbotron!

Further reading

Quebec health ministry to punish Jewish General hospital for being so good

Montreal English school board tells govt to shove Charter of Values where the sun don't shine

While wait times in Quebec ERs hover around 20 hours, Jewish General shoots for 20 minutes

Université de Montréal Rector compare the effect of Bill 60 to Francoesque tactics during that Spanish dictators reigns

Read together;
A Big Advocate of French in New York’s Schools: France
New Republic: Let's Stop Pretending That French Is an Important Language:
Rebuttal:In Defense of French

 U de M language controversy is a scary indicator of intolerancee

English to replace French as main banking language 

Read together;
Federal language police should give workers a break
& Rebuttal:    Fraser: Language policy makes sense for airport workers

Quebec government-owned casino openly flouting Quebec's language laws


....finally

Have a great weekend!

Bonne fin de Semaine!

Anglicization?.. A Lesson in Faulty Logic

The Sky is falling, The Sky is falling!

Many years ago McGill University instituted a policy of allowing francophone students to submit papers and take exams in their native French.
The onus is put upon professors and T/As to make a 'reasonable accommodation' (Ha!) to those French students who are capable of taking classes in English, but lack the commensurate writing skills.
The policy has been wildly successful, allowing those French students so inclined to earn a valuable university degree from Canada's most venerated institution.
McGill today boasts that somewhere in the vicinity of 20% of its students are francophones.

For French language militants and PQ ministers like Jean-François Lisée, it's not a situation conducive to promoting the French language, rather the opposite. They believe that allowing francophones to attend an English institution of higher learning under favourable circumstances, ultimately leads to French graduates working and perhaps marrying in English, an inexorable march towards assimilation.

The argument is made because of the very real correlation between the higher assimilation rate for Francophones who graduated from English cegep or university. So for low-brow hysterics like Mario Beaulieu or Jean-Paul Perreault, it's simple proof that English cegep or university is dangerous for the survival of Quebec's francophone majority.

Even those who should know better, publish similarly biased views when there is an agenda to be promoted, like the deceptively named Institut de recherche sur le français en Amérique, a virtual separatist think tank with as much credibility as the Institute of Hair Replacement.

"For francophones who attend English college, French is  used less  when shopping, at work and among friends," explained the president of the IRFA, Patrick Sabourin. Link{fr}

It is always dangerous when academics or scientists use their talents to confirm preconceived notions or try to prove an agenda, like tobacco company scientists who maintained for decades that there was no link between their product and cancer.

Of course the academically challenged public is easy to dazzle with such simple conclusions, the  scientific relationship between  correlation and  causation of little import with those determined to deceive.
  
The fact that more francophones who graduate from English institutes of higher education, get a job in English, than those francophones who attend a French school, doesn't necessarily mean that the school caused them to do so. 

I can best demonstrate the principle that correlation does not imply causation with some brief examples.

Some insurance companies offer a discount to owners who equip their homes with fire extinguishers, not because the extinguishers prevent or limit the effect of a fire significantly, but rather because these homeowners are inherently more safety conscious and suffer less fires.

But sometimes causation can clearly be linked to correlation, for example in buildings that are outfitted with sprinklers and those that are not.

Statistics bear out that regardless of staff training, the age of a building, or the type of residents, sprinklered buildings save lives. In this case there is ample evidence of causation.

Let me offer a final example, perhaps easier to understand, the fact that people who voluntarily take a CPR course, live longer and healthier lives than those who do not.
Yet 99% of these people never use the training in a real life situation, so we cannot by any stretch of the imagination say that the CPR training itself can cause you to live longer.
But people who voluntarily take CPR live longer because they are clearly motivated to be pro-active about health issues.

Francophones who go to English schools assimilate more readily because that is the track that they were on to begin with, after all they learned English as a second language, long before they even started school.

Understanding cause and effect is a complicated issue, so it's easy to arrive at a false conclusion if one is so inclined;

"It has been proven that all heroin addicts smoked marijuana in their youth. Therefore, smoking marijuana leads to heroin addiction." 

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. ("After this, therefore because of this.")
Heroin addicts probably really started on mother's milk; does it lead to heroin?

Other examples:
"The cock crows, then the sun comes up, therefore the cock is responsible for raising the sun every morning"
"Francophones who go to English university are more likely to be assimilated, therefore English universities are responsible for their assimilation."

At any rate for an entirely entertaining and easy to understand, one page course in faulty logic. GO HERE

And so, French language militants, have developed a certain expertise in interpreting or twisting any fact or figure to prove the premise that French is under attack and in dire straights.

Not convinced?

If militants conclude that allowing French students to attend English university under favourable language conditions is an important element in their anglicization, why do they arrive at the complete and opposite conclusion for Anglophones attending French universities under similar language accommodations?

Recently we were treated to more hysterical predictions of gloom and doom by militants who claim that the handful of English students who are given language accommodations in French universities are anglicizing the schools, instead of being francisized themselves, the opposite of what happens when the shoe is on the other foot.

I can just imagine the contortions and twist of logic that those so inclined to disagree will formulate in offering a counter-argument.
No doubt it will be that the rules apply differently to English and French, the old standby, when all else fails.

And so, the University of Montreal is in danger of becoming anglicized because a handful of Anglo students are given a language accommodation, while the 20% of Francophone students at McGill have no effect on francisizing McGill, but in fact get anglicized themselves.

In  considering the 'facts' presented by so-called experts, it is useful to consider the source, after all would you blindly take on faith anything oil industry scientists tell us about the oil sands?
Would you automatically believe experts hired by the asbestos industry who claim that their product if properly used is non-toxic?

I am reminded of the baseball anecdote wherein a batter hit an infield fly and the third baseman and the catcher converged on the ball.
The catcher called for the ball by screaming;"I got it! I got it!, but the third baseman stepped in front of him and promptly dropped the ball.
As the catcher returned to his position behind home plate, visibly seething, the opposing on-deck batter tells him ;
"Hey, he had to consider the source."

Premier Pauline Marois recently served us up a textbook demonstration in faulty logic in a speech she made in Trois Rivieres.

"The Prime Minister argued that she was ready to allow Quebecers to choose between  "prosperity" and the economic measures she proposes, and "austerity" proposed by the CAQ and the Liberal Party, which want to return to the balanced budget more quickly."

 Madame Marois actually hits a bullseye in faulty logic by employing the famous Either/Or debate as demonstrated neatly in the comic below;

Is there any faultier use of logic than the assertion that the Crucifix in the National Assembly is not a religious article because it is a heritage item ?

In Quebec as elsewhere, anything can be argued away, where black can be argued as white and where in the end, it is the propaganda campaign attached to a debate that either wins or loses the day....seldom the facts.