OQLF Sign Directive Not Neccessarily Legal

Quebec's language watchdog agency, the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF,) has announced that it is cracking down on stores that display unilingual English names without a French 'descriptors,' a phrase that precedes or follows the actual name and describes what is being sold.

"The Brick" and "Second Cup" are a no-no, but "Brick meubles et électroniques" and "Les cafés Second Cup" are fine, according to a new campaign by the Office québécois de la langue française.

Starting Monday, French TV commercials and an Internet site will induce companies to add French descriptions or slogans to their brand names, said Louise Marchand, president of the provincial agency in charge of protecting the French language.

"We will take all necessary measures so that at a very minimum, businesses will put up a description," Marchand told a news conference Sunday."
Read the rest of the story in the Montreal Gazette  or this  Alternate Link

Militants protesting a legal store sign...

The knee-jerk reaction by the language cops was to be expected as language militants have been ratcheting up the pressure, especially active these last weeks, culminating with a noisy march along Montreal's Ste. Catherine street, the main shopping drag, where marchers symbolically 're-baptised' the offending signs with French only versions.

And so the OQLF O-feece has mounted a new campaign to force merchants into line with directives that require,'English' store names attach a French descriptor.

The first question we must ask ourselves is why these descriptors are necessary, since everyone knows what is sold in Canadian Tire, Best Buy, The Brick etc.etc.
Even the staunchest of French-language militants will readily admit that the imposition of descriptors is based solely on desire to publicly aver that in Quebec, French is the king of the castle and English, the dirty rascal.

The demand that 'English' signs be defaced prefaced with French descriptors is more about humiliating English and anglophones than promoting French. It's simply a question of showing anglos their place.

Regulation respecting the language of commerce and business, RRQ, c C-11, r 9

25. On public signs and posters and in commercial advertising, the following may appear exclusively in a language other than French: 

(4) a recognized trade mark within the meaning of the Trade Marks Act (R.S.C. 1985, c. T-13), unless a French version has been registered

EXPRESSION THAT MAY SPECIFY FIRM NAME

27.   An expression taken from a language other than French may appear in a firm name to specify it provided that the expression is used with a generic term in the French language. LINK

According to my research, the above regulations have been on the books since 2003 and likely long before, but the OQLF until now, has never demanded that stores using English trade-marks modify their signs.

Readers, I'm no lawyer, but over the years I have become somewhat expert at reading laws, rules and regulations and have discovered rather surprisingly that not everything is as well written clear and precise as one would imagine.

In my humble opinion, Regulation 25(4) and Regulation 27 are not concordant.

First things, first.
There is a principle that in law, that holds that the specific trumps the general and this clearly is the case between the two regulations.
Nothing can be clearer than Regulation 25(4), while Regulation 27 uses the undefined term "expression."

Is a trademark an 'expression'?
Most likely not, because in using the term 'trade mark' in one rule and the word 'expression' in another, the writers imply that there is a difference.

If the intention of the writers was to make trademarks subject to descriptors, they should have said so unequivocally.
And so Regulation 27 should have read that when companies avail themselves of the benefits of rule 25(4) (that is, to use trademarks in their banner), they must add descriptors, but it doesn't.

And so, the current interpretation of the regulations by the OQLF may very well be faulty and hasn't, as of yet been tested in court, because the provisions have never been imposed.
It remains a legal question as to whether  the OQLF is over-reaching and misinterpreting its own regulations.

That being said, there remains a more important legal issue as to whether a provincial government  may impose limitation on the commercial use of trademarks at all, since trademarks belong in the federal jurisdiction.

Aside from all this, there remains the utter stupidity of telling a company like Canadian Tire that after 60 years of operation in Quebec, that its name is offensive.

The 'O-feece' published a guide this week, detailing what stores must do to fall in line with their interpretation of the rules and even here, one has to question the competency of the agency.

At the right is an example provided to the media by the O-feece describing a fictional merchant named "DAILY LIVING' and examples on how it can comply with the OQLF's current interpretation of the regulations.
Readers, how on earth does "DAILY LIVING" translate to "LES BEAUX JOURS"?
Utter, utter nonsense!....

Going back to the photo of the demonstrators above who are protesting the signage at the SECOND CUP, which is actually 100% in line with these new regulations, it underlines that separatists and language fanatics aren't interested in anything else except the total eradication of English in public.
They make no bones about it.

Incidentally, the O-feece announced that banners like 'Harveys' are exempt because they are proper names, but technically that isn't really true.
While 'Harvey' is a proper name, 'Harveys' with an 'S' acts as an English possessive, even though the apostrophe is gone.
In French no 'S' is added to indicate the possessive.

Readers of a certain age will recall that 'EATON'S' was forced to become 'EATON.'
And so unless the 'S' refers to a plural, such as in the McDonalds brothers who started the hamburger chain, the names should actually be disallowed!

Now the Wendy's hamburger chain has taken a page out of the Liberal Party handbook and replaced the apostrophe with a little Canadian Maple leaf.
Very clever, but I'm sure the O-feece will look closely at that and perhaps demand that a Fleur-de-lys replace the hated Canadian symbol!
You never know how ridiculous plays out in Quebec.

Such are the deep and esoteric questions that the O-feece must ponder.

I've nothing more to say except to express a profound sadness at the utter mindlessness and vindictiveness that drives people to hate.
This sign initiative is not driven by the desire to preserve the French language but rather motivated by a desire by one portion of society to impose its will on the other, solely because it can.

When language militants tell us self-satisfyingly to 'respect' an unjust law, I'm reminded of all the minorities around the world who are discriminated against on a daily basis, based only on the tyranny of numbers.

An unjust law need not be 'respected' and to language militants who tells us to obey or suffer the consequences, we should choose to suffer the consequences.

Remember the utter humiliation that language militants suffered by one article in the New York Times and one interview on 60 Minutes by Mordechai Richler. It still reverberates today.
I'm not sure that Quebec could stand a concerted publicity campaign in the USA decrying the rule that forces American companies to forsake or bastardize their names.

In the end Quebec Anglos have the power to resist and resist we should.

None of we Quebec anglos want to impose English on Quebec, but we'll be damned if militants attempt to take away what is ours, our names........

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

To save the O-feece, much time and effort, I'd like to humorously propose some descriptors of my own; 

McDONALDS- Malbouef
THE GAP- Vetements pour les nuls.
TACO BELL- TACO BELLE
WINNERS - Vetements pour les perdants.
BANANA REPUBLIC- Republique du Quebec

Readers......How about some suggestions to help out the OQLF?

Equalization & Deficits Fuel Quebec's Disconnect with Reality

One of my oldest memories is that of my mother gathering the children around the old Formica kitchen table and announcing solemnly that my father had lost his job and that money would be very tight until he found work again.
As a six year old, I really didn't understand what all this meant, but was frightened by the sight of my obviously distressed mother.
Over the next couple of weeks nothing really changed, we ate dinner each night as before and the quality and quantity of the food didn't change. My mother even continued to pay my allowance of 10¢ and the initial fear that I felt at that first family meeting faded. Eventually my dad found work and I'd like to say that everything returned to normal, but normal never really changed.

I'm reminded of this story, because watching events unfold in Quebec, there seems to be an uncanny parallel.
I can't help but feel that Quebecers remain unhealthily insulated and sadly oblivious to the coming financial meltdown because they haven't really felt the effects as of yet. Their allowance hasn't been cut and they haven't had food taken off the table.

Just as my parents used their savings to paper over the fact that there wasn't enough money coming in, the Quebec government has used deficit spending and equalization payments from the rest of Canada to maintain the fiction that the collective Quebec lifestyle can be maintained.

Last week, college and university students across Quebec left their classes to hit the streets in one of the very rare student protests.

The issue that roused them to action wasn't global warming or their position against war.
It wasn't about justice for minorities or a redistribution of wealth towards the poor, but rather sadly, a protest for redistribution of wealth towards themselves.
Two years ago over 100,000 students hit the streets to protest against the government's decision to cut bursaries.

Already enjoying the lowest tuition in Canada, students were outraged that the government was hiking fees over several years, which by the way, would still leave Quebec university students with the best deal in Canada, when all would be said and done.

But the ability to maintain such generous tuition fees in the face of a crushing and mounting deficit is of no import to students, because having been insulated from reality (like my mother did to me) they cannot fathom the government running out of money.
In interview after interview, not one student leader addressed the issue of how low tuition rates can be paid for, as if the issue was entirely beside the point.

In blithely ignoring our financial reality, students are really no different from most of Quebecers, who are deaf to talk of deficits and dwindling resources, because the government just keeps paying and paying.

In recklessly spending beyond the financial capacity of the province, both separatist and federalist Quebec governments are equally to blame, not only for the dire financial consequences but the social consequences of allowing citizens to believe that the government has an unlimited source of funds and that a gravy train will always exist.

How bad is the situation?
Let's pretend the Province of Quebec is one single family.
It spends $70,000 a year, while earning just $57,500. The mother-in-law kicks in $8,500 to help, which leaves the family to borrow $4,000 from the bank, which it already owes a whopping $242,000.
 
Read this story in the Financial Post. (Thank you JASON for the link)

And so students continue to demand that their fees be frozen (some demanding that the fees should even be lowered) as well as demanding that the university increase salaries to support staff in a fantasy world where money grows on trees.

Now I'm not going to review Quebec's ruinous social spending programs, you can read an excellent analysis is a book that came out this week, by Joanne Marcotte entitled 'Gouvernemaman,' a very appropriate term that describes Quebec's 'Nanny State'

In the face of criticism, especially from commentators in the rest of Canada who decry Quebec's expensive social experiment, defenders claim that Quebec, as the highest taxed people in North America are paying for their own programs and that they are proud of the society that they have built.

But Quebecers aren't really paying for their social experiment at all, rather it's Canadians through equalization payments and the children of Quebecers who will bear the burden of one of the world's highest public debt.

Those who defend the grand social experiment remain fiercely defensive and proud, the fact that Quebec marches to a different tune, a badge of honour.

But let us ignore for the moment the fact the this grand social experiment is not only unsustainable, but has seriously impacted the future financial well-being of generations yet unborn.

Has all this social spending made Quebec a better society?

The sad truth is that Quebec has evolved into an unproductive and lazy society which lags Canada and the OECD average in almost every benchmark of success.
This more than anything else is the tragedy of Quebec's social plan.

It seems that over-generous entitlements have had the effect of replacing industry with indolence. The easier it is to get free money, the harder it is to get people to work hard on their own account.

It is an accepted fact that children of long time welfare recipients are much more likely to be welfare recipients themselves, much as children of professionals are much more likely to follow in the footsteps of their successful parents.

As entitlements grow, the standard of living falls. It's a natural and insidious consequnce.
The more money the government of Quebec gives out or re-distributes, the poorer its citizens become..

Click to download PDF in French

"In 2010, the standard of living in Quebec (measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita) amounted to $ 40 174, or about US$6,000 dollars less than the average among the 20 member countries of the OECD, and only $4,742 more than the lowest standard of living of these countries recorded, namely, that of South Korea.

Québec's performance in terms of labour productivity is very similar. In 2010, labour productivity in Quebec (measured by GDP per hour worked) was $ 49.90, while the average among 20 OECD countries reached $ 59.96. "In other words, an hour worked in these countries generates an average $ 10 more than an hour worked in Quebec," the study shows."

But the attraction of easy money is hard to give up and for many Quebecers working to make a good living doesn't seem worth the effort when one can get by on government handouts doing nothing.

For those born into a society where government handouts are part of daily life, dependence is as addictive as crack.

So the question remains.
What will happen when the inevitable collapse of the nanny state occurs when the government just plain runs out of money and the ability to borrow?

In 2014 the Federal Equalization agreement comes up for renewal, and the $8.6 billion or 12% of the Quebec budget will be put into jeopardy.
If Quebecers believe that Prime Minister Harper will blindly sign off again on the massive transfer of wealth from the RoC to Quebec, they are deluding themselves badly.

What will happen when the Quebec government's deficit (currently at $4 billion or 7% of the budget) spending can no longer be supported?
Deficit spending and equalization payments account for almost 13 billion dollars, or 20% of the Quebec budget.


The day of reckoning is not that far off and the spending cuts, required to stave of bankruptcy, while not on a scale that we've seen in Greece, will nevertheless be massive.

If students are protesting over a couple of hundred dollars of increase a year, what will happen when they will be forced to pay thousands more.
What will happen when $7 a day childcare goes up to $40 or more and what will happen when welfare and pension benefits are cut.
What will happen when the provincial tax is increased by 50% and personal taxes raised by ten or twenty percent.

Quebecers, having been coddled their whole lives, will react much as the Greeks, bewildered and flustered, unable to fathom how the government could actually run out of money,

I daresay the collapse of the nanny state will be as traumatic for Quebec society as it is today in Greece.

Can't happen?
To believe otherwise is to ignore reality.

In Quebec, Counting Anglophones is an Art Form

Institut de recherche sur le français en Amérique

Many, many years ago, my son was a grade one student having bit of trouble with spelling. Back then, spelling was considered an important element of a proper education and as such, students were treated to spelling bees, spelling drills and spelling tests on an ongoing basis.
Today spelling has joined home economics, shop and history in the trash heap of the education system, but I digress.

My son's teacher asked that as parents we help out at home by honing his spelling skills before the next test, a task which my wife dutifully undertook.
After the results of the next test were announced, she asked him how he did;
"Eight"
"Eight out of what?" she asked suspiciously.
"Ten"
"Hmm....Not bad....not bad at all!"

A few weeks later at a school conference, the teacher once again implored my wife to work on spelling.
"Whatever for? He got eight out ten on the last test"
"EIGHT OUT OF TEN??? He got eight out of ten wrong!!!"

And so as parents we suffered from statistical manipulation, by our six year-old!
That's how easy it is to be fooled by numbers, when you trust the deliverer.

So it isn't any surprise that when studies and statistics are prepared and served up by someone or some organization with a political agenda to promote, what we are provided with is statistical trash.

Such is the case of the insufferable Institut de recherche sur le français en Amérique (IRFA) an organization that uses the word "Institute" to give itself a false and bloated appearance of something which it is not. Aside from its minuscule size, it mimics the work of the SSJB, Mouvement Quebec Francais and Imperatif Francais in promoting the French language and the cause of sovereignty.

THE IFRA is a tiny French language lobby group, run by a university student consisting of a website, post-office box and a personal cellular telephone number.
The website shows a couple of academic separatists forming a 'scientific committee' which includes Marc Termote, a demographer and renowned language militant, and employee of the OQLF.

 "The decline of French in Quebec is so relentless that demographer Marc Termote says the government will have no choice but to consider taking drastic measures if it wants to turn the tide: a halt to immigration or the imposition of unilingual French throughout its territory." Link{FR}

Mr. Termotte is joined on the committee with Claude Castonguay, a retired professor of mathematics from the University of Ottawa and OQLF veteran.

The IFRA commissioned and recently published a study by another like-minded 'Institute" the 'Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine (IREC) which concluded, not surprisingly that English is over-represented in the Public Service in Quebec.
Checking the IREC's website I was not surprised to find that Jacques Parizeau, is the honorary President of the Board of Directors so you can imagine its political bent. 

The impartiality of these types of organizations and their ability to deliver non-biased statistically  based reports is more than questionable and when newspapers reprint their conclusions as fact, it breaks the very tenants of what good journalism should be.
You wouldn't expect a newspaper to reprint as fact, the conclusion that there is no link between cancer and smoking, based on a report prepared by the tobacco industry, nor would you expect a newspaper to reprint as fact, a positive link between prayer and good health, based on a report prepared by the Church.
But when a group of militant French-language separatists, offers a study on the dire situation of the French language in Quebec, it is printed in our newspapers as gospel.  Shame!

The impartiality of those preparing reports and studies on any publicly debated issue has recently become a hot issue in relation to climate change. Competing groups of scientists have muddied up the issue by allowing personal or group bias affect how they collected, prepared and interpreted data. It has had a devastating effect on the debate with the public unsure of who to believe.

Last year, here in Quebec, we were treated to a lively public debate between anglo rights defender Jack Jedwab and French language militant Claude Castonguay over which group, anglophones or Francophones enjoy a higher income, with both claiming that statistics supported their opposite positions. What nonsense!

And so, before ever putting stock in a study, one has to consider the bias and impartiality of those who prepared the report or study.
Readers, they don't come much more biased than the IRFA.

I've  previously written on the skewed conclusions of another report prepared by the IRFA and its contention that English cegeps (junior colleges) are a danger to the French language.

Read: English Cegep Study - A Case of Weird Science

And so when the IRFA recently published a report that describes Quebec's public sector as overly friendly to anglophones, I almost fell out of my chair laughing, not only because its conclusions were so skewed, but because the media lapped up the report without question.
Download the PDF in French

The report concludes that with 8.7% of the population 13.9% of the jobs in the public service are English.
Both of these numbers are false and misleading.

I didn't have to go deep into the report to realize that we were to be treated to a statistical sleight-of-hand leading to dubious and unsupportable conclusions.

There in the Resume;

And there it is..... 'historical anglophones,' a term used by ultra-separatists to magically reduce the real number of anglophones that they count.
I thought it was only zealots like Louis Prefontaine that use terms like that, but its seems to have crept into the language debate as something legitimate.

There really is no definitive way to describe who is an Anglo and so separatists use critera that suits them, where numbers are reduced.

Through voodoo statistical analysis, language extremists like Prefontaine can claim that 'historical' anglophones' represent just 5.6% of the Quebec population, while the author of this report can claim that the number of 'historical' anglophones is about 8.7%.

I much prefer the numbers of Statistics Canada, an organization which is arguably just about as unbiased as you can get.

So the English minority is actually 13.4%!
The explanation for the higher number is clearly spelled out.

Now before defenders of the report start attacking the integrity of Statisitcs Canada, I'd point out that much of the study itself is based on StatsCan data.

If one accepts this 13.4% figure, the conclusion of the report that English at 13.9% is vastly over-represented is proven false.

But wait, there's more! (as they say in the infomercials!)

I've gone through the whole report and cannot fathom how the author arrived at his conclusion that 13.9% of public jobs are English.

He claims that there are 31,000 jobs where public employees use English exclusively or English majorly while working. I'd love to see a list.

Now these jobs are not in Education and Health and Social services fields, which are treated separately in the report.
Here directly from the study;

"In Quebec 31,334 of the 237,209 public administration jobs are unilingually English or bilingual English/French, representing 13%"

I'd like to know where these unilingual English jobs exist in Quebec's public Administration.

Perhaps there's a couple of thousand of employees working in English at the Ministère des Transports or the Sûreté du Québec? Maybe there's a few more thousand stashed at Revenue Québec or  Environment Quebec.
Or maybe these employees toil tirelessly in Télé-Québec or the Ministère de l'Agriculture where they speak English all day and write and file English reports to their superiors who reply in English.

Really?? Are you kidding me?

Anglophones make up less than 2% of the civil service and I bet they speak French almost all of the time.

Even if this fanciful idea was true (which it certainly is not) working the majority of the time in English, means working some of the time in French and so the effective rate of English services offered by the 13.9% is reduced in consequence.

I shall be bringing you more statistical nonsense from the IRFA in the near future but until then, rest assured that as they say on the French language version of Mythbusters, this report is 'bidon!'

Language Marchers Disconnected From Realty

SOURCE DE SOULIERS A BAS PRIX ????

One of the sad aspects of the French language ultra-militants is that the publicity they garner is disproportionate to the amount of support that they actually have in the general community.

Last Saturday's march through downtown Montreal by a coterie of zealots underlines the paranoid psychosis that afflicts those who believe that an English name on a store is somehow dangerous.

Demanding that stores post signs in French is one thing, demanding that they change their names to French goes beyond the pale, into the land of racism and fantasy.

The self-righteous demand that stores show 'respect' to the francophone majority, reminds me of that parent, the one with belt in hand, who demands 'respect' from his child under pain of a beating.

Respect is earned, not owed.

When militants tell stores to respect the letter and even the spirit of the law, what they are really demanding is blind acquiescence, something quite different.

I never understood the concept of minorities owing 'respect' to the majority by virtue of numbers, while by virtue of those same numbers the majority can run roughshod over the minority.

Do Arab-Israelis owe 'respect' to the Jewish majority just because they are a minority?
I'm sure that every single person who took part in the march would say no, me included, by the way.

I'd bet they'd also object to the Jewish state banning Arabic on public signage and would accuse the country of cultural apartheid if they did, even though Hebrew is every bit as 'threatened' as French.
(By the way, public signage in Israel is tri-lingual and stores can post in any language they choose.)

Ridiculous comparison? Not really. Sometimes when you look at an issue from a different perspective things look completely different.

And so it seems that big bad Israel is linguistically more tolerant than Quebec. Ha!

Now before readers write in to say that there is no comparison between Arab-Israelis and Anglophone Quebeckers, because as the language militants love to remind us, we anglos are the 'best treated minority in the world," I beg to differ.

Francophone Quebeckers are the best treated minority in the world. 

So in the case of language in Quebec, it's a 'case of 'might makes right,' it isn't a question of respect.


The protest about English store names is based on the fantasy that 'out of site is out of mind,' that if English signs and store names are removed from public view, then somehow they don't exist. Poof!

It is an effort to promote an alternate reality, one where Montreal's English don't exist and the false perception that Montreal is 'French' and not bilingual is maintained by hiding reality.

This is the real essence of the protest.
Not English signs, rather English people and English businesses that protesters wish didn't exist.

Even the l'Office québécois de la langue française (the language cops)  admit that the demands of these militants are beyond the scope of the law.

Going far beyond what the OQLF guidelines, namely that stores add a modifier to their names, as in"Les Cafes Second Cup" the rabble marching down Ste. Catherine street, with the determination of those storming the Bastille, demand that the coffee shop change its name to "Deuxieme Tasse"

Next they shall tell Quebeckers that those who possess names like Henry, Mary, William and Peter change their names to the more acceptable, Henri, Marie, Guillaume and Pierre.

Ridiculous? I'm not so sure.

Don Cherry Shows More Class than Separatists

As most of you know, I'm no fan of Don Cherry and have written about him him previously in generally unflattering terms.

I'm also not a fan of heavy metal or country music. I don't think Rick Mercer is very funny, nor is Rita McNeil an interesting artist (even at Christmas) and I do believe that David Suzuki is a big fat phony..... but so what?

Just because I don't like their opinions, their comedy or their talent doesn't mean that I should write the CBC asking that they be removed from television. Diversity is what makes the entertainment business interesting and kooky and controversial personalities contribute to keeping us entertained.

Don Cherry is what he is, you love him or hate him. I do suspect that of those who tune into Hockey Night in Canada, many more are in his camp, than against,  otherwise he would have gotten the boot a long time ago.

How popular is Cherry? Very, very, popular.
I once found myself on an airplane sitting beside him on a flight out to Moncton where he was going to make an appearance at one of his sports restaurants in Dieppe.
Throughout the flight, on a smallish BAe-146, no fewer than twenty or thirty fans (crew included) asked Don for his autograph,  which he dutifully obliged with a smile and polite interaction.
"Where you from?--or --Nice to meet you,"
If somebody told him they were from a small town, he'd invariably ask after one of it's local residents.
I dare say he knows a lot of people.
At the airport in Moncton, the scene replayed itself, with ground workers, airline personnel and travellers all lining up to get autographs and rub shoulders.

Throughout it all, he acted with dignity and good grace and I thought to myself that I couldn't imagine going through life being that popular, to the point of being assailed everywhere I went.

As much as Don Cherry is admired by most anglophone Canadians, he is roundly despised in Quebec and by francophones in general for a few injudicious remarks he made on television, denigrating francophone hockey players.

These remarks weren't particularly vicious, but he did disparage francophone hockey players, in describing them as soft and frail. Francophone reporters ripped into him, resulting in a hate-a-thon that sent Mr. Cherry into the language doghouse along with his dog Blue.

Cherry is a throwback to the old days when Europeans didn't play in the NHL and Francophones were  mostly the property of the Montreal Canadiens. He liked it that way.
During the time of racial integration, many old timers found it hard to accept change. In 1989, he referred to Finnish-born Winnipeg Jets Assistant Coach Alpo Suhonen as "some kind of dog food" Yikes!     Wikipedia

"In January 2004, on the subject of visors, Cherry said on Coach's Corner: "Most of the guys that wear them are Europeans and French guys" to illustrate his claim that visor users have less respect for player safety. This statement triggered an investigation by the federal Official Languages Commissioner, and protests by French-Canadians. Wikipedia

That was his whole transgression, nothing particularly racist, just a stupid comment that he wasn't particularly a fan of francophone or Europeans hockey players.

Cherry & the Queen. Separatists worst nightmare!

For this, francophones have never forgiven him and many have called for his removal from the CBC's hockey broadcast. In fact, his continued presence on HNIC is considered by these objectors to be an ongoing anti-Quebec/Francophone provocation.

Anyways....
Don Cherry has always enjoyed a particularly close relationship with Canada's Armed Forces and uses his pulpit on HNIC to honour those who have died in service. His unbridled enthusiasm and untiring support is much appreciated by the military and their families, to whom Cherry is nothing less than a hero.

So after all these years of unflagging dedication to the armed forces, the military decided to honour his contribution with an honorary degree at a commencement ceremony at the Royal Military College.
I cannot think of anyone who is more deserving.

This of course had the Francophone militants up in arms and they raised the alarm that Cherry was unworthy because of his 'anti-francophone' comments.

"Don Cherry, broadcaster for CBC and host of Coaches Corner on HNIC has refused to attend Royal Military College to accept an honorary Doctorate degree due to a "circus" atmosphere.

In a report by Joe Warmington in The Toronto Sun on Saturday it was noted, a true military supporter and Canadian, Don Cherry (77) of HNIC (CBC's Hockey Night in Canada) Coaches Corner, has announced he will not accept an honorary doctorate degree from the RMC on November 17th. 'One' professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston Catherine Lord has suggested that he does not support the French people, but leaves out the fact that he loves the French, just not the French that wanted to separate from Canada."  Read more in the Toronto Sun

After a brouhaha erupted, Don Cherry decided to decline the honour in order to avert a 'circus' atmosphere that would have shifted focus away from the 800 cadets graduating and the two others receiving honorary awards.

Bravo!
Don Cherry has a lot of class.... A lot of class.

Although he isn't my cup of tea, he has earned my respect as a principled individual who in the truest military tradition has placed himself subservient to the group.
His decision to forgo the well-deserved honorary degree in order to save his confreres from certain  embarrassment is in the finest tradition of the armed forces, where the good of the greater is more important than that of the individual.
Again BRAVO!

The argument that Cherry is unfit for an honorary degree from the Royal Military College or even the right to appear on the CBC smacks of hypocrisy of an order that boggles the mind. It is so ludicrous that it begs further discussion.

If that same criterion were to be applied to Radio-Canada (the French CBC) and any commentator or on-air personality who had made an anti-Canadian or anti-English remark on air would be banned, I'm pretty sure that there wouldn't be anyone left to read the news.

Another case of deux poids, deux mesures (double standard)

And so readers, I ask you, should virulently anti-Canadian, anti-anglophone artists like the late Pierre Falardeau, be offered funding from Tele-Film Canada to make anti-English and separatist films?

Should a life-long separatist, be eligible for writing awards from the Governor-General?

The insufferably self-important Quebec writer, Victor-Lévy Beaulieu has been militating for the breakup of Canada his whole life and has never made bones about his dislike of Canada and his trepidation over English culture. Yet, he was nominated three times for a Governor General's prize and actually won once in 1974.
Should his separatist views have disqualified him from working extensively for Radio Canada, a federal broadcaster created with the goal of fostering national unity?
Let us remember that it is English Canada that over-finances Radio-Canada.

Mr. Beaulieu is a prolific writer and has made his anti-Canadian views known without reservation.

"....that our Church sold its soul to the devil English which used to help make us sub-human, disgusts me."  Link{FR} 

How about calling our ex-Governor General, Michaëlle Jean, the pejorative, "Reine-Nègre" ("negro Queen" LINK{FR}
I've written about his opinions and let's just say he's no fan of Anglos, Jews, Greeks, Chinese and Muslims.  LINK Link{FR} 
So why was he offered and why did he accept a Governor-General's Award?

Should his politics have made him ineligible, like Don Cherry?

In Quebec there is no limit to the anglo bashing on television and in the media. It is so pervasive and so common that it is considered normal.

Calling out Don Cherry for a barb he made years ago is utterly two-faced, but typical.

If Don Cherry is deemed ineligible for awards for his opinion about francophones, should artists and other Quebec figures who militate for sovereignty while describing anglophone Canadians as colonizers and exploiters, be eligible for Canadian honours?

In English we have our own saying;
"What's good for the goose, is good for the gander"

or better still
"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."