Nationalist Groups Up In Arms Over Census Long Form

I can't imagine any country in the world getting as politically excited over a lousy census form as we have here in Canada. It sort of underlines how trivial our problems really are, if we've got that much energy to devote to something so dumb.

Ever since the Conservatives proposed the abolition of the intrusive long form, the media has risen in rebellion, calling the government everything from barbaric to incompetent with a disproportionate fury that is hard to fathom. Most of us have an opinion as to whether it's a good idea to abolish it or not, but not many have actually seen the long form. If you'd like to, here's a copy of the 2006 long form.pdf

Although the media has been massively critical of the decision to cancel the form, according to recent opinion polls, the country is just about evenly split on the issue, this in spite of the massive media campaign to support the long form. One wonders what the numbers would look like if reporting was a bit more balanced.

The very best article that I've seen on the issue doesn't even come from Canada, it's a must-read piece written in the prestigious ECONOMIST magazine entitled "Leviathan's spyglass," a refreshing analysis of the census that every defender should read.

Back to the numbers, opinion in Quebec differs sharply from that of Canada, with 62% agreeing that abolishing the poll is a good idea. Reference

You'd never know it from the Francophone media, who have all lined up on the side of keeping the long form alive. The Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities of Canada is even launching a court challenge. LINK
One has to wonder why this Herculean effort is being put forth.

I've already written a piece about the last census wherein an underground Internet campaign was launched to get francophones to answer certain questions on the form dishonestly in order to make it appear that there were more unilingual francophone speakers in Canada than there actually are.
Read my article-  Is Census Brouhaha Based on Language?

I'm not sure how successful that campaign was, but it's clear that with all the publicity surrounding the story about this so-called manipulation, should the long form be sent out again, it's a certainty that it would be subject to an even larger campaign of deception.

Interestingly, the fraud in 2006 and the potential for an even bigger fraud in 2010 has hardly entered the national discussion, but it is most certainly, the elephant in the room.
Perhaps the Conservatives considered this implication, but are loathe to discuss it publicly.

While the 2010 census form will no doubt be different from its predecessor, here are the questions from the 2006 long form that were the subject of manipulation. By answering FRENCH ONLY to all questions, (regardless of the truth) it is believed that the number of unilingual francophone Canadians was exaggerated;

Sometimes it Isn't About Language

Years ago, a supervisor, working under my jurisdiction was hauled before an Ontario Labour Relations Board in relation to an alleged unjustified termination of an employee. The person in question had complained that she had been fired because she was Black.
Now the incident took place in Eastern Ontario, but the supervisor was based in western Quebec and she was a bit uneasy testifying in English, although she was quite bilingual. I told her not to worry and just tell the truth.
During the proceedings, my supervisor testified that it was she herself who hired the employee, so she was hardly prejudiced. She went on to describe a litany of problems with the employee, including missed shifts, tardiness, laziness and rudeness to clients as the reason for the firing. In her words, "she was the shittiest hire I ever made."

The judge looked up, perhaps unaccustomed to such language, but took it in good stride.
"Let me make a note of that " he said. "S-H-I-T-T-Y  E-M-P-L-O-Y-E-E" he repeated, as he wrote on a pad before him officiously, in mock seriousness. I could only imagine the scene!"

The complaint was eventually dismissed and when I got the news, I asked the supervisor into my office to congratulate her on the victory.  I asked her if she learned anything from the affair.

 "Yes,  I'm not not going to be hiring any more Black people!"

YIKES!!!!!!

Sometimes, it isn't about language, nor about race, colour or creed. Sometimes you get fired because you're just a shitty employee.

Last week I read an article by sportswriter Serge Touchette who complained that Francophones don't get enough chances as coaches or assistant coaches in the NHL.

"It would be too easy to blame the NHL of racism against French coaches, but it's reasonable to ask serious questions." LINK

Argghh.......

The writer complained that jobs were scarce for Francophone coaches and perhaps if Mario Tremblay, who recently departed as assistant coach on the New Jersey Devils was English, there'd be a pile of offers waiting for him.
It's always easy to blame language and it happens all to often in Quebec, especially with francophone sports writers, who see a grand NHL conspiracy to keep Francophones out of the league. It is a ludicrous scenario, but one that rears it's ugly head much too often.

In the French media. 'Crying wolf' in relation to language, is not uncommon.
(By the way, I offer links to explain some of the idiomatic expressions that I include. For native English speakers they are 'easy as pie' to understand but may be unfamiliar to the many francophone readers who populate this blog)

That being said, Francophones are not the only ones guilty of falsely complaining of discrimination, we Anglos are guilty as well.

Every now and then we hear complaints that Anglos are under-represented in the Quebec civil service with just 2% of the jobs as opposed to the 8½% of the general population.
Is this because of discrimination?

It's an easy argument to make, but one that is false. Most Anglos prefer to work in an environment where they can use their English. It isn't more complicated than that and it isn't about racism or discrimination.

Last week Concordia University in Montreal asked the downtown borough council if they could close down a street to hold a concert to celebrate Frosh week. The council refused, in spite of the fact that the student council agreed to  hold the concert earlier and move it to a more commercial street block, one where most of the business' are related to the school.
The council didn't budge, notwithstanding that streets are closed all the time for the Grand Prix, the Just for Laughs Festival, parades, etc.etc.
Some grumbled that the school was refused the permit because they were English.

I can tell you from personal experience that living around the downtown school is a nightmare and it actually caused me to move away. Unlike McGill (which is also a downtown university) which has a large quad, Concordia has no campus, it is a complex of tall buildings, smack dab in the middle of downtown Montreal. Students, to put it bluntly, are a pain in the ass to the locals.
Its likely that the borough objected to another drunken party in the streets and it happened to have nothing to do with language.

Finally, I came across this piece in a blog over at Coolopolis, where someone wondered if the requirement to post the name of the pharmacist on the front door of the pharmacy was somehow a plot  by the governing body to highlight those pharmacies which were Jewish or Anglo owned so 'good francophones' could avoid them.

Hmmm.....I don't think so.

Anglo Hospital Irks Nationalists

As you probably heard, former Prime Minster Jean Chretien had emergency surgery last Friday to relieve a bleed that was threatening to cause severe brain damage.
The successful surgery took place in Montreal's Jewish General Hospital, much to the consternation of language nationalists who bear a special disdain for the Anglo hospital's attraction to Quebec's rich and famous, francophones included.

The hospital which was built back in the 1930's with funds provided by the city's Jewish community  was never meant to serve Jews exclusively, but rather to provide an environment where patients who were Jewish, could have their dietary and religious beliefs respected. It has evolved over the years into an integrated public hospital that serves more non-Jews than Jews. That being said, the Jewish community continues to shower the hospital with millions of dollars in annual donations, money that funds research and an ongoing building and improvement campaign.

The hospital is perhaps the very best example of a bilingual institution that serves patients in both English and French, something that sits poorly with language militants.

Today the hospital is Jewish in tradition only and while it still serves kosher food and respects the Jewish Sabbath and holidays, it's clientèle is as varied as the local community.  The staff, medical, professional and support is the most diverse of any hospital in Quebec, perhaps even Canada and believe it or not, there aren't many religious or language conflicts to speak of.
The halls are filled with the sounds of English, French, Greek, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Italian, Arabic, Tagalog, and a multitude of other languages.
Rabbis rub shoulders in the halls with Catholic, Protestant and Greek Orthodox priests as they all minister to the spiritual needs of patients.
The hospital is filled with volunteers, a cadre of Jewish, Francophone and English retirees who act as patient and visitor support staff as well as working in the various volunteer snack and coffee shops.

"Eat something!" "Avec plaiser, Monsieur!" "Could I help you with that form" "Suivez-moi Madame!" 

It isn't rare to be confronted by a boy/girl team in clown makeup, patrolling the halls and offering cookies to anyone who needs a lift.

The multicultural nature of the hospital and the success it enjoys is what makes it such a threat to language nationalists who see it as the antithesis of what they hold as the Quebec model.

For them, all this is somehow obscene, an affront to Quebec's 'secular' and French language nature. There are demands that the hospital's Jewish and English connection be severed and that the Star of David be removed both physically and figuratively.

But when you're sick, you're sick and for most people, background, language and political affiliation takes a backseat in deciding where one can get the very best care. 
When Jacques Parizeau chose to be treated at the JGH a while back, eyebrows were raised and many couldn't resist making snide reference to his "Ethnic" remarks of the past. Perhaps Parizeau was taking heed to an old Quebec adage which tells of a patient "being so sick that he had to go to a Jewish doctor!"

Dr. Marc Afilalo, Dr. Hartley Stern  Dr. Jeff Golan

When Jean Chretien was feeling poorly last Thursday and he was advised to go to the hospital, he chose to make the two hour drive from Shawinigan to the Jewish General Hospital, a decision akin to Danny William's decision to get heart surgery outside Newfoundland.
 
At the press conference describing the the surgery, the young anglo surgeon who performed the procedure, Dr. Jeff Golan, answered questions from the media in English and excellent French, switching effortlessly between the two.

And so, language militants hate the Jewish General hospital for its success. They don't want to hear about smart, urbane, anglo and ethnic nurses, doctors and technicians who offer service in English  and French and don't think much about it.
Of course they'll offer up some isolated or made up story about a language snafu to prove that anglo contempt for francophones is institutionalized. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

With a little effort everyone gets by at the JGH and that includes elderly immigrant patients who speak no English or French.

"Hey, I need somebody who speaks Chinese. Hello, can somebody help me!" shouts out a nurse.

And you know what?...... Somebody invariably does.

For language nationalists, that's not the way its supposed to work, but for the rest of us, if it ain't broke.....

By the way, here is a video on the Jewish General Hospital, It's interesting because it presents a vision of a working environment that every single language extremist is trying to destroy.

For everyone who says bilingualism can't work or that that French and English communities can't live and work together, please watch the video.  It's an edited version with subtitles.

For the full version go HERE.

Dissent is Not Hatred

As a policy, I print all comments except for spam or stuff that is clearly racist. That being said, comments that blast others or even personal attacks that aren't racist, are okay by me.

From the level of passion that I read in the comments section I can only be satisfied that in some small way I am fostering some level of the language debate from an Anglo point of view. There aren't many of us doing it.
If people shout, scream and call each other names in their post, all the better. It's a passionate subject and people have every right to express themselves and calling each other names is part of the venting process. Others may disagree with me, but hey, I control what is printed and will continue to publish as much is possible.
While I would hope that personal attacks be limited, I can't and won't stop them. Attacks of that same nature on myself will continue to be published in the interest of fairness.

I usually don't answer comments, even if I have an opinion or response. I'm not ignoring anyone, but I believe the comment section is for commenters.

For the record;

• You can comment in English or You can comment in French
• You can complain about people commenting in English or people commenting in French. If you don't understand the post, I would suggest GOOGLE TRANSLATE. It's good enough for the RCMP!
• While I don't appreciate gratuitous swearing, judicious use of expletives is okay.
• You can call people names, but you can't make stuff up or tell nasty lies about them.
• I respectfully suggest you avoid sarcasm, it doesn't go over well in print, but hey, maybe you're a better writer than I.
• Try to work on your post, be creative. 
• I suggest you use a pseudonym. What good could possibly come of publishing your name?
• You can take a contrary view to mine or any other poster. There's no fun in having everyone agreeing. 
• Run your stuff through a spell checker. There are online versions that work right in your browser and highlight erros as you type. Get the FIREFOX  add-on here.
• I will not tolerate any post that uses ethnicity, religion or race as a pejorative.
• No advertising, but if you have a blog you can shill for it.

This week, there were quite a few comments that went after me rather, ahem... forcefully and that's okay, but I'd like to take this one post to make some observations.

Perhaps Tyme Machine was prophetic when he predicted that there would be a well storm of criticism directed towards Eric Duhaime over his articles on Amir Khadir and that the criticism would take the form of 'shooting the messenger.'

That prediction turned out to be quite true as the Communist Party of Quebec launched a furious counter attack against Duhaime with a least three senior members writing rebuttals which were nothing more than foul personal attacks.

I too, tasted in small measure the same medicine, being accused of 'defaming' Mr. Khadir' and of cowardice for publishing anonymously.

Ironically, those who accuse me of this crime, do so anonymously as well. Hmm.....

"This is a lot of nonsense spewed by a paranoid right-winger. It is full of the typical assumptions and leading one-liners used by gutter, red-neck writers. The accusations are ridiculous at the very least. Who wrote this crap? It is unsigned and, presumably, nobody would want to take credit for ranting and whining about nothing." -Anonymous comment

I'd like to offer a rebuttal, but there's isn't anything to rebut, it just a bunch of insults. I will say however, that I am not paranoid, even though I'm convinced people like this anonymous commenter are out to get me.
Finally, I 'd like to address the 'anonymous' issue, once and for all.

It's been over 165 years since a mob of English extremists attacked Parliament in old Montreal and burned it down. Since then, Anglos have generally preferred the pen, rather than the stick to further our opinions. The same cannot be said of a tiny minority of extremists who continue to this day to threaten violence against those with whom they disagree. RRQ, Jeunes Patriotes..etc.etc.

Now I know I'm going to get a bunch of comments about how Anglos violenced francophones throughout history, Acadians, General Amherst...blah...blah..blah.
But I'm talking about the here and now.

We are all familiar with the 'Galganov Effect" wherein the English rights proponent was literally driven out of the province by serious threats of violence.

I can assure those who are interested that I am not familiar to you politically or renowned in any manner. It doesn't matter who I am.

Without anonymity we'd never have benefited from 'Deep Throat,' the anonymous source who blew the cover off the Watergate Scandal in the Nixon era. More recently the importance of anonymous dissent is highlighted by the ongoing revelations about the war in Afghanistan by WikiLeaks. The Afghan War Diary is having the effect of profoundly changing the public's perception of the war.

If you don't like what I say, or what Eric Duhaime says, too bad for you. It's your prerogative to voice counter opinions and present facts that support an alternate view.

It's funny how Amir Khadir and company can argue for the right of Jaggi Singh to dissent, yet when we anglos do so, we are branded zealots and racists.

Enough. Let's lighten up!!!!

Just to prove that not all of we anglos are a blithering band of racists, let's enjoy this video prepared in response to the Anglo Society's campaign against the French language in New Brunswick.
Enjoy and Happy weekend!!
Bonne fin de semaine à tous!!!!!

Minister Blindsided by her Own Education Department

It was somewhat amusing to see Quebec's education minister, Michelle Courchesne  do cartwheels to undo the damage caused by her own department, which pulled a Laval private elementary school's operating license just a few short weeks before the start of the new school year. The department sent letters to parents telling them to make other arrangements for the fall term because the school was contravening  several department rules and that those problems were so egregious that it was necessary to close the school. Link

First things first. The school outperforms almost anything in the public sector and students are typically a year ahead of their public school counterparts academically. By the way, the school receives no subsidy from the Quebec education department.

In explaining it's decision to close the school, the department outlined a litany of problems, most of which were pure nonsense, added to the complaint sheet solely to hide the real motivation, the fact that the school teaches too much English.

Some of these complaints were patently foolish, including the charges that the  l'Académie lavalloise was;
Using unqualified teachers
The school seems to be doing a good job even if its true. Perhaps public schools could use a dose of theses type of unqualified teachers.
Wait a second! The Journal de Montreal reports that in 2008 there were 2,400 unqualified teachers teaching in the public system, some of which held only a high school leaving certificate! LINK
Le Devoir published a sad, yet hilariously ironic story about a phenomenally talented and successful Latin teacher who was forced out of his job because of credentials. He was replaced by a 'qualified' teacher' who spoke no Latin. Link(French)
Using unapproved teaching materials
Perhaps the education department should consider switching over to what the school is using. It's clear that they are more successful.
Overcharging Parents
It's a private school, for God's sake. If the parents don't like the price...well.
The school doesn't offer teacher 'Pedagogical days'
Teachers who don't like it can leave.
The school doesn't present standardized report cards
But the marks are higher....of course that doesn't count.

HERE'S THE REAL REASON FOR THE ATTACK BY THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT;

The school offers 30% of it curriculum in English
Did you know that it's against the education department's policy to allow any English at all in a French kindergarten, or in the first few years of primary school as well. This progressive attitude is based on the notion that children become 'confused' and the learning of English penalizes their ability to master French, a laughable concept that is rejected by educators around the world!

The Académie lavalloise is making a mockery of this notion and for that reason the education department decided that the school had to be stopped and stopped fast.

There are at least half a dozen Hasidic Jewish day schools that are in default of education ministries rules and they have been so for years and years. They have been warned over and over again to make changes. The schools have ignored the ministry and continue to operate. Why no action?

Because nobody cares what a bunch of English religious fanatics teach their children. They don't affect the mainstream.

As you can well imagine the parents of the affected students hit the roof and caused such a media stink that the minister herself rushed to meet the parents and calm the waters.

An interim solution was offered wherein the school would stay open, but would address the 'problems.'
The school remains defiant that it will continue to offer 30% of its curriculum in English and will use loopholes like teaching the English portion 'outside' regular school hours to do so.
Where there's a will there's a way.

I am reminded of the early Christians who were persecuted by the Romans and were forced to teach their children in secret classrooms!

The demand that English be abandoned remains the sticking point, because the school continues to put paid to the myth that learning English in some way diminishes the mastery of French. Students of Académie lavalloise consistently score higher in French than their public school counterparts, so there!

And that is just plain unacceptable!