Bruins' Fans More Passionate than Habs'

It'll take a little time getting used to Julien in Habs attire

It would have been easy to write a blog piece slagging the Canadiens' for choosing another francophone coach but the reality is that hockey is a business and hockey in Montreal demands a French-speaking coach, an essential element in communicating with its unilingual majority base.

It fell to Rejean Tremblay, longtime sportswriter and resident anglo-basher of the Journal de Montreal to put it plainly.

“I thought that Michel Therrien would make it through this storm. But his friend Marc Bergevin had the opportunity to get his hands on a high-caliber coach, a francophone and a man who had just worked with Carey Price and Shea Weber at the World Cup and Sochi Olympics."
Claude Julien was a great gift by becoming available. And when Marc Bergevin approached the Boston Bruins on Sunday night or Monday morning for permission to negotiate with Julien, it was over for Michel Therrien.”

Happily in Claude Julien the Habs have found somebody that fits that bill to a tee, he is superbly competent and someone with a proven track record and more importantly...speaks French.

Mercifully, the Therrien era is over, with management finally admitting that which was plainly evident for over a year. Clearly the Canadiens were waiting for the 'right' replacement to appear and pounced once Julien became free.

The writing was on the wall for the Canadiens for sometime after their lost last year and although the
Canadiens started the season with a bang, the team started losing it far before injuries took their toll.
I remember attending a family function in New York the night they got bombed by Nashville 10-0, to the astonishment and bewilderment of the guests, of which a large component of the invitees were Montrealers and ex-pat-Montrealers, all Habs fans. It was then I knew the Canadiens were in trouble.
How a team that had such an impressive won/lost record could collapse in a panic so badly was more than just a fluke or one off. It was a question of character and leadership. Losing a game badly happens to every team, but limiting the damage and keeping the score down is what character is about.
In reaction to the shelling Therrien seemed angry and more importantly panicked and lost, like a failing general who freezes in the face of a successful enemy attack.
When he allowed his second string goaltender Al Montoya to dangle in the wind instead of doing the merciful thing by pulling him(something every other coach in the league would do) Therrien displayed a vengeful and cruel streak, something that marked his coaching career, sarcastic remarks and withering stare-downs.

There are two types of teams, those which rise in the face of adversity and those which collapse, Therrien led the latter. Everyone knew Therrien had to go last year in the face of that monumental collapse, one which the complacent media accepted as predicated solely by the injury to Carey Price.
The truth was that Price's replacement, Mike Condon didn't play that badly and could never realistically been made the goat responsible for the whole team's collapse, but the right coach wasn't available and so Bergevin bit his lip, brazened it out and hoped for the best.
How'd that work out?
The fans and the media accepted the inaction on the coaching front all without an uproar, something that shouldn't happen in any hockey town worth its salt. It wouldn't have happened in Boston.

Montreal fans like to think of themselves as the most passionate, knowledgeable and sophisticated followers in the league and to that all I can say is BULLSHIT!!!
Montreal fans are more like parents, who encourage the team's efforts no matter what and whom accept a good effort as good enough.
Not so Bruins fans, who may as a group be smaller, but are every bit as knowledgeable and passionate, and more importantly fiercely competitive and demanding.
The devoted Bruins fans would have eviscerated Therrien long before he had a chance to screw up the team so badly. The outcry in Boston for Julien's firing was based not on competence but results, something the Bruins fans demand.

I like to read the fan boards to get a sense of what the prevailing mood is vis-a-vis the NHL and I promise you the Bruins discussion site is the one I return to time after time for its passion and surprisingly entertainment value.
 HF Boards -Bruins
Here fans agonize in real time as the game progresses and wax eloquent once it is over. The comments are vicious, strange, sarcastic, caustic and always wildly entertaining, especially after a Bruins loss.
Bruins fans demand success, Montreal fans don't.

I cruised this Bruins site to get the reaction of the Boston fans to the Julien signing and was surprised that the usual sarcasm wasn't on display where I expected the someone to comment that the Canadiens were settling for sloppy seconds, but it wasn't the case.
The vast majority of comments were favourable to Julien's coaching ability and most were disappointed that the Habs got a hold of him. The entertaining part were the many comments lambasting the Bruins management for giving permission to Julien to go to Montreal while under contract to the Bruins, in order to save half a year's salary.
The old cheapskate reputation of Bruins management is legendary in Boston.

Montreal does in fact have a very poor fan base, where the city and indeed the province can muster support for but one professional team. The pitiful attendance at the last World Junior Hockey Championship. tournament in Montreal was a testament to that support. Apologist Montreal sportswriter Stu Cowen blamed high ticket prices for the debacle of having just  8,366 show up at the 21,273-seat Bell Centre for the bronze-medal game between Russia and Sweden.
I wonder if the $50 minimum ticket was really the problem and had the price been reduced to $25, would the attendance been double?  I doubt it and at any rate the tournament would not have been ahead revenue-wise. The reality is that Montreal fans are cheap and one-dimensional.

Boston Bruins fans and indeed all Boston fans  shame Montreal in their avid support of professional sports with the Celtics, Reds, Bruins and Patriots all enjoying unlimited success. Montreal can muster support but for one team and for all intents and purposes are basically a sports one-trick pony. The Boston support for four major professional teams comes from a population base that is but 15% higher than Montreal's.

Montreal in fact is a poor city where inhabitants don't have the disposable income to support more than one major professional sports team. The vaunted perennial sold-out Bell Centre for Habs games is more a function of corporate sales, where companies own most of the season tickets and all the private loges. At almost all games the legion of scalpers in front of the Bell Centre is legendary and tickets can be had almost always below cost. Yup... below cost.
Compare that to Boston, Toronto or New York (Rangers)  where I remember paying in the neighbourhood of $US500 for two tickets, 17 rows up, from one of the very few scalpers in front of Madison Square Gardens.
The Canadiens remain a superb form of cheap entertainment for the legions of fans who follow the team on television, a welcome distraction in the dark and frigid winter months, but the success of the ratings speak to the fact that the entertainment is almost free. 

Another myth is how well the Canadiens give back to the community and how avant-guard the team is at innovation.  Not true and Not true.
Like most other NHL teams the Canadiens hold a charity raffle at each home game called the  50/50 (where half the money goes to charity and half to the winning ticket). In some NHL cities a designated charity is the beneficiary of the winnings but in Montreal as in some other NHL cities, the money goes to its own foundation, in this case, the Montreal Canadiens Children's Charity and this to the tune of one million dollars a year. The foundation also raises money through silent auction, golf tournaments and other fundraising events with the money funding projects like outdoor skating rinks in underprivileged  neighbourhoods, where the Canadiens organization gets all the credit and the fans who paid for it, none of the recognition.
A good deal for the Habs and I dare say a more cynical observer than I might consider the foundation a fan-funded marketing instrument.
The charity raises about five million dollars a years but spends almost half on expenses. All the fundraising activities are duly noted on the foundation website, but the actual contribution to the charity by the Canadiens or the ownership group is strangely absent. It seems like in all endeavours that the Habs engage in, it is the fans who pay.
By the way, the average amount wagered each game on the 50/50 is about $50,000 in Montreal and $150,000 in Vancouver. The average pool at an Edmonton Eskimo football game is also in the $125,000 range and a lucky fan once claimed half of a $700,000 pot. 

So how cheap are Montreal fans?
Well count the hats thrown onto the ice after a hat trick.... it is downright sad.

Forget the myth that the Canadiens are special and that their fans the best. The popularity of the Canadians outside the city is more a testament to how many Anglos have fled to scattered North American parts, yet remain a fan to their hometown team.

It's Time For PQ to Retire

René Levesque would not be amused at the new PQ

The Parti Quebecois has morphed into that aging film star who hangs around too long, well after his popularity has expired, a has-been forced to scrounge for bit parts. All the Botox and all the face-lifts won't change the fact that an over-the-hill actor who overstays his welcome and is hoping for better times is patently delusional.

Now many have predicted the death of the Parti Quebecois only to have the party regain some electoral strength, confounding the experts and convincing us that the PQ is forever, albeit living through different periods of popularity, ups and downs but forever a fixture in Quebec politics.

But it seems that like the aging actor, time has run out for the PQ and like an over-the-hill diva, the best exit is a dignified retirement.
One only has to look at the pitiful example of the diminished Bloc Quebecois, whose few members prattle around Parliament in Ottawa, excluded, irrelevant and ignored, yet delusionally unaware of their situation, like the boob who leaves the bathroom  trailing a length of toilet paper, a laughingstock who marches on, oblivious to the snickers of the surrounding onlookers.

Jean-Francois Lisée, the latest iteration of PQ leader is telling all who will listen that the party is not the PQ of our grandfathers, it is new and improved, but it is in fact essentially no different from a consumer product that changes it packaging (but not its content) in relation to falling sales.

And so we are being told the PQ is shelving the sovereignty option for at least two terms, with the old PQ stalwart and ex-Premier Bernard Landry opining that perhaps the option should be put off for at least three mandates, which means three terms of PQ government, something not likely to happen at in the foreseeable future.

So toxic is the sovereignty notion that the essence of the PQ is challenged, because if they forgo the sovereignty option as many have suggested, what is left?

First let's get the numbers out of the way.
A CROP poll for La Presse sounding 18-24 year olds found that the PQ had on 16% support and that 69% would vote no in a referendum on sovereignty, a new and catastrophic low.
This is the generation that is going to replace the aging boomers that now make up the bulk of the PQ membership and so the future is grim.

The reality is that conditions over the 40 year history of the PQ have changed so dramatically that Quebecers don't feel overly oppressed and put upon.
The fact is that life is pretty good being a Canadian and the risk of sovereignty just plain not worth it.
It is that simple, there remains no viable road to sovereignty.

Many commentators and indeed members of the PQ itself are openly discussing getting rid of the founding principle of the PQ, that is the holy grail of sovereignty.
But a PQ without sovereignty is like a milkshake without milk, a pizza without bread or a hockey game without a puck.

It can't work.

Should the PQ abandon the sovereignty option, the core hardliners, albeit fewer and fewer, will never accept a political landscape where no political party is supporting and indeed militating for Quebec independence and so sure as shooting another iteration of  the now defunct Option nationale - Pour l'indépendance du Québec founded by Jean-Martin Aussant, a party suicidal in its pursuit of the full independence of Quebec will re-appear.
Even if there is zero chance of electoral success, hardliners will still support such a party because it is representing their core beliefs, even if that support bleeds PQ votes and helps return the Liberals to power, over and over again.

As for the PQ without sovereignty, we had a taste of what that 'progressive' government might be like in Pauline Marois' last fling at the head of a PQ 'lite' government, where the gross incompetence in just about every legislative pursuit was manifestly evident.

The political arena is crowded enough with three major parties splitting the vote and where no party is likely to win a clear majority of the popular vote. But the more parties there are, the better for the Liberals who can and do win majority governments with support in the 35% zone.
Another left-wing separatist party will just about seal the fate of those who want to see an end to the Liberal party domination.

The very best thing the PQ can do is to preserve its dignity is to retire, but like the Bloc it is likely to put the electorate through a prolonged death rattle which will last from ten to fifteen years until the old guard dies off.

The PQ can't win with sovereignty and can't survive without it, and that my friends is the long and the short of it.

Is Quebec Racist?

Nothing but nothing gets the dander up of Quebec francophones faster than being called out in the English press outside Quebec and even worst of all in the American press.

Quebec anglophones bleating about language or racism in the Gazette or on CJAD are roundly ignored, the rationale being that nobody is listening anyways, but when the criticism leaks out over the border it is as if all Hell breaks loose.

Back in 1992 Montreal's most un-favourite author Mordecai Richler wrote "Oh Canada! Oh Quebec" a scathing account of Quebec society dripping with sarcasm and venom, portraying Quebec society in the most painful light.
Now Richler hadn't treated Quebec society any differently than he did his own community.
His warts and all accounts of the Montreal Anglo-Jewish community and individual characters was comedic, but painfully sarcastic. Many of his Jewish brethren held him in disdain for his unflattering stereotypical and perhaps burlesque characterizations.
So the francophone community wasn't prepared for the 'Richler' treatment and the criticism stung particularly hard, with many commentators believing Richler to be a racist.
The book may have passed unnoticed but a related article in the Atlantic, (an American magazine) where Richler described Quebec society as racist and antisemitic set off the howls of indignity across Quebec media.
The French media, unfamiliar with Richler saw the attack as a smear and went ape-shit over the book and the article. Some went so far as to demanding the book be banned and some called for his prosecution as a hate-monger.

The real hurt was that Richler was washing the dirty laundry outside Quebec, something that the Quebec francophone media could not abide, that is, having Quebec reputation's tarnished internationally.

It fell to Louise Beaudoin, a Quebec minister to do a little damage control in a segment on Sixty Minutes (an American television news magazine) which served only to exacerbate the  problem. A sarcastic Morley Safer embarrassed the minister over the language issue in a openly mocking manner. A modern media consultant would likely have told Beaudoin not to do the interview, but the rage in Quebec over Richler's accusations needed to be rebutted, not matter what.

This phenomenon was repeated when Jan Wong wrote an unfaltering article in the Globe and Mail blaming a racist Quebec society for the spate of school shootings. The article caused another uproar in the French media as did a series of articles by Barbara Kay entitled Kebecistan,  another slam which described Quebec as antisemitic.

But the francophone media and Quebec nationalists remain steadfast in their belief that Quebec is not racist, or at least no more racist than those outside the province, but English Canada and Quebec anglophones and minorities are not so sure.

And so the questions remains.... IS QUEBEC RACIST?

The issue has once again bubbled up to the surface in light of the Quebec mosque shooting despite the media's attempt to characterize the shooting as terrorism.
The description of the shooting as terrorism is rather convenient, as if the attack was something that the entire world suffers regularly and nothing out of the ordinary and certainly something Quebec society could not be held accountable for.
I am flabbergasted that nobody in the media attempted to challenge this outright lie and fiction, because the shooting had nothing to do with terrorism at all and everything to do with being a hate crime.

Now you might recall the mass shooting in Charleston, S.C. in 2015, where one Dylan Roof entered a Black Methodist church and callously killed nine people while injuring others. Roof wasn't a terrorist and was never described as one, he was a white supremacist and racist murderer and as such was charged and found guilty of 33 counts of a hate crime.

It is the exact same crime that Alexandre Bissonnette committed in the Quebec city mosque... a hate crime.
Despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Philippe Couillard calling the Bissonnette shooting an act of terrorism, he was not charged with terrorism because it wasn't.
It is an important distinction, because it leads us to no other conclusion that Bissonnette was a Quebec version of Dylan Roof, a Quebecois de Souche supremacist, a racist murderer quite possibly a product of a certain segment of Quebec society.
Now just because everybody in the media hides this fact or denies it outright because it is too painful to admit, doesn't mean it isn't true. Once again Quebec refuses to face the truth.

Remember the wild outrage at the Maclean's article by Patrick Patriquin  entitled  Quebec: The most corrupt province.  The entire French media went crazy at the insinuation with the Quebec Press council going so far as to unanimously blame the publication for  "a lack of journalistic rigour." Even Thomas Mulcair called the article a "contemptible smear" and shades of "Quebec Bashing" were raised all over the political and journalistic fields.

But as you know, the charges turned out to be quite true as was revealed in testimony at the Charbonneau Crime Commission which laid bare a shocking and widespread organized system of corruption that cut across all political lines.

So just because Quebec media rises in unison to deny and condemn any talk of Quebec racism, it doesn't mean it isn't true.

Now in the light of the Quebec mosque shooting another op-ed piece is causing much angst in Quebec, that because it was published in  the Washington post, outside of Quebec
Why does ‘progressive’ Quebec have so many massacres?  provoked so much ire and hand-ringing  even the Montreal Gazette felt a need to rebut its claims.
Mario Beaulieu Bloq Quebecois MP and snivelling cry-baby put forward a Parliamentary motion in Ottawa condemning the so-called Quebec-bashing in the article, but of course it got nowhere since it required unanimous consent. Mr Beaulieu is so roundly hated in Parliament that if he put forward a motion congratulating the Queen on her 65th anniversary of her reign, it wouldn't pass either...but I digress.

But the question that Quebec refuses to debate is whether Quebec obsession with language and culture is a breeding ground for racism and because the media within refuses to debate the issue it is hard to come to valid conclusions and so it falls to those outside Quebec to comment, much to the disapproval of Quebec.

Now I have a question for those in the media in Quebec.
Why are we not seeing any hard data on racism in Quebec? Why no discussion on so important an issue?
Is it because we fear the results?

One of the few polls on the subject of tolerance was taken ten years ago in 2007 where a Léger Marketing survey on tolerance showed that 59% of Quebecers were mildly or moderately racist. This methodology of survey was immediately attacked by the usual suspects and even by the then Premier Jean Charest who pooh-poohed the results.  Link

In a more recent survey in 2015, Léger found that 20% of Quebecers were racist and that more than half had a negative view of Muslims and Sikhs, while 37% had a poor opinion of Jews and 27% had a poor opinion of Blacks  . Link

Now in light of the Quebec mosque shooting a lot has been said of "Radio Poubelle" (Trash Radio) a group of Quebec city radio commentators that are accused of fomenting racism and hate, this from no less than Premier Couillard.
But the question we all must ask is why are these radio shows that promote racism and hate so darn popular?

Montreal's Idiot Mayor

Living in the suburbs, I didn't have a vote in Montreal's last mayoral election, but if I did, I would have burned my ballot rather than vote for the motley crew of candidates led by the insufferable blowhard and eventual winner Denis Coderre.

The most dangerous of politicians are those who get into the game early in life, with little or no practical or life experience and who decide to make politics their life's calling. These are the politicians who are woefully detached from reality and usually end up with a cavalier attitude when it comes to the public purse.

As a teen and young man Coderre was what we Canadians refer to as a 'keener' joining every club and organization he could get into and participating in all manner of contests. Not only was he a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Optimist Club, he was also president of the Club Richelieu Henri-Bourassa, another fraternal organization in Montreal-Nord.  This habit of joining and participating in all manner of social, political and educational organizations has followed him into the mayor's office, but more on that  later.

Denis Coderre is a man of dogged determination, he had already lost four times before being elected as federal Liberal MP from Montreal in 1996. Up until then he had been a tireless liberal party hack and hadn't known a life outside politics. His election was the result of his never give-up determination and the fulfillment of his lifelong dream of elected office.
It's just too bad that determination and ego is just about all that that he excels at and as a politician, working on the image and legacy of Denis Coderre is more important to him than the job at hand.

Now one of the prerequisites for a good mayor whether a small town or giant metropolis is the ability to be a solid manager where the mayor's most important civic responsibilities are to provide for public security, public transportation, infrastructure, snow and garbage removal as well as the maintenance of parks and recreation facilitates and this at the most reasonable cost.
Unfortunately, it is a sad fact that Montreal's crooked city administrations actually ran the city better and at a lower cost than the out-of-touch dreamers like Denis Coderre who is the re-incarnation of Jean Drapeau, a mayor that tirelessly worked to make Montreal an international sensation, at a terrible cost to taxpayers.
A testament to Drapeau's ego, the infamous Olympic stadium stands as a sad reminder of what ego and incompetence can accomplish. Unfortunately for us, Coderre is fast erecting his monuments, a reminder to future generations of the sad Montreal tradition of idiot mayors whose motto can best be represented by that famous line supposedly uttered by Marie Antoinette ....."Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"(Let them eat cake) a line forever representative of a politician with zero understanding of what taxpayers need or want.
And so our present mayor is channelling Drapeau, dreaming of making Montreal an international sensation, massaging his own ego along the way, and ultimately sticking taxpayers with a bloated bill for what amounts to nothing tangible.

Now gentle reader, before you object that Coderre was duly elected and thus Montreal deserves what it gets, it is useful to remember that the municipal election that gave us Coderre had a bloated field of largely incompetent, immature and unloved candidates. Coderre was elected with just 32% of votes cast in an election that saw a voter turnout of 43%, meaning that less than 14% of eligible voters opted for him, not exactly a rousing endorsement. It's no wonder that Coderre was booed when presenting a trophy at the World Junior Hockey tournament at the Bell Centre.

 Panem et Circenses
 When Coderre was  first elected, he decided that Montrealers, disillusioned, fatigued and embarrassed by the Charbonneau Commission's revelations of widespread municipal corruption needed a cathartic and restorative ego boost and decided that the best way to accomplish this task was to throw an expensive civic party.
It's like having your parents throw you a party in order to help you forget the pain of flunking your mid-terms.
Does that sound like a plan to you?

And so Coderre decided to treat Montreal's 375th anniversary of its founding as an epic event, planning a year long celebration that will cost upwards of $200 million.
This in a city where potholes, rotten water pipes, aging tunnels, crumbling bridges and overpasses abound.
This nonsense is the very embodiment of the old Latin phrase of "Panem et Circenses" (Bread and Circuses)  defined as "extravagant entertainment, offered as an expedient means of pacifying discontent or diverting attention."

The 375th anniversary celebration orgy of spending has been well-documented and perhaps those interested in an account of the nebulous and wasteful spending programs can read a well-written story in the Globe & Mail entitled Montreal’s $200M birthday spending spree

Now, of all his foolhardy projects nothing irks me more than the electric car race to be held in the streets of Montreal à la Monte Carlo. Formula E race cars will tool around the streets of Ville-Marie borough for absolutely no good reason with an attached cost to make the streets compatible with the race, almost $17 million and counting.  All this despite the fact that the city owns a scant-used world class race track where the Formula One race is held for just a few days each year and where the city is committed to spend $34 million in upgrades.

But the foolish spending spree isn't the only thing that qualifies our mayor as an idiot, although on its own it would certainly meet the threshold.
He is on a Don Quixote like mission to make Montreal great again (sound familiar?)
He has unsuccessfully begged the Pope for a visit to celebrate the 375th birthday party next year and created an Order of Montreal, to celebrate greatness in citizens. He is petitioning Ottawa to make a case at the UN to make Mount Royal a World Heritage site, without considering that even New York's Central Park doesn't qualify.

All of this is more important than enacting a simple city bylaw that would require snow removal dump trucks to install side panels in order to prevent pedestrian accidents that occur regularly during snow clearing operations. On this issue Coderre has decided to wait on Ottawa to create safety norms, he has more important things to do.

And of course our mayor thinks of the city as his own, a firm believer in the politics of France's Louis XVI, who told the royal court "L'etat c'est moi!"(I am the state) Casually referring to Montreal's top cop as "my police chief" Coderre thought nothing of siccing the police onto a reporter who asked an embarrassing question.

Coderre is a populist, a politician that puts his finger up in the air and decides policy based on what will make him more attractive.
He stands for more bike paths, choking an already impossible congested  traffic situation and is against any pipeline bringing western crude to Quebec because he is an environmentalist, even though he authorized the dumping of millions of litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence river.

Coderre chatting in Iran under the watchful portrait Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamani.

And off course there is his incessant globe-trotting, recently visiting Dakar, Shanghai, Mexico, Stockholm, Haiti, Argentina, Columbia, Beirut, France(5 visits) , Japan, Chile, China, Ecuador, Israel and Jordan.
He is celebrating the announcement of a new non-stop flight to  China by taking a round-trip visit just for the heck of it.

But the most stupid of visits was to Teheran where he went as president of some moronic fraternal mayoral organization. Link

Canada doesn't even have diplomatic relations with a country that discriminates openly against women, gays and where dissidents  routinely disappear, a country that is the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism.

But Coderre is undeterred, he accepts criticism like water off a duck's back.

Spending other people's money comes naturally to this utterly self-important bag of stupidity

I fervently hope for a good old crooked mayor to take over.
Perhaps Michael Applebaum will be out of jail in time to challenge Coderre and set Montreal finances in order, with just a small slice of payola for himself, a fair trade off, all things considered.

It reminds me of the old joke wherein a man said his credit card was stolen but he decided not to
report it because the thief was spending less than his wife did.

PQ Badly Damaged in Quebec City Shooting

Quebec humiliated by Mosque attack

In a recent post I reminded readers of the old quote that says that "it's an ill wind that blows nobody good" and so it is that the tragic mass shooting that occurred in the Quebec city mosque, might actually pay unintended dividends to the embattled Muslim minority and wreck immeasurable damage on the Parti Quebecois.

The mass killing has left Quebecers badly shaken and in some respect, deeply humiliated that one of their own, a Quebecois de souche (pure-blood) could perpetrate such a senseless act of violence not only upon his direct victims but in a larger sense, the entire  Quebec Muslim community.

Mass shooting and other terrorist acts seldom accomplish anything except wanton death, injury and destruction. The goal of theses barbaric acts is to frighten and somehow cow societies into falling into step with terrorist ideology.
In countries that suffer or have suffered long-term terrorism, like Israel and Northern Ireland, repeated acts of barbarism serve only to harden the resolve of the victims. In fact terrorism is the ultimate senseless act because it is almost always counter-productive.

Although we are unaware of the motive (at this point) of the Quebec City mosque shooter, if his goal was to somehow turn Quebec society away from Muslims, I cannot think of a stupider act of lunacy, because his actions will have 100% opposite effect.

Watching the reaction of politicians, community activists and reading the many articles and posts on social media, it's plain to see that Quebec society is going through a painful bout of hand-wringing and humiliation where blame for the shooting is being attributed to a societal problem brought about by the painful and acrimonious debate over identity, the 'Charter of Values,' and assimilation, which polarized Quebec into pro and anti camps vis-a-vis the Muslim community.

In reaction to the mosque shooting  a vivid debate has unfolded in the French media with some commentators blaming others for allegedly instilling hatred, particularly on the talk radio scene in Quebec City known collectively as "Radio Poubelle" (Trash Radio.) Even the Premier got into the fray, chiding un-named media types for using harmful words in relation to Muslims.

But as I said, even tragedies have unforeseen benefits and so Mr. Couillard can shelve plans to give in to that portion of Quebec society who want some sort of limitations on religious expression in public life. It was a debate that the Liberals never really wanted but felt compelled to take some action on in order to counter the vocal nationalistic hounds of the PQ who sought to make identity politics a stepping stone to power.

Incredibly, it is also the Muslim community that will benefit from the tragic circumstances and it is the PQ that will be devastated by having the wedge issues of accommodations and secularism, in other words, Muslim-bashing, ripped from under their feet.
 
In one fell swoop this terrorist act has transformed the public debate away from the issue of the alleged cultural threat that Muslims pose to Quebec society to the issue of the threat to the Muslim minority by extremists egged on by the identity politics of the PQ.
Doubling down on a losing hand, a bewildered Jean François Lisée, leader of the PQ, told reporters in a news conference that the debate on secularism and identity remains legitimate, but if he and the PQ are hoping that the public will soon forget this tragic attack and return to business as usual of Muslim-bashing, they have another think coming. He further went on to say that he hoped nobody (Liberals) would take advantage of the tragedy.
HA! Like that's not going to happen.

Separatist apologists like Richard Martineau of the Journal de Montreal are blaming the shooting on the 'alt.right' movement, while others like Amir Khadir are blaming Donald Trump for the climate of fear, choosing to ignore the climate of hostility towards Muslims that exists in Quebec in the nationalistic and separatist constituencies.

And so the PQ  now finds itself between a rock, a rock and a hard place.
It  was forced to publicly shelve the idea of a referendum in the next election campaign because even the party stalwarts realize that it would be suicide. A recent poll has 70% of under-thirties against independence so time is not exactly on their side.
Since the economy is blossoming under the Couillard government with revenue up and unemployment way down, ( in fact Quebec added more new jobs last year than the other nine provinces combined) there is no economic argument for change that the PQ can make except perhaps to embrace a socialist anti-austerity position, an issue that appeals only to the unionists and students, those who have never voted Liberal anyways.

So the debate over accommodations and assimilation  is something that the PQ planned on building a electoral platform upon along with the only other issue that it can count on, protection of the French language. If the PQ goes ahead with its pursuit of identity politics, they will be crushed, the public is no longer in the mood for it.

The agony is not over, the upcoming trial which is months away will likely keep the story alive for quite a while and like a band-aid that repeatedly gets ripped off in a bad dream, the shooting is going to hurt the PQ day after day, as the party gets saddled as the scapegoat for engendering anti-Muslim sentiment in Quebec.
After all.... Somebody has to pay.