Thursday, March 28, 2013

French versus English Volume 79

This week in corruption

Bernard Trepannier....  Monseuir 3% ...Mr. Charm!
The Charbonneau Crime Commission finally got to hear from  Bernard Trepannier,  the man known as 'Monsieur 3%,' (because he allegedly demanded a 3% kickback on each contract.)  He along with Frank Zampino have been named by other witnesses as the kingpins in the corruption scandal that envelops Montreal city hall.
Trepannier's testimony was anxiously awaited as commission lawyers were prepared to rip him apart, convinced they would lay bare his shenanigans.
Unfortunately for them, the slippery 74 year-old Trepannier was more than a match.
He was extremely deferential  and charming, especially to the Commissioner Charbonneau as he defended himself superbly.
"Madame la presidente,  I did not have sex with that women!"

Trepannier told the commission he was a simple fundraiser who just sold tables to political fundraising events and as for being the mastermind of a huge kickback scheme that traded contracts for cash, nothing could be farther from the truth!

His testimony looked credible and unrehearsed, as he conceded little misdeeds, but when accused of accepting $100,000 in brown envelops, he was adamant ...:"Never happened!"

And so Trepannier lays bare the reality that notwithstanding testimony to the contrary, there is no hard evidence to support those claims and Trepannier knows it, such is the anonymous nature of cash.
He practically dared the commission to prove he received such monies, knowing full well they couldn't.
Brilliant!

His charm, wit, lapses in memory and gripping story-telling, charmed the pants off Madame Charbonneau and even the usually gruff commission inquisitor-lawyer, Denis Gallant, who was reduced to asking the witness if he really believed the stuff he was saying, shaking his head in amazement and disbelief at the consummate skills of a bullshitter extraordinaire.
Great fun!
Mr. Trepannier is awaiting trial for his alleged involvement in a land scandal whereby a developer was sold a City of Montreal property for a fraction of its value.
If the crown doesn't have wiretap or documentary evidence and is depending on cross-examination of Mr. Trepannier to expose his alleged misdeeds, they are indeed in deep trouble!

Gilles Duceppe recycled -one more time

Pauline Marois may be a bust as a Premier, but as a political animal and survivalist she ranks up there with the best.
Mindful of the Don Corleone's maxim of 'keeping friends close and enemies closer,' she has co-opted Gilles Duceppe with a job, this after knifing him last year when he tried to go after her leadership post. I can't say who is snakier, but no matter, the retired Bloc leader will add a per diem of between $750-$1500 a day to his $140,000 Ottawa pension while he cruises the province holding audiences with mooches complaining about the unfairness of Harper's new Employment Insurance rules.
The whole thing is a partisan whine-a-thon designed to boost support for sovereignty by having EI done-me-wrong stories of hardship play out endlessly each news cycle.

"Our way of life  is being destroyed"...blah...blah...
"The regions will be de-populated" ...blah...blah
"A federalist plot to destabilize Quebec"...blah...blah

At least CAQ leader Francois Legault called it for what it is, a cynical attempt by Pauline to solidify her position and mend PQ fences on the taxpayers dime. Read a story about the appointment.

In other Gilles Duceppe New;

"Gilles Duceppe is the gift that keeps on taking. During 20 years in Ottawa he worked selflessly to destroy the country that made him, to undermine the system that paid him, and to break up the society that gave him the opportunity to enjoy a lifetime of security by complaining endlessly about how unappreciated he was.
Now he has been recognized by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation for a lifetime achievement award at its 14th annual recognition of wasteful government spending." National Post

Language hurting Montreal Tourism

"The head of Tourism Montreal says language uproars like Pastagate are hurting the city’s international image. With the start of tourist season, local merchants are worried about what the impact will be on business. “We use to be overrun by people from Toronto and southern Ontario and now we don't see that much of them anymore,” said Jack Kowalsky, from Saute Moutons Jet Boating.
Kowalsky has owned a jet-boat operation in the Old Port for 30 years—he says he can already feel a shift this early in the season.
“We're at the front lines of tourism and we talk to people from all over the world, and I just see a drop of Americans,” he continued. “If nobody’s going to speak English to them or be polite to them, this is definitely going to have a negative effect.”
He's not alone in his concern.
In a speech given to the Board of Trade yesterday, the head of Tourism Montreal said: “This ridiculous bickering looks troubling abroad, can we put aside the silly linguistic quarrels and work together in the interests of developing our city?” Link

Quebec finance minister predicts more equalization money from Ottawa

Balanced Budget?...Missed it by that much!
Quebec's finance Minister Nicolas Marceau admitted with the slowdown in the Quebec economy, government revenues will be down $250 million this year and over $500 million next year. But he still anticipates a balanced budget because of lower interests and because he anticipates, get this;
..... AN INCREASE OF $275 MILLION IN EQUALIZATION PAYMENTS FROM OTTAWA!
Good to know! Link{fr}

In commenting over the new federal budget, a furious Marceau claimed that the budget takes Quebec back 15 years.
Hmm....is that really such a bad thing?
Fifteen years ago Quebec was $100 billion less in debt, so I guess they really were the good old days!

In a television interview, the Minister also fumed over the new policy whereby Ottawa removed the special tax deduction for union based RRSP funds. The move affected Quebec's two largest unions whose funds represent 88% of the total invested in such funds across Canada.

The minister hissed that it was a plot by Ottawa to hurt Quebec because these funds helped build up Quebec industry.
But when the interviewer pointed out that only about 11% of the funds assets were invested in small or medium Quebec companies, with the bulk invested in blue chip stocks across North America, the minister quickly changed the subject. Ha!!

Incidentally, Maxime Bernier of the Conservatives explained that the added tax benefit was removed exactly for this reason and that the deduction represented an unfair advantage to these Quebec unions, which let's face it, the feds have not much use for.

Anglo doesn't mince words in presentation as he savages government committee studying Bill 14. 

Take the time to view this video, you'll definitely be rewarded. Although the intro is in French the important part is in English.
Irwin Rapoport doesn't mince words as he tells a Quebec government committee studying Bill 14, exactly what he thinks about Quebec's language policy.

All I can say is...WTF!



More harassment  from OQLF  

"Jean-François Lisée wants to do a little more than just talk about reaching out to Quebec’s Anglophones, he could do far worse than having a quiet word with NDG’s Sudipta Chakraborty after eating a meal in her west end Sherbrooke Street restaurant. While language and culture has a lot to do with NDG’s La Maison India, it’s an Indian restaurant, not a French restaurant, and aside from the usual polyglot mix of south-Asian languages that define more than a few of the city’s Indian restaurants, French has very little to do with an established and popular restaurant which is already known as a local taste sensation.
 “We could easily move to Toronto because we have family in Ontario, but I love Montreal and I love my restaurant,” said Chakraborty. “Of course, it’s my business, but now this restaurant has become a very big and important part of our lives.”
According to Chakraborty, trouble started when an OQLF (Office Québecoise de la Langue Française) agent visited her restaurant after someone complained about the size of the English letters on a sign that advertised her Sunday lunch “special.”  When the agent noticed that neither of the restaurant’s two waiters greeted her in French, further questions determined that although all of the restaurant’s six employees (including the two cooks who work in the restaurant’s basement kitchen) are bilingual, if not trilingual, none of them spoke French as a first or even a second language. A file was opened after which Chakraborty was forced to juggle all of her employees’ work schedules to accommodate the OQLF demands for a French presence within her restaurant."
Read the rest of the story                                                                                                                                                    
Why is it the Montreal Canadiens are not subject to the same language harassment as the businesses above, in relation to English signage in their facilities?
Here's two signs shown on the documentary 24CH, a Bell Media puff piece being shown on cable.





Pasta-Chasers remain the butt of a world-wide joke......



Read a story about the video
Pastagate is still reverberating around the world, here's a story from Italy, published just yesterday that makes reference to the above video and savages Quebec over linguistic intolerance.
It isn't flattering.  Link{IT}
You can use Google translate to get the gist of the story, just paste the text into the box on the left and click on translate (Choose Italian to English)  GoogleTranslate,
Same thing for this story from Hungary which also shames Quebec over the video. Link{Hngr}

Odds'n ends

I don't know if the writer of this La Presse story sees the irony in a glowing report about how the town of Burlingtion, Vermont is trying to attract Quebec tourists by hiring summer part-time employees who can speak French.
Probably not...Link{fr}
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On Monday I wrote about vigile.net's resident xenophobe Rejean Labrie's posts wherein he describes his view of what characteristics makes up a good Quebeceker.
He must have been extremely pleased with that work as he has added more to the list  in another post; Link{fr}

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When Pasta-chasers collide
Gilles Proulx and Jean-Paul Perreault, two of the ten most important Pasta-chasers according to my blog piece Monday, got into an argument after the latter's French defense lobby group Impératif Français, named Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the militant ex-student leader, as some sort of award winner.
Mr. Proulx denounced the award, telling Perreault that if the Nadeau-Dubois has called on the students to march in defense of the French language, there wouldn't be more than 300 who showed up.
Hilariously, Perreault admitted that it was probably true, but that the movement is desperate to attract young people Link{fr}


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"It’s no joke! On April Fool’s Day, the Special Committee for Canadian Unity and PutBackTheFlag.com are hosting a comedy event to draw awareness to linguine…er…linguistic bullying.
The “pastagate”-based benefit will take place in front of Restaurant Buonanotte on St. Laurent Boulevard, where the infamous “pastagate” story began, throwing Quebec’s language police into hot water and making headlines around the world.

The event will take place between 6:00 and 10:00 pm.  Information is available online at www.pastagate.com. Tickets for the show start at $100 and the public is asked to bring boxes of pasta. Link


ATTENTION PASTA-CHASERS......REPEAT AFTER ME...

"Mul-ti-Cul-tur-a-lism!" 
 


HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!
BONNE FIN DE SEMAINE!...