If you ever needed a lesson on the motivation of politicians for self-preservation and aggrandizement to the detriment of their constituency, nothing can better illustrate the point than the shameful vote of our English MNAs in the National Assembly in favour of the ubiquitous anti BONJOUR-HI motion that has once again reared its ugly head in the National Assembly, as if once was not enough.Piqued that the not so gentle entreaty via a motion in November 2017 to discourage the BONJOUR-HI greeting was completely ignored, the National Assembly, including their English Kapos, decided to have another go at it again, likely to reap the same results.
Frustrated that a law banning BONJOUR-HI would be unconstitutional and that invoking the 'Notwithstanding Clause' would be infinitely more disastrous than Pizza-gate, frustrated politicians are reduced to begging through toothless National Assembly motions that are universally ignored.
If the affair was not so sad, it would be entirely laughable.
The real evilness of the motion is that it tries to perpetuate a myth, one painstakingly concocted and imposed by the OQLF and its political handlers that Montreal is a French city and a French city alone.
It is a fiction as silly as the fable of the emperor who believes he's wearing a fine set of clothes while parading around nude because he's been told that only fools cannot see the finery.
The reality is that east of Parc Avenue/Bleury, the part that includes the downtown core and everything that's interesting in the city, English is as prevalent as French and the language of choice in the tourist and hospitality industry.
A visit to downtown Montreal during Grand Prix weekend illustrates English as the Lingua Franca of the throngs of tourists and is what perhaps triggered the ire of the language zealots and the motion in the National Assembly.
The sad reality for French language defenders is that this English reality is true for the tourist hotspots in the entire world, including France where I was surprised that a taxi driver in Nice picked us up from the dock and immediately greeted us is very passable English. When I asked in French how he came to speak such good English, he was non-plussed and explained that it is an absolute must and that the first thing most tourists ask when hailing the cab is whether the cabbie speaks English.
I know it is tough for Quebec language militants to accept, but them's the rules.
For English MNAs like David Birnbaum who is the Liberal member from the one unofficially designated Jewish riding in Quebec, selling out the English is painfully easy because he knows that as a Liberal he'd be re-elected even if he joined al Qaeda.
Birnbaum, however, had a different take on the motion.Are you kidding me?
“Like our Liberal party, I can support every word in that motion,” Birnbaum said. “Also like my Liberal party I understand the true promotion of the French language is inclusive and forward-looking.”
Birnbaum, however, said he deliberately got up slowly for the vote because of what was not in the resolution, which he said seems to suggest the English community is an “enemy rather than an ally for the promotion of French.”
“To present the idea the sky is falling, our party understands that is not the case,” Birnbaum said. “But can we get to substance when it comes to the promotion of French?”
What a bunch of bullshit spoken by a political hack extraordinaire.
But the saddest was....
Kathleen Weil, the former Liberal minister responsible for the English-speaking community, said she stayed away (from the vote.ed) to avoid finding herself in the same situation as in 2017 where she was flooded with complaints about her voting in favour from voters in her riding.“I learned something,” Weil said.Yup, she didn't vote and wasn't shy to admit that she hid out during the vote in order to avoid the humiliation of voting against the English community.
Such is our merry gang of idiot representatives who nod up and down like toy bobbleheads.
But the sad reality in all this remains the obscene fiction perpetrated by our government, aided and abetted by a complicit media that Montreal is a French city only.
Begging merchants to keep up this fiction by imploring them not to greet customers in English is another obscene farce which includes the banning of English signs.
Sadly, our Anglo politicos are too busy betraying us, nurturing and protecting their personal position at the feeding trough.
We are in dire need of that fictional little boy in the fable who reminds the crowd by calling out loudly what is so painfully obvious, that is that this emperor is wearing no clothes.
Phil! Phil! Phil! How on God's green Earth does all this surprise you? You're acting like it's 1979 all over again! Sorry, Phil, it's now 40+ years past the hour, and John Ciaccia is long gone from politics. Is he even still alive? Who cares? He's a Kapo, Vile Weil is a Kapo, Yvonne James is a Kapo, they're all Kapos save for Richard French, Clifford Lincoln and Herbert Marx. They were the only ones willing to throw self-preservation out the window, although Lincoln just laterally moved into federal politics, who like many others, is eating out of both the federal and Quebec jurisdictional troughs and others who were in the real provincial legislative assemblies, with the superest of superannuations available to Canadians, times two.
ReplyDeleteWhat's happening is and was inevitable as death, taxes and French in Quebec. Minorities make up too small a number in Quebec to make a difference anymore. Eventually a separation referendum, if another ever happens, will likely succeed with minorities who see what Quebec is about subsequently leave.
I met a fellow last year from France, and I was shocked to see him in Toronto after having lived in Montreal at first for years. I think he got tired of Quebec, although when asked, he wanted to see what multiculturalism is in Toronto, the most diverse city in the world! Over 180 languages spoken, legally, and neighbourhoods where signs not only in English are tolerated, some with NO English or French whatsoever, and even some in French alone. THIS is an open, welcoming society; Quebec is not.
CASE CLOSED!
It always comes down to 1 thing in Quebec is the hatred for anything English and that Toronto is now a power house compared to Montreal that just sputters along
ReplyDeleteU know it, mi amigo! Too late to trade 401 for 101...the price differential for housing in the GTA has soared past anyplace in Quebec. Try the 417, or move to the Atlantics...or out west.
DeleteIn the meantime, Trudope...uhhhh...couldn't...uhhhh...put two words...uhhhh...together re...uhhhh...environmental sense in...Mont St. ...uhhhh....uhhhh...Hilaire, and he questions conservative governments that are...uhhhh...eating away at what's left of his shit-for-brains without Gerald the Putz Butts to put words in his mouth. How dare he...uhhh...question Albertans' loyalties about...uhhh....uhhh...ummm...Canada!
The QUEBECGovernment is seen by the Québécois at THEIR first voice. With Trudope at the helm, is it any wonder why?
Oh, yeah, and congrats to St. Louis on their 52-year-quest for the Stanley Cup. Let's hope the Raptors can achieve the same after 24 years. GO RAPS GO!!. Nice to see two city blocks in Montreal will be closed down to form Parc Jurassique!
Here's another fiction perpetrated by French supremacists/fascists in Quebec: that prior to the language laws (Bill 22 in 1974 and Bill 101 in 1977), unilingual English predominated on commercial signs throughout the Montreal area.
ReplyDeleteNothing could be further than the truth: French was virtually everywhere.
And the ONLY study I know of on this subject was one done by Guy Labelle, published in 1970. Here is a reference to it in the book "The Reconquest of Montreal":
"A 1970 survey by Guy Labelle estimated that 35 percent of the commercial signs in Metropolitan Montreal were in French only and 11.8 in English only;..."
I think we can safely assume that the remaining 53.2% of signs were almost all bilingual; that is, with both French and English (with probably less than 1% of signs in a language other than French or English in ethnic areas).
So that works out to be 53.2% plus 35% = 88.2% of commercial signs in 1970 Montreal that had French on them...in a city with WAY more English-speaking residents then than today (2019).
This is hardly encroaching unilingual English now, is it?
Source: https://books.google.ca/books?id=1CwhnBqgSpwC&pg=PA200&dq=reconquest+of+montreal+%22guy+labelle%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifi7b7rOfiAhVKGTQIHZ8dAgkQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=reconquest%20of%20montreal%20%22guy%20labelle%22&f=false
"Nothing could be further than the truth: French was virtually everywhere."
Deletehaha! what a lie! are you an ignorant or a propagandist? has to be one or the other.
https://tinyurl.com/y3lqzers
https://tinyurl.com/y3bgy6qa
Your two links, student, are just anecdotal evidence whereas the study I cite is just that: a study by a well-respected Quebec academic and researcher...one that attempted to encompass the entire metropolitan area of Montreal and not just two partial sections of two blocks.
DeleteBy your name -- "student" -- am I to believe that you are under 25 years of age? If so, you were not alive at the time under consideration: 1970. So you have only history -- and studies -- to go on. I've cited a study...can you cite one that backs up your claim that I am ignorant or a propagandist and that the reality is other than I document? That is, a study that shows that English commercial signs predominated in the time period immediately prior to Bill 22? Because select photos don't cut it.
Also, who cares whether there were English-only signs? If they were to offend a potential customer to these establishments and if such signs represent "bad service", why patronize them? If an offended customer withheld his consumer dollar from such establishments, the only loser here would be the businesses themselves. Free markets are a two-way affair; it requires not only vigilant sellers who make sure they provide quality goods or services at a good price but vigilant buyers who don't continue giving out their money to establishments (ie, those that only give unilingual English services orally or on signs) that provide unacceptable goods or services.
And that, my friend, is why sign laws were NEVER necessary in Quebec. Big boo-boo by the silly clowns who comprised our Supreme Court at the time the sign decision was handed down (December 1988); the Ford decision was flawed in the most key area: where the Court allowed reasonable limits to the language of commercial expression by advocating for Marked Predominance.
Speaking of clowns, is it just me or is anyone else completely embarrassed by the Santa Claus suits that the justices of our Supreme Court wear?
Deletehttps://tinyurl.com/y4eep9u9
@tony kondaks
Deleteok then if you don't believe the images i posted then let's look at your "study". let's start with the quote you extracted for us:
"A 1970 survey by Guy Labelle estimated that 35 percent of the commercial signs in Metropolitan Montreal were in French only and 11.8 in English only;..."
well first of all it's an estimate by a dude. second of all it's estimated for metropolitan montreal, so from boucherville to ste-thérèse i presume. this means the center of montreal could be 100% english signage and the figure could stil be 11.8% for whole metro area. and you'd still have a problem. in fact, if you had read the introduction of the study you think backs you up you would have read that "...there was little to suggest that montreal was the metropole of an overhlmingly french-speaking province".
you conclude with:
"This is hardly encroaching unilingual English now, is it?"
err... yes it is mate.
Re student's comments above: [Place snort of derision here].
DeleteWell I wasnt in Montreal either so who knows about whether Tony or student is correct. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between. There likely were significant sections of Montreal with many more english signs and there were french parts where signs were mostly in french.
DeleteTo me I have to ask why the state decided it had to LEGISLATE what language businesses decided to use. If you dont like the fact that a business only has signs in english then go somewhere else. The reality was and is that large parts of Montreal are majority english speaking areas and its been like this for 200 years or more. Cant politicians just get out of the way and let common sense prevail?
In a perfect world all signs would be bilingual..but if some businesses want to choose one over the other then to me let them. They likely are only hurting themselves in the end. But to legislate that one language has to be bigger than the other on a sign to me is ridiculous and it still amazes me how Bill 101 still is standing. Its a clearly discriminatory law. I can put up a sign in french, chinese, swahili anywhere else in Canada and nobody cares.
The reality is that Montreal has never truly been a french city and it irks nationalists to no end. They never spend a second crying over the lost indigenous languages or culture that lived on Montreal Island 500 years ago but heaven forbid French is not totally dominant here. Montreal is like many great cosmopolitan cities around the world..Paris, Barcelona, New York, London, Berlin - they attract people from all over the world and you end up with a melting pot of people who speak many different languages. Its a good thing..its something we should be encouraging instead of hitting anyone over the head who doesnt speak french. Montreal should also be embracing bilingualism as a huge advantage..how many major cities in the world have so many bilingual or trilingual citizens..its a huge advantage for the economy.
But instead we have the hinterland nationalists who want Montreal to be pur laine Quebecois territory something it never has been. Nationalism is a failed tired old philosophy that needs to be eliminated from the world..its time to embrace globalism.
I've finally had a chance to read the wording of the motion as it was passed in the National Assembly (I write this comment after I made the above comments regarding related topics).
ReplyDeleteThe impugned part of the motion reads:
"THAT (the National Assembly) therefore invites all merchants and employees interacting with local and international customers to warmly welcome them with the greeting 'Bonjour' ". (this is a draft version but pretty much exactly what the official French version says)
Huh? That's it?
Where is the "evilness" that Philip alludes to, above?
I have a different take on it; and it's one that declares victory for free speech because, well actually, Philip -- perhaps inadvertently --explains why:
"Frustrated that a law banning BONJOUR-HI would be unconstitutional and that invoking the 'Notwithstanding Clause' would be infinitely more disastrous than Pizza-gate, frustrated politicians are reduced to begging through toothless National Assembly motions that are universally ignored.
"If the affair was not so sad, it would be entirely laughable."
But that's precisely the point: it IS a toothless motion. Because the National Assembly could NEVER get away with legislating speech (and using the notwithstanding clause), they were reduced to what is, essentially, a feel-good motion. As you say, Philip, it is "toothless."
I worked for an MNA for three years and was pretty much aware of the motions that were passed in the National Assembly on a daily basis. On any given day, the National Assembly passes 2 or 3 motions. 99% of them are feel-good motions recognizing obscure things such as National Cheesecake Day or a visiting Fiddlers' Convention to Quebec City. Yes, there are the important Wednesday motions which are often heatedly debated and impact important issues of the day.
But this isn't one of them; it's of the National Cheesecake Day variety and the mere fact that this issue has taken on the guise of a weakling type of motion with no teeth to it is...well...a victory in and of itself.
I just finished reading Beryl Wasjman's June 12, 2019 Suburban editorial on the subject. You'd have thought that the National Assembly had passed a law requiring every man, woman, and child to recite a poem of love to a bust of Kim Jong Un every morning. "When a society begins attempts at legislating how people speak, it may be called many things but free isn't one of them," writes Beryl after bringing out the big guns by beginning the editorial with a grave quote from the First Earl of Masefield: "Let justice be done though the heavens fall."
I would have saved that one for something a wee bit more serious, Beryl, because inviting Quebecers to warmly welcome people with the "bonjour" greeting does not come close to legislating how people should speak.
This motion is a victory, folks, if this wording is all they can come up with.
Completely out of topic, I just want to make a shout-out to Mr. Berlach.
ReplyDeleteA number of years ago you (Philip) made a post comparing Montreal and Toronto and you made fun of the state of Toronto professional sports teams. Now, the last time Montreal major sports team won a championship was 2010 when the Alouettes won their last Grey Cup. Since that time, the Argonauts won the Grey Cup twice - the last one was their 17th - the Toronto FC won the MLS Cup and now the Raptors just won the NBA Championship. While the are nowhere near being the Stanley Cup champions, the Maple Leafs were in the playoffs for the last two years in a row while the Canadiens were playing golf. Globally, the NBA is the most popular among North American Big Four sports leagues.
Do you still think that Montreal is the better sports city?
Nope...
DeleteSince the subject of sports franchises has been brought up, I recently picked up a copy of Pat Hicke's "If these Walls Could Talk" published just last year. It's a mediocre read due to the endless inaccuracies I could find in the 225 pages of it I have read so far (with others, I cannot prove because I don't remember certain incidents). The best part was where he called the Los Angeles "Kings" instead the Los Angeles "Lakers"--wrong sport! It must've been hastily put in for publishing as it also featured a picture of Ken Dryden as a left-handed goalie. A closer look at the crest on his chest and that of the Red Wing player in the background indicated the negative was copied in reverse! I picked it up second hand at a Value Village (Village des Valeurs) in the GTA for about $6.00, i.e., I overpaid about $4.00!
DeleteAnyway, I'm in the middle of the chapter on coaches since the departure of Al McNeil, and there were over a dozen coaches since then. In 2011-12, two English mother-tongued coaches were fired, Perry Pearn (Jacques Martin's assistant fired before the useless Martin was subsequently fired), and Randy Cunneyworth was thrown under the bus before he coached his first game. Then-GM Pierre Gauthier hired Cunneyworth to help the team turn around the hapless season they were having, but the Xenophobes, including a Quebec Government cabinet Minister, called owner Geoff Molson on this hiring, all because neither Pearn nor Cunneyworth spoke French.
Hicke suggested perhaps the club should recruit coaches to come to the professional level as they just recycle French-speaking coaches now. Lemaire and Burns went on to both coach the New Jersey Devils to Stanley Cup victories, and Alain Vigneault coached the Canucks and Rangers to the Cup finals. Neither Lemaire nor Claude Ruel were interesting in the head coaching job, and Lemaire left after just one season. Ruel returned to his first love, player development and scouting after 2½ reluctant seasons behind the bench.
I used to say the Habs would win another Stanley Cup before the Leafs will, but in reality, ever since the Al McNeil fiasco (Fiasco, huh! He won the Cup), it's now clear that coaches who cannot speak decent French need not apply. The leaves for a narrow recruiting list when it comes to head coaches for the Habs...or at least give them a stepping stone to winning or vying for the Cup elsewhere!
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ReplyDeleteUh, hello, not everyone here speaks Italian.
Delete