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.
