Gilles Proulx and Richard Martineau went off on the Chinese community in Brossard, Quebec, a Montreal suburban enclave that hosts a significant Asian community.
Gilles Proulx is an old-time hater who unabashedly unloads on everything Canadian, native and the non-pur-laine element of Quebec, making frenzied racist characterizations that I must admit are sometimes entertaining.
His paranoia, pain, outrage and hatred is all-consuming and watching him or listening to him 'lose it' over language or anglo oppression or native indulgence is sometimes entertaining in a schadenfreude sort of way
What he says on the air has me shuddering to think what he says off the air.
To his credit, he also unloads à la Mordechai Richler on his own francophone community sparing them no quarter with his acerbic and nasty characterizations of a people too weak to defend their culture and society in the face of this perceived Anglo oppression.
I don't know if he dumbs down his columns in the Journal de Montreal to suit his low-brow audience or if he is a product thereof.
His one-dimensional racist screeds offer no subtlety or nuance and his simplistic view of Quebec as under mortal attack by Anglos, ethnics and Canadians are tinged with a Trumpian sense of enemies and us/ them themes.
However, putting the two together on a radio show is a recipe for excess and believe me if their exchange would take place in English, there isn't a media outlet in North America that would air it.
For those who have French, take a listen to the gratuitously racist exchange about Quebec's Chinese community that includes insult after insult, including Mr. Proulx using a hideous and mocking Chinese accent to make his point. Who actually does that today?
I'm sure Proulx would take offence at being called a racist. "I no tinkee so, me likeee them"
but if the shoe fits....
Martineau:Oh, Gilles, you're gonna flip out over this...... From a flyer from Royal-Lepage in Brossard. (Now speaking in English) On one side is a picture of the agent,"Buying or Selling Your house? I can help" The other side is in Mandarin so it's in two languages Mandarin and English.
Proulx:It's not the first time I've seen this on the south shore of Montreal, which is a Chinese kingdom. Brossard has completely transformed itself and there's nobody in charge like an elite or the OQLF to intervene when you complain. A friend of mine got into a dispute over a cancelled transaction. The Chinese seller sent him a letter in English. I told him to complain which was a waste of time he explained because the OLF wouldn't intervene, which we can call a 'death by a thousand cuts'....(Proulx continues in an demeaning and burlesque Chinese English accent.)
...The good little Chinese are now our dominators and future dominators of the Earth.."Chicken Fried Rice, chicken pineapple wit dat?"Martineau: (laughing at Proulx's mocking)Ha! Ha! The lady is named (doxxing removed) who writes (now speaking in mocking English) "I am here to help you find the perfect house'Proulx: (In mocking English)
Yes I am here to help you, you fucken French-Canadian! You're a bunch of idiots and cannot stand on your legs.Martineau:Royal Lepage will say that it's a private enterprise and we're here to make money. Our future customers are Chinese and English, so we don't give a hoot about French.
(now in mocking English) They don't give a flying fuck!Proulx:
I'll repeat what I said before, Canada is a racist country. which I accuse of trying to destroy this tiny village of Quebec.
These are the same hypocrites who complain about the Canadian media's so-called Quebec-Bashing.
Making insulting fun of ethnics and Anglos is par for the course in the Quebec media which is shielded from scrutiny because nobody in the rest of Canada or North America pays any attention to what is said in Quebec's French media. The CRTC is too timid and intimidated to intervene and since nobody in the ROC listens or hears the racism spewed, considers that it's better not to rock the boat.
The basis of this racism is the underlying notion that Quebec belongs to old stock French-Canadians alone with minorities, anglos and even natives considered interlopers with no legitimate right to help shape society.
The idea remains that these 'foreign' elements in Quebec society owe fealty and respect to the French Canadian majority and are obliged to mimic and integrate, abandoning their religion, language and heritage in order to satisfy the will of the majority.
That dear readers is the definition of ethnocentric racism ...
It's only too bad that these two half-witted clowns would unlikely appear on a political show like Real Time with Bill Maher, if they'd agree to speak English. Oh, the bellyaching laughs these two would be, making total asses of themselves on a nationwide program the likes of that one.
ReplyDeleteIt would make the 60 Minutes segment with the late Morley Safer and Mordechai Richler in February 1998 look dead serious! What made the Safer/Richler segment all the more worthwhile was the next day a French phone-in show hosted by Jean Cournoyer, a former cabinet minister in the first Bourassa regime, had to be interrupted by the host to cool down the jets of the callers vehemently spewing their vicious, rabid anti-Semitic vitriol. Imagine the fallout after Maher effortlessly shows all of North America what airheaded clowns they truly are!
In the clip Martineau also laments the fact that some waitress who served him in some Terrebonne restaurant did not know who the "famous" Quebec singer Michele Richard was. Well, I had no idea who she was either until I heard Martineau drop her name just now, and I looked her up. Martineau mentioned that the waitress was not so young, and given that it's Terrebonne she may have been francophone, though he did say that it was an Italian restaurant, so maybe the waitress was from the Italian community in Laval.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, Martineau seems to be reversing the cause and effect here by making it sound like Quebec residents make the Quebec popular culture unpopular by not taking any interest in it, while the opposite is true - it's because the culture cannot break through and make itself popular is why Quebec residents do not take any interest in it.
Who's Michele Richard? Aside from Boule Noire and Toulouse (thanks to former radio announcer Marc "mais oui" Denis while on CKGM back in the 70s), the only other French speaking singers I know are Ginette Reno and Celine (no more accent égu) Dion (both of whom have released English songs), Joe Dassin (born in NYC of French ascendancy), and Nanette Workman (also born in NYC and better known for her sexy butt in old Roberto jean commercials). Aside from Celine, I don't know any other Quebec Francophone who has made it big internationally (i.e., in the U.S. and the rest of the English speaking world). They've tried with René Simard...failed. They tried with Véronique Béliveau...failed. I once heard France Joli's "Come to Me" make #34 on Casey Kasim's weekly American Top 40 syndicated radio show, and that came and went like a runaway train. So did disco music altogether. The fact they can't even have a major impact in the French speaking world shows the lack of testament and traction these performers have. C'est dommage, Québec! Legislating culture only goes as far as the Eastern Shores of the Ottawa River!
Delete@sauga
Delete"I don't know any other Quebec Francophone who has made it big internationally..."
good one mate, you seem to be proud of your lack of culture. you should go out more.
Hi Adiski,
DeleteThe only Quebec artist I can remember hearing about is Roch Voisine and that was only due my Grade 8 French class. Friends that went to actual French Schools never use to discuss or listened to Quebecois artists either.
@Jarry
Delete"The only Quebec artist I can remember hearing..."
so? are you, as sauga is, proud not to know anything, mate?
Hi Student. I am neither proud nor ashamed. I am indifferent. Should I ask you whether you are proud not to know about any gangster rappers?
DeleteI love the French fragility on display. They can't sell their culture so they have to legislate it into relevance.
ReplyDeleteThey also have to gaslight people who are not buying the "product" into feeling closed-minded and feeling that they are causing all the problems, thus reversing the cause and effect - the cause of the problem is not that the product is not strong enough to create attraction, instead it's someone not being attracted to the product (for selfish and closed minded reasons obviously) that makes the product weak.
DeleteAside from those two numbnuts making the subject of this particular blog, I saw an old NFB documentary called the Rise and Fall of English Montreal.
DeleteIt's incredible how displaced the hatred is, but then again, the few that are left are the scapegoats hence most well-schooled youth will leave Montreal. Let's face it, the screws of anti-English legislation are tightening with this ridiculous Bill 96 making Bill 101 more stringent.
Like the Francophone majority, I'm anti-monarchist. That royal stumblebum Andrew has, at long, long last, been kicked out of the preferred clan, and even Harry saw the light. Then again, I'm sure Megan has been working on him ever since they started dating, the social climber she is.
The English, as a whole, but especially the self-proclaimed "upper crust", always have been self-absorbed, pretentious, conceited and impudent advantagetakers regardless of where they set up camp. Montreal was a great place to set up commerce and of course they looked down their noses at the "common herd", and when in Rome, the go out of their way not to do what the Romans do. That's impudence!
Once those parasites set up camp, they proceeded to have all kinds of exclusive clubs, exclusive of Jews, Catholics and those who were not bred or mother-tongued in "The King's English". The problem Proulx (who speaks English well, if he wants to) et al have is with those English. Sadly, those of us who are not of that ilk but are mother-tongued in English.
The hatred is wide spread. Van Horne's house was demolished in 1973, and much of that former Royal Mile downtown has been converted or levelled. The Ritz Carlton is a leftover. Bills 101 and its bully child, Bill 96 are pretty much redundant. French has the upper hand, but that sore loser society is still sore-headed. Many in the minority who still qualify for English schooling have been guided into French immersion by their parents, and the fact they speak excellent to fluent French now doesn't matter. They've met the objectives of whatever language laws have come out in Quebec going on over a half century now and they know the public service is not for them, and in many other companies.
Proulx and Martineau are just privileged enough to have a public forum to air their dirty laundry, and with impunity. Don Cherry was fired for promulgating far less potent vitriol. The fact those two jackanapes have mikes to mouth off is just their luck, and too much of the population shares their sentiments to get fired.
"French has the upper hand, but that sore loser society is still sore-headed"
DeleteI think that a situation was created where noone has an upper hand overall. The political actions of the provincial government create feeling of oppression in the non-Quebecois community, while the demographic position of Quebec in North America and the globalized culture and economy create a feeling of oppression in the Quebecois community. So it's just a mess without any clarity.
"Many in the minority who still qualify for English schooling have been guided into French immersion by their parents, and the fact they speak excellent to fluent French now doesn't matter. They've met the objectives of whatever language laws have come out in Quebec going on over a half century now and they know the public service is not for them, and in many other companies"
DeleteHi Mr Sauga,
I completed French Immersion in 2 PSBGM high schools, despite that I've always felt that my French wasn't good enough to be considered bilingual. I was at peace with the fact that I would not qualify for a job in a Quebecois dominated business and/or Organization.
What was a surprise was that friends, family and acquaintances that were forced to go to actual French Schools couldn't find jobs in Quebecois dominated business and/or Organizations either. They ended up working in Anglo or allo dominated/owned businesses and a significant number of those "children of bill 101" moved outside Quebec.
I've met a ton of French Speaking immigrants that have moved to Toronto from Quebec. Many of them told me how difficult it was for them to find a job related to their field of study in Quebec. Even French citizens that immigrated to Quebec. A former colleague of mine in Toronto didn't seem as comfortable communicating in English. We communicated at work with each other in French, a standardized French I could easily understand. He immigrated from North Africa and lived in Quebec City. Despite that he had to go work in the United States and then Toronto to work in his field of study
"Afraid to rock the boat" is the best way to describe the situation in Canada. The French media knows this all too well and takes full advantage of it. Shameful.
ReplyDelete