Lament for Montreal's Dorchester Boulevard

Here's an interesting piece written by one Peter Stuart, a reader from Quebec City who wrote a letter that was printed in the Quebec City daily Le Soleil.
The piece entitled "No Levesque without Dorchester" (Pas de Lévesque, sans Dorchester...) decries the fact that Montreal's Dorchester Boulevard had it's name changed in favour of 'Boulevard René-Lévesque" and provides some historical context.

I have endeavoured to translate the letter as best I can, but not being professional, it may seem a bit choppy. I assure you that the original letter in French is skillfully and poetically written, please read it in French if you can;

It seems that principal theme of the Moulin à paroles event was "the survival of a people." But survival from whom, and how exactly?

We tend to put all the blame on the backs of English.
But hold it!
René Lévesque would never have had the chance to save the French language with his PQ government, if not for a British Lord, Dorchester, who guaranteed the rights of French Canadians by way of the Quebec Act in 1774.

He wasn't even English, rather an Irish Protestant. He was part of the small Irish Protestant nobility, that was, at the time called, "the Irish ancestry."
These people were the principle landowners of Ireland, and allies of the English.

Dorchester recognized the error which had been committed during the English conquest of his country, the attempt to assimilate the Irish and to destroy their language and culture. Arriving in Canada, he promised himself not to commit the same error.
Skillfully adept in the language of Molière, (French-ed.) he proceeded with the preparation of the Parliamentary bill which shares it's name with our province- the 'Quebec Act.'

This bill, passed in the English Westminster Parliament ensured that we could continue to speak our language, maintain our property rights, as well as keep our religion.
Dorchester recognized that the Anglo-American colonies were on the brink of a revolution, and they probably would send an army to 'persuade' us to join them.

What would have become of our language, our civilization and our culture had Dorchester not done what he did?

What would have happened if French-Canadian troops had not managed to repel the American invaders at the rue de la Barricade, when attacked, December 31, 1775?
Surely, we would never have the opportunity to comment on anything, because our people would have been absorbed in the great American Republic.

So I find it sad that Montrealers have erased the memory of Lord Dorchester, and replaced it by that of René Lévesque. Why not keep faith with history and honour the two? Because René Lévesque could never do what he did for us without Dorchester.

Today, we still have a 'Dorchester' street here in Quebec City. Also a street named 'Couronne'('Crown'-ed.). And in passing "Roi' and "Reine' ('King' and 'Queen'-ed.), by the way!
The windbags at the Moulin à paroles talked of survival and droned on about the English, but think of one Irishman who preceded us, over two hundred years and who allowed us to short circuit the petty imperialists.

I believe that "ti-hair' of New Carlisle (nickname for Rene Levesque-ed.), would agree with me.

The writer may not know that when the city of Montreal changed the name of Dorchester Boulevard to 'René-Lévesque' they asked the city of Westmount to also make the change on the portion of the street that runs through that municipality.

As you can imagine, naming a street (or anything else for that matter) in honour of a separatist is would be an anathema for the grand daddy of Anglo communities.

And so, the name Dorchester Boulevard lives on in Westmount, much to the consternation of sovereignist groups who for some reason take the city's refusal to change the name as some sort of Anglophone slight.
The street signs have been defaced on occasion and as in the case on the picture on the right pasted over to read 'Boul. René-Lévesque'

Private Schools to Preserve Cultural Purity?

Last Monday Jean-Pierre Proulx wrote an opinion piece about Quebec private schools in LE DEVOIR, which can be found archived over at vigel.net (in French).

Entitled "Democratizing Private education" (Démocratiser l’enseignement privé) the article offered up some pretty weird concepts including the suggestion that these elite schools be forced to accept their share of students from low income homes, those who are academically or physically challenged and students with problems of comportment.

Yup!

What Mr Proulx suggests is to dumb down private schools to the level of public schools in the interest of democracy. He must be a secret Leninist.

According to him private schools that would refuse to adopt these new conditions would lose all government subsidies.

The Quebec government is one of the very few that subsidizes private schools on a a pro-rata basis. Private schools receive the government money that would be have been spent on students had they remained in the public system. Thus private schools in Quebec cost parents significantly less than elsewhere.

It's no wonder that at 17%, Quebec boasts the highest proportion of high school students attending private schools in all of North America.
In Montreal the number is a whopping 30%.

Of course, the Quebec public sector teachers' unions oppose any form of subsidy to private schools. They hold that by selecting only the brightest and most capable students and rejecting children with learning difficulties, private schools leave a burden to the public sector.

It isn't surprising that the article provoked a lot of reaction in defence of private schools, most of it pretty standard stuff. I wasn't even going to write on the subject until I came across this letter printed in Le Devoir, the same newspaper that printed the original article.

Maxine Proulx displayed some novel reasoning in defence of private schools;'

"One of the reasons why parents send their children to private schools is that they just want to avoid their children being exposed to other children that they believe rightly or wrongly as turbulent, children with learning disabilities or behavior problems or who are poor. This self-imposed segregation is even more pronounced on the island of Montreal, which has many ethno-cultural neighborhoods.

Parents fear three things:

• That children deemed undesirable monopolize the attention of teachers, reducing the quality of instruction and supervision provided to the class;
• That these same children disturb others, affecting their hearing and therefore their learning;
• These same children negatively influence the others to the point where they also refuse to learn normally.

In Montreal, traditional Francophone parents fear that the environment in the public schools has become too multicultural and multi-ethnic and choose to send their children to private schools, considered more 'homogeneous."

Wow, how about the last paragraph!

So private schools are better because they are 'homogeneous.' I've never heard apartheid described that way!

I know many parents send their children to private school for exactly that reason, but printing a letter that justifies private schools on the basis of it being a good way to segregate francophone children from the ethnic communities seems to go beyond what an enlightened editorial board would allow in print.

Shame on LE DEVOIR.

Could you imagine this letter being printed in the Montreal Gazette, the National Post or the Globe & Mail?

It would probably be passed around the editorial table for a chuckle.

Montreal Marathon Fringlish

'Fringlish' = Mangled English (usually humorous,) written by a Francophone badly in need of a translator=ed.
(Please note, I only cite cases from sources that are "official," those who should know better and have the budget to do so. Private sites and blogs on a small budget are to be complemented for making any effort to translate any language to any language..)

To honour last Sunday's running of the Montreal Marathon I humbly offer this pearl from the official Montreal Marathon web site;

"At 8:43 this morning, Race Director Bernard Arsenault in the presence of the Mayor of Montreal Gerald Tremblay and Jean Gattuso, p.d.g of A.Lassonde, gave the starting signal to the thousands of runners of the half-marathon, follow-ups at 9:00 by the marathonians. Gone of the Jacques-Cartier Bridge under the rain ( first raining day since 1991…!), runners went through the streets of the city and ended up in the Olympic stadium of Montreal."

Arrrrgghh.............

Quebec Garbage Wars

The latest issue that has Quebec citizens facing off against each other is not sovereignty or language, it's an issue that's much more personal - it's garbage.

The City of Quebec has launched a pilot project whereby garbage is picked up just once every two weeks, with citizens expected to compost what they can and keep the 'clean' garbage until the bi-weekly pickup.
This has lead residents in one of the pilot project neighbourhoods, to start a petition demanding that weekly pickups resume because of the odour and inconvenience.
It seems that the 600 people who signed the petition are out of luck, the city is determined to stick to it's guns.

According to Guy Fortin, who started the petition, the collection every two weeks, leads to the garbage bins becoming infested with maggots. "You need a strong heart, not to mention the flies!"

The small compost bin is also decidedly not for Mr. Fortin, who says that food scraps attract raccoons. "They are smart, they manage to open the trash,"

The debate has touched off a lively debate in the letters section of Quebec City newspapers between the complainers and the 'Granolas' who continue to support this program.

Here's a sample of two;

"A citizen of the Les Saule district, whose name escapes me, but who I'll call by the pseudonym "Popa", described a serious problem. He complained that garbage collection wasn't frequent enough and he opposed the introduction of the collection of compostable organic materials in Quebec.

His main argument? The odour, when he opens his garbage can and the presence of grubs. I'm not a fan of foul odours and grubs, I am however able to hold my breath and capable of putting on a pair of gloves.

Do you know that our landfills are overflowing and are highly polluting and that composting takes just a little effort? It's something that we all can do to reduce this problem.

Don't you understand that collecting garbage more frequently increases the number of trucks on the road, and consequently the CO2 emissions? We all know the consequences of carbon emissions, the smog that has shrouded Quebec on humid days is proof. Tell your garbage problems to children in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, I doubt they'll complain.

The city of Quebec offers adequate garbage collection and the reduced frequency reduces our ecological footprint, which is in itself a positive thing. Composting must continue and even be expanded.

-Alexandre Armstrong, Québec

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(In reaction to the letter of Mr. Alexander Armstrong, 'Fear and Loathing in the district of Les Saules ") -

I am one of those whom you call Pôpa!, One of those who is stuck with a hard and a soft trash can.
Father of four children, I am the neighbour of Mr. Guy Fortin, who lives across the street and with whom I have launched a petition calling for a return to weekly collection, while maintaining the collection of compost-able waste.

We have been portrayed as if we are against the composting project. While some residents are totally against it, some of us are completely for it. Personally I participate actively in the collection of compost-able materials, but I still say that weekly collection for garbage is not a luxury, at least for the summer.

With regard to increasing the frequency of garbage collection, understand that until recently, several sectors of the city, including ours, were entitled to two collections per week, for the summer at least. The area in reference is divided into two sections, one sector is in the pilot project zone and the other is not. However, the sector not in the pilot project zone continues to have weekly collection. So the trucks are already circulating in the area and it wouldn't change much in relation to the production of greenhouse gas emissions, as you mention. And your comparison with the slums of Rio de Janeiro is lame, especially when I look at my tax bill!

I don't know what area you live in, but I suppose it's likely you live in a sector served by a weekly collection. You say that you can hold your breath, bravo to you, but try to remember that when you take an hour long walk in your neighbourhood. This summer, during periods of heat, our noses were assaulted by noxious odors, not to mention the omnipresent flies and increased amount of pests (raccoons, rats, etc.).

Despite our best efforts in recycling and composting, the fact remains that some items are neither compost-able or recoverable- diapers, cat litter, dog droppings and other such materials.

Several residents have even been told by city employees to put their garbage in the freezer to prevent odours and insect infestations.

We are not extremists, we ask only one weekly service, which in the interest of basic hygiene is considered essential.

-Stéphane Turcotte, Quebec

Scary business. Just think, this war is coming to your neighbourhood soon, it's a matter of time.

Me, I'm prepared.

I've got my garburator and I've got my trash compactor. I'm thinking about a getting an extra set in reserve.

The time is fast approaching when both will be illegal!

Separtist Love-in Highlighted by Impassioned Reading Of FLQ Terrorist Manifesto

If federalists had any doubt that the Moulin à paroles event staged last week on the Plains of Abraham would turn into the sovereignist Woodstock that they predicted, they certainly had their worst fears confirmed by the reading of the FLQ terrorist manifesto by Quebec artist Luck Mervil. This week saw a spate of condescending told-you-so's from their camp.

Mr. Mervil adopted the role of a fanatical terrorist and delivered an impassioned performance that included fist-pumping and dramatic rage.
It certainly was the highlight of the whole event.

Here are the briefest of glimpses, the last minute or so of the performance will give you the essence of what was presented. If you want to see the whole video go over to YouTube.

As you can see, the performance was well-received by the audience, the sparse crowd applauding, with the couple in the front even offering up a standing ovation. The reception was a bit of an embarrassment to organizers and the third scheduled reading of the text was dropped from the program.
Pauline Marois commented that she would not have applauded.

While the reaction to the weekend event in the French press was mostly positive, Mr. Mervil's performance was widely described as inappropriate.

Richard Martineau of Le Journal de Montreal wrote;

Did you seen the performance of Luck Mervil reading the FLQ Manifesto?

Explain to me why he was so excited? It was as if he was a 'Felquiste' (FLQer- ed.) himself ...

It seems to me that the document is already fairly delicate and controversial as it is, there was no need to add fuel to the fire by speaking in a trembling voice with a fist raised to the sky ...

It's fair to say that Mervil (who juiced up the crowd to the max) delivered more than the customer ordered ...

The FLQ Manifesto advocates the use of violence, so a little restraint would have been fitting, right?

I would have preferred a more neutral reading, a little less hysterical and inflamed ... I think it would have been more respectful to the memory of the innocent victims of the FLQ ...

Writing in the "La Quotitien" Catherine Delisle writes;

"The children of Pierre Laporte are still alive.
They remember.
Out of respect for them, couldn't we impose a certain reserve and show compassion, empathy and dignity?

If a family member of your's had been killed during the October Crisis or the terrorist events that preceded it, would you sit in a ringside seat and applaud Luck Mervil, the great patriot, who chose to read this text?

When the terrorist manifesto was first presented on television back in 1970, as a condition of the hostage's release, it was delivered in a neutral and monotone voice. You can see the video here on YouTube. Mr. Mervil's interpretation is historically inaccurate.

Of course Mr Mervil is unapologetic.

He told reporters that he'd have no problem reading Adolf Hitler in Germany or the Ku Klux Klan in America.

A letter writer in La Presse, Robert Berthiaume from Québec takes him to task for the foolish statement.

"I suggest that he goes to Ground Zero in New York and read some statements from Bin Laden with that same attitude. The fist-pumping, his eyes bugging out of his head as well as the rage. I bet he'd get a couple of backhanders to the face..."

Of course all this is harmless fun, according to organizers, just words which can in no way inflame anyone to violence. The fact that an hour after Mr. Mervil's performance, the Quebec Parliament (a short distance away from the festivities) was vandalized with FLQ graffiti is no doubt unrelated.

Perhaps Mr. Mervil should return to his native Haiti and offer the locals a dramatic reading of a text in praise of the notorious Tonton Macoutes, the murdering thugs of the Duvalier regime.
On the other hand, I doubt that a Haitian audience would applaud...he'd probably have to run for his life!