PQ Set to Drive Language Wedge

It's Friday and before I get to the main theme of this post, permit me license to ramble on a bit.

As you may know, my wife and I were away for a couple of days, visiting our son and daughter-in-law in New York City.
Grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, siblings, great grandmothers and friends, both home and abroad are thrilled with a brand new little girl, hale and hearty. 

Thanks to everyone who took the time to email me offering their best wishes, it was most appreciated.

I hope to reply to each, but it will take a couple of days to get through the mail.

So please excuse the lack of post on Wednesday, frankly my head wasn't into it.
That being said our blog received an above average hit rate on that day and yesterday, so considering that there was no new post, it is a bit humbling.
I've always maintained that it's the comment section that drives this blog and I suppose that this result offers proof positive.
I was however a bit disappointed that nobody with sovereignty views offered any sort of reply to my proposition that it was time for sovereigntists to embrace partition.
I would have been interested to hear from them, but alas it was not to be.
Be sure it is not because we are not read by those who view our blog as a threat, perhaps they had nothing to say or nothing to offer in rebuttal.

Remember when I told you that the Americans would be none too pleased that US companies were being targeted by the OQLF over descriptors and that the post I wrote would probably be circulated in Washington.

I actually get to see where traffic to this blog originates and what stories are being viewed.
Here's just a snippet ( about 15 minutes worth of traffic) of those arrived on our blog to read that piece.

A couple of posts back, I made reference to a protest song written in the sixties entitled THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION, by Barry McGuire.
Whilst sojourning in the Big Apple, one of the lines of that song reverberated in my brain as I read of one more tale of linguistic intolerance, this time by a paramedic who should have been instructed in the Hypocratic Oath as part of his training.

♪♫ ♫ "You may leave here for 4 days in space.

 But when you return, it's the same old place" ♫ ♫

Yes, being away for a couple of days has put a fresh perspective on things and the endless and tedious sky-is-falling discussions about the French language seem childish and self-destructive when viewed from afar.

Listening to the horror stories emanating from the Charbonneau Commission, it is painfully evident that the Maclean's magazine article claiming Quebec as the most corrupt province was woefully understated. Quebec is likely the most corrupt jurisdiction, right down to the Rio Grande.

I tapped out a few calculations on my IPhone calculator, using what few numbers I could glean from stories surrounding the issue of Quebec corruption and what it actually costs. I came to a very rough but nonetheless disappointing conclusion.

It seems that corruption in the construction industry in its heyday cost taxpayers about 1 to 1½ billion dollars a year, enough to pay for the health tax levy that the Marois government recently eliminated and then reinstated because she had no money to pay for it.

In fact the elimination of construction graft would mean that the Quebec sales tax could go down by one full percentage point or to make it more personal, here's what corruption would cost you based on your own salary.
If you are earning;
$100,000 a year, corruption costs you $2,000
$50,000 a year, corruption costs you $1,000
$25,000 a year, corruption costs you $500

And it isn't just corruption plaguing our construction industry, it is also gross incompetence. Our bridges and highways are clearly second rate, built on the cheap and poorly engineered.
Driving across the iconic 130 year-old Brooklyn Bridge earlier this week had me scratching my head as to why our Champlain bridge is ready for the scrap heap and must be replaced after just fifty years in operation. Is that what they mean by Quebec know-how?

You'd think that the government would be assembling a crisis management team to deal with the corruption catastrophe that plagues cities and towns across the whole province, not only Montreal, but it seems that language issues are more important.

With its popularity down to under 50%, less than two months in government and after a few disastrous forays by clumsy ministers, the PQ appears set to go back to its election game plan and use language to divide and conquer Quebec.

The latest gambit by the government is based on census results released by StatsCan  indicating that French is in danger or is in fact, well-preserved, depending on who is doing the spinning.

Jean-François Lisée, a PQ cabinet minister is once more aghast at the apparent linguistic shift on the island of Montreal, vis-a-vis mother tongue and French's slow and insidious decline.

We've talked about this before on this blog and how utterly stupid the whole question is.
When you bring in 40,000 immigrants a year, almost none of whom who have French as a mother tongue, the linguistic balance of mother tongues is bound to change, especially in Montreal where 90% of these immigrants choose to make their home.

Complaining about it seems a little silly, it's like blaming the ice cream itself for one's own weight gain!

The PQ government is warning that stern measures must be adopted to preserve French in Montreal and one of Mr. Lisée's suggestions is to create more affordable housing for young families on the island of Montreal.

"Lisée said the pattern is that as couples have one child or a second child, they realize they need larger accommodations, but housing on the island is more expensive than housing in the suburbs.
“And if we can keep them, that would reduce the trend,” he said, referring to the tendency for francophones to leave the island." Link

I don't know how that is going to work short of posting signs on these 'affordable' properties that Anglos and Ethnics need not apply, as they are reserved for 'real' Quebecers. The proposition is probably the most moronic notion ever proposed by a member of government, the rank stupidity boggles the mind.

And so with the government promising to make language the major thrust of their legislative agenda, choosing to ignore the economy, corruption and wealth creation, it was sadly to be expected.

"The Quebec government says it is preparing a “robust reform” to stop the decline of the French language in Montreal in response to an “alarming trend” reported in the 2011 census released by Statistics Canada.The 2011 census showed that the number of francophones leaving Montreal continued to increase. And while the census numbers released on Wednesday showed that the use of French in immigrant households was increasing there were growing signs that the knowledge of English was still being demanded in the workplace requiring newcomers to eventually embrace English rather than French, according to the Quebec government." Link

So here we go, the PQ is going back to the tried and true, the politics of division.

It is usually the case that political parties once elected leave the rhetoric of the campaign behind as they become subject to the realities of responsibility, but for the PQ it is the opposite.

As they realize they cannot implement their leftist agenda, (the opposition has already told them it will not be tolerated) the PQ is falling back to language where it will be tougher for opposition parties to vote against oppressive language laws, which has essentially become a motherhood issue.

And so we are to face more language strife, confrontation and friction.

Sadly, it's something the PQ is comfortable with, driving Quebecers apart through the creation of a divisive Us/Them political atmosphere, something we clearly saw in the election campaign.

Marois and the PQ are set to launch a language war, telling francophones that if they aren't with them on the issue, then they are against Quebec as a French 'nation'

As the rhetoric rises, it can only lead to more incidents of intolerance as ordinary citizens are told that to hate Anglophones is not only all right but a required element for defenders of French.

If a PQ cabinet minister can refer to English as a 'foreign language' without apology, then the message being sent is that it is open season for hate.
Just for one minute, imagine the uproar if a member of Stephen Harper's cabinet called French a 'foreign language" in Canada.

So get set to see more sandwich throwers, more refusals by paramedics, metro ticket takers and bus drivers to speak English, they are being encouraged to do so.

It augers poorly for all Quebecers, because while Quebec is melting down, Marois will be desperately playing the language fiddle as the shelf life of her government shrinks with each passing gaffe.

*******************

Speaking of bridges, let's hope that when the government gets around to replacing the Champlain bridge that they build it as tough as this railway bridge....

Please have yourself a very good weekend!
Bonne Fin de Semaine!

Why Sovereigntists Should Consider Partition

In many respects I have a great deal of sympathy for sovereigntists who have taken it on the chin and remained democrats throughout the painful referendum process, a thirty year ordeal that can only be described as devastating to those who passionately believe in creating an independent state.

So close and yet so far.

There seems to be something inherently unfair about a winner take all process that perpetually leaves almost one-third to almost half the population out in the cold, politically speaking, on such an important issue.

It's not something we consider, those of us who are federalists and who have won both referendums and in almost all likelihood would win any referendum in the foreseeable future.

But sometimes winning is losing, especially when the victory resolves nothing. The NO victories of the last two referendums left Quebec in eternal limbo and where no full and final reckoning seems to be possible.

While sovereigntists accepted defeat graciously, they didn't accept giving up their dream or abandoning their efforts to militate for sovereignty and so we survive these referendums, committed federalists and committed sovereigntists, in a perpetual state of angst.

As an Anglo, you can well understand that I am not a sovereigntist, but I have no quarrel with those who want Quebec to secede from Canada, they are not Nazis, they are not xenophobes and they aren't all that hateful, believe me.
Not to say that there aren't idiots and extremists among them, as there is in our own community. 

Most Canadians outside Quebec, as well many Anglos within, cannot truck sovereigntists on any level and take an aggressive and hostile attitude towards anyone who has the impertinence and the audacity to militate in favour of a new country.

But there is another reality which I have lived (and many of you) where federalists and sovereigntists live and work side by side, respecting each other's politics and sometimes, more often than you think, maintaining friendships across what one would think is an insurmountable political and philosophical divide.

Years ago I went on my first fishing trip, invited by a friend I had made while conducting business over the years, in the Lac-Saint-Jean region.
Jean-Pierre, is a couple years older than I, a calm, deeply spiritual gentleman who just happened to be a passionate sovereigntist.
On the trip we got around to talking politics where he explained that he didn't hate Canada or Anglophones, he just wanted his own country where he could enjoy a francophone Quebecois brand of culture without the imposition of anglophone politics, values and culture.
He used the analogy of a teen growing up and moving out of his parents' home, a case of personal growth, not a rejection of family.

I came to realize two things on that trip, the first, that I hated fishing and would never go again, and the second, that sovereigntist had a valid and legitimate dream, and although it is one that I didn't share, it was one that I could never again reject as illegitimate.

But for sovereigntists, holding onto this dream is no longer realistic, and Quebec independence is fading quickly from the realm of possibility.

Most watershed moments in history are hard to appreciate at the time. 
Sometimes the impact of historical events can only be properly recognized at an indefinable point in the future, a time where we can look back and clearly see how an event marked or changed the course of history.
Such an event was the 1995 referendum which the sovereignty side lost by a whisker. The disappointed losers made brave declarations that the momentum towards sovereignty would be maintained, ultimately leading to victory, but looking back, it is clear that on the night of the referendum in 1995, the Quebec sovereignty movement had 'jumped the shark.'

Perhaps the diehards should consider what the ex-PQ Premier of Quebec, Lucien Bouchard said about the issue of sovereignty in a newspaper interview that was quite revealing;

"Pauline Marois, needs to say no to the concept of a popular initiative referendum on sovereignty, because Quebecers do not want it. They are not there," said Bouchard.
Especially because a third defeat would be inevitable. 
Pay careful attention to what follows;
After the referendum defeat of 1995, Ottawa imposed the Clarity Act and Lucien Bouchard thought he could get Quebecers to repudiate the law by asking them to hold a referendum on the subject. Well, guess what! It turned out that Quebecers were not opposed to the Clarity Act! 
"We would have lost the referendum, and it would have been in fact, a public endorsement of the Clarity Act!" said the  the former Prime Minister, yesterday, still disappointed with this disarming observation.
Imagine a referendum today imposed by a minority of 'caribou!' A third defeat would have dramatic and lasting consequences. Better not even to think about ..."  Link{Fr}

While aging sovereigntists rage on in the pages of vigile.net, demanding a referendum that they will no doubt lose, the more practicable nationalists seek to develop a de facto autonomous province that barely operates within the confines of the Canadian federation.
And so, for real sovereigntists and federalists, the status quo is not a solution, each remain unhappy with a province that is neither here nor there.

So perhaps it time for sovereigntists to consider the unthinkable, the partition of Quebec in a process somewhat like that which took apart Czechoslavakia, a process that concentrated on creating winners and not losers.

Before we do that,  let us consider another aspect to the debate, that is the widening chasm to what Montreal is and always was, and what sovereigntist wish it to be.

The sovereigntist dream of an independent Quebec is based on the notion of a French-speaking country that has a homogeneous culture based on a narrowly defined set of ideals that are as foreign to Montreal as hijabs in Sept-Iles.

Montreal has always been a bilingual and ethnically diverse city, nothing has really changed, yet  the sovereigntist fantasy remains that Montreal was once an all French city and can return to something it never was and therein lies the rub.
It is like a parent deciding that their child is not really gay and can be returned to the fold of heterosexuality through discipline, re-education, repression and brute force.

Good luck with that.

The sovereigntists should well consider letting go of Montreal. For them, it is a lost cause, not only does its soul swim in an opposite direction to what sovereigntists want Quebec to be, its voting bloc remains the last stumbling block holding back sovereigntists from achieving their goal.

Give up Montreal and sovereignty is a reality for the rest of Quebec, not in thirty years or 50 years or a hundred, but now.

A sovereignty referendum that included leaving Montreal out, allowing it to become a Canadian city-province would be approved by a majority of Quebecers because Anglos and ethnics would vote in favour of such an arrangement by a wide margin.

Sovereignty based on a such a wide consensus would likely be successful. This type of arrangement would also likely be very acceptable to Canada.
If such a friendly divorce could be adopted, a free trade agreement would likely work, where the free flow of people and goods and services between Canada (the province of Montreal) and the country of Quebec would be realistic.

For sovereigntists today, there is a real question to face and a realistic and honest assessment to be made.
With the prospects of achieving a winner-take-all referendum unlikely, is it better to wait for an eternity for a miracle or is it better to put some water in the wine and accept less now.

The reality is that Quebec can become a country within a year or two if separatists are willing to give up Montreal.

The question for them to consider is whether settling for three-quarters of a loaf is preferable to having none and is holding out for a miracle really in their best interest.

French versus English Volume 65

OQLF targets American companies

Radicals propose another laughable boycott.. Good Luck!!

A couple of months ago I told you that a lawsuit was brewing in regards to the OQLF demand that companies sporting English names be required to add a French descriptor.
As you all must know by now, that lawsuit has been  deposited with six very large retailers (Costco, Best Buy, Gap, Guess, Old Navy and Wal-Mart) banding together to defend their right to use their trademark to identify their business in the marketplace.  Link

When I first saw the list of stores, I was actually disappointed at how few decided to fight, but after closer consideration, a different picture emerged.

My ennui was caused by the absence of Canada's biggest powerhouse retailer "Canadian Tire" from among the group taking on the OQLF in court.

Why?
Because of any firm that has a chance to win its case in court, it is Canadian Tire, a Canadian company that has operated successfully across Quebec for over seventy-five years.
Unlike the upstarts suing the OQLF, it would be almost impossible to rule against a company that has been so firmly established in Quebec for so long and in fact even if the court ruled in favour of the OQLF in law, the principle of an acquired right would apply as surely as in the case where your neighbour asks you to move your thirty-year old fence because it encroaches a few feet on his land.
Ain't going to happen, ask any lawyer.

And so, if Canadian Tire was on the list, the case would be a slam dunk and that readers is exactly the point.

It appears that the OQLF has targeted American companies alone, perhaps making the decision that to take on Canadian icons would be suicidal.

Yup, it isn't a coincidence that there isn't one Canadian retailer on the list, no Brick, Canadian Tire, Roots, Smart Set, Scores ,Winners, Homesense, etc, etc.

Hmmm... I'm sure that when the U.S State Department gets wind that American companies are being singled-out, they will not be pleased. They clearly can intervene if they so choose to.
If you think the American government is unaware or uninterested as to what is going on here, I can assure that is not the case and this I speak of with direct personal knowledge.

Clearly the OQLF is picking its fight with American companies because in their estimation, they have less public support and more importantly, less judicial support, especially in the Supreme Court.

Now French language militants have been whinging for years that the Supreme Court has 'butchered' Bill 101, ruling unconstitutional, clause after clause, but it really isn't true.

In almost all cases, all the Supreme Court did was to confirm 'unfavourable' decisions that were decided in lower courts in Quebec and finally in the highest court in Quebec, the Court of Appeal.

If the six litigants win their case in the highest Court in Quebec and the OQLF decides to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, before accepting to hear the case, the Supremos should consider saying 'No Thanks" leaving the Quebec government and militants with an unfavourable decision 'made exclusively in Quebec.'
What will the language militants say then?
Actually they have said it already, that is that the Quebec Court of Appeal is a federalist bastion, where separatists can never get a fair shake.
Boohoo!.......

Now readers, here is an interesting case study in the stupidities of descriptors;

Does the pictogram above representing APPLE need a descriptor?
It is not as stupid as it sounds.
Clearly the trademark represents an English word, nobody could pretend otherwise.
Maybe Apple will start a trend?
Can anybody guess the name of one Canadian retailer who may opt for the Apple solution if and when it is forced to adopt a French descriptor?

  

Charbonneau commision follies

Most of us don't have the time nor the inclination to devote hours and hours to watch the daily goings on at the Charbonneau commission and so we depend on summaries and commentaries offered by analysts in the media, whose summations and conclusions are usually pretty good....but not always.

Having been involved in the fundraising process, the revelations about illegal campaign contributions didn't surprise me much, but one part of Mr. Zambito's testimony did come as quite a surprise and shock.

It wasn't the fact that he claimed that he made a $30,000 cash contribution to the Liberal Party of
Quebec, what shocks me is how the payment was made.

Mr. Zambito claimed that he made the payoff directly to Pierre Bibeau, a Liberal party fundraiser and at the time, husband of Nathalie Normandeau, a member of Jean Charest's cabinet. Mr. Zambito made the alleged delivery of his 'brown envelope' in Mr. Bibeau's office in  the Loto-Quebec building in downtown Montreal, where Mr. Bibeau worked as a VP for the provincial lottery corporation.

Whaaat????
This is where my eyebrows were raised.

Only an idiot or an arrogant bastard would allow a transaction like that to take place at his office, especially at the Loto-Quebec building in downtown Montreal, where visitors are logged in and names recorded. If Zambito did in fact visit Bibeau's office, it is all in the record. I've visited the offices of Loto-Quebec and can confirm that you can't get in without an appointment. Visitors are issued a badge and in some cases escorted up the elevator.

What a fool!
Now everybody who I know in the fundraising business, understands that these types of meetings should never take place in your home or office.  
NEVER!!! NEVER!!
 
Why, because people in your office or at home are witnesses, they know you and probably who you are meeting.
Why on Earth put your employees or family in a position where they may have to confirm that a meeting took place to investigators?

In fact Mr. Zambito explained that all his other 'transactions' took place in public, as in fast food restaurants. This is how it is supposed to be.

Now after the revelation about the alleged meeting at the Loto-Quebec between Zambito and Bibeau, a panel on television were discussing the situation.
Quebec's media wunderkind, Mathieu Bock-Côté commented that it didn't seem too bright an idea to have meetings in public places like fast food restaurants, where money was to be exchanged and further commented that those criminals who did so, were stupid.

Readers, only an idiot comments on things he knows nothing about and believe me on this subject Mr. Côté is about as conversant as Judge Charbonneau, the head of the inquiry and another woefully uninformed, when it comes to these things.
I seriously doubt if either of them ever saw a stack of $10,000 in cash.

So let me help Mr. Côté understand and perhaps readers will appreciate a lesson in what I would call 'Bagman 101.'

Mr Côté couldn't be more wrong, a fast food restaurant is a perfect spot for an exchange of the infamous 'brown envelope'

It is called hiding in plain view.
The two parties involved in the transaction meet at a busy McDonalds at lunchtime where the place is full of hungry people each concentrating on their Big Macs, oblivious to who is seated beside them.
Both parties check out the restaurant for the fluke chance that someone there knows them, but the restaurant is usually chosen for its off the beaten track location.

The giver and the receiver sit down and consume a meal like any two colleagues out for a fast lunch.
The 'giver' has the brown envelope hidden between the pages of a Journal de Montreal which he places on the table and which he forgets when he leaves first. The 'receiver' leaves several minutes later, carefully scooping up the newspaper.
There is never any need to count money, the giver and the receiver both have a vested interest in making the transaction work.
The parties can choose a different restaurant each time, insuring that family, friends, employees and co-workers are ignorant of what transpired.
My God, Mr. Bock-Côté , don't you ever watch spy shows!

Now as I remember there were times when lengthy discussions had to take place, not necessarily transfers of money and in these cases, a quiet yet discreet location was required.
Nothing beats a Chinese restaurant in the afternoon, well after the lunch hour rush and well before the dinnertime crowd arrives. Chinatown in any major or medium-sized Canadian city is ideal and whether it is on Spadina, Sumerset or la Gauchetière, it is always pretty much the same.

The restaurant is usually deserted and so it's easy to secure a quiet table in an inauspicious back corner. The server, who is probably the only waiter covering the moribund afternoon shift, is usually an uninterested middle-aged Chinese who is more interested in the poker game going on in the kitchen than fussing over you.
It is easy to have an hour long meeting, completely private.

As a now deceased senator and mentor of mine explained to me, getting identified by the staff in a Chinese restaurant is almost impossible,
"To the Chinese, we white people all look alike" and on top of it, he continued,
"A Cop could show a Chinese waiter a picture of his own mother and he would deny knowing her nine times out of ten"

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Pay in cash, leave a decent tip, not too big or small to call attention and you are good to go.

Now how do politicians, who are recognizable have clandestine meetings (and yes they do.)

Hotel rooms, where a third party rents the room and the politicians meet in private.
Remember the story of Brian Mulroney meeting lobbyist Karl Heinz Schreiber in a hotel room in Mirabel?
Textbook.. Link

Pay attention and learn something, Mr. Mathieu Bock-Côté!

7 out of 10 PQ cabinet ministers send their children to private school

Reaction to Quebec education minister Marie Malavoy's attack on private schools was swift and furious, eliciting a firestorm of criticism in the press. In an altogether familiar refrain Premier Marois was forced once again to correct a minister publicly telling reporters that the government has no intention of cutting subsidies to private schools that require students to take entrance exams. Link{Fr}
Reporters couldn't resist and launched an investigation as to how many ministers in Pauline's cabinet with school age children, send them to private school;

"By sending his children to private school, the Minister of Higher Education, Pierre Duchesne, contradicts the principles defended publicly by the government of Pauline Marois.

During the election campaign Marois said this;

"I believe that the Minister of Health has the duty to be exemplary. As for me, a Minister of Education has the duty to be exemplary (and should) send their children to public school, "Pauline Marois said during the election campaign in August.

She was nastily referring to the portly ADQ candidate, Dr. Gaeten Barrete, whose girth, in her opinion, disqualified him for the position of Health minister.  Link

However, two of Pierre Duchesne's three children go to private school and the children of the Minister of Education, Marie Malavoy, also spent several years in a private school.

During the election campaign, Marois also attacked  François Legault for having sent his children to private school.

Oh the hypocrisy!

PQ would apply French-language laws to daycares

"Immigrants to Quebec who want to send their children to daycare will soon have to look into finding a French-language centre, the government said Wednesday, outlining the latest plank in its plan to overhaul the province's language laws.
The measure will be part of legislation to be tabled this fall that is aimed at toughening Bill 101, formally known as the French Language Charter, Families Minister Nicole Léger said.

"Bill 101 is going to be changed," Léger said in an interview. "I will have plenty of support as family minister to make sure it also extends to daycares."

Quebec has various types of child-care centres and it is not immediately clear whether the new legislation would apply to all of them — if the bill even passed in the legislature, where the Parti Québécois government has a minority. But it appears that the new rules would at least apply to children up to age five who attend publicly run or subsidized daycares and early-childhood centres."  LRead the rest of the story

Lost in all this is a conclusion that nobody in the mainstream media picked up.

Had the PQ intended to apply the Bill 101 to cegeps, it would have been included in this proposal and so it seems that idea is off the table.

Radio-Canada too Quebec-centric

"A long-standing complaint concerning Quebec navel-gazing by the CBC’s French-language news service has been revived as the national broadcast regulator considers Radio-Canada’s licence renewal. Sen. Pierre de Bane, a former Liberal cabinet minister under prime minister Pierre Trudeau, commissioned an exhaustive research study that suggests Quebec television viewers may be getting an “unrepresentative image of the Canadian reality.”
A scientifically vigorous sample of 2010 newscasts on Le Telejournal, taken by a Carleton University researcher, found that 42% of the coverage focused on Quebec, a third dealt with international news and just 20% covered Canadian “national” news.
Regional stories focusing on the other 11 provinces and territories comprised less than six per cent of Le Telejournal’s coverage over a month-long period.
By contrast, CBC’s The National focused 37% of its newscast on Canadian national news, 36% on international events and the remaining 27% on the provinces and territories." Read the rest of the story

Quebec continues to decline

Here is a chart prepared by DAVID, at republique de bananes, reflecting a sad decline in Quebec's relative weight in Canada. Read the original story in French

The red line is the demographic proportion of Quebec's population in Canada and the blue line, Quebec's portion of the Gross Domestic Product.

etc. etc.

David Hague: Time for some Anglo push-back in Quebec (good read)

Montreal engineer first to admit he took kickbacks

After furious French lobbying, CRTC blocks Bell bid to take over Astral

Quebec companies most heavily taxed

Budget cuts hurting bilingualism 

Canadian flag rally set for Quebec city


Attention readers:

I would have liked to offer a longer post for this weekend, however I was preoccupied and so cut things short.
On Thursday morning my son and daughter-in-law presented us with a little baby granddaughter and as you can imagine, our family is as excited as can be.

Since my son and his family are expats, we are hopping in the car to visit the newest addition to our family and so, I beg readers indulgence if posting  is disrupted over the beginning of next week.

Have a very good weekend, I'll know I will!!

Marois Embarrasses Canada Abroad

You'd think that with her government reeling after just a few short weeks in power, Pauline Marois would be hard at work behind her desk in Quebec, trying to figure out how to get things back on track, this while minister after minster continues to make a mockery of the concept of competence.

But to Pauline, driving around Paris in a fancy limousine, decorated with a little Quebec flag flapping about in the wind and being received by the President of France with all the trappings of a head of state, is her definition of success, a personal dream come true.

Notwithstanding, it is a fantasy, no different than Joe Sixpack going to fantasy baseball camp, donning the uniform of his favourite baseball team and pretending for just a few days that he is, what clearly he is not, a big leaguer.

Perhaps one should pardon her enthusiasm, like a trip to fantasy baseball camp it is usually a once in a lifetime affair and the way things are going, it is likely that this was her one golden opportunity, certainly not something to be passed up.
After this, there is no where else to to go, nowhere else to visit where she will be received as a head of state with all the related pomp and circumstance.

And so it was now or never for Pauline, an opportunity to trash talk Canada internationally and even though the speech was an embarrassment for all professional diplomats, for Pauline and her supporters at home, it was supremely delicious and like hitting a home run off a forty year-old pot-bellied accountant at fantasy camp, she can pretend it mattered.
 
For those who are unaware, and I assume it is most of you (the story was just that important) Pauline gave a speech in France where she took pot shots at Canada's foreign policy;

"Pauline Marois continued her first official visit to France Tuesday as Quebec premier, criticizing the direction Canada’s diplomacy has taken under the Harper government....
...The present foreign policy of Canada does not correspond to our values or our interests,” Marois said, citing differences between Quebec and Canada on climate change....." Link

 Once again, YGRECK, Quebec's Canada's most talented political cartoonist, has hit the nail on the head with a satirical, biting and so on the point cartoon, mocking Pauline and French president François Hollande;

Marois meets Hollande... "We've got so much in common.

So good for Pauline!
She has crossed the number two and number three items off her bucket list, and considering that with zero likelihood that her number one goal, that of being president of an independent Quebec can ever be achieved, she has done pretty well, on a personal level, at least.

As for the rest of  Quebecers, I can't say we are doing so well and so it is hard to match Pauline's enthusiasm.
Back at home, far away from Pauline's fantasy world, Quebecers have been rocked by more devastating testimony at the Charbonneau inquiry, which if the allegations are to be believed, confirms that ;

• The PQ, the ADQ,  as well as the Liberaals all took illegal campaign contributions.
• The mayor of the provinces second largest city Laval, Gilles Vaillancourt was getting a two and a half percent kickback on construction projects within his city
• Another half a dozen towns were named as corrupt, including Mascouche, Boisbriand and St. Jerome.
• An investigator from the DGE (the office that is in charge of enforcing campaign financing laws) advised Lino Zambito to rewrite his deposition because he was implicating himself in election financing fraud. Link
• That almost all the consulting-engineering firms, charged with the responsibility to monitor construction projects on behalf of the government, were they themselves corrupt and served as the go-between between construction companies and the political parties who were being funneled illegal contributions..

All this in a couple of days of testimony!

If we are to believe Mr, Zambito, just about  every level of Quebec society that deals with public finances is  corrupt and almost all Quebecers, regardless of political stripe are convinced this to be true.
Who can blame us, we've been subject to the most distressing stories of public corruption for over three years.

The only saving grace for the Liberal party is that everyone else is being tarred with the same dirty brush, but it is cold comfort to taxpayers who now understand the depth of the betrayal..

As Pauline gallivants around Europe on her Cinderella trip, she is in for a rude awakening.
Her clock is about to strike twelve and she is about to turn back into the sad sack she was before she left.

The Press is waiting for her and like sharks smelling blood in the water, they are about to take a serious bite out of her.

On Friday readers, I will be telling you a few things about the corruption inquiry that haven't been mentioned in the press and I promise it will be interesting...

Marie Malavoy is Quebec's Worst Nightmare

"I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too...ha ha ha!"

There's nothing more dangerous than entrusting  political power to the dogmatically driven, those special ideologues who believes with the conviction of a born again preacher that theirs is the only true and righteous path to salvation. 

In keeping with the fledgling Marois government's policy of leaping before looking, education minister Marie Malavoy decided to propose sweeping changes to the education system, without as much as a  how-do-dee to those in the education ministry and without  the slightest consideration for what parents want.

You'd think that after the disastrous spectacle of Finance Minister Nicolas Marceau's political cha-cha-cha (one step forward, two steps back) wherein he jumped the gun by introducing an ill-conceived plan to eliminate the Health tax, only to completely backtrack, Pauline would instruct her ministers to cool it until they better understood the consequences of the proposed policy.

But improvisation seems to suit Marois and it seems that no such instruction has been given to ministers, including Malavoy who will most likely suffer the same fate as the finance minister, when the public roars its disapproval.

Already howls of resistance are being raised and this on the francophone side where Malavoy is trying to put a sovereigntist and anti-English bent in the education of francophone children, despite overwhelming parental support for the wider teaching of English.

And so Madame Malavoy is rushing to restrict English in the early grades and is set to re-examine (and likely reverse) the not-yet implemented plan to give grade six students a half year taught exclusively in English as well as implementing other measures meant to indoctrinate and politicize students towards the PQ way of thinking.

Parents are not at all amused and the media is giving her a thorough and ferocious lashing, concluding quite rightly that Malavoy is setting the education department to a partisan separatist agenda.

This cartoon by the talented political cartoonist YGRECK says it all;

"Repeat after me : We Salute you Pauline"          Thanks to R.S. for the link.

Now if there is any doubt we are witnessing the imposition of a separatist school agenda, Malavoy was quite blunt in setting us straight. She didn't even mince words or try to soft peddle the notion, telling reporters that the curriculum should be modified to expose children to the ''national question' and that schools should be emphasizing Quebec history more.

The subject of broaching the 'national question' in class evoked quite a reaction in the press, so much so that the question of the new emphasis on Quebec history was largely overshadowed.

When I saw our good friend Gilles Proulx railing on television, the very next day, that students know nothing of Quebec history, I realized exactly what Madame Malavoy's intentions were in bringing history to the forefront.

Madame Malavoy and Mr. Proulx remain disappointed that students do not suffer from the victimization syndrome that characterizes old time separatists, who look at history as one defeat after another and  one humiliation after another.

That is what they want to teach, the idea of Quebecers as the oppressed victims of the English.

According to their calculations students aren't sufficiently averse to the evils of the English and need a dose of slanted history that depicts francophones suffering at the hands of the evil colonialists including the Plains of Abraham, Lord Durham, General Amhearst, Meech Lake, the night of the long knives, persecution, domination, assimilation, etc. etc.
That is the plan...

But when I say Malavoy is Quebec's worst nightmare it is not because of her sovereignty pipe dreams, it is her desire to impose her dangerous bankrupt ultra left-wing wing agenda.

The shuddering policy proposal that Malavoy hopes to impose is the dumbing down of the private school system where she wants to do what that the government has done on the public system, that is to transform a decently functioning education system into something mediocre and dysfunctional.

The great reform that Quebec implemented years ago transformed the education system into a touchy-feely exercise that emphasised participation, empathy and non-competition.

Grades were replaced by cycles and report cards no longer 'judged' students harshly, so as not to undermine their egos, much to the consternation of parents who could no longer follow the progress of their children.

"The way the subjects in the program are taught is designed to enable your child to master them, and also to acquire, and then develop, certain competencies:

• Intellectual Competencies
• Personal and Social Competencies
• Competencies Related to Working Methods
• Communication-Related Competencies

The competencies addressed in the program will be useful to your child throughout his or her life.

Your child will learn not only by memorizing, but also by working on concrete activities or projects that draw on or develop his or her abilities. Thus, in addition to drawing 'a' or 'o' in an exercise book or counting imaginary apples and pears, your child may learn to read or add by participating in a group project." Link

Hmmm....
But the very worst of the reform was the elimination of the 'special ed' class, which dumped the academically challenged into regular classes in order to become more inclusive, with the predictable result that the whole class was retarded (pardon the very bad pun) as teachers were forced to slow down progress to the lowest common denominator.

This is what Malavoy wants to see in the private schools, the elimination of elite programs that demand elite students, which goes against her left-wing dogma of equality.

What she seems to forget is that there are some elite public schools (known as 'international schools) that also demand competency tests for students wishing to score a coveted place.

And so Malavoy is demanding that the private schools eliminate competency entrance exams and incorporate special education students as in the public system, or else she will cut the subsidy that these schools receive.
By the way, private schools receive public money to the tune of 60% of what is spent per student in the public sector, so that each student in the private system represents a 40% saving to the government.

It is important to understand that the PQ's constituency is largely against the very idea of private schools on principle, and want the government to eliminate the subsidy completely.
The unions, the public service and the education department cannot stand the competition and would like nothing more than the demise of the private school system, which is tiny to begin with, educating around 6% of the student population.

It is the very notion of egalitarianism that drives the opponents of private schools who find the idea of 'elitism' offensive.

Soon Madame Malavoy will demand that high school sports teams refrain from selecting the best athletes and accept all who apply, perhaps preparing students for the real world, a world where the Montreal Canadiens accept a few handicapped players in order to remain inclusive.

That is not where we are going, we are already there.
It has gotten to the point where you don't even need to graduate high school to be accepted into cegep.


The French have a phrase for it, 'niveler par le bas.' in English we say 'the lowest common denominator.

Welcome to Marie Malavoy's brave new world.