We Need More Covid-19 cases....Not Less!

I don't often write about issues other than the Anglo and Ethnic experience in Quebec, but the fear and misinformation spread by the media and our government over the threat of a supposedly deadly fourth wave of Covid-19 has me seeing red once again because it defies the most basic scientific and statistical analysis.

A fourth wave will be statistically mild compared to what we've been through and the faster it comes and goes, the better.

That's right, I'll repeat that.
We need more Covid cases right now so that we can largely be done with the pandemic.

Let us remember and consider that sanitary measures including lock-downs, mask-wearing and social distancing were put in place to 'flatten the curve,' not to eliminate the virus which was an impossibility.
Those measures successfully ensured that our health system wasn't overloaded whilst we were waiting on the vaccine.
But now our situation has evolved and is vastly different. Our hospitals are empty of Covid patients and most of us are vaccinated. In another month we'll be at a point where everyone who intends to be fully vaccinated will be and new vaccinations will stagnate.
Waiting will serve no useful purpose and in fact, continuing sanitary measures will be counter-productive.
It will be time to let the virus loose on the vaccine 'refusenicks' in order that they acquire their immunity through exposure even if it means suffering through the disease. A modern and updated  "Chicken Pox Party" for the un-vaccinated will help speed us through the pandemic.

“Before the chickenpox vaccine, parents held these pox parties for their children as catching the virus was almost inevitable.

“So if your cousin or neighbour had it, you went to their house to catch it and get it over with”.

Admit it.
How many of us who took the socially-responsible decision to vaccinate are secretly hoping that the idiot refusenicks get Covid quickly, if not for anything else but just desserts. 

And perhaps a quick spike in Covid cases among the unvaccinated will convince some that they should get the vaccine.
It's a route we need to take because protecting the un-vaccinated through continuing wide sanitary measures will just prolong our agony. The highly transmissible 'Delta" variant will get the refusniks sooner or later, so better for us all if it is sooner. A quick month or two spike in cases will allow us to achieve a very high level of resistance allowing us to return to normal.
Yes, there will be some cases of breakthrough cases in those fully vaccinated but it will happen no matter what, sooner or later.
There will be pain no matter so it's better to get it over with.

At any rate......

How is it that a mere civilian like myself has the audacity to make a claim with confidence that my solution is better than what the government and its panel of experts recommend?
Well, I pride myself on statistical analysis. I possess no special insight except a keen and inquisitive mind, unshackled by a political agenda willing to go where the science and statistics take me.
And by the way, I've been right before where Health Canada was dead wrong.
Really!
I wrote a blog piece on Covid-19 way back at the beginning of the pandemic which in retrospect was nothing less than prescient, based only on data collated from widely available information coming out of China.

Yup, 16 months ago on March 13, 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic, I wrote this piece.

The Government is Handling Covid-19 All Wrong...

The gist of which is summarized in this passage;

“But there is another path, one that would allow us to manage the outbreak and preserve our  hospitals to reasonably cope with the outbreak.

We must immediately impose a self-quarantine on everybody over 65 years old and those in vulnerable health categories.

Seniors would be obliged to go into home self-quarantine where they would be forced to ride out the storm. Senior residences would be put on lock down with no visitors and employees would be restricted to working in just one senior residence, reducing contamination from one home to another”.

By all means, read the whole article and tell me I wasn't right then and Health Canada wrong.
How many thousands of lives would have been saved had the government listened to me and not Health Canada?

 Bravado aside, I guess I deserve the right to say 'I told you so" and am now telling you once again that our pandemic measures are fatally flawed.

I understand that political considerations were at play, but the prevailing opinion at the time based on the convenient canard of "evolving science" pedalled by Health Canada, could not have been wronger.

" In January, (2020) for example, leading Canadian federal politicians and health officials told us cases of coronavirus would be rare in Canada, that border closures were wrong-headed and unnecessary, and that there was generally no need for private citizens to wear face masks in public." Edmonton Journal

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To this day Dr. Theresa Tam refuses to take responsibility for the horrific advice that cost thousands of lives. In fact, she has doubled down on her stupidity. It is a catastrophic case of hubris over reality that Canadians paid for dearly in lost lives. It's clear Dr. Tam was resorting to the old device of 'Fake it 'til you make it"
Instead of telling Canadians the truth, that is that Health Canada didn't have any real answers, she made up a response that was tragically disastrous.
It is an amazing thing that she hasn't lost her job and continues to offer Canadians gratuitous advice after being so criminally wrong.
Fool me once.....

And so we come to the fourth wave of covid which is now running rampant in the USA, a situation which we are warned will happen here if we are not super diligent.

But we are not in America and our situation is different. Canadians will soon achieve a rate of vaccination that dwarfs that of America. We have suffered fewer cases and fatalities during the pre-vaccine period because we as a nation embraced the sensible sanitary measure when they were vital in keeping cases low when it counted.
The only failure was that of our government and Health Canada which failed to keep covid out of the retirement homes with disastrous effect.

So to paraphrase Prince Harry who put it so succinctly....
"We are on a different path than our American brothers"

Let us consider the evolving situation;
There will be no 'herd immunity,"  the concept that tells us that if enough of us are vaccinated, the disease will peter out.
Unfortunately, the new and emerging variants have put paid to that idea.
The Covid virus has proven resilient and resourceful through its many new iterations especially like the current "Delta" variant which is running amok, more virulent and easier to spread. Scientists reluctantly agree that this makes the idea of herd immunity unlikely because the percentage of those who need to be vaccinated is at a threshold higher than we can hope to achieve, largely thanks to the idiot vaccine 'refusniks' who number about 15% of us.
Read this article in New York Times.

Reaching ‘Herd Immunity Is Unlikely

The sooner the un-vaccinated refuseniks get sick, the faster we'll be over the pandemic. In fact, the failure of these people to vaccinate is effectively holding us hostage to the virus. 
Those in Canada over sixty years old have a vaccine rate of something like 90+ percent and so letting the virus loose on the un-vaccinated will make many sick but will result in few deaths and hospitalizations because refusenicks are mostly young and healthy.  

The last argument for maintaining sanitary measures is the fact that children under twelve haven't been vaccinated but again the statistics tell us it isn't really necessary.

For these children, Covid represents a negligible risk.
There have been 7,888 cases of COVID-19 in patients under the age of 20 in Canada, according to Public Health Agency of Canada data last updated Monday night. Of those thousands of young infected patients, only one has died. CTV NEWS

A child involved in a car accident has a 1 in 100 chance of dying.
A child who contracts Covid-19 has a 1 in 10,000 chance of dying. (In fact, the number is vastly higher because most infected children are asymptomatic and don't even know they had the virus.)

At any rate, extrapolating data from Health Canada, during that same 18 months period of the Covid-19 pandemic, tells us that somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 children under 12 years old died in road accidents. Transport Canada.

Should we ban children from driving in cars?

Those who argue that children can be a vector for transmission are correct, but so, I maintain that that is a good thing because we need to encourage the fourth and hopefully final wave.

Those who are immuno-compromised will be able to hide out during this wave which should not last more than a month or two after which we will largely be done.

It isn't a perfect solution but the best option we have.

Takeaway.... Bring on the fourth wave now,

Did Quebec's Language Obsession Cost Habs the Stanley Cup?

I've been itching to write a blog post such as this for many years, ever since Francophone journalists and sports commentators started exorcising the Montreal Canadiens for having so few Quebec francophones on the team.

Diving into the realm of 'what if' is a risky endeavour at best and foolish at worst, but it might serve to counter the hysterical rhetoric of language fanatics who demand that the Canadiens operate under a handicap that no other NHL team would entertain.

I'm referring to the impossible and ridiculous "Savard Doctrine" which dictates that the Montreal Canadiens should always opt for the francophone when a choice is to be made between players of equal value.

It was nonsense when Serge Savard, the general manager of the time, first enunciated the policy and it is nonsense today because, in the real world, those choices don't ever present.
In fact, Savard never gave us an example of a choice that he made based on the policy.

The Savard Doctrine, in and of itself, is harmless enough because even in the most implausible of circumstances where the team could choose a francophone instead of another player of equal talent, there would be no discernible harm.
But it did establish language as a hiring criterion, opening the door for fanatics to push even harder for the team to consider French as an important element in the hiring process, even when the choice of a francophone player isn't the best hockey decision.

You might well remember the sacking of interim coach Randy Cunneyworth a few years back, over his lack of French. The furor was ugly and nasty, including a demonstration by language fanatics in front of the arena. I'm pretty sure it frightened the bejesus out of its lightweight managing owner Geoff Molson who caved into the pressure throwing the lame-duck coach under the bus. 
It was a powerful portent of things to come and established firmly that language would indeed become an enduring handicap.
Nationalists will defend to the death the notion that making French an important criterion in player selection won't impact quality but it cannot help but do so.
If the team was saddled with the rule that left-handed players be hired in preference to right-handed players, who would argue that quality would not suffer?

The gran-daddy of Habs French/first lobby is the nasty Anglophobic doyon of Quebec's sports commentator Rejean Tremblay who is a legend for his sarcastic and sour missives targeting anglophones and ethnics. His racist bent is not a phenomenon of a bygone era, he continues to spout his nasty and racist screeds, published in the mainstream media by the likewise racially insensitive Journal du Montreal.

"Everything is going well because we are winning ..
The Habs could field 20 Chinese players and it would be okay.
If the KHL convinced the Chinese to embrace hockey,
we'd find ourselves with 20 Fang Wongs in 20 years. 

Incidentally, that article insulted the Canadiens organizations as well as its fans for putting hockey before language, an unpardonable sin.

And the argument for the Habs to make language a part of the hiring process is repeated ad nauseam, including the mayor of Montreal and Premier Legault advocating for more "Quebecois" (read: 'francophone' ) who are able to communicate with fans in French be given preference.  The Premier opined that perhaps the return of the Nordiques would spur a competition with the Habs to hire more "Quebecois." Truthfully, the return of the Nordiques is a goal for like-minded nationalists who dream of a team that better represents their ideal of Quebec.

At any rate, I come to the gist of this article, the fact that the Canadiens may just have lost the Stanley Cup because of the disastrous player trade that brought the now sidelined Jonathan Drouin to the Habs for first-round draft choice Mikhail Sergachev. Tampa Bay general manager Steve Yzerman must have rubbed his hand in glee when he dumped problem-child Drouin on the Habs for a coveted first-round draft pick. It will go down as one of the worst trades in Canadiens history, perhaps on a par with the Scott Gomez acquisition for Ryan McDonough.

Drouin was already a big problem in Tampa Bay, at loggerheads with the team, going on a mini strike and demanding a trade.
As damaged goods, you'd think Drouin would be a bargain, but not for the desperate Habs eager to sign a francophone.
And so Tampa Bay Lightning got a young defenceman with a bright and long future and the Habs got sad sack Drouin. The Habs media was giddy with joy, with nobody willing to say the truth out loud or in print... that is,  that the desperate Habs were hoodwinked.
By the way, don't blame Montreal GM Marc Bergevinfor the trade, language pressure was the key element for making the trade thanks to pressure from the public and from team ownership desperate for more francophone players.

And so we come to the recent and surprising meeting of the Habs and Lightning in the Stanley Cup final, which like any playoff series can turn of the smallest of edges.

Drouin was gone, absent, on leave from the team for what we can only assume is a serious mental condition, while Sergachev played significant minutes, contributing big-time to the Lightening defence.

Imagine Sergachev playing for the Habs and Drouin not playing for the Lightning during the series.
It might have been the difference between being a runner-up and winning the Stanley Cup.

While we'll never know, it remains that nobody in the French media will dare speculate on the issue because they all supported the idiotic trade.

And so the chickens have come home to roost.
The broken Savard Doctrine is a fantasy that the entire Quebec hockey scene continues to embrace and so admitting that it might just have cost the city a Stanley Cup is an idea too frightening and horrific to entertain, one that cannot be mentioned out loud by the media on pain of excommunication.

Governor-General Choice a Tragic Mistake and Horrific Precedent

I cannot say that I'm stunned by Trudeau's woke appointment of Mary Simon as the next Governor-General. We've come to expect form over content and a Prime Minister who makes decisions not on what is best for the country, but is best for his image.

I am however stunned at the muted opposition and the unacceptable silence by the cowering media and political class who remain too afraid to say out loud what they really think.

That is that the choice of a Governor-General who doesn't speak one of the two official languages is unacceptable on any level.

It a sickening pandering to wokeness that clearly proves that diversity hires are almost always less competent than the alternatives, more competent candidates that are downgraded because they don't have the right skin colour, religion or ancestry.
It is sickening.

Choosing a candidate who doesn't speak French breaks the essence of what Canada has evolved into, or more to the truth, the ideal that Canada has set for itself, a country dedicated and respectful to the founding nations, the French and the English.

I have no problem recognizing that Canada's founding mosaic was flawed in that it excluded Canada's aboriginals and steps being taken to right this historical wrong are to be applauded..
But for Trudeau and the Liberals promoting the aboriginal's right to be included as respected partners seems to be a zero-sum game, where in order to accommodate them, someone has to give up their place.

And make no mistake, the position as a founding nation for French Canada is being downgraded and disrespected in order to fulfill the rush to be 'inclusive.'

The position of Governor-General may constitutionally important but let us be honest, the job is largely ceremonial and meant to foster unity and pride. The GG gives out awards and prizes, cuts ribbons and visits hospitals, she is a poor colony's stand-in for the Queen who towers by comparison.

You would think that the number one occupational requirement for the job is excellent communication skills followed by personability, both skills that will be absent when communicating with 25% of Canada's population who speak French.

A great deal is made that she is indeed bilingual, but not with French, rather English and her native Inuktitut, a language that is so exotic here in Canada that less than 35,000 people speak it, which places just above Swahili (30,000) in importance of languages spoken in Canada

In Canada bilingual means French and English, not Punjabi, Italian, Spanish or Cantonese. 

98% of Canadians speak English or French and so a job that entails communicating with these citizens would make bilingualism an iron-clad requirement.

And the notion that she will become proficient in French in her seventies is a laughable lie. 

I live in an affluent majority-English town in Quebec which boasts a unilingual English mayor who also promised to learn French when first he knocked on my door seeking my vote 15 years ago
We are still waiting.

I shudder in morbid anticipation of a throne speech given partly in pigeon French, written out for her phonetically and delivered without a clue to its content.

I can only imagine a medal presentation or a meet and greet.....
BONE-JEWR, KOH MAH SAW VAH, MOAN SEWER MAR TEEN OH
PHILLY-SET-ASS -IONES

Argghhhhhh!!!!!!

 There are those who are already clamouring that being bilingual be dropped for important political, bureaucratic and diplomatic positions in Canada. Any relaxation in the requirement reduces the impetus for those seeking public life to learn French.
Can you imagine a choice for governor-general who only spoke French?

For those of us in Quebec preaching for more bilingualism, it is incumbent on us to defend it in our federal institutions.

I am utterly disappointed in all of us. We are so afraid of defending what is right out of fear of seeming insensitive and un-inclusive.

The appointment of the utterly unqualified Mary Simon is poisonous and destructive because, in Canada, inclusiveness doesn't mean downgrading one to boost another. 

Shame on Trudeau, the Liberal party and everyone who supports this hire.

Shame on Canadians who are too afraid to stand up for what is right out of fear.

Protesting Bill 96 Peacefully is a Humiliating Waste of Time

A lot of good people in the English community are organizing what they believe to be a spirited campaign to counter the  effects of the proposed Bill 96, a law presented by the Quebec government as a needed defence of the French language but in reality just another mean-spirited device to inflict more pain on the anglo and Ethnic community.

While I laud the good intentions to oppose the law, these efforts are pathetic and doomed to failure.
What's worse, this type of effort is actually counter-productive because it is not only a fight we will lose but one in which we will be humiliated.

"The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) held a two-day virtual conference titled Our Place in Quebec and Canada. The QCGN is strongly research-based. Its leadership is steeped in experience and knowledge of the issues; there are also young up-and-coming leaders. It has done considerable consultation within the community and opened dialogues with politicians and other community organizations. The QCGN is gearing up for the public hearings through coalition-building and highlighting the impact of Bill 96 on individual freedoms. It will be working on outreach, legal strategies and letter-writing campaigns to educate not only anglophones, but francophones, with a view to sparking a debate on the type of Quebec we want to build together. The QCGN has valuable information on its website, including its analysis of the bill." Robert Libman

Letter-writing campaign?

With apologies to my friend Robert Libman who penned the above in a Montreal Gazette article, the protest route is a solution destined to fail miserably which will result in our collective humiliation at the hands of separatists and nationalists who will delight in our painful and pointless begging, an exercise that will serve only to edify and entertain our opponents who view us with scorn and disdain.

Think of a Spanish bullfight where the bull is forced into the ring and mercilessly poked and speared, pre-ordained to perish ignominiously by way of a thousand cuts.
For the cutthroat arena fans, the longer the pain and suffering of the beast, the greater the enjoyment.
If I could communicate with the bull, I'd tell him not to enter the ring or at least not to fight, saving its dignity, if not its life, thus depriving the rabid mob of its morbid quest for blood.

So too, our potential letter-writers and peaceful Bill 96 protesters are the doomed bull. 
They are that same confused, bewildered beast, destined to ignominious defeat.

So welcome to the real Quebec language debate where inflicting pain upon our community is the goal, an endeavour our Premier and his nationalist ilk of anglophones and ethnophobes actually enjoy.

Our pathetic and painful protest movement will be seen by our tormentors as but a delicious appetizer to the main course, where they gleefully drop the hammer on the English and Ethnic community, the proverbial coup de grace that once and for all declares Quebec French and French alone.

And so respectfully I submit that peaceful debate and protest is the absolute wrong strategy to adopt because there is no reasonable compromise to be had and no hope of even the tiniest scrap of compromise.
 
Please don't do it.

You only have to read the French press which universally paints us as entitled exploiters and colonialists who deserve to be taken down a peg or two.  Day after day, rants liken us to the British poobahs of India, living the good life of entitlement, paid for by the blood, sweat and tears of the downtrodden francophone masses. 

Such is the coordinated narrative being woven by the CAQ government and supported by a grovelling French press eager to dump on 'les Autres.'

And so there are only three avenues left to us that have any chance of success and all don't involve peaceful protest and useless letter-writing campaigns.

The first is a violent revolt, which none of us has the stomach, the nerve or inclination to undertake.

The second is civil disobedience, effective but again not an avenue we are inclined to pursue, having put our faith in the democratic process all our lives, it's hard to become scofflaws.
But before outright rejection of civil disobedience, remember how the students brought the province to its knees over tuition increases. The students were actually protesting for sport and eventually lost interest, but had they continued to put on pressure on the public through disruptions, who knows what blackmail they could have squeezed out of the government. Most importantly,  the lesson learned was that the public had no stomach for a fight and zero taste for a protracted and uncomfortable state of siege.
In the end, the public was screaming for capitulation whatever the cost.

But the third option is the more interesting path and one guaranteed to make our opponents sit up and take notice....

PARTITION.
A BREXIT MOVEMENT FOR MONTREAL IS THE ANSWER

Now before you shake your head and mutter about the plan's futility, a partition movement for the Island of Montreal makes more sense than you can imagine and isn't half as unrealistic as your first estimate would conclude.
Remember that when the Brexit movement in Great Britain started it was laughed off as a futile effort by a tiny minority of cranks.

THE ELEVENTH PROVINCE.

The island of Montreal represents everything that separatists and nationalists hate and everything that we federalists value.
Immigrants, diversity, religious freedom and bilingualism are the ideas that the proponents of Bill 96 abhor and values that the very large majority of those living on the island of Montreal adhere to.

The partition of Montreal makes political sense because of its natural boundaries and its federalist majority.
I know that some will argue for a larger basin but adding other areas isn't feasible.

On the if-come Montreal holds a winning referendum and seceded from Quebec, those Quebecers who want to remain federalist are welcome to move to the island as are those who are not may choose to leave.

There isn't any doubt that presented with an opportunity to create a bilingual, diverse and religiously tolerant province, a YES vote is not only feasible but likely for Montreal. 

WE ARE THE MAJORITY.

And most importantly we can count on the rest of Canada to support this new province unreservedly since Montreal is the only thing Canadians like about Quebec.
Should Quebec choose independence after Montreal becomes a province, you won't see any love-in rallies by Canadians begging them to stay. The prevailing attitude would more likely be good riddance.

Would the Quebec government allow such a referendum?

Absolutely not, it would fight the idea tooth and nail, but that is what independence movements are all about, the fight for recognition for the right of self-determination.

More importantly, once a credible secession threat is made the debate will change dramatically. We will no longer be begging for favours and the more stringent the limitations placed upon our community, the faster support for partition will grow.

Separatists and nationalists are a paranoid lot and suffer from recurring delusional conspiracy theories.

Let us give them the granddaddy of it all.
A partition movement will be frightening and just a few posters and meetings will send them into a frenzied fit of apoplexy.

The French news channels will exaggerate the movement because that is what they do, thus giving legitimacy to the movement.

Faced with real and frightening push-back, the francophone majority will no doubt reconsider its harsh treatment of our communities. Faced with the dilemma of something to lose (and losing Montreal is a pretty big deal) I've no doubt that the majority will seek rapprochement rather than a bloody war, one which they very well may lose.

1. Ambit claim

   In negotiation, an ambit claim is an extravagant initial demand made in expectation of an eventual counter-offer and compromise. In labour union negotiations, this is called a Blue Sky demand.

Pushing for partition is a strategy that will be infinitely more successful in protecting our rights than will be peaceful protests. 

Whether partition is achieved or not, the effort will be rewarded.
Save your letters for grandma....

Myths & Lies of Quebec's French Language Debate Part One- Mother Tongue Nonsense

 It's no secret that statistics are easily manipulated and often misused to promote an opinion or political position when a fair evaluation of the data would show otherwise.

I'll start with a blatant example of this type of misuse of statistics in a Journal du Montreal article penned by blowhard Normand Lester whose disdain for anglophones, Canada, the USA and particularly Israel is legendary.
As for background, Mr. Lester was fired from Radio-Canada for his extreme anti-Canadian opinions which he shared while employed by Canadian taxpayers. He was at the center of a contrived controversy in 1996 when he accused the Jewish General Hospital of language heresy when a  nurse supposedly refused to address him in French, even though he had previously been speaking with her in English.
The incident sparked a heated demonstration by amped-up nationalists in front of the institution that was later cleared of any language wrongdoing. I only refer to this incident in light of the ironic fact that Mr. Lester's life was saved in the very same hospital's emergency room seventeen years later after suffering a heart attack.
I always laugh when sovereigntists and language militants attack English hospitals for being English entities and then whine that French service is not up to snuff, THUS recognizing by their complaint that these hospitals are indeed bilingual. 
It is the hallmark of these language whingers to argue the opposite points of view when convenient as we shall see below.

At any rate, Mr. Lester is not one to mince words or keep his dishonest and racist views to himself. 

"Normand Lester was somehow allowed to publish a column comparing the Mohawk Warriors to terrorists and the Proud Boys, both factually untrue and dangerous, not to mention (again) racist. After public outcry, the Journal de Montréal quietly removed the column from their website, without even the courtesy of an apology or explanation." Link 

This is who the Journal du Montreal publishes as some sort of expert.
I was surprised by his recent sadly amusing article in the Journal du Montreal claiming that the decidedly anglo town of Côte-Saint-Luc didn't deserve bilingual status because only 40% of its citizens are anglophones. Bill 101 requires rather convolutedly that a majority of townsfolk must be English to maintain official recognition as a minority.
In other words, in Quebec, a minority must be a majority to be recognized as a minority,,, yup.

 So Côte-Saint-Luc is not English? I looked up the numbers to understand how Mr. Lester arrived at his cockamamie conclusion that only 40% of CSL townsfolk are anglophones..

It appears that Mr. Lester dishonestly conflates mother tongue with the primary language spoken in the home as the defining criterion of what is an anglophone. 
As far as I can follow Mr. Lester's logic, despite acting like an anglophone, talking like an anglophone, and living like an anglophone, you are still not an anglophone unless born to parents who are anglophones. This is the utter baloney contrived by language militants who have coined the thoroughly racist term "historical anglophones" (those born to anglophone parents) to deny that many choose to join the English community by choice.
Statscan, reports that in CSL, more than twice as many families speak English at home as do those families that speak French (20,000 versus 8,000.)
In other words, 60% of the town's population speak English at home.

Mr. Lester's basis of argument must be that because only 40% of residents were born into an English-speaking home, they cannot be considered anglophones. In other words, you cannot become an Anglophone by choice. Now, this argument is the opposite one made by language militants who claim that francophones going to English Cegep are in too many cases turned into raging anglophones.
In fact, Mr. Lester makes that exact CEGEP  claim in that very same article. 
His dishonest use of this statistic fails to mention that even when the original mother tongue is compared, twice as many have English compared to French as a mother tongue in CSL.
In fact, only 20% of Cote Saint Luc residents have French as a mother tongue, yet on this basis, he demands that French be the only recognized language in the town.
Mr. Lester is another language fraudster, typically spouting the nonsense of those who know better but deliberately attempt to confuse with sleight of hand, outright lies and selectively deceptive statistics.
Shame on him, because he's very bright and he knows he is deceiving.

Now let us examine the stupidest and lamest misuse of statistics, the cornerstone argument of the "French is in danger" mantra, one that puts Chicken Little to shame.

"Montreal, is where the vast majority of new Quebecers settle and so Montrealers whose mother tongue is French, which accounted for 48% of the population in 2011, will approach the critical threshold of 40% in 2036" Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, leader of the PQ Link{fr}

And so immigration is to blame for the so-called decline in French because these immigrants don't speak French at home, even though their children are sent to French schools and almost all work in French.
So in this case, it is convenient to talk about the first language spoken in the home as a defining language criterion, unlike Mr. Lester who argues that it isn't.

This is the defining statistic of the "French is declining" argument, the fact that French spoken as the first language in the home is on the decline.
It is a deception repeated ad nauseam, an argument that is specious at best and racist at worst.

Whining about French declining as the language spoken at home makes as much sense as the person who goes to the depanneur each week and loads up on bags of potato chips, only to complain to everybody who will listen that the potato chips are at fault for making him fat.
It is patently absurd.

As long as Quebec brings in immigrants, the percentage of those with another language spoken at home will rise and French, as well as English, will decline as the first language spoken at home.
It's that simple.

So if you don't want more immigrants that speak another language at home, don't bring them in. Complaining about it as if it's someone else's fault is as dishonest as stupid. 

But reducing immigration as language militants suggest presents another problem. A declining birthrate means the population of Quebec will decline without new blood via these dastardly immigrants  

While not exactly a "Sophie's Choice," for language militants, the immigration dilemma is real.
But that dear reader, we will leave for a future post.

In the meantime, language militants should understand that if they don't want French as the first language spoken at home to decline, they need to stop buying so many potato chips. 

Next up... Part Two- Forced Store Descriptors are petty and racist.