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[Delenda]

Sovereignists are experts in finding the worst
Good news for the French language is always played down
DON MACPHERSON, The Gazette

Published: 5 hours ago

Last December, when Statistics Canada released the first data on language from the 2006 census, so-called defenders of French couldn't wait to sound the alarm over them.

Within hours, communiqués bemoaning a slight and quite irrelevant decline in the proportion of francophones in one part of the Montreal region (the island itself) were posted on the websites of groups such as the Mouvement Montréal Français.

The far more significant finding that more allophones now were adopting French than English was downplayed, when it wasn't ignored entirely, by people who had been preoccupied with these language transfers as long as they were the one demographic factor still favouring English.

This week, StatsCan released a second batch of census data on language, more specifically the language of work. And the news for French in Quebec was so good across the board that even the stories and headlines in the French-language media were positive.

Not only had French not lost ground in the workplace since the previous census in 2001, as some had feared, it had actually gained a bit overall, mostly at the expense of English, even in the areas of most concern.

The reported use of French at work had increased among immigrants in general, allophones in particular and especially among recent immigrants. It had remained stable on the island of Montreal despite the slight decrease in the proportion of francophones living there, bolstered by the 270,000 workers who cross the bridges and the tunnel to the city every working day. Even among anglophones, it had increased.

The progress had been slight, increases of a few percentage points in most cases. But there had been progress nonetheless. In an open economy dependent upon trade with the rest of North America, the French language was holding its own in the workplace.

This should have been cause for rejoicing on the part of anyone sincerely concerned about the status of French rather than looking for justification to tighten legislative restrictions on the use of English.

But the response from the so-called defenders of French was silence. Although they were available if reporters sought them out, there was still nothing about the latest census data on their websites more than 24 hours after it was released. Apparently, good news is no news.

And even if good news can't be ignored entirely, it can be forgotten quickly. A Liberal partisan named France Boucher has seen to that.

Boucher is a former longtime Liberal ministerial aide appointed by the Charest government in 2005 as chair of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), the government board that applies the language legislation. She is not the first partisan appointee entrusted with the delicate task of controlling the language bureaucracy. But she might be the most politically clumsy.

The good news about French in the workplace hadn't had time to sink in yet when it was overshadowed by a controversy created by Boucher. Yesterday, she released a report of her own on the language situation, which had already been discredited by her handling of it.

First she had been accused of trying to suppress a study showing that people whose mother tongue is French are now in the minority on Montreal island (which StatsCan had already reported). Then it appeared that she was holding back that study and several others to release them on the same day, to bury any bad news in the heap and limiting any political damage to the government.

And finally, on the eve of its publication, it was disclosed that her report had not been approved by the usual academic review, and that the chair of the review panel had resigned to protest against the working conditions that Boucher had imposed on it. Among other things, she had let its members see the report only briefly in a meeting and forbade them from taking away either the report or any notes they made.

The panel did not comment on the contents of the report. But people were bound to suspect a cover-up on Boucher's part, and that whatever she said about the situation of French, it must actually be worse.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Parti Québécois has nothing to offer but talk
The Gazette
Published: 4 hours ago
How interesting it would have been to see Pauline Marois's face when she heard no less an authority than Stéphane Dion offer his hearty congratulations on her party's new sovereignty policy.

Does Dion have it in him to mock an opponent? His comment must have seemed like mockery to the Parti Québécois leader, who had just unveiled the policy that party delegates will be asked to approve next weekend. Instead of a referendum early in a first term in office, the PQ now promises a "national conversation," which amounts to a new effort to convince Quebecers that the uncertainty, ill-feeling, economic upset, and confusion of separation would prove worthwhile.

Dion welcomed the PQ's new candid approach. "A responsible separatist leader should always work with public opinion," the federal Liberal chief said, "instead of trying to manipulate the people. (Jacques) Parizeau's 'lobster trap' and other such tricks should be all finished now."

Dion didn't need to add that unless the federal government and Quebec federalists act truly foolishly, the PQ will have difficulty ever convincing voters they must choose between Quebec and Canada.

Nobody except PQ hard-liners however, should be congratulating Marois and her inner circle about the other part of the new policy, the 11 "gestures of national governance" that any new PQ government would make. Many of these amount to government-paid propaganda to influence the "conversation nationale." Some of the 11 - adopting a Quebec constitution and citizenship and stepping up international-affairs efforts, for example - would brush up against Canada's constitution and might even be intended mainly to provoke a federal backlash. Others - bolstering the status of French in unspecified ways, assuring the integration of immigrants, and "consolidating the teaching of national history" are equally vague but could serve to step up the war of "us" against "them," which is basic to the PQ's understanding of Quebec.

In an election, Quebecers who do not support sovereignty might ask themselves why they would support some of these irksome trappings of sovereignty.

Despite the list of gestures, however, this new PQ policy is on balance good news, since it reveals that the party's dream is, at least for now, slipping away. Quebec now seems to have a separatist party that isn't really separatist, a federalist party that isn't all that federalist, and an "autonomist" party that ... well, who knows exactly?

Separatism is not "dead," no matter how many ill-informed commentators elsewhere in Canada wish it so. While true believers keep the sterile old notion alive, however, most Quebecers simply get on with their lives, within a federal system that serves all Canadians well. Why, then, does anyone need the PQ?




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Mon dieu! Drastic measures called for to keep Montreal as French as possible

JOSH FREED, The Gazette
Published: 8 hours ago

Quebec nationalists are in a tizzy over another language report that shows French is declining on Montreal Island, where francophones have slipped below the symbolic 50-per-cent level - to 49.9999 per cent.

Language hawks are eager to francize everything from English CEGEPs and bébésitters to our children's womb tunes. Pauline Marois wants to hold another conversation with Quebecers, though I suspect it will be a monologue.

Mario Dumont wants to freeze the number of immigrants, presumably by leaving them outside in winter. Yet why penalize immigrants, or us anglos, when we aren't the problem? The real difficulty is francophones who are having just as few kids as other Canadians.

We all want Montreal stay as French as possible - that's what makes it special - but let's face the problem honestly and brutally. Here are some modest proposals to keep Montreal French.

Proposal 1 - The Three-Child Policy: China reduced its population by forbidding baby-making - we must do the opposite, by making it compulsory.

Face it: We've tried incentives like cheap daycare, baby bonuses, and family allowances - but many Quebecers continue to have even fewer children than us anglos, which isn't easy to do. Obviously, encouraging babies doesn't work - so its time to try a punitive approach.

Under my new "three-child policy," any Quebecer over 30 who refused to have children would be demoted to "mi-citoyen" status and lose certain privileges - such as the right to easily park their car. This means no-parking signs would have even longer messages than they do now. For instance: No Parking Mon-Wed-Fri.

9 a.m.-5 p.m. - for 1- or 2-child families. - Unlimited Free Parking all week for 3-child families or more.

- No children, No parking.

Likewise, resident-parking stickers would only be given to families with at least two kids, while childless couples would just get a bicycle spot.

Quebec's new Sunday shopping law would also be rewritten to create Sunday Family Shopping Day. This would give all-day Super-Discount Sunday shopping to large families (including yellow margarine and discount Loto-tickets), while childless couples would have to shop after midnight, in dépanneurs.

Most importantly, people with no children would get absolutely no access to free daycare. Even in a generous society like ours, we have to draw the line somewhere.

Proposal 2 - The No-French-Leave Law: This would crack down on the real culprits who've reduced French in Montreal - more than 50,000 francophones who have moved to the suburbs.

The no-leave law would forbid francophones from moving off Montreal Island until they found another franco-family to replace them. Obviously, francophones could still get day passes to leave town for work and play - but they would have to return to Montreal to sleep (and hopefully reproduce) at night.

A similar law would apply to anglos who are losing their most highly educated professionals to other cities in a continuing brain drain. Exams would be administered to all departing anglos at bridges and airports - and anyone suspected of adding to the brain drain would have to leave their brain behind.

Proposal 3 - Montreal Extra: Decades ago, our city's population was slipping beneath the symbolic one-million mark - so we solved the problem by simply redrawing Montreal's borders and annexing Pointe aux Trembles and Rivière des Prairies. It's time to do the same to ensure Montreal stays francophone enough to please the most ardent nationalist.

Let's get Quebec to impose some more forced mergers that declare the South Shore and Laval to be part of Montreal - in a new mega-megacity. Overnight this would add more than 700,000 mainly French speakers to our city's population and make Montreal more than 60-per-cent francophone, The upside: this would save French in Montreal for decades, while permitting francophones to keep moving off-island. The downside: these former suburbs would suddenly have more potholes, worse snow removal and higher taxes.

Proposal 4 - Face the new French fact: Ultimately, we need a deeper solution to our problems, since immigrants will continue pouring into Quebec and every western nation that isn't reproducing. It's time to rethink the whole meaning of francophones and allophones.

The truth is three quarters of Quebec immigrants master French after five years - and many are beginning to speak French even at home. They arrived here at perhaps 5 years old and did what earlier generations of Quebecers never imagined: They went to French schools, learned perfect French, worked in French and are now becoming francophones.

They are the very incarnation of Bill 101 - immigrants who've transformed into French Quebecers. Yet our dated demographic methods still count them as "allophones," because they didn't speak French at birth, as much as 40 years ago.

Why deny them and all Quebec the benefits of this remarkable triumph? Lets change their status and declare these "frallo-phones" to be francophones - making Montreal French again. Within a few decades, this could add hundred of thousands, maybe even millions of new francophones to Montreal and Quebec.

Problem solved. Voila! - at least until the next language report.

Josh_freed@hotmail.com




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

The return of the Parti Québécois's Operation Big Ears

If the PQ were really interested in listening, it would have dropped sovereignty long ago

DON MACPHERSON, The Gazette
Published: 8 hours ago

Maybe it's because there have been so many changes at Parti Québécois headquarters over the years that the party has lost its institutional memory. Because the PQ seems to have forgotten Opération Grandes oreilles - Operation Big Ears.

That was the unfortunate name former party leader Pierre Marc Johnson gave to a bus tour by PQ members of the National Assembly during the 1987 summer recess. The idea was that the MNAs would travel the province gathering people's complaints about the Liberal government to use as fodder in the Assembly in the fall.

It didn't seem to dawn on the PQ that the name invited ridicule until a reporter asked Johnson at the news conference at which the tour was announced, "Aren't you afraid people are going to laugh at you?"

And laugh they did. There were references to Dumbo the Walt Disney elephant and extreme sensitivity to criticism, which Johnson's leadership was already receiving from within the party.

"Mr. Johnson should know it's not the size of the ears that's important, it's what's between them," Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa commented a few days later, adding, "Oh, I can't wait for the session to start."

To Bourassa's disappointment, the PQ changed the name only a few weeks later. But by then it was too late. Even brief laughter can be fatal in politics, and only a few months after the launch of Operation Big Ears, Johnson was out as PQ leader.

Twenty-one years later, at least one member of the party still recalls Operation Big Ears. Marc Laviolette, president of the PQ's left-wing "club" SPQ-Libre, referred to it this week in deriding leader Pauline Marois's proposal to hold a "national conversation" with Quebecers on sovereignty.

"It's a good complement to Operation Big Ears," Laviolette sarcastically told a reporter. So maybe we should call it Opération Grande gueule - Operation Big Mouth.

Because in Marois's "conversation" with the people about sovereignty - assuming any of the people actually show up, but even if they don't - the PQ can be expected to do all the talking.

If the PQ were interested in listening to the people about sovereignty, you'd think it might have got the message after holding and losing two referendums under its own rule of 50-per-cent-plus-one wins.

It's not likely that hearing about sovereignty one more time would make much of a difference, if the people are so thick that they still haven't got it after having the PQ explain it to them for the past 40 years.

Marois herself said when she became PQ leader that the party needed to hear the message from the people in the election results a year ago. After running on a platform calling for another referendum, the PQ received its smallest vote share in 37 years and dropped to third-party status. So Marois said the PQ needed to shelve the referendum indefinitely.

She followed up this week, in a resolution to be presented by the PQ executive to a party mini-convention next week. Since the mini-convention won't have the power to amend the party program, which contains the obligation to hold a referendum, the obligation would be "suspended."

In the meantime, PQ members would be kept occupied by talking about sovereignty, most likely among themselves, in the "national conversation," or with other sovereignists, in a "national concertation" with other sovereignist groups. They would also draft a manifesto explaining - yet again - to anybody who bothers to read it why sovereignty is necessary.

The resolution doesn't say explicitly that a PQ government would spend public funds to promote sovereignty, but it doesn't exclude it, either.

It remains to be seen whether all this will satisfy sovereignists who are chronically suspicious that their leaders are not as impatient as they are.

For Marois's road map to sovereignty looks like the button the PQ sells in its online souvenir shop (yes, even political parties sell T-shirts now).

In the centre of the button are the letters PQ, surrounded by parallel lines filling up the rest of the space. It looks like a maze, with many entrances. But none of the paths reaches the centre.

dmacpher@thegazette.canwest.com




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

For rank-and-file, no crisis over language
Delegates to vote on issue today; 'When I see the progress French has made, I don't see too many problems,' one says
PHILIP AUTHIER, The Gazette
Published: 5 hours ago

QUEBEC - To be vigilant or not. That is the question.

If the province is in the midst of a full-blown language crisis, it's coming as news to some Quebec Liberals .

At a language workshop at their policy convention yesterday, delegates overwhelmingly maintained that stories about the French language being in trouble 40 years after the adoption of the French Language Charter - stories that have resulted in calls for tighter regulation of language in Quebec - are the merely creation of fertile imaginations and are not based in fact.

Of the 10 people who spoke, only one, Jules Leduc from the riding of Charlesbourg, suggested that French was suffering and there was a need to toughen the laws so small companies can institute obligatory French language courses for immigrants who cannot speak the language even after years of living in Quebec.

His appeal fell on deaf ears as Liberal after Liberal contended that moderation is needed in dealing with the language issue and the party should not cave in to exaggerated newspaper stories about a few merchants on a square block in downtown Montreal.

Even the standard phrase used by Liberal ministers - that French is making progress in Quebec but the government needs to be "vigilant" - raised the ire of some rank-and-file Liberals who appeared to be ill at ease, stressing in their remarks that the Quebec Liberal Party is not the Parti Québécois.

"Péquistes will search in every corner to find problems," said an indignant Saint-Marie-Saint-Jacques delegate, René Miglierina.

"And we (Liberals) respond sometimes by saying, 'Yes, things are going well but we have to be vigilant.'

"We are constantly forced to say this, which, in my mind, contributes to a siege mentality.

"But when I see the constant progress French has made in my lifetime, I say I don't see too many problems. I don't see the necessity to be vigilant - it's going well.

"I am sorry," Miglierina said, "but I think by using these words we contribute to creating an artificial situation.

"In my most beautiful dreams, I see the Liberal Party taking a stand and saying that everyone will be allowed to live.

"Leave us alone - things are going well."

The comment reflected how uncomfortable some Liberals are with the possibility of a language crackdown in the wake of new studies showing French slipping in some sectors.

Today, the party will vote in a full plenary session on a package of resolutions that call on the government to get tougher.

In his speech opening the convention, Premier Jean Charest himself said: "I want our French language to be an object of pride but also of inclusion - that is the difference between us and the PQ."

But at the workshop, one delegate from Chauveau riding scoffed: "The future of Quebec is more important than the future of the French language."

"I remind you that this is the Liberal Party and in the word Liberal is the word liberty," added another delegate, Vincent Piazza from Laval.

"I think as a party we would be going down the wrong path if we follow the suggestion of our colleague to force or constrain through coercive means the learning of French by immigrants.
The title of our convention is 'the best for Quebec,' " Piazza said.

"It's not the most pure for Quebec, it's not the most orthodox for Quebec, it's not the most white for Quebec."

Ron Bercovitch, a delegate from Westmount-St-Louis, pointed to a recent study showing that high numbers of well-educated young anglophones had left Quebec.

Bercovitch said he agrees thatFrench needs protection, but he contended that anglophones need to be treated with more "consideration, respect and appreciation for what our ancestors did for Quebec." (for yourselves, you mean)

On hand for the workshop, the Liberal minister responsible for the charter, Christine St-Pierre, said that she had no plans to back away from her role despite the message from rank-and-file members.

"The word vigilance is part of my vocabulary because it's important that the Charter of the French Language be well applied and we protect, promote and valorize French," St-Pierre said.

But St-Pierre added that she has no plans to reopen the charter to add more powers to the law, preferring to use existing regulations to beef up French.

pauthier@ thegazette.canwest.com




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Separatists to join St. Paddy's parade

it's too English, group charges. Organizer says politics has no part in event, and police will be called to remove invaders
ANDY RIGA, The Gazette

Complaining Montreal's St. Patrick's parade is too English, a new hard-line sovereignist group says its members will march during Sunday's event, distributing leaflets and waving Quebec, Patriote and Irish flags.

But parade organizers say the Réseau de Résistance du Québécois is not authorized to participate and they will ask police to remove RRQ members if they attempt to take part in the official event along Ste. Catherine St.

On its website, the RRQ asks supporters to meet at the beginning of the parade route, 30 minutes before the event starts.

The St. Patrick's parade has traditionally "taken place entirely in English," RRQ co-founder Patrick Bourgeois told The Gazette.

"We want to throw a soupçon of French in there."

Bourgeois said he expects "a few dozen" RRQ supporters to participate. They'll be "peaceful" and will not disrupt the parade, he said.

"We want Quebec to be present in this parade, and we'll simply parade with Quebec, Patriote and Irish flags."

He said they will also distribute leaflets commemorating links between Irish and francophone Quebecers, including the involvement of Irish immigrants in the nationalist Patriote movement in the 1830s in Lower Canada, as Quebec was known at the time.

There are parallels between nationalism in Quebec and in Ireland, Bourgeois added.

"The Irish Catholics fought to be respected, to defend their identity. We Quebec indépendantistes see ourselves in that. We're taking the time to underline that."

The the Réseau de Résistance du Québécois, an offshoot of the separatist newspaper Le Québécois, claims a membership of 500.

In January, it staged a protest to support the toughening of Bill 101. The group considers the Parti Québécois soft on sovereignty and language.

Jolyon Ditton, a spokesperson for the United Irish Societies of Montreal, which organizes the parade, said if RRQ supporters want to march on Sunday, they'll have to use the sidewalk because they did not apply to participate in the parade.

"They won't be marching in the parade and if they try to get on the street, or disrupt the parade in any way, or try to march in the parade, I'll have the police remove them," Ditton said.

"The parade has always been and always will be non-political. Even when politicians march, we don't allow any political signs, any political slogans."

He denied that the parade is exclusively English, noting much of yesterday's press conference about the event was in French.

"We have many francophones in the parade and we'd be happy to have more, but not with political slogans.

"It's just not allowed and it never has been."

ariga@thegazette.canwest.com




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Dumont's calculated politicking is dangerous
The Gazette
Published: 3 hours ago

Mario Dumont staked out his position yesterday beyond any doubt. A resolution he introduced in the National Assembly bluntly links immigration with a threat to the primacy of French.

Dumont proposed in the National Assembly that the government's target for newcomers this year should be reduced from 55,000 to 45,000, roughly the current actual level.

As Quebec awaits the report of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on reasonable accommodation, this latest flexing of Dumont's nationalist muscles seems to have been calculated to differentiate his party not only from the governing Liberals, but also from the Parti Québécois.

Those parties agreed last fall on the 55,000 total - the Liberals first proposed 60,000 - on the basis that skills shortages are an immediate problem in many sectors of our economy, and demographic realities - an aging population and a low birth rate - mean that in the medium term we need far more qualified immigrants.

Dumont has built the ADQ partly on the basis of pro-growth economic policies. But now he seems to have abandoned that approach to play the identity card.

Too bad for him that new data this week reveals that fully 60 per cent of newcomers to Quebec from outside Canada speak French when they arrive, the highest proportion since the start of such records. If we assume that half of the others will acquire French, and that some of the other immigrants will move to other provinces where French is not so essential, it turns out that the francophone proportion of immigrants might be right in line with the current whole population, which is 80 per cent francophone.

Too bad for Dumont, too, that survey data last summer revealed that only 17 per cent of Quebecers thought too many immigrants were arriving here. The corresponding figure for all of Canada was 35 per cent.

Dumont's thinly-disguised effort to divide the old-stock francophone "nous" from the rest of the world will drive a final nail into the coffin of his electoral hopes on Montreal Island.

There is something to be said in support of the other part of his policy, encouraging a higher birth rate by increasing the baby bonus. There is reason to believe many couples choose few or no children in part for financial reasons, so helping with that could free those couples who want bigger families to have them.

That's a forward-looking policy. But the anti-immigration position evidently results from Dumont's calculation that he has more to gain from the politics of division than from trying to be a leader for all Quebecers. While PQ leader Pauline Marois slams the language card down onto the political table every bit as hard as Dumont, she has taken a more responsible approach to the immigration issue.

Anyone who seriously aspires to be premier of Quebec should understand without too much effort that winning the prize by increasing tensions in society would be a pyrrhic victory at best. Dumont's unsubtle code message should be seen by everyone for just what it is - a nasty and dangerous mistake.




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

Lire: Dumont est anti-immigration, même s'il a proposé 55,000 immigrants, et veux la primauté absolue du français au Québec, même si 60% des immigrants parlent français à l'arrivée. Ca en fait donc un être dangereux et ses probabilités d'élection sur l'ile de Montréal sont maintenant nulles.

[Delenda]

Regional grants are real scandal
The Gazette
Published: 3 hours ago
Liberal indignation over alleged partisan abuse of regional economic-development spending reveals more about the Liberals than about the governing Conservatives. If foolish denunciations are the best the Liberals can do, it's just as well that they're afraid to force an election.

The story, based on a wire-service report this week, is that projects based in Conservative-held ridings in Quebec have each received $10.8 million in such money, those in each Bloc Québécois-held riding $6.6 million, and those in each Liberal riding a mere $3.2 million.

Montreal Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez wasted no time, once the figures were handed to him, in making accusations based on them. But look again. The Liberals' ridings are concentrated on Montreal Island, and this money is handed out by the Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, which is mandated to focus on under-developed areas. No wonder Montreal gets little.

As for Conservative ridings fattening up, let's start with the $15 million that went to renovations at Quebec City's airport, which is in a Conservative riding but serves half the province. The same riding, Louis-Hébert, houses Laval University and many high-tech firms of the sort that attract such grants. Deduct all the regional-development money spent in that riding, and it turns out that other Conservative ridings averaged only $4.3 million each - less than Bloc ridings. Where's the scandal now?

All that said, we doubt very strongly that Canadians get much real value from such federal regional-grant programs, which exist across Canada. As a way of buying off local elites and winning votes, these might be of great value to political parties. But do they help Canada's economy overall? Not likely. And that's the real scandal.



© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Terrific PR for St. Paddy's
Letter
Published: 3 hours ago
Re: "Separatists to join St. Paddy's parade" (Gazette, March 12).

Once again, the "otherphone" community owes a debt of gratitude to the latest idiot fringe. This time it's the Réseau de résistance du Québécois (sic) that is threatening to attempt to march, sans accreditation, in the St. Patrick's Parade on Sunday.

Media across the province and country have picked up on this non-issue, so North America's longest consecutively running parade is benefiting from terrific free PR.

On vous doit une fière chandelle, messieurs.

Joyeuse St. Patrick!

Louise Labrecque Dineen

Dorval




© Author 2008

[Delenda]

Always felt part of it
Letter
Published: 3 hours ago
I fear the presence of agitator Patrick Bourgeois and his gang of rowdy "têtes brûlées" at the St. Patrick's Parade on Sunday.

I just hope they don't make too much trouble, as I plan to attend the parade with my wife and son.

I have been going to the parade for several years now, and as a francophone, I have always felt myself included.


Email to a friend
Patrice Saucier

Montreal

Lire: Un vendu qui se sent le bienvenu dans une parade de la St-Patrick. Comme si ils étaient pour l'empêcher de 'parader'.

[Delenda]

Quebec's history a family affair


PETER O'NEIL, Canwest News
Published: 8 hours ago

Ralph Mercier was blinking away tears while stepping inside an ancient stone farmhouse on the outskirts of this tiny town largely unknown in France but of profound importance to Canada's very existence.

It was from this same doorway the Quebec City municipal councillor's distant ancestor, Julien Mercier, walked out for the last time in 1647.

The 26-year-old single labourer, the youngest of eight orphaned children, was joining a local exodus to Canada of 283 area farmers, labourers and tradesmen during the 1630-1650 period.

This relatively tiny but prolific group of settlers, the forefathers of hundreds of thousands of North Americans from Madonna to Céline and Stéphane Dion, was anxious to escape the suffocating tax demands of a French regime trying to finance the Thirty Years War on the backs of the peasantry.

"When you find yourself on the doorstep of your ancestor it is quite impressive," Mercier, 71, said this week of his autumn visit, part of the long string of events in France and Canada to mark the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain's establishment of a fur trading post in Quebec City in 1608.

"It took quite a bit of courage for Julien Mercier to leave his part of the country and go into the unknown to become one of those who contributed to building a new country."

Mercier said he didn't realize how few French settlers were responsible for a huge proportion of the 7 million Canadians who list French as their mother tongue.

He also said he was unaware until he toured the $4.5-million Museum of French Immigration to Canada that French Canadians survived and thrived despite widespread indifference amongst French elites and the general French public before the 1759-60 Conquest, toward what was then called New France. The Conquest resulted in the British taking virtually all of France's North American possessions.

The 283 were among a tiny number of French immigrants to North America who went not as short-term fishermen, fur-trade workers or soldiers, but as settlers seeking a new life.

French citizens at the time had little interest in braving a potential 60-to 70-day sea voyage to a land famous for brutal winters and Indian massacres.

And their rulers - who preferred colonizing "on the cheap" by building alliances with aboriginal nations - were opposed to any mass movement that might depopulate France.

From 1608 to the Conquest of 1759-60, when the British victory over the French resulted in France ceding virtually all its North American possessions to its rival, only 25,000-30,000 went to New France, and only about 6,500 actually settled and raised families.

France, before the Conquest, claimed four times the land in North America as the British, but mass migration from the British Isles meant the French were outnumbered on the continent 20 to one.

Once in Canada, the 283 early French settlers from Tourouvre took advantage of the open spaces and a colder climate, which made them less vulnerable to disease, to begin procreating to a remarkable degree.

These early settlers, convinced of Canada's appeal by a local doctor who spent time at the Quebec trading post with Samuel de Champlain, would sometimes have up to 15 children per woman.

Université de Montréal historical demographer Bertrand Desjardins said the 283 settlers from this area, along with the famous 770 Filles du Roy (orphans sent by Louis XIV to marry single men between 1663-72), are the most important sub-sets of 3,300 French migrants who went to settle in Quebec City and the St. Lawrence River Valley before 1680.

Université de Montréal researchers have concluded that these 3,300 are responsible for the gene pool of an incredible two-thirds of the roughly 7 million Canadians who list French as their mother tongue.

Bertrand estimates that without those 283 settlers the current French- Canadian population would be smaller by about a million people.

Mercier isn't alone in being surprised by the demographic figures as well as stories of France's consistently ambivalent attitude toward New France long before the Conquest - a time viewed by many Quebecers as France's abandonment.

Indeed, two Quebec senators, Liberal Serge Joyal and Conservative Pierre Claude Nolin, expressed surprise at the Paris symposium this month to learn of France's half-hearted attitude toward the colony.

"I doubt very much that most Quebecers are aware of the indifference of most French officials of the colonial period," Université de Montréal historian John Dickinson said in an email.

University of B.C. historian Peter Moogk, in his book La Nouvelle France, wrote that France's largest overseas colony, was "like a huge, ungainly child (who) was difficult to love."

The French hoped to find gold and silver as the Spaniards and Portuguese did in Latin America, said French historian Anne Griot, director of the museum here that has drawn thousands of visitors from Canada and the U.S. since it opened in 2006.

Instead they settled for cod and beaver pelts, products which couldn't compare to the sugar and other riches from France's prized Caribbean possessions like Haiti, now one of the world's most impoverished countries.

Dickinson told the symposium on Canada-France history in Paris this month that even at the time of the Conquest French Canadians didn't feel particularly attached to France in the same way British immigrants looked to the "Mother Country."

By the time British soldiers beat the French troops on the Plains of Abraham in 1759, French rulers widely viewed the colony as a lost cause.

The French settlements were vastly outnumbered and ultimately doomed because French peasants, unlike the poor on the British Isles, were more suspicious of their prospects on the new continent, and were by tradition more bound by family ties, say historians.

French rulers and their advisers also were fearful that depopulation would weaken the country's military power in Europe.

France's lack of enthusiasm was such that it only established its first military garrison, a small one, in 1683.

In La Nouvelle France, Moogk wrote the French, in signing the 1763 Treaty of Paris that ceded Canada to the British, didn't regret the loss and considered it a drain on the treasury.

"Voltaire's flippant remark in Candide (1759) that the war in North American was being fought for a "few acres of snow" reflected the superficial thinking of his day," Moogk wrote.




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Torquemada]

Don MacPherson est véritablement un chic type. Un gentleman comme il y en a peu dans le monde des médias. Si y'en a qui se rappellent ses interventions périodiques à Indicatif Présent avec la Bazzo, ils savent de quoi je parle. Tout ça pour dire que j'ai de la difficulté à soupçonner de la mauvaise foi ou de l'obsession de sa part.

[Delenda]

Electoral-map changes are simple justice
The Gazette
Published: 6 hours ago
There's lamentation in the countryside because of a new plan to redraw the electoral map of Quebec.

The proposal, from a commission set up to study the subject, would add three new ridings in the off-island Montreal suburbs - one on the South Shore, one in Laval and one northeast of the city in the Laurentides-Lanaudière area.

The changes reflect population evolution since the last time the map was drawn. A higher proportion of Quebecers now live in the Montreal metropolitan area, which therefore deserves a higher proportion of the 125 seats in the National Assembly.

The change would mean fewer MNAs for rural ridings in low-growth or declining-population regions - in eastern Quebec, mainly. MNAs there would each represent more people than at present, spread out over a wider area. Fortunately this is not today the hardship it was in the days of horse-and-buggy travel and telegraph communication.

Nobody can - or at least nobody should - try to deny the basic justice of one-person-one-vote, which after all is the bedrock of democratic theory: an equal voice for all.

But mere logic rarely prevents special pleading, and the rural MNAs whose ridings are to vanish or expand in area are promising to resist this proposed change. Under the commission's suggested redrawing of electoral boundaries, revealed in Quebec City last week, the Gaspé peninsula, for example, will lose one riding, dropping from four to three. "I'll tell you one thing," said Pascal Bérubé, MNA for the riding of Matane there, "a battle is starting today."

If so, it's a battle he deserves to lose. But it is by no means certain that democracy will triumph. Every party has rural fiefdoms to defend. Pathetically, the Liberal minister of urban affairs Nathalie Normandeau, also a Gaspé MNA, has vowed to fight for her riding when she should be speaking up for the province's metropolitan interests.

It's easy to understand that rural people are unhappy to lose influence, and that their politicians are eager to defend their districts' privileged status. Oddly, though, we heard less fuss during the recent campaign - now fortunately scrapped - to sell us on proportional representation, which would have deprived rural people of direct representation more dramatically than simple redistricting will do.

The truth is that even the proposed reforms don't go far enough in respecting the vital principle of equal electoral power.

Quebec cavalierly and arbitrarily says that each riding can vary from the ideal average population of just over 45,000 by as much as 25 per cent, a huge gap that permits variances by which one riding can have over 56,000 voters and another under 34,000. But at present, 13 ridings are below 34,000 and another 17 are below 40,000. Meanwhile, 40 ridings are over 50,000. Something has got to give.

Fiddling with the borders of many ridings, as proposed, would improve this somewhat, but would leave the Quebec electorate still painfully far from the ideal.

Note that federal riding boundaries are much more fairly drawn: After the 2001 census, Quebec's federal riding map was redrawn so that 71 of the 75 ridings fell within just five per cent of the 96,500 average population. The exceptions are special cases involving isolated regions and populations.

If Ottawa can do it, why can't Quebec? Tolerance for huge variations amounts to systematic pandering to rural interests, at the expense of the cities which are the engines of growth and change for the whole society. It's time for rededication to the basic principle that every vote should count equally.




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Parti Québécois underlines its position as real alternative

In a party that used to pride itself on ideas, the PQ roused little in way of debate
DON MACPHERSON, The Gazette
Published: 6 hours ago
If it's possible for a leader to have a bad weekend in which he gets a 94.8-per-cent confidence vote at his party convention, then that's what just happened to Mario Dumont.

For despite the near unanimous vote, the impression created by the Action démocratique du Québec convention in Laval was of unprecedented dissension, over immigration policy and Dumont's secret salary as leader, within a party reeling on the ropes.

And even though the ADQ remains the official opposition in the National Assembly, the Parti Québécois, at its own mini-convention in St. Hyacinthe, consolidated its current position as the real alternative to Premier Jean Charest's Liberal minority government.

It's the ADQ's meetings that are supposed to look like the gatherings of a cult of zombies, not the PQ's. But the latter's gathering was the most placid major meeting of that party in 20 years.

In a party that used to pride itself on its "debates of ideas," there was almost no debating in yesterday's final plenary session of the resolutions on which the PQ's next election platform will be based.

The "against" microphone on the floor might have been surrounded by a moat filled with crocodiles, so rarely did any delegate step up to express even the mildest disagreement with a proposal.

And so mechanically did delegates raise their voting cards to approve every one of the 79 resolutions that came before the plenary that one had to wonder whether they even bothered to read them first.

One of the adopted resolutions would provide financial aid to any homeowner who wants to house a family member in a garden shed. No, I'm not making this up.

And surprisingly in a party that has been known to argue over punctuation, some of the resolutions were carelessly worded. One would apply the signs rule of "marked predominance" of French to "any publication," which literally means this column would have to be two-thirds French. The proponent said the resolution is meant to apply to commercial publications such as catalogues, but that's not what the text says.

The party executive did manage to catch a few errors it had allowed to slip through in the resolutions it had proposed less than two weeks earlier. One that would have required a "mastery" of written as well as spoken French of everyone holding a job in Quebec was quietly dropped in an amendment.

And less discreetly, a much-ridiculed proposal to hold a "national conversation" on sovereignty (dubbed the Sovereignty Monologues by Gazette reporter Kevin Dougherty) was amended to call for "a debate" instead.

The change in direction toward the right that new leader Pauline Marois wants to impose on the party was apparent. There is a section of the proposed new platform on the "creation of wealth;" in the past, the PQ was concerned with redistributing wealth rather than creating it. And it includes proposals to reduce business taxes, in effect shifting part of the tax burden to individuals.

But it takes more than a change of leadership to transform the culture of a political party, and the rest of the 79 "commitments" that were adopted promise almost everything to almost everybody who might be persuaded to vote PQ in the next election. One would allow students to defer paying back their loans until they were earning a "sufficient" income, and make students from even wealthy families eligible for financial aid.

Still, for the most part, Marois appeared to be in full control of the meeting. Only two of the nearly 500 delegates voted against the resolution releasing the party from the commitment to hold a sovereignty referendum. And there was barely a whimper of dissent when Marois had a workshop session on Saturday crush a proposal to allow a referendum if enough voters wanted one.

In that session, she delivered an impassioned plea for trust, bringing delegates to their feet cheering. PQ members are always remorseful for a while after another leader comes to an unhappy end, as André Boisclair did last year. But that feeling never seems to last.

dmacpher@thegazette.canwest.com


© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

More babies for what?
Letter
Published: 6 hours ago
Is this an example of Mario Dumont's new thinking? With the world severely over-populated the leader of Action démocratique du Québec thinks it is better to produce more children than to encourage immigration.

Why? To preserve a dialect of the French language that is understood only in Canada. Short-sighted at the least, selfish and sinful for sure.

Tim Mackinnon

Notre Dame de Grâce

[Delenda]

Quebecers should get out more
The Gazette
Published: 5 hours ago
Public-opinion poll findings published last weekend at a conference on immigration and integration cast a useful new light on Quebec's reasonable-accommodation debate.

The survey, by the well-regarded Léger polling firm, painted a picture of Quebecers that might surprise many Montrealers.

Compared with other Canadians, the poll found, Quebecers are an insular and parochial bunch: We have less contact with foreigners, we take fewer foreign trips, we have fewer friends overseas, we work in less-multicultural workplaces, we are more likely to think that minorities weaken our culture, and we even eat less foreign cuisine.

We haven't seen details of the findings, but common sense suggests that "insular" might not be the mot juste - these generalities do not apply very accurately, we believe, to Montreal Islanders, of any language group. But Montreal Island's 1.8 million people are only 23 per cent of Quebec's population; the whole metropolitan area includes only about 44 per cent of Quebecers. Life is very different elsewhere in the province.

There is no doubt a somewhat comparable phenomenon in other parts of Canada - Vancouver and Toronto, and to a lesser extent Calgary, Ottawa, and other cities, have plenty of immigrants and a corresponding cosmopolitan outlook; smaller centres and the countryside are less-well-informed about the outside world. But the figures in these poll results suggest that Quebec in its entirety is dramatically more inward-looking - and more isolated - than is the rest of Canada.

And what we don't know, we tend to fear.

There is no reasonable quick fix for this situation. Quebecers can't be made to travel abroad, work with immigrants, or eat molokhia. Nor is it practical to require immigrants to fan out across the province.

As we await the May 31 report of the Gérard Bouchard - Charles Taylor commission on reasonable accommodation, however, we should all take note that a certain amount of what troubles many Quebecers about newcomers appears to be the product of innocent ignorance, not malice. Other parts of Canada have opened up in many ways to newcomers, and Quebec will too. It's just that outside Montreal, the process is not very well advanced yet.




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

Traduction: Les Québécois sont une gang de colons fermés sur eux-même, mais c'est pas par malice, c'est par ignorance...

[Delenda]

'Advisers' to enforce Bill 101
Focus on Montreal. Liberals' action plan hikes number of language inspectors by 33 %
KEVIN DOUGHERTY, The Gazette
Published: 4 hours ago
QUEBEC - In the wake of a tempest over the survival of French in Quebec, Language Minister Christine St-Pierre presented her action plan yesterday - which calls for voluntary compliance and a beefed-up crew of "language advisers."

St-Pierre's plan will add $12 million to her budget over two years and encourage businesses to offer more services in French. The 20 new advisers will offer companies a hand in reaching that goal, but will also join the 60 language inspectors of the Office québécois de la langue française in enforcing language laws.

"We want to ensure that our fellow citizens can buy, sell and be served in French - and more specifically in the Montreal region," St-Pierre told a news conference.

The Action démocratique du Québec accused the minister of being too timid, while the Parti Québécois labelled her plan "ridiculous."

In January, Le Journal de Montréal ran a series of stories about one of its reporters who pretended to be a unilingual anglophone and had no trouble getting jobs as a waitress, retail clerk and cashier in downtown Montreal.

Then came a report prepared for the language office by demographer Marc Termote that argued Montreal would no longer be a majority French city by 2011.

Language hawks and opposition parties seized on the report, withheld by the Office until this month, to press Premier Jean Charest's Liberal government for more action to defend French.

Reports by Statistics Canada and the language office indicate that fewer than half of Montrealers claim French as their mother tongue, and while newcomers are increasingly gravitating to the French majority, most are still drawn to the English community.

While the number of language inspectors will rise by 33 per cent, the government's spending estimates call for trimming 32 jobs from St-Pierre's department, meaning there will be a net loss of 12 jobs in her department, which is also responsible for culture and communications.

The minister announced a package of measures for companies with 50 or more employees, now subject to Bill 101, and those with fewer than 50 staff, not subject to francization.

The government is to spend $2 million to provide French keyboards and software and $250,000 to help translate Internet and Intranet sites into French, and will give labour federations $500,000 a year for the francization effort.

There will also be advertising campaigns with the slogans, "I buy in French," and "I welcome and sell in French," to get across the message that Montreal is a French city.

The reality for Quebecers is that francophones are about two per cent of the North American population, St-Pierre said.

And while she stressed that she must be vigilant in protecting and promoting French, she also noted that 80 per cent of Quebec anglophones age 35 or less are bilingual. "This is important to underline," the minister said.

St-Pierre rejected the PQ's call to reopen Bill 101, extending francization requirements to businesses with 25 to 50 employees.

kdougherty@thegazette.canwest.com




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Réponse d'un petit colonisé qui se croit imbu d'une mission de défendre le français dans la Gâzette:
Québécois French is not a dialect
Letter
Published: 9 hours ago
Re: "More babies for what?" (Letters, March 19).

In response to Tim MacKinnon, political analyst, specialist in French linguistics, and I assume a passionate francophile - or maybe not:

It must be very disturbing for him to acknowledge the very existence of us, the "Canadians," as the British used to call my forefathers.

But we're still here, struggling every day for our cultural survival.

If you want to talk about the over-populated planet of ours, that is just fine, but to label the French spoken here as a dialect understood only in Canada proves you haven't travelled to Marseille, Ajaccio or Brussels. Go abroad and learn. Don't let your preconceptions blind you.

Jean-Pierre Pilon

Kirkland




© Author 2008

[Delenda]

Job search harder for Quebec anglos
Lord report on bilingualism. Some observers argue minority-language youth underestimate their French skills
IRWIN BLOCK, The Gazette; The Ottawa Citizen contributed to this report
Published: 5 hours ago
Anglophones have a harder time finding jobs in Quebec than francophones, says a new report that urges the federal government to boost spending to promote bilingualism.

But street interviews yesterday with Mark Carosella, 18, and his sister, Ivana, 16, of Rivière des Prairies borough, indicated that personality and perseverance can make a difference.

Mark, a Dawson College student, said he has been refused jobs at grocery stores and pharmacies, and contended it's because he's not a francophone. He rated his French as "all right."


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Font:****"A lot of French-speaking employers tend to lean more to French-speaking people than English-speakers," he said.

Ivana Carosella, a Grade 11 student at Laurier Macdonald High School, said her French is "very good," and even though it was judged not up to par in some cases, she has managed to find work.

"We speak Italian and English at home, and I take a regular high school course."

Her French is strong compared with her brother's, she said, because "I work with French people and I practise a lot."

"I'm a lot more social than my brother is," she said.

Jeremy Tremblay, 17, a Verdun resident who works nights at a printing firm, said he was rejected by a major retailer at the Angrignon shopping mall because of his French.

"I really needed work at the time, and it was hard to find a job."

Jeremy was eventually hired by a large store at Fairview mall in Pointe Claire.

"My French is all right, and it's got better," said the graduate of Lauren Hill Academy, where he studied in the French immersion stream.

The teenagers' comments gave some nuance to the finding in the report to Heritage Minister Josée Verner by former New Brunswick premier Bernard Lord.

The report said "anglophones and allophones in Quebec have difficulty finding employment, including all levels of government."

"Young people ... have trouble finding employment in the retail sector because their bilingualism is considered imperfect."

This is leading to an exodus from small towns to larger cities or other provinces, it noted.

The report recommends that federal spending on promoting French and English in Canada should be increased by about 25 per cent to reach $1 billion in the next five years.

The key recommendation on spending urges the Harper government to build on the current five-year plan, which was initiated by the Liberals and expires at the end of this month. Ottawa has spent $810 million on it since 2003.

After conducting a tour of French and English minority communities across Canada, Lord wrote in the report that he believes most Canadians support official bilingualism.

Robert Donnelly, president of the Quebec Community Groups Network, which includes 27 anglophone organizations, praised the report for emphasizing the particular challenge in employment facing English-speaking Quebecers.

Donnelly said part of the problem is that anglos who have a good grasp of French feel it is not good enough and do not apply for public-service jobs.

"From the surveys we've done with youth, it seems that it's more the perceptions that they have," he said from his home in Quebec City.

However, he added, this is not a good time to catch up because governments are downsizing and not replacing all retiring employees.

The dilemma is similar in the private sector, Donnelly said, where business groups report members are "crying for bilingual people" in high tech and tourism but are not getting enough applicants.

Anglo youth should wake to the fact that "their level of bilingualism is an attraction, even if it's not in their minds."


Don Taylor, chairman of the Greater Montreal Community Development Initiative, which studied the metropolitan English-speaking community, noted that a recent study showed anglos represented only nine per cent of the public service in all levels of government in the Montreal metropolitan area in 2001, though they accounted for 25 per cent of the population.

Governments "don't go out of their way to hire English-speakers," he noted, and anglos have not been part of affirmative action programs at the provincial level aimed at other minorities.

"We've recommended a positive action campaign for governments to set targets to increase the number of anglophones," he said, but this is not among Lord's recommendations.

Taylor noted that "a lot of our kids come out bilingual. Their level of French is quite strong, but the people (employers) seem to hire are francophones with a little English."

iblock@thegazette.canwest.com

Principal recommendations of Bernard Lord report

Highlights among 14 suggestions on bilingualism made to heritage minister:

- Federal government spending be boosted to $1 billion from $815 million over five years to promote official languages.

- Continue support to improve access to health care for minority language communities.

- Implementation of national objectives should reflect regional differences, including those of Quebec anglophones.

- Special attention should be paid to arts and culture.

- More support for the communications and community media sector to promote exchanges and information-sharing.




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Mocked in Canada, ignored in France
Samuel De Champlain was 'just a regular guy' says Italian historian
PETER O'NEIL, Canwest News Service
Published: 11 hours ago
French explorer Samuel de Champlain - already getting a rough ride in Canadian media on the 400th anniversary of his establishment of a trading post in Quebec City - doesn't get much respect in his native country either.

Those few French citizens who have heard of the man, sometimes dubbed Canada's founder, don't even consider him the most important native of Brouage, this historic fortified city that draws 400,000 visitors a year.

That title goes to Marie Mancini, Louis XIV's first true love.


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Font:****Legend has it that the so-called Sun King, who would be forced to marry Maria Theresa of Spain in 1660 for political reasons, walked up the stone steps to the ramparts surrounding Brouage and wept so powerfully over the forced termination of their romance that a river of tears flowed down the steps.

"The French people prefer this story because it's a lovers' story," explained Loic Guitton, manager of historic sites here that include the Maison Champlain, a $3.3-million museum built in 2004 - jointly funded by the Canadian and local French regional government - in order to heighten the explorer's profile.

The French also prefer French stories, said a woman working at Paris's famous two-century-old Galignani bookstore, who said she had no books on Champlain and had, in fact, never heard of the man.

"Is he a traveller?" she asked, before explaining: "It is true that our two countries have a common history, but we French know very little about Canadian history." Université de Montréal historian John Dickinson, now living in northern France, said the French view of Canada is often "folkloric." He said actual interest is confined to a tiny handful of academics and members of France-Canada historic societies. Attitudes here are also tempered by "unease" over France's abandonment of Quebec to the British after the Conquest of 1759-60.

Italian historian Luca Codignola, a specialist on 17th-century North America who has studied Champlain's travel records, said he's not surprised by the lack of awareness here.

"The French hardly know anything about their own colonial history, and (Champlain's establishment of a fur-trading base in 1608) was considered a very minor episode in their history," he told Canwest News Service.

Codignola, a Champlain admirer, described the explorer in terms that would suggest the explorer, if he were alive today, would have gotten along better with Don Cherry than with France's socialite First Lady Carla Bruni.

"He wasn't a noble, he wasn't an important person. He was just a regular guy." He said the recent cynical media treatment of Champlain isn't unusual in modern society.

"We seem in general to want to look down on our heroes of the past.




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

Traduction: Samuel de Champlain, un être anodin...

[Delenda]

Quebec has costly delusions of grandeur
The Gazette
Published: 11 hours ago

The abrupt and mysterious dismissal of Bruno Fortier as Quebec's delegate-general in New York raises plenty of questions, which the government is resolutely refusing to answer. Why, exactly, was he canned? After all, somebody who has been a friend of Premier Jean Charest since boyhood doesn't get shunted out of such a plum job so suddenly, after less than a year, for spitting on the sidewalk. Is there any truth to the anonymous letter, received by La Presse, saying the New York office staff is in revolt against Fortier? What's going on? Why can't we be told?

Today we have, however, another question, one that goes beyond this case and encompasses all 25 of Quebec's offices overseas: What's the point? The time has come for the Quebec government to scale back this jet-set boondoggle, find ways to co-operate with the federal government in foreign relations, and abandon the popinjay pretence of being some kind of independent state-in-waiting.

The network of Quebec offices abroad has grown to imposing dimensions. As you work out your income-tax payments this spring, take what pleasure you can in the fact that you are supporting seven "délégations générales" in Brussels, London, Mexico City, Munich, New York, Paris and Tokyo. One step down the scale of significance are our four "délégations," in Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Boston. Then come our 10 "offices" in Barcelona, São Paulo, Beijing, Berlin, Damascus, Hong Kong, Rome, Shanghai, Vienna and Washington. Finally we have "trade branch" offices, staffed not by Quebecers but by local employees only, in Milan, Santiago, Seoul and Taipei.

A tour of the department's website (http://www.mri.gouv.qc.ca) reveals thumbnail photos of some impressive real estate. You are represented in Paris in a building just off the ritzy Avenue Foch. In London you have an office in Pall Mall. In New York your delegation general is housed in Rockefeller Centre, and the lucky delegate-general gets to use a penthouse apartment opposite the Museum of Modern Art. You get the idea.

It all adds up. The international relations department will spend $125 million in the fiscal year starting April 1, sofa-cushion change compared with some departments' spending but still a sum that could be more usefully deployed elsewhere. And the department's spending is to climb by a startling 12.9 per cent from this year. That's a faster rate of increase than any other department can boast, with the exception of something called the government services department.

Where does the money go? The biggest chunk of it - more than $44 million, plus perhaps more through other departments - is for all that representation abroad, and the network has been "redeployed" recently as part of Quebec's "international policy" set out in May 2006. This goes on for pages and pages about "strengthening the capacity for action and influence of the Quebec state," all the while carefully avoiding much mention of the federal government.

It is true that some matters in provincial or shared jurisdiction - culture, for example - do lead Quebec into international contacts. But for Quebec to maintain such a big and costly network outside the country shows little evidence of real commitment to genuine sharing of powers. Quebec governments demand without rest that Ottawa respect fields of provincial jurisdiction, but muscle into fields of federal jurisdiction without hesitation.

In a period when one economic think-tank after another has complained about barriers to trade within Canada, it's revealing to note that Quebec has only four offices across Canada - Ottawa, Toronto, Moncton, Vancouver - and spends only $16 million a year on the secretariat - not a department, just a secretariat - charged with handling relations with the rest of this country. Quebec has more offices in Asia than in other parts of Canada.

To be sure, some other provinces have offices abroad. But Ontario's 10 "international marketing centres" are located in Canadian embassies and consulates. Alberta has 10 foreign offices, all oriented almost exclusively toward trade. Only Quebec spends so vaingloriously around the world.

True, all these offices provide a lush life for old friends of the premier, ex-pols due for a favour, preferred civil servants and the like. But do they bring us good value for all that money?
Charest and his government should take the opportunity caused by a vacancy in New York to re-think this whole politique de grandeur.




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Y a rien que la Gâzette aime mieux que les protestations d''un petit francophone colonisé...
Time for real name
Letter
Published: 5 hours ago
It is common in Montreal to see signs such as pizzeria, caffè, trattoria, Buona Notte, dim sum, casa vinho and various derivatives of the word restaurant.

But when Mambo Resto Lounge in Lachine used a combination of three different languages and derivatives, it was handed a warning by the Office québécois de la langue française for using the word lounge.

It is time for the Office québécois de la langue française to change its name to what it really represents: Office québécois contre la langue anglaise.

Mario Jacques

Montreal

[El Kabong]

Même mon chien refuse de souiller son urine sur la gazette...

[Delenda]

Quebec is failing to integrate immigrants into the workforce
Settlement programs are scattered among agencies and underfunded
MARIE-THERESE CHICHA and ERIC CHAREST, The Gazette
Published: 5 hours ago

After the provincial budget and the Parti Québécois and Action démocratique du Québec conventions, as well as the Bouchard-Taylor commission, the immigration issue is front and centre. But the debate has become highly politicized, obscuring the real problems immigrants face in Quebec.

The questions that torment many immigrants are: Why are our diplomas and work experience given so much importance before we are accepted as permanent residents, and so little after we move here? Is it a trap that we fell into? Or does the government think that integration is only a matter of time and in 10 or 15 years the problems will disappear by themselves?

These questions highlight the challenge of trying to understand the rationale behind the Quebec government's immigration policy. Immigration is seen as a way to promote the cultural diversification of Quebec society, to slow down or stop population decline, or to meet labour shortages. Seldom considered is the point of view of newcomers.

The important thing to remember is that the question of immigrant integration is not just a matter of the benefits to Quebec society but also of equality for immigrants. And yet a number of studies show that immigrants face significant hardships in the Montreal labour market - high unemployment rates and frequent skill devaluation. Many families live in poverty.

How can one explain this, given the numerous agencies and social programs available to immigrants? In seeking answers, it is important to understand that labour-market integration of immigrants is a long and difficult process, one that is time-consuming and requires programs that are consistent, co-ordinated and ongoing.

In our recent study published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, we show that measures to promote the labour-market integration of immigrants have three major shortcomings.

First, policy design and implementation are divided among people with different and sometimes divergent priorities: government agencies, community organizations, employers, unions, professional associations and so on.

Second, one of the assumptions underlying the policy of economic integration for immigrants is that current problems are mainly due to the inadequacy of labour supply - in other words, to the personal characteristics of newcomers. This is what accounts for the large number of programs focused on employability - resumé and interview preparation, familiarization with the local business culture, etc.

As well, employers are still reluctant to offer skilled and long-term jobs to immigrants. There are few programs aimed at breaking down this resistance.

A final constraint is underfunding, which results in strict quotas and restrictive eligibility criteria for the most effective programs. Such programs as internships and skill upgrading fall far short of meeting their intended goals. While more than 45,000 immigrants are admitted each year, only a tiny proportion benefit from such programs, and only for a limited period at that. Underfunding is also a major obstacle in integration efforts.

This month's budget increases the money for immigration, but as the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes has pointed out, this increase barely matches the financial transfer that Quebec receives each year from the federal government under the Canada-Quebec accord on immigrant integration. Moreover, given the needs of immigrants - both those here and those who will be admitted this year (46,700 to 49,000, according to the Immigration Plan) - these amounts are clearly inadequate.

As Quebec debates whether to increase immigration, we think the answer depends on the integration policy that the Quebec government is prepared to adopt. While there are signs of good intentions, there is little evidence that a significant refocusing is taking place. The day when immigrants can enjoy the basic right to full equality in the job market is still far away.

Marie-Thérèse Chicha and Éric Charest are, respectively, professor and Ph.D. candidate at the École de Relations industrielles at the Université de Montréal. They are the co-authors of L'intégration des immigrés sur le marché du travail à Montréal: politiques et enjeux, published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Why not try a few words of English to start with?
Letter
Published: 5 hours ago

Re: "Where are the anglos?; That's the question a Quebec agency has been asking" (Gazette, March 22).

Where are the anglos? Are you serious?

Just the fact that a park in Quebec is called a "parc national" is just one example of the institutional exclusion of anglophones.

The article did not quote an anglo employee of the Sépaq because it's likely there aren't any. At Parc national d'Oka, everyone is francophone; nobody there could or would speak a word of English to me; there are no signs, maps or pamphlets anywhere in any language other than French.

I ski, skate, snowshoe, hike, canoe, kayak, golf and bike. Quebec has a lot to offer outdoor types like me but it's ruined by intolerant nationalists.

Maybe park director Robert Rozon understands now why there are no anglos at beautiful Oka Provincial Park/Parc Provincial d'Oka.

George Ostrowski

Montreal

[Delenda]

Bien sûr, c'est au Québec de s'angliciser, et non à ces Rhodésiens de se débrouiller en français...


Hire one or two anglos
Letter
Published: 5 hours ago
Re: "Where are the anglos?" (Gazette, March 22).

The answer to that question was on Page A3 that day ("Job search harder for Quebec anglos").

Perhaps it's because there are so few anglos or people who speak English employed by the parks. Anglophones are often greeted at the 22 parks by staff who speak little or no English. They can't give you directions in the park or tips on the best spots to get away from it all.

Anglos feel discouraged and go where they feel more welcome and accepted. Perhaps the park agency should consider actually employing some Quebec anglos as part of its marketing campaign. Wouldn't that kill two birds with one stone, so to speak?

Catherine Shapiro

Montreal West

[Delenda]

Stop battering anglo education
The Gazette
Published: 7 hours ago
A sovereignist politician wants to know how an anglophone South Shore school board dares to help parents find out if their kids are eligible for English school. Radio- Canada makes a scandal out of the fact that McGill University takes part in a program for exchange with foreign universities - and some students, from France, are learning in English.

In the National Assembly, English school boards are denounced for daring to support a defence of the remaining tiny sliver of parents' rights to linguistic choice in education.

A federal consultant's report calling for more help for minority- official-language education is denounced as "an insult to Quebecers." This drumbeat of hostility to English-language education is starting to look like an ominous pattern. Even plainly legal actions in support of English schools are coming under attack from a chorus of francophone voices.

Those who claim to be outraged that the Sir Wilfrid Laurier board helps parents see if their kids qualify for education in English need to think again. So does somebody at Radio-Canada, which finds it disgusting that people from French want to study in English in Quebec. So do those who are quick to denounce some English school boards for associating themselves with the government's appeal of Bill 104. And so do those who think "Quebecers" means "francophones" - and who think francophones are insulted by the existence of anglophones.

Quebec anglophones, as citizens and taxpayers, have rights. So for that matter do francophones who want their children educated in both languages.

Strident advocates of stifling English education should be asking themselves why so many Quebecers want to be bilingual. Instead they persist in looking for new ways to further limit choice.




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[Delenda]

Feel kids' chances are hurt
Letter
Published: 11 hours ago
Re: "English textbooks don't exist" (Gazette, March 28).

I feel sickened about this. My son will start Grade 10 in September, and he will lack the basic learning tools that his French counterparts take for granted.

I cannot believe that even though I and my children were born in Quebec, we remain second-class citizens here. I was educated in the English system and thought that my children would get the same good education that I did. How naïve.


As a health-care professional, I can work just about anywhere in Canada, but I chose to stay here and build a life for my family. Now I feel that I have made a huge mistake, and that by staying here I have hurt my children's chances for success.

Despina Deroukakis

Laval

[Delenda]

Quelle écoeuranterie que ce torchon dégueulasse. Vômir sur le Québec français est leur raison-d'être.

Results are connected
Letter
Published: 11 hours ago

A recent survey found Quebecers are an insular, parochial bunch compared with other Canadians. We have less contact with foreigners, we take fewer foreign trips, we have fewer friends overseas, we work in less-multicultural workplaces and we are more likely to think minorities weaken our culture.

Another poll found Quebecers to be the least-tolerant Canadians toward ethnic minorities. And the most recent poll showed that support for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics is strongest in Quebec.

I think all these results are interrelated. Closed minds and ignorance always leads to hasty judgment and biased opinion.(look who's talking)

Xing Yu

Montreal




© Author 2008

[Delenda]

Le torchon veut maintenant nous montrer qu'on ne parle pas français au Québec:

Un hotdog, all-dressed
Letter
Published: 11 hours ago
Re: "English school board's recruiting ad draws wrath of PQ" (Gazette, March 27).

PQ education critic Marie Malavoy says "we can speak both languages but not at the same time."

What province does she live in? Quebec francophones, anglophones and allophones do it all the time. "Un hotdog all-dressed, s.v.p."

Susan O'Keeffe

Rosemere