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[Delenda]

EDITORIAL
TheStar.com

Cynical PQ bid to rebrand party

Mar 07, 2008 04:30 AM

Great news, everybody. It's safe to vote for the separatists now. They no longer promise to hold a referendum after the next election.

That's the message the new Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois hopes voters will take away from a move by the PQ executive this week to rebrand the party by "suspending" its 2005 policy commitment to hold a referendum as soon as possible after an election. The PQ's 500-member National Council will be invited to rubber stamp this policy rollback on March 14-16. Then a major PQ convention next year will be formally asked to amend the party program.

This course correction arises from the crushing defeat the PQ suffered last March, when referendum-averse voters handed the party its worst drubbing in almost four decades. It ran third, behind Premier Jean Charest's unpopular Liberals and Mario Dumont's Action Démocratique party.

Instead of courting political suicide by leaving the PQ tied to a referendum ball and chain, Marois hopes to cut free. The PQ intends to campaign on its latest plan to get Quebecers behaving as if they already are independent. The party promises a "sovereignty manifesto," a provisional Quebec constitution, and a "Quebec citizenship," whatever that might be. It will demand more powers from Ottawa and seek more clout in international organizations.

In federal Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's eyes, Marois's effort to shake off the referendum tar baby is good news, even if Dion was clumsy in spelling out why. "A responsible secessionist leader should not rush to a referendum, should first build strong support, a clear majority for separation," he said. Dion obviously has a hard time imagining the PQ ever selling a majority on secession. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has had a rough week defending his Conservatives over the Chuck Cadman affair and Ottawa's NAFTA blunder, just looked smugly nasty yesterday when he mocked Dion for offering the separatists advice. Dion is a courageous federalist who authored the Clarity Act that raised the bar against secession. He deserves better.

Yet welcome as any PQ retreat from a referendum is, Quebecers would be imprudent to take it at its word. The PQ came close to shattering the country in the 1995 referendum by drawing a bogus link between the idea that "Quebec should become sovereign" and the notion of "a new economic and political partnership" with Canada. That sleight-of-hand swelled the vote for secession.

Before Quebecers cheer the PQ's conversion, or the political weakness Dion cites, they should ponder what, exactly, the party is up to. In fact, Marois isn't saying she won't hold a referendum. She will, if she can win. She's just saying she won't be held to holding a referendum. Basically, she is trying to have it every which way.

[Delenda]

Blue skies for Jean Charest
L. Ian Macdonald, National Post
Published: Friday, March 07, 2008

MONTREAL -From last place to first place in six months. That was the good news for Jean Charest last week in the authoritative CROP poll, which placed the Quebec Liberals at 35%, the Parti Quebecois at 32%, while Mario Dumont's Action democratique du Quebec continued its slide to 21% of voting intention. The government's satisfaction rating stands at a healthy 50%, and Charest is seen as best choice for premier.

The timing couldn't have been better for Charest, coming in the run-up to this weekend's Liberal convention in Quebec City, where the premier faces a leadership review.

Six months ago, there was serious concern about Charest's capacity to survive a leadership vote. Instead, this weekend should be a walk in the park for Charest. No one is even playing the expectations game about the number he needs to put up, but 75% is probably a lock, and no one would be surprised if his support among the rank and file proved to be in the 80s. He is a sitting premier, on a roll, leading a party that observes the discipline of power.

This is a complete sea change from last summer, when Charest's personal approval ratings, and the party's standing in the polls, were at historic lows. The government's satisfaction rating was mired in the low 30s. Charest was the last choice as best premier. The Liberals stood at only 23% in a late summer CROP poll, and at a disastrous 15% among francophones.

Dumont, as opposition leader, looked very much like a premier in waiting. And Pauline Marois, after her coronation as PQ leader, was expected to make an impressive return to the legislature in the fall.

All those expectations, and all those numbers, have since been stood on their heads.

It begins with a complete transformation of Charest's performance, starting with his personal appearance. He went back to the gym, lost 25 pounds, and got the gleam back in his eye. Annoyed at being reduced to minority status in the National Assembly last spring, he became the dominant figure in the legislature in the fall. Charest has always been a gifted parliamentarian, but he has learned to play the competing agendas and personalities of the opposition leaders off against one another.

Dumont, meanwhile, has seriously underperformed, while his team looks like the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. And Marois, trying to compete with Dumont on the "reasonable accommodation" multiculturalism debate, can't seem to take ownership of the identity issue, a defining matter in the sovereignty movement.

Charest has also reached out to his party by bringing in two of its most respected members, John Parisella and Michel Bissonnette, as unpaid part-time advisers. Parisella is a former chief of staff to two Liberal premiers, Robert Bourassa and Daniel Johnson, while Bissonnette is a former president of the party's youth wing.

Finally, Charest brought in Dan Gagnier, a former deputy clerk of the Privy Council in Ottawa and onetime principal secretary to David Peterson at Queens Park, to be his chief of staff. For the first time in his life, Charest is being run by a professional, and the difference in his operation has been widely noted by cabinet ministers, the public service and the Quebec business community, where Gagnier has standing as a former senior vice president of Alcan.

Gagnier has re-positioned Charest around two of the Liberals' historic brand strengths -- as managers of the economy and advocates of a tolerant and diverse society. With the strongest economy in more than three decades, Charest is finally taking and receiving some credit on this file. He's taken a leadership position in proposing a free trade agreement with Ontario, and as well as between Canada and Europe. And the Liberals' embrace of diversity, within a context of francophone cultural security, will be a major theme of the weekend convention.

This is a theme Charest knows from his own life, as the son of Red Charest and Rita Leonard. His mother, as he has often said, "told us to always keep a place at the table for welcome strangers." - L. Ian MacDonald is editor of Policy Options magazine

[Delenda]

...

[El Kabong]

Blue skies for Jean Charest
L. Ian Macdonald, National Post

Ian Macdonald...
En v'là un beau parleur qui s'amuse à remplir le crâne des anglophones avec de la m*rde et à les transformer en "angryfuns"...
Parce que John James* Charest se cache et monte de quelques peanuts dans les sondages: Blue skies!
Vivement, ce type devrait prtendre des kilos de Ritalin au plus sacrant...
Les québécois anglophones se voit offert dans leur langue des infos et des analyses qui ne valent pas cher.
Ti-counes!

Amicalement.

*Pas foutu le Macdonald de nommer le PM par son nom de baptème anglophone...il s'adresse à des anglos pourtant!

[Delenda]

A future within Canada
The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Tuesday, March 11, 2008

National unity is never something we can take for granted, but it is gratifying to note that the threat of Quebec secession is receding, and with it the dull and constant anxiety that, over generations, has been a collective distraction for both Canadians and Quebecers.

The happy truth is that more and more Quebecers understand that there's a brighter future inside Canada than outside. Quebecers remain proud of their history, language and culture, as they ought to be, but they seem to accept that they can retain their Quebec identity as members of the Canadian family. The old-style, inflexible nationalism, the kind that had to be expressed in political separation, has become passé.

The Parti Québécois knows as much, which is why it has all but abandoned efforts to hold a referendum on Quebec independence. Traditionally, the party has taken the position that it's better to hold a referendum than not hold one, the assumption being that Quebecers are at any moment willing to say au revoir to Canada. After two failed referenda, however, the first in 1980 and the second in 1995, it became clear that maybe Quebecers weren't so keen to leave after all.

Last week, PQ leader Pauline Marois confirmed that her party is no longer pushing for a referendum. She tried to put a positive spin on the decision, talking about holding a "national conversation" that will promote the "nation-building project." Underneath the politico-speak, however, is the undeniable fact that if the separatists thought they could win a referendum, they'd hold one.

It's an interesting sociological exercise to speculate why secession is steadily losing appeal in Quebec. It may be that ethnic nationalism, once something to be romanticized, has lost its lustre. We in the West watch what's happening from the Balkans to the Middle East, and suddenly separatism and segregation begin to look less inviting.

The globalization of culture and business has also hurt the separatists. Young people aren't afraid of people who look and talk differently from them; they want fewer borders, not more. Old-school nationalists always tried to breed resentment against the "other" -- hence the endless rhetoric about Quebec's "humiliation." Young Quebecers, perhaps, are no longer willing to see themselves as victims.

Moreover, a globalized world has made us more comfortable with multiple identities. Quebecers no longer buy the line that they can't be both Québécois and Canadian. Multiculturalism and immigration has made it hard to pin a single identity on a "Quebecer." The separatists might have a hard time convincing a French-speaking Montrealer from North Africa that the most pressing geo-political issue is Quebec independence.

Ms. Marois insists the PQ is still a "sovereigntist party," and no doubt she will always have a constituency of some kind. But it was hard last week not to detect a note of resignation. For the separatists, the very word "referendum" has long held a kind symbolic value. For them there was always a certainty that the next referendum would be the one on which their ship would come in.

They are now realizing that the ship is never likely to arrive. This means it's time to stop staring mournfully out at the sea and start working to build a better Quebec, within Canada.




© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

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Quebec-a-phobia goes to extreme over St. Patrick's Day
The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Friday, March 14, 2008
Re: St. Patrick's parade targeted by group, March 12.

Complaining that Montreal's St. Patrick's Day parade is too English, the Réseau de Résistance du Québécois says that its members will march during Sunday's event, distributing leaflets and waving Quebec, nationalist Patriote and Irish flags. Doesn't this border on extreme paranoia?

St. Patrick's Day has really nothing whatsoever to do with the French language or culture. Most Irish are well-versed in English; in fact, some speak it better than the English do.

For that matter, St. Patrick's Day is nothing to do with the English, or with Canada. It is simply the Irish being proud of their heritage -- similar to what happens on St-Jean-Baptiste Day.

There are many Irish descendants throughout the entire country. For them, it's not political. Separatist groups in Montréal are trying to mix politics with culture and heritage, and to their own advantage.

I wonder what they would call the phobia where someone has a fear of everyone else's culture and thinks that everyone else's culture is threatening their own culture. I think it's probably called Québec-a-phobia.

Douglas Cornish,

Ottawa




© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

[Delenda]

A party's tongue-tied tactics

PQ leader's plan for the future of sovereignty attracts criticism

Graeme Hamilton , National Post
Published: Saturday, March 15, 2008

MONTREAL -For as long as the PartiQuebecois has existed, its members have obsessed over language, and not just the one spoken in schoolyards and posted on store signs. Going back to the days of Rene Levesque, when party thinkers agonized over whether a comma or hyphen should separate sovereignty and association (the hyphen won), separatist leaders have searched for the winning formula, the magic combination of words that would deliver them to the promised land of independence.

The quest continues this weekend as PQ members gather in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., for their first national council meeting since Pauline Marois became leader last June. Ms. Marois, recognizing that voters are in no mood for talk of another referendum, will ask her party to support a new approach. Instead of a referendum, a PQ government would hold a "national conversation on sovereignty" with the people. And in hopes of softening them up for an eventual vote, if elected the PQ would start acting as if Quebec were quasi-sovereign, adopting a constitution and Quebec citizenship, intensifying international relations and repatriating from Ottawa powers over culture, communications, language and immigration.

"We'll move on all fronts," Ms. Marois told reporters last week. "We'll go to the limits of what can be done in the current system."

Her plan has attracted criticism from separatists and federalists alike. Some hardliners, such as Marc Laviolette of a left-wing PQ club, have scoffed at Ms. Marois' proposed conversation as a "ridiculous" distraction from the main event.

Letter-writers to La Presse said the idea of a "national conversation" ignores reality. "What else have they done for the last 40 years besides drone on about the best way to achieve sovereignty-association-independence?" asked Pierre Samuel.

"Do you want Quebec to become an independent country? Yes or no?" wrote Robert Giroux. "Everything else is verbiage and political scheming."

If she seems averse to calling a spade a spade, Ms. Marois is simply following a long tradition within her party. Mr. Levesque insisted that what he wanted for Quebec was sovereignty-association, a combination intended to assuage those fearful of a complete break with Canada.

The 1980 referendum question was anything but a model of clarity. "The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad--in other words, sovereignty --and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?"

It was the beginning of a long tradition of obfuscation. After losing the 1980 referendum, Mr. Levesque clung to the notion of sovereignty-association, despite protests from hard-liners within his party. After he was eventually forced out, his successor, Pierre Marc Johnson spoke of "national affirmation" rather than sovereignty, and he was also soon shown the door.

Jacques Parizeau is the closest thing he PQ has had to a straight shooter. He was elected in 1994 on a relatively hard-line platform, but when the time came to pop the referendum question, he soft-pedalled. Quebecers were asked if they wanted the province to become sovereign "after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership." He acknowledged that his position had "changed a lot, but only because of what the people want, a new partnership."

The "Yes" side's narrow defeat in the 1995 referendum fuelled the idea among sovereigntists that one more time would be enough to push them over the top. Lucien Bouchard said he needed "winning conditions" before he could call a referendum, while Bernard Landry sought the "moral certainty" that the "Yes" side could win. Andre Boisclair inherited a platform calling for a referendum "as soon as possible" in the first PQ mandate, and last year he led his party to its worst result in more than 30 years.

All of which leads to Saint-Hyacinthe this weekend. There will certainly be some impatient voices complaining that Ms. Marois' proposal is too timid. Some riding associations are suggesting that the "actions of national governance" be beefed up. A PQ government should abolish the post of lieutenant-governor and take control of broadcast regulation from the CRTC, says one. Another proposes that the province adopt a national anthem and send its own team to the Olympics.


And the search for a new sleight-of-hand that could make independence a reality is never-ending. Daniel Turp, the PQ's international relations critic, sees an encouraging precedent for Quebec in Kosovo's declaration of independence -- which came after an election, not a referendum. Maybe it would be possible to skip this referendum business if the PQ did well in an election, Mr. Turp said last month. "What happened in Kosovo could also suggest that in an election where parties promoting the independence of Quebec obtain a majority of seats and a majority of votes of the people, that also could be a way to show the will of the Quebec people to become an independent country," he told CBC's As It Happens.




© National Post 2008

[Delenda]

Daniel Goldbloom: The PQ's referendum reversal is a victory for Canada
Posted: March 17, 2008, 2:30 PM by Dan Goldbloom

National Post


The party that brought us two sovereignty referendums finally woke up and smelled the federalist coffee. At a Parti Québécois convention in Saint-Hyacinthe last weekend, an effusive and tearful Pauline Marois presided over her party’s biggest policy shift in years — PQ members voted to drop a promise to hold a third sovereignty referendum as soon as possible once elected. Instead, the party will focus on reminding Quebecers why sovereignty is a good thing. This dramatic reversal speaks not only to changing political winds within Quebec, but also to federal leadership on the national unity file.

Even without looking beyond Quebec’s borders (as separatists are loath to do), Marois’s motives are clear. The separatist movement cannot afford to waste its efforts on a hopeless cause. The overwhelming rout of the PQ in the last provincial election drove home this bitter message, as their supporters defected to the “autonomist” Action démocratique de Québec. There will always be hard-line separatists, but the majority of Quebeckers want greater provincial autonomy within Canada.

The PQ convention’s striking lack of discord on the referendum reversal reveals to some that the party has finally recognized its dire straits. But others see it as a sign that Quebec’s separatist movement has splintered. While some hard-liners bit their tongues in Saint-Hyacinthe, others stayed home or had already defected to hard-line left-wing separatist groups like Québéc Solidaire. Of course, the PQ has also been hemorrhaging supporters on their way to the ADQ.

The other piece of the PQ reversal puzzle lies in Ottawa. Strangely enough, a prime minister from the West seems to have had a calming effect on Quebec. Stephen Harper’s “Open Federalism” — more a rhetorical commitment to respect provincial jurisdiction than a substantive policy — nicely accommodates Quebecers’ desire for more breathing room within confederation. And when the Prime Minister added the words “within a united Canada” to a Bloc Québécois motion calling for the Québécois to be recognized as a nation, Canadians across the political spectrum took note of a masterful politician at work.

In any event, the prospects for a sovereign Quebec have hit a historic low. Despite Pauline Marois’s tears of joy, the PQ’s decision to focus on the discourse of sovereignty as opposed to the “means and strategy for achieving independence” is a victory for Canadian unity.

[Delenda]

If Quebec can't get it right, its kids will walk

KONRAD YAKABUSKI

kyakabuski@globeandmail.com
March 20, 2008

MONTREAL -- Jacques Ménard has got a batting average that has earned him a reputation as the Alex Rodriguez of Quebec investment banking.

As Bank of Montreal's Quebec president and chief rainmaker at BMO Nesbitt Burns, Mr. Ménard has been handed some of the toughest M&A mandates Canadian business has ever seen. Yet, like Yankees sensation A-Rod, Mr. Ménard has knocked more than his fair share out of the park.

TSX Group's recent $1.3-billion deal to buy an initially hostile Montreal Exchange probably wouldn't have happened - or at least not as quickly - without him. Power Financial's $4-billion (U.S.) purchase, through its Great-West Lifeco unit, of Putnam Investments bore his fingerprints, too.

If baseball metaphors come to mind, it's probably because Mr. Ménard saved the sputtering Montreal Expos - twice. In 1991, he put together a group of Quebec Inc. bigwigs to buy the team from Charles Bronfman. And as Expos chairman in 1999, Mr. Ménard negotiated the financially strapped team's sale to Jeffrey Loria, once again preserving major league baseball in Montreal.

Even the best strike out now and then, though. Mr. Ménard, now 62, couldn't stop the Expos from ultimately leaving in 2004. And BMO's Quebec team couldn't work miracles for Alcoa in its doomed attempt to buy Alcan last year.

Mr. Ménard can accept the occasional walk. It's getting pulled from the batting line-up that really gets his goat.

That is essentially what happened when Quebec Premier Jean Charest summarily shelved the 2005 report on the province's cash-sucking health care system that was tabled by a task force led by Mr. Ménard. The latter watched with similar frustration last month as Mr. Charest did the same thing with the recommendations - including higher consumption taxes and user fees - of yet another government-commissioned task force to plug the province's health care black hole.

Health care expenses account for 44 per cent of Quebec's program spending. They're headed toward almost 70 per cent by 2025. But with the highest debt per capita, highest taxes, shortest workweek, most generous social safety net, lowest productivity growth and most rapidly aging population in Canada, Quebec is already struggling to stay afloat.

What kind of future does that suggest for the young Quebeckers who will be left to pick up the tab for the hip replacements and Cialis their baby boomer grandparents seem to consider a God-given right?

Hence, Mr. Ménard's cri du coeur in the form of a book, out this week, titled Si on s'y mettait (rough translation: If We Got Busy With It). Part reality check, part road map to growth, Mr. Ménard's essay is aimed primarily at the generation between 18 and 35. They vote far less than their elders, seemingly resigned to watching the politicians of their parents' generation mortgage their future.

Few Quebec business leaders these days are willing to go public with their disillusionment with Mr. Charest's failure to tackle such problems. Not Mr. Ménard.

"It's astounding the extent to which Quebec's poverty jumps out at you when you come back from a trip abroad," Mr. Ménard writes, comparing Quebec to a "developing country whose roads have been literally abandoned for generations." Mr. Ménard dismisses the so-called "Quebec model" of extensive social programs as "a Cadillac with a Lada motor."

The debate over the sustainability of Quebec's public services, given the province's relative demographic and economic decline, has been turning in circles for years. In that respect, the most useful contribution of Mr. Ménard's book probably comes from polling data on young Quebeckers and Canadians the author commissioned himself.

It's long been thought that the language barrier and Quebeckers' attachment to their distinct culture is a natural barrier against their mobility.

Indeed, governments seem to take for granted that francophone Quebeckers will never leave home.

Mr. Ménard's research tells a very different story. Not only are young Quebeckers more outward-looking than their English-Canadian peers, they're more willing to move for a better job.

More than half (51 per cent) of Quebeckers between 18 and 35 say they like the idea of working in a foreign country, compared with 43 per cent in the rest of Canada.

Forty-five per cent of young Quebeckers say they would "without hesitation" leave Quebec to work elsewhere if a more interesting or better-paying job came up.

So, if the best and brightest leave, who's going pay for the boomers' new hips?

A wealthy investment banker like Mr. Ménard doesn't have to personally worry about that - leading his critics in Quebec's still-powerful union movement to charge that his policy prescriptions are just part of the same old right-wing agenda to privatize public services.

Mr. Ménard denies that. He admits, though, to having his own selfish reasons for writing the book: "I'd like to watch my grandkids grow up without having to go through airports ... Mea culpa. I've a got a conflict of interest."

[Delenda]

OTTAWA -The Bloc Quebecois once again displayed its enthusiasm for a general election this week, continuing its record of voting against the government on matters of confidence. Quite why is a mystery -- opinion polls suggest that if an election was held soon, one in three of the Bloc's caucus would get pink slips and running shoes.

Stephane Dion is not the only federal leader whose party is in disarray. Support for sovereignty in Quebec has slipped to about 35%, from 50% three years ago. As pequiste sentiment has melted away, so has support for Gilles Duceppe's party, with CROP putting the Bloc and the Conservatives neck and neck at about 30% (the Bloc won 42% in the 2006 election).

The reluctance of many Quebecers to endure another referendum has forced Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois to shelve any immediate plans for a sovereignty vote.

The Bloc has also put the issue on the back burner. Publicity material that used to talk of the Bloc's role in promoting sovereignty and defending the interests of Quebec now talk about defending the province's interests and promoting its values.

In this vein, the Bloc has attempted to bring forward legislation that gives practical expression to Parliament's recognition of the Quebecois as a nation within a united Canada.

Yesterday, the party introduced a private member's bill aimed at amending the Canadian Multicultural Act so it doesn't apply to Quebec. Pierre Paquette, the bill's sponsor, said he thinks multiculturalism in the rest of Canada creates "ghetto-ization" when immigrants land in this country. Exemption from the Multiculturalism Act would aid the enforcement of a common culture, he said.

Another recent proposal was to amend the Official Languages Act so that only French is spoken in federal government institutions in Quebec (currently, Bill 101 means French is the only official language in the province, except when it comes to signage and the language of work in federal institutions). As NDP critic Yves Godin noted, if this proposal was adopted, employees on a VIA Rail train from Toronto to Montreal could speak English until they arrived at the outskirts of Valleyfield, Que., at which point, they would be obliged to switch to French.

The problem for Mr. Duceppe is that many Quebecers see the Bloc as yesterday's news.

"In the 2004 and 2006 elections, all Duceppe had to do was get off the bus and say 'sponsorship' and the job was done. [But] sponsorship doesn't work anymore," said Jean Lapierre, the former Liberal Cabinet minister who is now host of a politics show on French television. "He's now searching for a line that will have traction. This is a party in search of a raison d'etre."

Unfortunately for the Bloc, speeches and private member's bills about amending the Canadian Labour Code don't make the news.

"It's not a subject that gets people riled up," Mr. Lapierre said. "And as a TV guy, the only one they can put on TV is Duceppe. Any time they offer someone else, we turn them down."

Things are so bad for the Bloc that it has been reduced to fluffing the Liberals. Mr. Duceppe has not attacked Mr. Dion for months and has even been heard to say that Liberal MP Denis Coderre has done a great job.

The reason is the gains being made by the Conservatives and even the NDP, which Mr. Lapierre said has become a "fashionable parking lot" for disaffected voters since Thomas Mulcair won the by-election in Outremont last fall.

The Bloc still has a formidable presence on the ground and, thanks to Jean Chretien's financing reforms, gets an infusion of $3-million every year, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer.

But Quebecers are, by and large, happy with the political status quo -- witness the 61% satisfaction rating received by Jean Charest's Liberals in a recent poll and the rising support for the Conservatives. As the 2006 census showed, the position of French in Quebec is strong and there is a feeling that there are more pressing political issues than another referendum.

For a party that is really a glorified protest syndicate, any good news is bad news -- the Bloc thrives on negativity. But, for now at least, it's like a car that has no tires and has run out of fuel: high and dry and up on blocks.

jivison@nationalpost.com

[Delenda]

Leaving for language
The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, April 21, 2008
Re: A third language for Quebec, April 14.

Newcomers will come to Quebec, and they will leave, if they have the will and the resources to do so. What may be even more worrisome is that Quebecers are also leaving for no other reason than the language restrictions.

The provincial government did not approve our request to have our daughter educated in an anglophone school. So we moved to Ottawa.

My daughter will likely learn better French than what she would have learned in La Belle Province. (ben oui, les franco-ontariens vont montrer aux québécois comment parler français) She is now able to speak in both languages with ease. I bet a pot-of-gold that she would not have been able to speak much English right now if we had remained in Quebec. At home and among ourselves, we speak French -- we do not force-feed others with it.

In Quebec, the francophone elitists, rich and politicians send their children to private "anglo" schools. Only they have the financial resources to do so. For the majority, you must move out of Quebec if you want your children to be on an equal footing.

We believe we are making the right choices for ourselves, and mostly for our daughter. We moved to optimize her future. Oh, and we know of others who have done the same.

Guy Bellavance, Ottawa




© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

si tous les petits colonisés pouvait faire pareil...

[Delenda]

La citizennerie de la journée:

Obsolete resentments
The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Friday, May 09, 2008
The Parti Québécois knows that increasingly fewer Quebecers have time for mouldy political arguments in favour of secession, so the separatists are resorting to ever more desperate emotional appeals.

The separatists are trying to whip up outrage that Michaëlle Jean, Canada's governor general, is in France playing a prominent role as that country marks the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain's voyage of discovery to what became Quebec. The separatists are livid because, apparently, the governor general is symbolic of Anglo colonialism. How horrified the Parti Québécois must be to see the photographs of a beaming Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, receiving Ms. Jean. How terrible that the French media seem to like her as well. Quelle insulte!

If anyone is insulted, it ought to be Ms. Jean, who owes the Parti Québécois no justification. Cosmopolitan, smart and accomplished, with a francophone sensibility, (Oh my oh my, une haîtienne francophone est maintenant catégorisée comme ayant une sensibilité francophone). Ms. Jean made Quebec her home, having arrived there from Haiti. She is a walking advertisement for the province, and for Canada. Her service as governor general demonstrates that one's identity as a Quebecer and one's identity as a Canadian are perfectly compatible.

Yet rather than embrace this daughter of Quebec, the separatists have all but implied that Ms. Jean has somehow betrayed her origins. It is, says Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois, inappropriate that the "Queen of England's representative" is marking the discovery of Quebec. You can almost feel the contempt in the words "Queen of England's representative." (so? Isn't there any contempt on your part each time you mention the word sovereigntist or even Quebec?)

Today's younger generation of Quebecers who, like Ms. Jean, are comfortable with their multiple identities, are too busy leading productive lives to look for humiliation around every corner. Samuel de Champlain's voyage was a remarkable one, of which Quebec, Canada and France are rightfully proud. It's sad that the Parti Québécois sees this as another opportunity to sow obsolete resentments.




© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

[Delenda]

Pauvre petit FHQ colonisé jusqu'à la moelle: si on parle encore français au Canada, c'est en raison de la couronne britannique...

Joseph Quesnel
Sat, May 10, 2008

I'm at home outside Quebec

By JOSEPH QUESNEL


Governor General Michaelle Jean's suggestion that the 400th anniversary celebration of Quebec City be open to all francophones has sent separatist leaders into a rage.

The comments came in her visit to France where she dared to suggest that France look beyond the province of Quebec when thinking of this year's 400th birthday celebration of Quebec City. Of course, rather than deal with the issue of excluded francophone communities across Canada, the Bloc Quebecois used the incident to insult the monarchy.

BQ Deputy Leader Pierre Paquette was correct to refer to Quebec City as the birthplace of the French nation in North America. However, he needs to remember that francophones are not exclusive to Quebec. French-Canadians trace their lineage to the founding of New France (except Acadians) and are proud to maintain their provincial identities outside Quebec.

Francophones live in vibrant communities across this country. Assimilation into the dominant anglophone community is always an issue, but many proudly resist these trends.

As a Franco-Ontarian, my family moved to Northern Ontario from Quebec at the turn of the century for economic reasons. From there, stable francophone communities formed throughout the region. My French ancestors came from Normandy and were involved in the founding of Ville-Marie, which would become Montreal. The problems occurred when Quebec began to look increasingly inward, particularly during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. What was proudly known as French-Canadian culture became exclusively Quebecois. As Quebeckers turned inward, they forgot about the many francophone communities that were part of French Canada. The protector of French culture became exclusively the Quebec state.

Historically, PQ Leader Rene Levesque made the comment that francophone communities would eventually be assimilated anyway, so don't worry about them. I, like most French-Canadians outside Quebec, respect the special role Quebec has played in ensuring the survival of the French language. I do not disparage the term "Quebecois" and believe in the national character of Quebec. However, Quebec separatists need to remember that French civilization exists outside Quebec. Once upon a time, St. Jean-Baptiste Day was a holiday for all French-Canadians. It would later become hijacked by separatists to suit their political agenda. In short, the governor general was right.

Of course, there is nothing new about separatists disparaging the monarchy. In criticizing Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean's comments, Duceppe could not help but throw cheap shots at the monarchy, by calling it "ridiculous" and "folkloric."

Quebec nationalists have always held strong feelings about the British monarchy. They always interpreted it as a vestige of the British colonial system that has outlived its usefulness. However, the record needs to be set straight. The French presence in North America was allowed by British monarchical institutions. It was the Quebec Act of 1774 that allowed French-Canadians to preserve their language, religion, and legal traditions for generations.

Quebecois need to be reminded that while they were born under the French lily, they flourished indeed under the English rose.

http://winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/ ... 6-sun.html

[Delenda]

Globe editorial

The Plains of Paul
From Friday's Globe and Mail

July 18, 2008 at 7:56 AM EDT

The xenophobia and parochialism of many Quebec separatists are well known to Canadians. The complaints over Sir Paul McCartney's massive outdoor concert that will be held on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City this weekend have now broadcast their relentless foolishness to the world.

To them, Sir Paul may be a symbol of British cultural imperialism, but most of humanity see him, and his music, very differently.

Perhaps U2's Bono put it best: "Paul McCartney — what a gift to the world." The unadulterated beauty and boundless adventure of Sir Paul's work, with John Lennon or as a solo artist, are unsurpassed in rock 'n' roll. He has transformed our culture and in certain respects he has changed our world.

But he has apparently not stirred the cultural backwater in which some Quebec separatists wallow.

Having frightened a timid Canadian government into not inviting the Queen to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City — thereby denying the city the kind of international publicity that accompanied her 2007 visit to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, Va. — they were suddenly faced with an appearance by the next best-known Briton.

The separatists complained that a McCartney concert would misrepresent the Quebec City anniversary and, inexplicably, claimed it represented a "Canadianization" of the event.

Naturally, many Quebeckers have reacted with anger and shame to their hypersensitive complaints.

In a characteristically graceful way, Sir Paul has not retaliated but candidly avowed that he knows little of Quebec politics, but has come to Quebec City to have and give pleasure, and to reconnect with Québécois musicians whom he has happily worked with before. True to himself, speaking these words of wisdom, he has let it be.

[Delenda]

Graeme Hamilton: Give peace (and McCartney) a chance, Quebec
Posted: July 17, 2008, 12:27 PM by Karen Hawthorne
Canada, Politics, News, Graeme Hamilton

MONTREAL — The separatists denouncing Paul McCartney's free concert Sunday on Quebec City's Plains of Abraham are not finding much support in the Quebec press. Sir Paul's arrival has conjured visions of General Wolfe for some of the province's more excitable separatist artists and politicians.

"Is it absolutely essential that politics poisons everything, everywhere, all the time, for everybody in all circumstances, just as religion does?" Mario Roy of La Presse asks in an editorial.

"Apparently, yes." He calls Mr. McCartney "a living monument of 20th century culture." His body of work is "majestic, timeless and universal," Mr. Roy says, advising the hotheads to follow the advice of Mr. McCartney's former band mate John Lennon and "give peace a chance."

Sir Paul had this to say in an interview with CBC Radio-Canada: "I think it's time to, you know, smoke the pipes of peace and to just put away your hatchets. I think it's a show of friendship. I'm very friendly with the French people that I know. I know people of all nationalities. Hey, I'm friendly with German people. By that argument, I should never go to Germany or they should never come here."


Sovereigntist songwriter Stéphane Venne writes in the same newspaper that the protests,"which draw a paranoid link between McCartney's nationality and the English conquest of Quebec in 1760, display a lack of vision and a lack of courage, two essential conditions to achieving independence."


The Journal de Montréal quotes Sylvain Légaré of the opposition Action Démocratique du Québec, who calls the protesters foolish and dearly hopes Mr. McCartney has not caught wind of their complaints. "We're going to look like a nice gang of habitants," he says. Readers comments on the subject in Le Journal run 10-4 in favour of inviting the ex-Beatle. "We are so blinded by our so-called nationalist fibre that anyone who doesn't speak French has to be insulted, ridiculed and especially criticized by our Quebec identity police," writes Serge Gélinas.

Calling herself a "Québécoise pure laine," Carole Brunet says she doesn't understand why Mr. McCartney was chosen to celebrate Quebec City's 400th anniversary. "We are talking here about our French origins. It seems to me we have enough of our own artists who could have taken part. Why him?"

[Delenda]

Welcome home, Paul McCartney
National Post
Published: Saturday, July 19, 2008


If everybody's quite finished laughing at the Quebec sovereigntists who are denouncing their visitor Paul McCartney as an "Anglo-Saxon idol" bent on replaying the battle of the Plains of Abraham in concert form, we have a modest point to make about the subject.

Let it be said, if it needs to be, that there is obviously no question about McCartney's status as a cultural figure who transcends boundaries of nationhood and ethnicity. To state things as conservatively as possible, he and his late writing partner John Lennon have been to the popular music of our era what Sousa was to the march and Strauss was to the waltz. One can travel literally anywhere, from the Siberian oil patch to the smallest African village, and find that a few bars of Yesterday or Hey Jude will be met with instant recognition. For that matter, it might even work with Band on the Run.

By any reasonable standard, one offers no insult to the people of Quebec in saying that McCartney's presence at the 400th-anniversary celebrations for Quebec City does as much honour to the place as to the performer. And in their more lucid moments, even rabid Quebec nationalists would have to admit that the search for a pop or rock performer from France who could inspire as much legitimate excitement as the offensively English McCartney would be doomed to come up empty. Of course, the French heritage has a special status in Quebec City, but would, say, Johnny Hallyday or Air really suit the importance that the critics themselves wish to ascribe to the occasion?

It is worth adding, as an aside, that Paul McCartney is still surprisingly capable, at 66, of rocking the hell out of an audience. It helps to come armed with the greatest song catalogue any singer-songwriter has ever amassed, but attendees at Sunday's show may find that McCartney's gentlemanly energy, feeling for the beat and joy in playing shame many younger dinosaurs who are more renowned for live performance.

Still, for all that the nationalist rhetoric and petitions against McCartney are clearly exaggerated and ridiculous, some people may have a nagging sense that the ex-Beatle really is sort of a strange choice to help celebrate the anniversary of Quebec, a city he has never before visited. A trifle such as the Beatles' Michelle does not seem to make for much of a spiritual connection with French Canada, (idiot, parce que ce sont des mots qui ne vont pas vraiment bien ensemble) and in defending the McCartney concert, Action democratique du Quebec spokesman Sylvain Legare could do no better than to say that Quebeckers wanted "international stars" and that "The English are part of our past, deal with it."

What no one's pointed out in defence of the booking, at least in English Canada, is that McCartney is as powerfully associated with a particular home city as any great artist in history --and that city, Liverpool, is historically bound to Quebec City with bonds as strong as iron. (Which explains why, when the 400th was still in the planning stages, Quebec actually sent representatives to Liverpool to seek opportunities for collaboration.)

In the ages of steam and sail, the Liverpool-Quebec sea link was one of the world's most important, and throughout the 19th century one of Liverpool's chief economic preoccupations was turning timber into commercial ships that would ply the Atlantic. Such ships would eventually leave the St. Lawrence groaning with raw materials bound for Europe's busiest port, and (after the demise of the "triangle trade") return still more swollen with suffering immigrants to the New World, riding at a discount as human ballast. (bon et bien voilà le lien qui nous unit à Sir Paul...on aura tout vu.)

And many of those immigrants, let us not forget, had Irish surnames -- as does the "English" McCartney. An estimated 30%-40% of Quebeckers have some Irish in their family tree -- whether they're descended from a Johnson sticking out like a sore thumb in a sea of French names, or a Bourque whose great-great-grandfather might just have lived in Tipperary and gone by Burke.

McCartney is not just a big star who happened to be available at the right time: He is, in fact, arguably the perfect performer for the occasion, a literal cousin to thousands of Quebeckers who hails from one of Quebec's great cultural wellsprings. He should be, and almost certainly will be, greeted as an honorary son of the Celtic-tinged "French-Canadian" nation.

[Delenda]

The Reinvention Of Canada’s French Speakers Friday, August 01, 2008

Howard Galganov

When I was growing up in Greater Montreal in the 1960’s, the province of Quebec was undergoing a cataclysmic renewal.

In those days, it was called the ‘Quiet Revolution’, because Quebec saw itself in the midst of a peaceful, yet total social revolt, where everything French Quebecers held dear was being turned upside down.

Until the 1960’s, Quebec never had a Minister of education, since all French education was controlled almost exclusively through the powerful French Catholic Church.

Until the 1960’s, Quebec never had a woman Minister in government because Quebec was a patriarchal society.

Until the 1960’s, there were no French business schools in Quebec, since French Quebecers were taught to avoid business.

Much of Quebec changed in the 1960’s, but it wasn’t quite the romantic epoch they termed the ‘Quiet Revolution’. It was far more a race for French Quebec to catch up to the rest of North America.

Prior to the 1960’s, much of French Quebec was broken, ignorant and a backward place on a continent of educated English speaking entrepreneurs who were taking the world by storm.

All of that said, what Quebec was able to do from 1960 to 1967 and Expo 67 was incredible. Quebec did indeed turn itself around, but they didn’t do it alone. And they didn’t do it in French.

Without the enormous wealth and influence of Montreal’s English speaking and ethnic communities, Quebec would still be a backwater. But none of that is told in the folklore of the ‘Quiet Revolution’.

Instead, we are told about the enormous efforts of Quebec’s French speakers in spite of EVERYTHING the English did to “keep them in their place”.

In the Quebec saga, as it is told by Quebec’s officialdom, French Quebecers caused none of Quebec’s problems. EVERYTHING that was bad about French Quebec was the fault of the “Maudit Anglais” (damned English) and the government they controlled in Ottawa.

Quebec invented slogans with which to encourage and spur-on French Quebec nationalism. “Maitre Chez Nous” (masters in our own house) and “Quebec Sait Faire” (Quebec knows how).

It later evolved into nationalistic and exclusionary slogans such as:

“Quebecois de Veille Souche” (old stock Quebecers), “Pure Laine Quebecois” (pure wool as in pure bred), and “Quebec aux Quebecois” (Quebec for ‘French’ Quebecers).

During the time of the 1995 Quebec referendum to separate Quebec from Canada, Premier Parizeau pointed a finger on live television blaming French Quebec’s referendum loss on Ethnics and money, specifically singling out one region in Montreal that was predominantly Jewish. How welcome do you think this made Montreal’s large Jewish community feel?

He continued-on to say: “next time we will get our revenge”.

Lucien Bouchard, who replaced Parizeau as Quebec’s Premier, told a CEGEP (Quebec college) gathering that ONLY French Quebecers were a “pure race”, while the rest of Canada were a “diluted people”. But he’s no racist right?

Bernard Landry, who became Premier of Quebec immediately following Bouchard, tore a strip off a young female hotel clerk at the Montreal Intercontinental Hotel ONLY because she was Mexican. He later apologized. How does an apology explain such a sick mindset?

The leader of the Separatist Bloc Quebecois in Ottawa, Michel Gauthier, went to the Canadian Jewish Congress demanding that they condemn me for my anti-Separatist political views because I’m Jewish. How sick is that?

As time evolved, the Separatists no longer wanted to be called Separatists. They preferred the moniker of Sovereignists. I guess Sovereignist sounds more sophisticated and less extreme than who and what they really are.

Quebec has also traded the description of Distinct Society for several other definitions, finally coming to accept the word NATION that Canada’s current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, was only too happy to officially bestow upon them through an Act of Parliament.

BUT HERE’S THE GRANDDADDY OF REINVENTIONS:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is celebrating the Quebec NATION in a speech he just delivered to an all-French audience in Quebec, where he is quoted by the National Post ( August 1, 2008 page A12) as saying:

“The true nationalists love Quebec without wanting to break-up the Canadian federation.” He further went on to say: “The true nationalists don’t want to destroy, they want to build”.

Who’s Harper kidding?

Does he really believe that hundreds of years of Quebec nationalism, two referendums to leave Canada, and language laws that make the unrestricted use of the English language ILLEGAL, are endearments to building Canada?

What won’t Harper and others do or say to win votes in Separatist Quebec, where all of a sudden a Quebec nationalist is somehow a great Canadian?

[Delenda]

More English Money Down The Drain Of French Nationalism Friday, August 15, 2008

Howard Galganov

The United Counties of Prescott and Russell, located just East of Ottawa are a grouping of communities which share a commonality; besides being small towns, they are very French in language and character.

The other thing they share is that for the most of it, they are relatively poor communities with the exception of those few towns such as Russell and Embrun (Township of Russell), which have significant English speaking populations.

This area is quite unique in Ontario, because, like the ethnocentric Quebecois, many of these French speaking residents want to be different from the greater Canadian (Ontarian) population.

By different, I mean linguistically, where they expect the rest of Canada, in this case the province of Ontario, to give them advantages available to no other cultural communities, simply because they’re French.

AND THEY WANT OTHER PEOPLE TO PAY FOR IT.

Five years ago, a local came up with the ‘brilliant’ idea of creating a theme park to extol the history, culture and accomplishments of Ontario’s French speakers, called L’Echo d’un peuple (echoes of the people).

But, like most things that promote the myths of French history, the funds with which to do so, came out of the pockets of English communities, which were excluded by those taking the money.

Just 3 weeks ago, Ron Caza, a Franco-extremist lawyer who is defending the Township of Russell against my claim that their FORCED bilingual sign law violates my Rights to Freedom of Expression, received a check for just under a QUARTER OF A MILLION dollars ($225,000) from the local Provincial Member of Parliament for this French ONLY theme park.

There are photos of Jean Marc Lalonde (MPP) and Ron Caza in the Russell Villager newspaper; both with BIG smiles as they held the check.

That was July 23, 2008.

In the August 13 edition of the Russell Villager, the story is quite different as Caza bemoans the fact that the French ONLY theme park is closing down for a lack of funds.

But this has been the story with this park from the moment it was conceived. It was a failure from day one.

They don’t say the park has gone bankrupt, since that would denote a failure. But that’s exactly what this French ONLY Park was. It was a MONUMENTAL FAILURE that cost English taxpayers MILLIONS of dollars to keep open over its five-year history of fiscal failures.

Why was it such a failure? Because the French-speaking people it was meant to celebrate, couldn’t give a rat’s ass about visiting it. And if you weren’t French, this park was not for you.

So what happened to the $225,000 that was put in Caza’s hands by Jean Marc Lalonde?

Did the park Directors just all of sudden discover a few weeks after receiving this huge chunk of tax payers’ money (mostly English money), that they were insolvent less than 3 weeks after they took it?

Will they return the money?

Ron Caza was the President of the Board of Directors of this failed French ONLY theme park. He is also a partner of Heenan Blaikie, one of Canada’s largest law firms with more than 400 lawyers, including former Prime minister Jean Chretien, former Quebec Premier (Separatist) Pierre Marc Johnson, and former Prime Minister (deceased) Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

It seems that Caza is everywhere, where French speakers want a special advantage over the English majority. And wherever Caza is, is BIG MONEY.

Caza fought to keep the French ONLY Ottawa Montfort Hospital open as a French teaching hospital, which netted him and his law firm a huge payday.

He fought against the Canadians for Language Fairness group who opposed Ottawa’s FORCED bilingual hiring policy. There too he made a huge sum of money billing out at about $300,000.

He hopes, I’m sure, to squeeze Russell for enormous money in his defense of Russell’s FORCED bilingual sign law, which I am personally contesting.

I knew of all these things. But, to read about Caza’s involvement with the French ONLY theme park as its President, and to see him taking nearly a quarter of a million Ontario tax-dollars, only to hear of the financial collapse of this park less than a month later, is really over the top.

It is probably worth investigating. But no one will, because no one wants to appear to be anti-French.

Isn’t it incredible how the French communities throughout Canada, including Quebec, couldn’t survive without money they receive from the English speaking communities they treat with disdain?

I want to change this. I want Canada to be the country it can be and should be. But to do this, we have to make two huge changes to our national identity.

1 – No Quebec.

2 – Make all of Canada an English speaking country, since more than 97% of the entire population of Canada excluding Quebec are not French speakers. That doesn’t mean banning the use of French as Quebec bans the use of English.

It just means that Canada will be an English speaking country at all levels of government where qualified English speakers will not be turned down for jobs because they can’t speak French.

[Delenda]

The plains of elimination
Graeme Hamilton, National Post
Published: Wednesday, September 03, 2008

As children across the country return to school, the National Post takes a look at the curriculum issues that are flashpoints in their respective regions and examines how the most controversial subjects are taught. Today, the English-French divide on teaching history.

---

MONTREAL -The licence plates say it all. Je me souviens: I remember. In Quebec, history is not just something to be read in textbooks and viewed in museums. It infuses the culture, from music of such popular groups as Mes Aieux (their name means My Ancestors) to movies, TV shows, even the bumpers of cars. But just as the licence plates remain vague about what exactly is supposed to be remembered, the broader question of what history shaped modern Quebec is a matter of heated debate. And those fighting the ideological battle are not above enlisting the province's schoolchildren.

The Fathers of Confederation decided that responsibility for education should be left to the provinces, so naturally the teaching of history varies from province to province. But the sharpest distinction is between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

Ken Osborne, professor emeritus of education at the University of Manitoba, has examined how history is taught across Canada. "I would say that most history that's taught in English Canada is fairly pan-Canadian."

There are variations. Manitoba schools will spend more time on the Selkirk Settlement and the Winnipeg General Strike, for example, while Ontario teachers might dwell on the experience of the Loyalists. But overall, he said, "most English-Canadian curriculum in history is big on national identity."

The focus of history taught in Quebec schools has long been "resolutely Franco-Quebecois," according to the authors of a report for the Historica Foundation. Unlike elsewhere in the country, there is no attempt "to create an identification with Canada."

The use of history education for political ends in Quebec dates back to well before the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. "Courses in Catholic schools emphasized New France, its explorers and martyrs, the humiliation of the British Conquest in 1759-60, and the struggles of a French Catholic rump in a hostile North American world," McGill University historian Brian Young wrote in 2006. Protestant schools, which were mostly English, had a much greater focus on British traditions and triumphs.

But the reforms of the 1960s led to a standardized history curriculum that strove to give students an understanding of the Quebec nation, Mr. Young wrote, "essentially an ethnic entity perennially threatened in the Canadian federation by an aggressive English Canada."

This vision persisted when the Parti Quebecois government introduced a new high school history program in 1983, which was in place until the current reforms to the program. Even its title, History of Quebec and of Canada, subtly stressed the difference between the two entities. Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies, was dismayed when his daughters recently took the course and came away with an understanding of the Second World War as a conflict between two distant empires and none of Quebec's business.

"[Quebec history] seems more interested in the idea of 'nation' building," he said. "Attempts to change direction and introduce more social history (which has happened almost everywhere else in Canada over the past 15 years) have been pushed back in Quebec ... because of the segment of the population that feels that knowledge of the political narrative will be lost."

Quebec cannot be faulted for the quantity of its history education. Before a reform that began taking effect last year, all high school students had to pass the demanding History of Quebec and of Canada before they could graduate. With the reform, history will be mandatory in four out of the five years of high school, with the first two years focusing on world history and the last two on Quebec. Total class time devoted to history throughout high school has increased to 350 hours from 200.

At a time when historians in the rest of Canada despair over the lack of history instruction in schools, Quebec is beefing up its offerings. But the changes have not come smoothly.

Jocelyn Letourneau is an outspoken history professor at Universite Laval in Quebec City. Like many in his field, he was consulted as Education Department bureaucrats crafted the high school curriculum, and he favours the new approach, which moves away from rote memorization of dates and events to more "skills-based learning," which equips students to interpret various accounts of history. The course is called History and Citizenship Education, based on the idea that an understanding of history will better prepare students to participate in a democratic society.

In April, 2006, the nationalist newspaper Le Devoir published a front-page story about the proposed reform, claiming students would be getting a "sanitized" version of Quebec history that made no mention of such controversial events as the 1917 conscription crisis and the 1982 repatriation of the Constitution without Quebec's consent. Even though the reform began under the previous PQ government, it was portrayed as federalist propaganda.

Mr. Letourneau was quoted as saying he welcomed an end to "the misery-focused vision that endures in Quebecers' view of history." For that he was denounced as a federalist sellout, and his inbox quickly filled up with vicious e-mails. A colleague at Universite Laval who said the reform offered a chance to present a less divisive account of Quebec history received a threat from someone who said he would give him "a goddamn punch in the face" if they ever crossed paths. "In a few days, the question of this curriculum and its failings became the No. 1 topic of discussion in all of society," Mr. Letourneau writes in a new article on the episode.

The suggestion that key historical events would be glossed over was wrong, he said in an interview. "How is it possible to do the history of Quebec and not talk about the Conquest of 1759? It took place and it can't be hidden." The point of the new curriculum is to teach students the complexity of history, that few events lend themselves to black-and-white interpretation. The old storyline of Quebecers seeking to free themselves but being broken by the anglophone "Other" is not relevant to a generation of Quebecers born after the Quiet Revolution.

"They have been winners all their lives. This pessimistic vision of the Quebec nation constantly seeking its final completion does not speak to them," he said.

Many fellow historians did not agree. What the critics feared was that young francophone Quebecers would be left rudderless if their history course became less nationalist. A letter signed by 23 university professors and schoolteachers called the reform "a systematic exercise to obscure the Quebec nation." The head of the nationalist Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste blasted the government's "attempt to steal our past."

The pressure proved too much for Jean Charest's Liberal government, and it agreed to modify the new curriculum. A section that had been called "Accession to Democracy in the British Colony" sounded a little too rosy for the strident nationalists. Now it has been split in two: "The Change of Empire" and "Demands and Struggles in the British Colony." The change gives added emphasis to the British Conquest. Another name change replaces "Emergence of a Canadian Society" with "Emergence of a Society in New France."

Mr. Letourneau sees the uproar over the history course as part of a larger debate dividing Quebec society, one that played out in hearings held last year by the Bouchard-Taylor commission on reasonable accommodation. Just as the new history program gives more space to aboriginals and minority ethnic groups, the commissioners said, "the identity inherited from the French-Canadian past" must make room for new arrivals to the province. Quebec is going through an uncertain transition between "old founding myths" that continue to shape the collective memory and "new myths" that have not been fully accepted, Mr. Letourneau writes. "Like many other societies in the world, Quebec is seeking to move to the future without sacrificing its culture and identity."

Christian Laville, a professor of education at Universite Laval, is convinced that forcing a slanted version of history on schoolchildren was a losing proposition from the start. Some might have hoped the curriculum could be manipulated to turn out teenage separatists, but past experience suggests differently.

Children in the Soviet Union were taught weekly that capitalism was hell, but at their first opportunity they gladly chose hell over the "paradise" of socialism, Mr. Laville points out.

He was schooled in Quebec before the Quiet Revolution, when history instruction was considered key to preserving the French language and Catholic faith and moulding good Canadian citizens. None of that prevented Quebecers from soon afterward abandoning the Church en masse or campaigning for independence. "When you try to impose an idea, the very fact of imposition makes people defiant, and often they take the opposite course," Mr. Laville said

He calls it the "great gamble" of education: "Either we tell people in advance what they have to think, because we are convinced that it is right. Or we are so convinced that it is right that we leave them free to arrive at their conclusions, and they will choose it because it is right."

[Polémix]

Une autre joli perle de propagande, merci pour celle-là, Delenda.

Les anglos se plaignent que nous enseignons une autres histoire que la leur .. et après ils nous traitent de braillards ..

- Est-ce que les anglos enseignent à leurs enfants que le Canada existait bien avant qu'aucun anglais ne puisse remonter le St-Laurent ni mettre le pied à l'ouest des Appalaches ?
- Est-ce que les anglos enseignent à leurs enfants qu'il n'ont JAMAIS conquit le Canada mais bien qu'il leur a été cédé par le roi de France ? (l'article ci-haut parle de conquête ..)
- Est-ce que les anglos enseignent à leurs enfants que le nom Canada, la feuille d'érable, le castor, le Ho! Canada et l'identité Canadienne ne sont pas anglos mais bien Canadiens-français ?
- Est-ce que les anglos enseignent à leurs enfants la déportation des Acadiens de 1755 et l'apartheid pratiqué contre les vrais Canadiens dans les maritimes, l'Ontario, les prairies et les TNO pour les faire disparaître les majorité francophones de ces régions ?
- Est-ce que les anglos enseignent à leurs enfants les massacres qu'ils ont fait subir aux indiens et le meurtre de Louis Riel ?
- Est-ce que les anglos enseignent à leurs enfants que ce sont les Canadiens (les vrais, francophones) qui ont battu les troupes rebelles Étasuniennes lors des guerres d'invasions ?

Les anglos préfèrent ne pas se souvenir. Et ceux qui le font sont suspicieux à leurs yeux.

[Delenda]

English invasion
Keith Spicer, Citizen Special
Published: Monday, September 08, 2008

It was bad enough that 17 singers at July's Francofolies festival of "French songs and music" performed in English -- including Sébastien Tellier, France's shades-sporting, caveman-chic choice for last May's huge Eurovision songfest. President Nicolas Sarkozy told education minister Xavier Darcos to "make France a bilingual nation." Now Darcos offers free holiday English courses to French high-school students. French youth must become fluently bilingual, he warns, or be "handicapped."

Mon Dieu! What's happening? History is happening. And six weeks before Quebec City's Francophonie summit of 29 French-speaking countries (plus 26 sympathizers), it's worth asking where history is going.

Why is France prickly about its language? For three centuries (17th to 19th), French was the world language of diplomacy, and a prestigious intellectual and scientific tool. By the early 20th century, English was catching up. Two world wars put English on top, entrenching it ever deeper as the new world language of politics, science and economics -- even (see book translations) literature.

Flashback to Charles de Gaulle. After his humiliating wartime refuge in London, he refused to speak English. As president in 1958, he ordered his ministers to speak publicly only in French. In 1966 he set up a "High Committee for the Defence and Expansion of the French Language," which reported to Prime Minister Georges Pompidou -- a French literature professor and anthologist of French poetry. (In those faraway days, speaking English in a Paris restaurant could earn you a snarl. Today's waiters flaunt their English).

President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing famously used English to talk with German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Unilingual bookworm-president François Mitterrand showed his love of French at every turn. So much so that unproven allegations have emerged that he favoured Hutu killers during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Why? Allegedly because they were French-speaking -- while exiled Tutsi leaders were English-speaking.

Gaullist president Jacques Chirac stomped out of a European summit in 2006 -- "profoundly shocked" that France's big-business boss Ernest-Antoine Seillière gave a speech in English "because that is the language of business." Chirac was a fervent partisan of la Francophonie, though proud of his English skills.

La Francophonie -- for which Canada and Quebec show much enthusiasm -- plays a valuable symbolic role for French-speakers. It also runs some useful programs. But its production of grand papers, rhetoric and official banquets leaves room for more concrete action. (Disclosure: somehow I got parachuted into the gloriously-named, 30-member "High Council for la Francophonie." We were so useful that our bosses abolished us after three years.)

On rhetoric and reality: French intellectuals and governments have long argued that French is the world's richest, most precise and most beautiful language. A little home-team vanity. Rich? France has maybe 100,000 non-technical words. English has well over 600,000. Precise? One of French's distinctive merits is rather its allusiveness: think romance, wine, politics, philosophy. Notes Francophile-but-iconoclastic historian Bill Bryson: "The French cannot distinguish between house and home, between mind and brain, between man and gentleman."



As for beauty, millions of us find French a joy to read and speak. But almost every nation in the world (with the possible exception of those self-deprecating Dutch) finds its language poetic.

Mystique is partly to blame for French's weakness: resistance to change. English is a vacuum-cleaner: it cheerfully steals or invents new words wherever it can. French is a fortress: Its gate-keeping Académie Française fights to keep foreign or too-novel words out of the national tongue. This creates a huge disconnect between purists and people. Ordinary folks find English "modern," "sexy" and "useful," so they welcome handy English words.

This -- plus English's now-dominant place in European Union and world affairs -- shows why France now soft-pedals rearguard linguistic battles. Accepting reasonable Anglo-reality is only a "defeat" to nostalgia-mongers. Even they are coming around: When Sarkozy threatened to make France 24, the "French CNN," kill its English and Arabic channels and broadcast only in French, he had to back off. Killing those channels would have sold French ideas only to a tiny French-speaking audience.

Today's French scientists publish mainly in English. Several French multinationals use English as their "internal" international language. Intellectuals and journalists lard their commentaries with English references -- and, sadly, with so many English words that franglais ("Frenglish") is now more than a fashionable joke.

Bad English is indeed the world's most widely spoken language. Darcos's new English courses can help France talk "Anglo world-speak" better, and thus compete better. It doesn't matter that Sarkozy, as the French expression goes, speaks English like a Spanish cow. His bilingual France meets today's world head-on.

For this, rock-singer Tellier makes a zippy motivator. Francofolies boss Gérard Pont, a militant French promoter, admits: "Banning English at Francofolies would be suicide." De Gaulle spins in his grave. Happily, Sarko and Darcos also plan to teach French much, much better.

Keith Spicer, a former Citizen editor who lives and writes in Paris, was Canada's first Commissioner of Official Languages (1970-77).




© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
previous page 1 2

[Delenda]

National unity, then and now

In fall of 2005, as we awaited the election call, there was deep foreboding over the threat of Quebec's seceding
WILLIAM JOHNSON

From Monday's Globe and Mail

September 8, 2008 at 1:32 AM EDT

How Canada has changed in just three years. Can this federal election spring as many surprises, trigger as many reversals of fortune, as did the last? Will our country be unbelievably different?

In the fall of 2005, as we awaited the election call that would come on Nov. 29, there was deep foreboding in the land over the threat that Quebec was on its way to seceding. Federalism had then been discredited week after week, month after month, by Mr. Justice John Gomery's hearings on the sponsorship scandal. In Quebec, Premier Jean Charest set records for the unpopularity of his government. The Parti Québécois was so confident of taking power and acceding to sovereignty that, at its convention that June, it scrapped any commitment to a partnership or association with Canada. Instead, it promised an early referendum on sovereignty alone, with all negotiations to come only after a unilateral declaration of independence, between two sovereign countries.

Four days before the election call, pollster Michael Adams wrote a piece in this newspaper under the headline: "Look out! Quebec's winning conditions have arrived." He pointed to the growing support for independence and to the just-elected PQ leader, "a young, handsome, gay, and postcocaine André Boisclair." The pollster warned: "A Conservative government in Ottawa, indeed any government in Ottawa, with no seats in Quebec would be unprecedented in Canadian history. This would be a surefire formula for constitutional disaster."

The smart money knew that Stephen Harper could never become prime minister. That October, a Strategic Counsel poll showed that 58 per cent of Canadians viewed him unfavourably. Pollster Allan Gregg said: "[Voters] just can't get a feel for him at a personal level. It's very tough. It's going to be very, very tough." Three days before the election call, the Toronto Star bannered an Ekos poll: "The Liberals are heading into the election campaign with a majority victory in sight and a lead of almost 10 percentage points over the second-place Conservatives."


So what happened? Mr. Harper became Prime Minister with 124 seats, to 103 for the Liberals, 51 for the Bloc Québécois and 29 for the NDP. It was assumed he would win no seats in Quebec, as in 2004. Instead, he took 10 seats, and 25 per cent of the vote. After his election, he worked hard to win over Quebec, beginning his speeches in French, giving a voice for Quebec in the Canadian delegation to UNESCO, delivering bundles of money under the guise of settling the "fiscal imbalance," and recognizing "the Québécois" as a nation within a united Canada.

The success of his wooing was written in the most credible poll to date, published in La Presse on Aug. 27. It was done by CROP, Quebec's most reputed firm, with a sample of 1,003 people, all in Quebec. It showed the Conservative Party in a dead heat with the Bloc, with 31 per cent and 30 per cent respectively. The Liberals of Stéphane Dion trailed at 20 per cent, the NDP was at 14 per cent and the Green Party at 4 per cent. Asked who would make the best prime minister, 35 per cent chose Mr. Harper, 24 per cent Jack Layton, and only 15 per cent Mr. Dion. Support for sovereignty was at 36 per cent, with 64 per cent opposed.

The poll had the Conservatives leading the Liberals everywhere except on the island of Montreal. They equalled or bettered the Bloc everywhere except Metropolitan Montreal.

The poll showed the Liberals of Mr. Harper's resurgent ally, Mr. Charest, leading the PQ 42 per cent to 32 per cent, with the Action Démocratique du Québec trailing at 17 per cent.

The national unity scene at this time is calm. The PQ, in third place in the National Assembly, has put off any referendum on secession. The Bloc, which three years ago had been expected to sweep Quebec, received in those elections 42 per cent of the vote and has now fallen 12 points below that.

Eloquent was the Strategic Counsel poll published Sept. 2: the issues that now concern voters are the economy, the environment, health care, war and security. The issue of national unity, so dominant in 2005, does not get even a mention.

Can this election return a Copernican revolution on the same scale? This time, Stéphane Dion has replaced Stephen Harper as the leader least likely to succeed.

[Delenda]

Le fils de Barbara Kay: Les Québécois, trop cons pour être révolutionnaires

Jonathan Kay on the death of Quebec nationalism — and the 1972 book that explains it
Posted: September 15, 2008, 4:51 PM by Jonathan Kay

Jonathan Kay

To Quebec’s few remaining hard-core Bloquistes, it was a devastating put-down from a fellow sovereigntist-in-arms: Gilles Duceppe’s party, declared former PQ cabinet minister Jacques Brassard in a La Presse op-ed last week, has become a “clone of the NDP” — just another opposition brand spouting pacifism, environmentalism, anti-Americanism and other fashionable “bric-a-brac.”

Brassard lays the blame on Duceppe and the other “old nag” sissies who trumpet Kyoto, gun control and the welfare state at the expense of sovereignty. But Duceppe has no other choice: Support for an independent Quebec is running at less than 40%, and even the PQ says this is the wrong time for another referendum. The pathetic state of the BQ is a symptom — not a cause — of a prosperous, confident French society that is increasingly post-nationalistic and generically leftist in outlook. Separatism now seems stale and corny to many young Quebecers — as well as completely irrelevant to the province’s growing immigrant population.

How did it come to this? The best explanation, as I see it, comes from an obscure book published a while ago — two decades before the BQ came into existence, in fact. Malcolm Reid’s The Shouting Signpainters: A Literary and Political Account of Quebec Revolutionary Nationalism deserves to be reread as a fascinating window into a fevered separatist community that no longer exists. The 1972 book also tells us, if only unwittingly, why the “revolutionary nationalism” Reid glorifies is now dead.

The Shouting Signpainters has been out of print for years. When you slog through it, it’s easy to see why. Reid is a tireless researcher who seems to have spent most of the 1960s embedding himself among the blue-collar neighborhoods and cheap restaurants of eastern Montreal. But as a writer, he is self-conscious and humorless. Much of the dense book consists of lengthy, overwrought quotations from the many 60s-era separatists he profiles, including (painfully) their unspeakably awful poetry (To wit: “will a million horizons gleam for us a million auroras lick the belly of the blast furnaces / are we simply the fuel of progress the surplus value chomped without attention by Texaco and general Motors”; or “Quebec — like a sleeping comet in the sleep of our bones — like the gunfire of the wind.”)

Yet buried amidst all the bad poetry and stale anti-colonial rhetoric lies the key to understanding the two reasons why “revolutionary nationalism” never took off in Quebec.

The first was the nature of the enemy. Reid’s revolutionaries were fighting against Anglo domination, yes. But they were equally hostile to what the author calls the clérico-bourgeois — the Duplessis-vintage amalgam of church and state that kept Quebecers fecund, servile and farm-bound. The idealized Quebec of the future, the province’s revolutionaries imagined, would do away with such pastoral reveries, replacing them with a utopia of hydro projects, government office buildings, and vibrant cafés. As Reid writes, these socialist radicals “had no use for the back-to-the-soil mythology of the old nationalists.”

The problem here was that all national movements — from Zionism to Gallism — depend on a sentimental fetishization of the land. If a society transforms into a network of globalized, geographically deracinated urban enclaves (as Montreal and Quebec City have more or less become) the whole concept of nationhood, as something worth fighting for, emotionally evaporates.

The second barrier to revolutionary nationalism in Quebec was the fundamentally humane nature of the French-Canadian character — which, once liberated from the Catholic church, was revealed to be too joyful, well-socialized and hedonistic to swallow the obsessive style of thinking required by all revolutionary movements. (Everyone is well-acquainted with the stereotype of the Speedo-wearing, hard-partying, life-loving Quebecer. Well, it’s true.)

This is something Reid uncovered without realizing it. One of the (unintentionally) comic rewards of reading The Shouting Signpainters is watching how the great heroes of Reid’s book — even as he is following them around, notebook in hand, seeking to dislodge pearls of their revolutionary wisdom — all proceed to get drunk, womanize, blow their money on fancy clothes, fall in love, have kids, settle down, and generally embrace bourgeois life in a way that no true Marxist or jihadi revolutionary would tolerate. This preference for messy human connection over abstract ideology explains, among other things, why murderous violence of the kind practiced by the FLQ was always an isolated phenomenon in Quebec.

This distinctly Québécois approach was best summarized by poet Paul Chamberland, one of the stars of The Shouting Signpainters: “I don’t understand the revolutionary who does not take the trouble to make love well.” What was wanted, as much as political autonomy, was an escape from the humiliating sexlessness of slum life, and an entrée into the Anglos’ world of beautiful things — “sleek upholstery, sleek automobiles, sleek duds.”

But there’s a problem with basing a revolution on getting nice things: Eventually, people get them — and their attention starts drifting away, to the boring “bric-a-brac” of daily life in a pleasant, prosperous, bourgeois society.

What is a shouting signpainter supposed to do then? Gilles Duceppe hasn’t figured that one out. As a federalist, I hope he never will.

jkay@nationalpost.com

[Delenda]

Quoi? French-affairs chief can't really speak it

'Unilingual English'; Not alone among provincial counterparts
JAMES WOOD, Canwest News Service
Published: 6 hours ago

In the heart of Quebec, "the cradle of French civilization in North America," Saskatchewan cabinet minister Wayne Elhard is this week dealing with issues of importance to French Canadians.

One catch, though.

How's your French, minister?

Not very good," he said with a laugh in a telephone interview this week from the Quebec City airport.

While his main duties in government are as highways minister, Elhard is also provincial secretary with responsibility for francophone affairs in the Saskatchewan Party government.

He is in Quebec City for two days of meetings with the other ministers across Canada who share that responsibility.

The veteran Cypress Hills member of the Legislative Assembly describes himself as "frankly, unilingual English," but takes some comfort from knowing he's not alone among his provincial counterparts in not speaking French.

Elhard said he has a crack staff of bilingual provincial officials and, since it's Canada, simultaneous translation is available at all such conferences.

Nevertheless, he admits attending these meetings can be daunting.

"It does sort of raise the level of expectation for me personally. I have to put a little bit more into preparation," he said.

"Language and misunderstandings because of language barriers are not uncommon and I guess I want to be well-enough versed in where Saskatchewan wants to go policy-wise so any language challenges that arise don't impair our ability to reach our goals."

For this conference, the main goals are reviewing a strategy developed by the francophone ministers a few years ago and looking at whether the federal government's financial support for its own strategy on French language and culture is adequate, the minister said.

In Saskatchewan, the language needs all the protection it can get. There were 16,790 Saskatchewan residents reporting French as their mother tongue in the 2006 Census. Only 4,320 reported French as the language spoken most often in the home.

In recent memory, no bilingual MLA has actually held the oft-overlooked job of looking out for French in Saskatchewan.

But Regina Douglas Park MLA Harry Van Mulligen, who at one point held the responsibility in the previous NDP government's cabinet, said the Fransaskois community is pretty forgiving.

"In fact, it's a fun assignment because it provides you an opportunity to meet with and get to know segments in our society that you don't have much contact with," he said.




© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

[El Kabong]

Nos conservators québécois y gagnerait à lire ce genre de texte...

Question de se déniaiser face aux mensonges qu'ils absorbent goulûment!

Amen!

[Delenda]

Forget Quebec
The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Friday, October 17, 2008

Canadians have just elected another Conservative minority government after having the previous minority government's plug pulled because it was "dysfunctional" and had reached the limit of its useful life. Guess what, Canada, we are back in the same dysfunctional scenario.

The Conservative party will most likely be kept alive again by bribing Quebecers and the Bloc. Despite all the political bribery paid to Quebec and declaring them a "nation within a united Canada," the Conservatives actually lost ground in Quebec. What is even more scary and disturbing is the fact that Quebecers have once again voted in favor of the Bloc in Gatineau. It makes me mad as hell to think of all those separatists who vote Bloc who reside in Gatineau and commute daily to Ottawa and work for the federal government.

When will Canadians demand more from themselves and their politicians? Quebec is only relevant for itself and the political party of the day who feels it has to bribe Quebec to stay in power. Canadians should demand better and let their elected members of Parliament know this is totally unacceptable. Forget about Quebec and focus on the rest of Canada.

Bob Clark,

Ottawa

[Delenda]

Barbara Kay: Quebec's glorious fantasy world

Posted: October 22, 2008, 9:00 AM by Kelly McParland


Stephen Harper saw defeat snatched from the jaws of victory when sovereigntist leaders gleefully parlayed his foolish pre-election announcement of relatively trivial arts cuts into a majority-blocking culture card. “When our culture is attacked,” swooned PQ leader Pauline Marois, “it is all of Quebec that is attacked.”

Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe fleshed out Marois’ utterly false and incendiary statement with the words “there is a clash of two visions, that of Quebec and that of Harper.”

In Duceppe’s revealing province-person parallel, he posits Quebec as that utopian Marxist construct -- the “people” -- whose ideological commitment endows them with a single voice and will.

Both politicians tap into the same manichean myth that virtually all Quebec political, union and intellectual elites are keen to perpetuate: The unruly capitalistic world beyond Quebec is insecure and ruthless; but state-nannied Quebec is a successful, contentedly secure, culturally enlightened monolith.

Collectivist dogma has always ruled in Quebec: For three centuries, it was top-down religion; since the Quiet Revolution, it has been the top-down “Quebec Model,” worshipped by Quebecers as the revealed truth. This “truth” insists that Quebec’s oligarchical state-cum-union dirigisme has produced social equality at no discernible price.

In fact, ruinously profligate social programs like cheap universal daycare and frozen low tuition fees mostly benefit the wealthy (higher-income families produce almost 70% of Quebec university students). They are paid for by federal equalization payments or debt assigned to future generations.

Quebec is an economic flop, but most Quebecers don’t know it. In 2003, out of 60 American states and Canadian provinces, only the Maritimes, Manitoba, West Virginia and Mississippi ranked lower in per capita Gross Domestic Product than Quebec, making it among the poorest industrialized regions of North America. Quebec is a sharing society, all right -- except in other provinces like Alberta and Ontario they share the wealth, not the poverty.

So uniform is the mainstream media’s loyalty to the Quebec Model, facts like these rarely filter down to individual Québécois. But in 2007, a modest vehicle for truth, a crisply mounted documentary film, L’Illusion Tranquille (“The Quiet Illusion,” a play on “The Quiet Revolution”) made its way into a few Quebec art cinemas.

Researched, produced and self-financed by two Quebec City film amateurs, computer scientist Joanne Marcotte and her financial-advisor husband Denis Julien, the French-language film was viewed by perhaps 5,000 curious Québécois.
The viewing numbers will pick up dramatically with the newly-released voice-over English version, produced with the help of the Fraser Institute and which enjoyed a successful Ottawa debut on Oct. 11.

If Quebec’s political choices irritate and baffle you -- or if you erroneously believe Quebec delivers its oft-vaunted “social justice” at no hidden cost -- see this revelatory DVD (on sale at http://www.kafkaboutik.com). See it to be informed, but if for no other reason, see it to penetrate the wall of silence used by the mainstream francophone media to shield their audiences against criticism of the “sacrosanct” Quebec Model.

The wall of silence ensured that press reaction to the French-language version of the film was, predictably, to shoot the messenger rather than acknowledge the message. A typical savaging came from a La Presse film critic, piqued because “the documentary asserts that Quebec shows no more solidarity and is no more egalitarian than its neighbours.”
Heresy! It is retrograde, false consciousness, anti-Québécois to assert that Quebec citizens are no better off than les autres!

Reverence for the Quebec Model depends on what anthropologists would call “magical thinking.” Quebecers have been taught that money is something you get from the feds or the wealthy, not something you make. A CROP poll in 2007 found that 57% of respondents agreed that Quebec’s social programs “should be as generous as possible, even at the risk of indebting future generations.”

No Québécois is exempt from ex-communication for apostasy. Even the once-sainted former separatist Lucien Bouchard was vilified as right-wing (the most invidious insult you can level at anyone in Quebec) when he and other realistic businessmen -- “les lucides” -- wrote a 2005 manifesto to “wake up” Quebecers from their trance of denial.

The most encouraging element of The Quiet Illusion was the good sense emanating from a circle of conservative young Québécois student interviewees, who confidently and articulately disassociated themselves from the paralyzing strictures of Quebec Model dogmas. If these are the future political leaders of Quebec -- one can only pray they are -- there may be some light, even hope, at the end of the dark and airless Quebec Model tunnel we’re trapped in.
National Post
bkay@videotron.ca

[Delenda]

Jonathan Kay: Once again, Canadian taxpayers bankroll Quebec's separatists
Posted: October 23, 2008, 2:23 PM by Jonathan Kay
Jonathan Kay


Mark Milke of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy just put out a fascinating report on the state of campaign finance in Canada. What Saved The Bloc Québécois in the 2008 Election: Public Money contains a lot of interesting nuggets — but I thought the most interesting graph was the one above.

For each party, the blue bar represents dollars earned from public sources (specifically, from the $1.95-per-vote subsidy provided annually to parties by Elections Canada), while the grey bar indicates private donations. The shocker here is the Bloc Québécois, which received almost 12 times as much public financing as private financing in the 2007-2008 period. No other party even reaches the 3:1 level. (And in the case of the Conservatives, private-source financing actually exceeded public-source.)

It turns out that even that paltry $503,676 the Bloc was able to take in from private sources since January, 2007 overstates the party's more recent fundraising ability: In the first six months of 2008 (the latest period for which exact stats are available), the party raised a pathetic $73,704. During that period, the Bloc got $1.5-million from Ottawa, meaning that in the run-up to the election, the party's public/private funding ratio was more than 20:1.

How many seats did public financing buy the Bloc? It's hard to say, but Milke seems more than justified in concluding generally that "Simply put, the Bloc's fortunes in the recent election were rescued by public financing."

It's a surreal situation: Can anyone else think of another example — in any Western country — of a government assuming virtually 100% financial responsibility for an entity that seeks to destroy the nation itself?

jkay@nationalpost.com




Comments (31) Send to a friend Permalink




31 Comments

by JFJ
Oct 23 2008
3:09 PM We need a dentist to fix the teeth of ours that they kicked in.
We need a psychiatrist to deternine the reason we funded the heavy boots they used to do it.


by Tarsands
Oct 23 2008
3:10 PM The Greeks would be laughing all the way to the forum at how Canadians allow political sociopaths to run this country.
Most politicians are little better than pond-scum anyways, but the Bloc-heads offer a new definition to ‘bizarre’.


by ZeeBC
Oct 23 2008
3:13 PM Multicult comes a close second IMO. We encourage and pay for foreigners to ignore and in time to overwhelm our culture.


by Gargoyle_7
Oct 23 2008
3:25 PM Let's remember that 1/4 taxpayers live in Quebec. And 1/4 of the total 'subsidies' did not go to the Bloc. (it looks like about 12% or so)
Really, the only shocking thing is the paltry sums that the Bloc can raise on their own. Perhaps it spells their ultimate doom?


by Tarsands
Oct 23 2008
3:59 PM Quebecers pay taxes? Now there’s an oxymoron for ya.
Quebec ain’t contributed a franc to confederation in generations.
And despite all the fancy footwork that defines Equalization Payments, it’s still up to non-Bloc Canadians to pay confiscatory taxes to fund the most self-defeating political system on the planet. I mean, only a bunch of Ottawa lawyers could dream up something as stupid as forcing a loyal Canadian nationalist to pay for politicos whose only purpose is to destroy the country that feeds it.


by Floyd123
Oct 23 2008
4:18 PM Reminds me of the old Red Rose tea ad --"only in Canada you say--what a pity".
JC invented the election financing legislation in the full hope of forever perpetuating the Liberal majority as that majority would gain the upper hand on public financing. The rest as we found out came in brown envelopes from government contractors.
The grass roots fooled him. Perhaps it is time to revisit the legislation to eliminate financing for parties with a disunity agenda.The NDP and Liberals might get on board or perhaps the mandate of the Bloc would change ?


by Floyd123
Oct 23 2008
4:20 PM Quebecers appear to be smarter at taking a free ride on the Bloc as well as The Rest Of Canada. They obviously do not put their money where their mouthpiece is.


by ebt
Oct 23 2008
4:42 PM Let's remind ourselves that the Bloc do not seek to "destroy the nation". Or "tear apart the country". They are dedicated to changing the Canadian constitution so as to change the composition of the country. Or rather, to encouraging such change, since they are not in a position to change it nor are they trying to get to that position.
If changing the composition of the country is treason, shouldn't the people who admitted Newfoundland all have been hanged? If it's destructive, how did we survive the admission of Newfoundland?


by ZeeBC
Oct 23 2008
4:59 PM Relax if you can ROC. Quebec will never separate. Why should they? They have almost everything an independent country would want plus a large teat to suck on. They are adept at playing the ROC for a sucker. Some look at it as astute politics while others as blackmail.
But times are changing. There is an online petition to give Quebec the boot.
"Canadians for Language Fairness Inc.
P.O. Box 40111
Bank & Hunt Club Postal Outlet
2515 Bank Street.
Ottawa, ON, K1V 0W8 Tel (613) 321-7333 Fax (613) 524-3247
Website: http://www.languagefairness.ca Email: clf1@sympatico.ca
October 21, 2008
Finally, right across Canada come the voices of derision & anger!!Finally, the Canadian media is expressing what the rest of us feel about this ludicrous situation that Canada is immersed in – the status quo is intolerable & a solution has to be found or this country will forever be forced to be controlled by a province that is a beggar-nation but still has the temerity to prance around the nation like a Prom Queen. Granted, this is only the French-Quebecois, but we can no longer excuse the ones who didn’t vote for the Bloc. If 38% of the Quebec electorate successfully captured 50 seats, what were the rest thinking? That it doesn’t mean anything – that English-speaking Rest (Most) of Canada will continue looking upon Quebec with amused accommodation despite the fact that this province, single-handedly, is making Canada the laughing stock of the world?
Jeffrey Simpson from the Globe & Mail & Trevor Lautens from the Winnipeg Free Press express some really honest opinions & it is about time. If people have been listening to CFRA, they would have heard Lowell Green & Nick Vandergragt tackle this topic as caller after caller wants Quebec out!!
Our supporters want Quebec to be turfed out NOW – they want a clean break to be accomplished anyway we can. Realistically, it is not that easy but it is a proposal we cannot dismiss. As a viable alternative, we should not dismiss the solution offered by “Decentralization” – I am still looking for arguments for & against this as a solution.
Howard Galganov’s latest editorial: Time Is Not On The Side Of Ethnocentric French Language Nationalism - this is a must-read!!
Link to his web site: http://www.galganov.com to read this & other excellent editorials.
Kim
P.S. We have posted a link to a referendum on Quebec - http://www.petitiononline.com/.../signed.cgi
Please vote & circulate the link to your own list. "


by Jacqo
Oct 23 2008
5:26 PM I am from Quebec and I didn't vote for the Bloc Quebecois.
This being said, looking at comments here, I don't understand why these same people do not accept the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada. Let us go and your problems will be resolved.
This is when I read comments from fellow Canadians that I am becoming a separatist.


by jabez41
Oct 23 2008
5:32 PM TARSANDS... Sort of like the attitude of the guy that suggested they should build a firewall around Alberta.


by Tarsands
Oct 23 2008
5:38 PM ebt: Let's remind ourselves that the Bloc do not seek to "destroy the nation". Or "tear apart the country".
Didn't I hear something about a referendum to separate that took place in la Belle province some time ago?
Get serious, Pal--Quebec will try and suck the very life blood out of this country and it still won't be good enough for them--no matter what changes are made to the constitution. And as long as we have gutless politicians feeding at the subsidized lunch counter in Parliament Hill, every hardworking Canadian (sans Quebecois) will be forced to listen to their endless whining.
Cut them loose!


by Sassylassie
Oct 23 2008
5:52 PM How many seats did public financing buy the Bloc? It's hard to say, but Milke seems more than justified in concluding generally that "Simply put, the Bloc's fortunes in the recent election were rescued by public financing."
LOL well put, but hay we are on the path to communism if the left ever run this country again. The Bloc is benifiting from stupid policies that make the taxpayer fund a party for people who are basically Treasonist.


by CamO
Oct 23 2008
5:56 PM Whow there are some angry posters on this board!
I think the majority of Canadians are upset about the Bloc but also realise that until we step up and re-visit the constitution Quebecers are going to keep returning these guys to Ottawa.
For the silent majoriy (clearly not on this board) who know that Canada includes Quebec and we're stronger for it...we have to work together for the good of the country.
I just hope some of you hate throwers will not interfere!


by CamO
Oct 23 2008
5:58 PM How can people write such hateful and hurtful things about their own countrymen?!
Quebec is Canada-and if you don't like it maybe move to Texas or something!


by Tarsands
Oct 23 2008
5:59 PM jabez41:
Certainly you are not trying to equate a silly one-off comment to Quebec's 100 years of griping and Ottawa's extortionist taxes to pay for it?
At some point the rest of canada will be forced to evaluate how much Quebec is costing us and if we can afford to have her around anymore--and the results of the cost analysis will trump a united and yet disfunctional Canada.
it's not unlike a drug-addict child. The family will work their hearts out for treatment, accomodation and encouragment for the addict to change her ways. Eventually the family has to kick the bum out because they can no longer afford their wallets being raided and destructive hissy-fits.
How many more transfer dollars could be dedicated to the Maritimes or First Nation's housing if we didn't have to fund Quebec's addiction to other's cash?


by Tarsands
Oct 23 2008
6:30 PM CamO:
Get out of Canada?
My family has roots that go back to Empire Loyalists, on one side and over 200 years of living in Quebec on the other--and you want me to leave Canada because you perceive some of these comments as hatred?
Maybe you should pack it up, Pal--this is Canada and what remains of a nation that has left blood (both English & French) on the fields of Europe defending the right to submit comments in this forum.
Because some of us are tired of paying for Quebec’s constant threats, it is not hatred—just agreeing to what Quebec wants—to leave Canada.
Cut ‘em loose.


by Todgemahall
Oct 23 2008
7:02 PM So Canadian tax payers happily fund a tribal splitter party. Big deal. We've spent money less wisely. The good news is that the pure wool revel in their federally funded eurovision-culture and then forget to go home and propigate.
This won't be a problem for my kid's generation.


by CamO
Oct 23 2008
7:09 PM Tarsands:
You want to show the world by posting on these boards you're ignorance go ahead!
Cut'em loose-you'd better reserve that clever catch phrase before some other right wing self hater does!


by jabez41
Oct 23 2008
7:23 PM I was referring to your first comment that called most politicians "pond scum".
Speaking of the maritimes Mr. Harper endeared himself to them several years ago when he referred to their "sense of entitlement and lack of initiative". So let me get this straight, Quebecers are leeches that should be tossed out of Confederation, the Maritimes are losers and a drain on our resources, Ontario is on the way to being a have not province so I guess they will be the next candidates for expulsion.
As far as Harper's comment being a one off that was not the case, he was quite serious.


by Mowich
Oct 23 2008
7:45 PM The people of Quebec are valued members of the Canadian Confederation; however, it is time they acknowledged that themselves. If it takes a referendum to make them see this, than so be it. Something has to be done to address the millions and millions of taxpayers dollars wasted in support of a separatist party.


by Delphicorc
Oct 23 2008
7:58 PM Canada's relationship with Quebec has often and inaccurately been described as a bad marriage. But Quebec is really more like a 15 year old teenager 'forced' to share a home with a harassed single parent (the federal government) and nine boring siblings . By constantly threatening to run away the teenager has scored his own suite in the basement where he can do as he pleases unmolested by the parent or the other bothersome sibs. Its great, he contributes almost nothing to the common cause but receives the largest allowance and only has to suffer the presence of the other family members when decides to take his meals. How can you blame the teenager for achieving such success? How can you hold faultless the parent and siblings that allow it?


by Mr.Ross
Oct 23 2008
8:21 PM As far as I'm concerned, Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes can all hang out and bnakrupt each other. For the first time - and since hearing about Saskatchewan's success - I'm thinking that western separation is a better option. We westerners needn't ask Quebec - drunk on its own sense of self-importance - to leave the party, we (BC,AB,SK) should politely excuse ourselves from this farce of a situation and depart asap.
I rather think that Ontario and the Maritimes don't mind Quebec leading them by the nose so why don't they form their own coalition of the dysfunctional and let us get on with running a functional country?
Where can I sign up for western separation?


by Todgemahall
Oct 23 2008
8:29 PM Delphicorc: Minty.


by Todgemahall
Oct 23 2008
8:37 PM Oh, so now it's East vs West, eh. O.K. so like me and Quebec have decided get the Maritimers to meet behind the Tim Hortons in Calgary so we can totally kick your asses.


by IainGFoulds
Oct 23 2008
8:52 PM ... I believe that we will soon begin to hear the voice of courageous Quebecers who are ashamed of the province's constant demands for special treatment at the expense and sacrifice of every other Canadian... individuals who recognise themselves as equal and essential Canadians.
... Unfortunately, the chains of crippling collectivism will likely continue for the foreseeable future through the continued pandering of Mr. Harper.


by Barneyrubble
Oct 23 2008
8:58 PM I think the people who voted for the Bloc were smart. The Conservatives under Harper were obviously the greater evil to them. ( remember the lesser evil theory? )
Isn't that what this article is all about? Another group of people who did not vote for the favourite boy Harper?
The ' separatists ' out West used to be called the Reform Party.
How come sometimes the Liberals and the Conservatives can get Quebeckers on side but Harper cannot? Why blame the separatists supporters for doing the right thing, just like I did?


by ezbeatz1986
Oct 23 2008
9:16 PM The only party that has a worse public to private financing ratio is...the LIBERAL PARTY of CANADA!
About 70% of their financing comes from the public confers of which they lost at least $1.5 million/year because of their poor showing last election.
Cut the political welfare finance and both the Bloc and Liberal parties would die.


by jabez41
Oct 23 2008
11:12 PM Mr. Ross..
Perhaps you should check out the price of oil before you get too smug about western separation. Ontario carried you guys for years and when the bottom falls out of your oil based economy as it has done in the past you will be back with your tin begging cup clanging for another hand out.
As for SASK. we paid you guys for decades to either grow wheat that we had to subsidise or pay you to not even grow it. You might want to cultivate the virtue of humility . It may be necessary should wheat and potash ( which we also subsidized) tank again.


by Raze
Oct 23 2008
11:39 PM Jabez41:
Wicked.
All of the sucky little "please help me live" provinces were sucking the life out of Ontario for years before they hit their stride.
Here is a fantasy worthy of being commited to a whacky ward: "Give it back, with interest, you sapper sucks!"
Jabez, that'll get 'em hating you faster than any religious allegiance.


by Fred_001
Oct 24 2008
1:23 AM Quebec is only part of Canada because of military conquest. The British fought a good game, and the French didn't care enough to send reinforcements. So a bunch of French people got rolled into Canada against their will. Quebecers are an annexed people, not eager compatriots. This is hardly the foundation for a long-term unified nation. If you love someone, set them free.

[Pèreplexe]

Ils auront beau faire tous les commentaires désobligeants qu'ils voudront , l'argent du gouvernement vient des payeurs de taxes dont les Québécois et si mnous sommes obligés de financer tous les autres partis que nous n'appuyons pas , je ne vois pas pourquoi il en serait autrement pour le Bloc

De plus , ça donne une chance aux Canadiens qui veulent remercier le Bloc d'avoir empêché l'élection de Harper avec une majorité.

[Delenda]

NATIONAL POST

Barbara Kay, Hérouxville, the mouse that roared, is the inspiration behind Quebec's new "Cultural Clarity act"

Posted: October 30, 2008, 7:16 PM by Jonathan Kay

Barbara Kay

The Quebec government announced on October 29 that future immigrants to Quebec will be required to sign a declaration of intent to learn French and respect the "shared values" of Quebec.

Immigration to Quebec, said Immigration Minister Yolande James, "is a privilege, not a right." Hear, hear. Amongst the cultural bonbons in "To enrich Quebec: Affirming the common values of Quebec society" are reminders that Quebec is a secular society, women are equal to men and hate speech is unwelcome. The Immigration department plans to add a section on Quebec values to forms filled out overseas along with an explanatory pamphlet and a DVD on shared values. Once arrived, immigrants will be offered seminars on shared values. The message is polite but stark: You're not in Shariah land anymore, folks, and if you don't like our values, you don't belong here.

The proposal was immediately denounced by critics who correctly identified it as a pre-election issue grab from the PQ and the ADQ by Jean Charest. More to the politically incorrect point, it was immediately clear that the initiative's main principles are - although in more muted language - a shameless plagiarism from the infamous Hérouxville code.

In February 2007, at the height of the "reasonable accommodation" debate and amidst the emotion-stirring Bouchard-Taylor Commission hearings, the town council of the thitherto-unknown little hamlet of Hérouxville, tucked away in the boonies north of Trois-Rivières (population 1300, 100% francophone and 96% old stock québécois),drew up a list of town rules rules for immigrant newcomers, including prohibitions against stoning women or throwing acid in their faces, an obvious shot across the specific bows of Taliban-style Islamists, rather than a general admonition to typical Muslim immigrants.

It was unfortunate that the Hérouxville strategists cheapened an otherwise commendable initiative with such off-putting overkill. The inclusion of behaviours already accounted for in the criminal code also blurred the lines between legitimate cultural grievance and cultural fear-mongering. It is reasonable for Hérouxville to condemn cultural entitlements Muslims were already seeking and sometimes procuring in larger urban Canadian centres (prayer rooms in universities, single-sex swimming in public pools). It is unreasonable to "forbid" statistically negligible acts of extreme violence that are already forbidden, and that in any case no Canadian Muslim has ever publicly endorsed. As a result, the Hérouxville code was for the most part held up for scolding and mockery outside of Quebec as a symbol of parochialism and xenophobia.

The close association of the new government proposal with the healthy spirit of the flawed Hérouxville code was bound to ring alarm bells. The Montreal Gazette's October 30 editorial opined that not only would the values declaration have little effect, "requiring people to sign on to formally-stated values is somehow repellant."

Repellant? How so? My grandparents would have happily signed on to a Canadian values declaration as proof they had officially left the oppressive regimes they were escaping. A "values declaration" is simply an "oath of allegiance" by another name. When immigrants to the U.S. take out citizenship, they must say the words: "I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

That's a pretty hefty commitment by anyone's standards, and yet I've never heard of any U.S. immigrant protesting the necessity of saying it in order to become a citizen. A U.S. citizenship is, even in these turbulent times, quite a prize to most of the world's oppressed. So, I would like to think, is ours. So why is Quebec's values declaration demeaning or "patronizing" as a Montreal sociology professor put it in recording his disgust at the idea of educated people having to put their intentions to be good citizens in writing? Are marriage contracts - is any contract formalizing both parties' good faith - "patronizing"?

Sometimes the right thing happens for the wrong reasons. The good people of Hérouxville drew up their code because they felt threatened by what they perceived in Muslim-dominated urban enclaves as an encroaching Islamicization that the government was failing to address. The ADQ pounced on and exploited to advantage the iceberg of defensiveness in the general ex-urban population they saw beneath the tip of Hérouxville. The government seized on the Hérouxville syndrome to score political points for an upcoming election.

All this is true, and nobody comes out smelling like a rose. And yet. And yet. Hérouxville for me was the little boy in the fable who pointed out that the emperor was naked. The "emperor" is our obsession with making other cultural groups feel welcome and at home with their God and customs at the expense of our own pride in and wish to further our Judeo-Christian values. The emperor is also our reluctance - or at least amongst those of us who live amidst "diversity" - to express our discomfort for fear of "offending" the Other.

The regions of Quebec outside Montreal are probably the last place in the western world where virtually an entire population is culturally homogeneous. (pauvre imbécile, faudrait préciser ce qu'elle veut dire par western world) Hérouxville's town council could draw up that statement of values because they were blissfully exempt from the codes of political correctness that constrain most Canadians from complete candour. They could speak honestly of their fears to each other without the risk of inviting charges of racism. They aren't racists. Are they xenophobic? Yes, a little, but not in a bad way. A bad way would be to accord others fewer entitlements than those of the host culture (it's called dhimmitude in Islam-ruled countries). To demand that other cultures not have more entitlements isn't racist. In fact it's good for everybody.

It's a paradoxical reality, but in order to keep our heritage culture strong, a product of an evolved civilization that rejects intolerance and embraces pluralism, we must act in a prejudiced way at some point. Therefore, in spite of the dubious optics of its history, I applaud Quebec's proposal. I wish, though, it had been a joint venture with Ottawa. After the crisis of the 1995 referendum, the Clarity Act taught Quebec a lesson about political hubris and geopolitical reality. As an ironic postmodern "hommage," Quebec's new "values declaration" should be called the Cutural Clarity Act. For it too is responding to an existential crisis, and embodies a lesson in civilizational self-preservation that all Canadians need to learn.




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