Health minister Yves Bolduc gave out $1.2 million today.
What have you been up to?
Tagged Quebec politics
It’s all about sovereignty, obviously
For those wondering when a politician would exploit the shooting and subsequent riot in Montreal North for transparently self-serving purposes, Affiliation Quebec’s Allen Nutik just sent out a press release:
As a champion of minority rights, AffiliationQuebec calls on Quebec’s cultural communities to select effective candidates to run under the AQ banner in order to elect relevant representation to send to the National Assembly.
The tense situation in Montreal North offers a unique opportunity for these communities to ‘break free’ from Quebec’s nationalist agenda, and to play a direct role in their own governance.
It’s amazing how many new causes are dummed up every hour to replace the apparently inadequate “kids mad ’cause cops shot other kid.”
Ceci est Sparta indépendantiste
Does anyone else find the music attached to this video unnecessarily menacing?
Is it that they want people to hate them, or do they think this is going to become some sort of armed conflict and The One True Way will prevail gloriously?
I’ll could also point out the irony of uploading a Parti indépendantiste video that’s militantly anti-English to a website that doesn’t have a French (or at least Québécois) version.
Paris-Match screws up on Quebec
Speaking of Page One screw-ups about Quebec’s 400th anniversary, the local media is going nuts (and the local blogosphere doing the same) over the magazine Paris-Match’s new issue about Quebec. It looks fantastic except for one minor error:
They thought it was the province’s anniversary, not the city’s. So the section focuses on the province, and mainly on Montreal.
Oops. I guess they don’t understand that subtle “à” vs “au” distinction. (Do they not have that in France?)
Here’s my question though: Why didn’t reporters pick up on this when they did all those laudatory stories about Paris Match’s upcoming issue earlier in the week? You don’t think they just rewrote a press release without thinking about it, do you? (At least Pierre Cayouette was scratching his head at the possibility they got this wrong before it came out)
UPDATE: This gem of a quote from The Gazette:
“We didn’t know there was a competition between Quebec City and Montreal and to be honest, it doesn’t really matter to us and to our readers. But we now see that it is sensitive issue here,” (editor-in-chief) Martin-Chauffier said.
I think someone needs to explain to this person that this isn’t a cultural difference, it’s a factual error.
UPDATE (June 30): The editor continues to not apologize for the factual error and hence imply that we misunderstood them and they know better than us what this is all about (Patrick Lagacé calls BS and isn’t letting him off the hook). I’m starting to understand why everyone hates the French.
Meanwhile, competing French media have taken notice of the mistake: Liberation has a piece from AFP on the matter (via mtlweblog) and 20minutes and Le Post also giggle at Paris-Match’s misfortune.
UPDATE (July 1): Regret the Error summarizes the situation with links to prestigious local bloggers.
Why I love Quebec
As St. Jean Baptiste approaches, Patrick Lagacé asks us to say why we love Quebec.
Here’s a few of my reasons:
- Julie Couillard.
- Because politics here is never boring.
- Because we have a government that’s progressive yet democratic.
- Because we have a population that is actually bilingual, and doesn’t just pretend to be for show.
- Because we had a massively controversial independence vote that was decided almost within the margin of error, but it wasn’t followed by a civil war.
- Because the single biggest and most violent political crisis in our history produced a single fatality.
- Because of Les Francs-Tireurs and Patrick Lagacé’s hair.
- Because Québécois French is so funny-sounding.
- Because the Canadiens are not so much a hockey team as a shared religion.
- Because of all the pretty girls I’m going to see today on the way to work.
UPDATE: I see this has officially reached meme status. Which would make it my first meme. And hopefully my last.
UPDATE (June 24): Lagacé’s column compiles his readers’ responses.
Racism is OK when you’re white
A story came out on Wednesday about how the Defence Department union wants more women on emergency response units, because “a group of female workers were stripped naked and scrubbed down by an all-male team responding to an anthrax scare.”
I looked for it, but I couldn’t find any commentary from the blogosphere, the PQ or others calling sexism here and saying that emergency response workers should not be discriminated against because of their gender.
This is odd, because a lot of people make a fuss about the idea that only male police officers should address Hassidic Jews, or that only female doctors should see Muslim women as patients.
What’s the difference in these reasonable accommodations?
sovereignistgirl15
Pauline Marois has apparently taken to vlogging (on YouTube, no less, which doesn’t have a French Canadian version). In this video from a few days ago, she talks about how Jean Charest should accept the PQ’s proposal to amend the Quebec charter to include:
- A guarantee of equality between men and women, which is already there last time I checked.
- A guarantee of separation between church and state, except of course when it comes to having symbols of the One True Religion in the state’s legislature
- A guarantee of the Ultimate Supremacy of the One True Language to the exclusion of all others, even though we live in a country which has a law kinda saying the opposite
She also name-drops the Mouvement Montréal français, which I guess shouldn’t be so surprising, but will probably hurt the PQ later when the MMF inevitably says something outright racist.
Business isn’t smoking
On Friday night, part of Quebec’s anti-smoking law came into effect, which among other things completely bans smoking in workplaces, outlawing designated smoking rooms.
To which most people responded: “They allowed smoking rooms at work until now?”
Yep. And on Friday night at midnight, those rooms were closed for good, including one at The Gazette, which had its ashtrays removed and “no smoking” signs taped to the tables. It will be converted into a lunchroom.
Now, when copy editors take page proofs to read while having a smoke, they’ll be doing it outside. Which will be fine while the weather is good, but it’ll be torture when winter comes.
Another provision of the law, which will have more of an impact on the rest of the world, requires retailers to hide their cigarettes in a closed cabinet or otherwise out of the view of customers. This is to prevent young’uns from being exposed to them or something, I guess.
That provision reeks of wishy-washy nanny-stateism (either make it legal or don’t), but I don’t smoke so I really don’t care.
As the law came into effect, Couche Tard took the opportunity to remind customers that they still sell cigarettes and to “just ask” for them. (This law is going to cause a lot of uncomfortable and/or confusing conversations, I think). Right next to that ad was another from VizuelMedia, which is using this new law to its advantage and has created a business model that involves creating new cigarette “power walls” and selling ads on them.
And the Mohawks, well they’re just ignoring the law entirely.
Bouchard-Taylor love wasting paper (literally)
So as I was taking a short break from doing my job yesterday, I downloaded this report that everyone’s talking about, in its original French. I expected a long report taking up far more paper than is necessary, and I wasn’t disappointed.
But I noticed something on one of the pages of the report:
I thought that was funny because the report had so many blank pages in it, to serve as bookends for the title pages. I did a quick count of the blank pages and mentioned to my boss that of the 310 pages in the report, 34 were entirely blank (not a single dot of ink).
She asked me to give her a couple of paragraphs saying that, and it turned into the shortest article I’ve ever written, in today’s paper. (It was a bit longer than that to begin with, but it was cut down for space, and also because it went on a bit too long, by a ruthless copy editor who ironically turned out to be myself).
Admittedly, both the environmental policies and the blank pages are common practice in government reports. The Johnson Commission report (PDF) has a similar notice (though it actually calculates how much of the planet you’re saving), and also has blank pages (though not as many).
Without the blank pages and title pages (including pages that repeat the title page or just include photos of the commission chairs, but not including the environmental/copyright notice above which is on an otherwise blank page), the Bouchard-Taylor report would have 60 fewer pages, for a 19% reduction in paper use.
Wouldn’t that have been better for the environment?
Municipal democracy is for losers
So the Ile Bizard 2004 demerger referendum vote has been annulled, because with the ridiculous requirements for the vote (i.e. that 35% of all those registered must vote yes, making everyone who doesn’t vote a de facto “no” vote), 400 people who were on the voter rolls but moved away or died before the vote made the difference between it passing and failing.
So now that we’ve rewritten history and Ile Bizard did, in fact, vote to reconstitute itself as a city, what’s being done to ensure the democratic will is being followed?
Apparently, absolutely nothing. The judge didn’t order a new referendum, nor require the government to reconstitute the municipality. Instead, it will be left to a “political” solution. In other words, let the government do what they want. In other words, nothing.
Isn’t that great?
UPDATE (May 17): The Gazette’s Henry Aubin says don’t hold your breath waiting for the government.
The Mario Dumont Show
Mario Dumont is getting his own eight-minute weekly show on Corus radio stations in Quebec, following Premier Jean Charest’s 10-minute weekly radio address.
Can’t be any worse than what’s already on Quebec talk radio, I guess…
By-elections today
Gaétan Legault of Québec solidaire, who is apparently either a communist or a separatist (or a communist-separatist) is just one of 20 candidates running in three by-elections today in Quebec: Hull, Bourget (east-end Montreal) and Pointe-aux-Trembles.
Aside from the Big 3 parties, there are candidates in each riding from Québec solidaire, the left-wing party, the Green Party, which still takes itself seriously despite never winning anything, and the new Parti indépendantiste, which thinks the PQ is too soft on sovereignty. There are also two independents running in Pointe-aux-Trembles.
If you live in one of these ridings and for some reason haven’t been bombarded with information about this vote, check out the by-elections website.
.qc? No
The PQ’s Daniel Turp is flogging the idea that the Internet should have a .qc domain. Separatists with nothing better to do are angry over having to type “.qc.ca” to get to Quebec-based websites
It’s this kind of thinking that has forced Quebecers to file two tax forms every year, pay two different kinds of sales taxes, and deal with all the other pointless duplication of federal services just to make us be different for difference’s sake.
And until Quebec reaches the promised land, which PQ hard-liners unilaterally declare to be an eventuality, websites based here will need to have both a .qc and .qc.ca domain.
Can someone tell these people that they lost the referendum? Twice?
UPDATE: Wow. 14 comments. Most are, of course, insulting, but I’ve responded to some of the counter-arguments brought up below.
Unemployment in Quebec is always by choice, apparently
Show me an able-bodied 20-year-old who can’t find a job and I’ll show you a shiftless, lying bum.
It always amuses me when people paid to be ignorant blowhards complain about young people not working hard enough to make a living.
The McKibbin’s kinda-non-story
I should give fair play to Jamie Orchard. My last post about her blog was unflattering. But her latest post, about the whole McKibbin’s language-police debacle, is much more interesting:
The OLF insists that all the owner has to do is write back and explain that the signs are artifacts. In fact, when the OLF saw our TV footage of the signs, they said right away the case could be solved easily – here’s the quote from Gerald Paquette:
There are many Irish pubs in Quebec that have these kinds of artifacts and they have all asked for an exception.”
We told this to the owner of the pub on Thursday, and he seemed relieved. But then, on Friday, the co-owner of the pub was on talk radio insisting that he would have to go to court to fight this, making a big show of inviting the premier to his pub to look at the signs, insisting he would refuse to pay the fine. He was getting all the sympathy in the world from the host, from the callers, from everyone, and never once did he mention it could all be solved with a simple letter.
I like this post (especially compared to the previous one) for two reasons:
- It’s a simple, rational, thought-out opinion rather than an uninformed reactionary “stupid OLF” rant
- It brings some new information to the table (Global’s conversation with the bar’s owner) that is perfectly placed in a journalist’s blog.
I’m not going to leave the OLF (actually the OQLF) off the hook entirely, since they did, in fact, bring up these signs in their complaint (which was from a customer who said he wasn’t served in French and an outdoor menu was in English only).
But it’s clear the media (and I have to include myself here, since I edited the big article in Friday’s Gazette about it) played up the signs and outrage campaign while burying the other complaints and the comments from the OQLF that they could easily get an exemption. (Second-day stories are pointing these things out, but that wouldn’t have been necessary if they weren’t buried in the first place.)
And McKibbin’s owners are clearly using this as an excuse to launch an anti-OQLF publicity campaign to boost anglo business and line their pockets with outrage money (or just get their name in the news). They’ve already got a Facebook group. And another. And another. And another. And another.
Elsewhere in the blogosphere:
UPDATE (Feb. 27): A video on YouTube shows the original letter from the OQLF to McKibbin’s, which clearly is much more about the posters than the office later suggested to reporters. Also plenty of discussion on some franco forums.
Concordian interviews Boisclair
The Concordian interviews André Boisclair, who recently started giving lectures on crisis management at Concordia as a teaching assistant under former Liberal Party activist John Parisella. It starts off with marketingese about how happy he is to teach there (in response to questions about the controversies surrounding his appointment) and then descends into a confrontational debate over whether sovereignists should teach at anglo universities:
Is coming to Concordia a sign that you’re no longer a sovereignist?
What are you getting at?Well, I don’t know, a lot of people say that a sovereigntist might have rather chosen to go to Universite de Montréal or UQÀM to teach.
Why is that?Well. Because they’re French universities.
Are you defending the principle of segregation sir?
Boisclair also says pretty definitively that he’s done with politics.
No word on whether he spent any time doing lines with CSU executives or checking out the stalls in the Hall Building’s 8th floor men’s bathroom (ok ok, that one was unfair).
Nothing says environmentalism like the NHL
For those of you wondering when Québec solidaire would sell out to the lowest common denominator: They’ve added “bring hockey games back to Radio-Canada” to their platform.
As for their argument that so many people don’t have access to RDS, I’d point out that only 13% of households with televisions in Canada don’t have cable or satellite service, and that number is going down. It’s not trivial, but it’s not that big either.
Anglos really do speak French
The Gazette’s Andy Riga does a reverse Journal: going to anglo areas and seeing if they serve him in French. Sure enough, most of them do.
This is to contrast the Journal’s assertion that it’s hard to be served in French in Montreal, something The Gazette had previously decried as irresponsible journalism.
Clearer picture about overpasses
I’ve updated my map of Quebec’s at-risk overpasses to reflect the current state of inspections at the Ministry of Transport. More than half of the original 135 overpasses have been inspected, and most have had weight restrictions lifted.
The map (which started six months ago) contains about 150 bridges and overpasses, including the 135 deemed requiring inspection by the ministry, others whose structures were looked at by municipalities in the past year, and historical notes of ones that have collapsed or been demolished.
In the map above:
- RED indicates bridges and overpasses which have been closed, demolished or are to be replaced
- YELLOW indicates bridges and overpasses which require repairs or continue to have weight restrictions
- GREEN indicates bridges and overpasses whose restrictions have been lifted and no repairs are deemed necessary
- BLUE indicates bridges and overpasses which still need inspection or whose inspections are still under analysis
UPDATE (Jan. 22): Radio-Canada mentions the map on their “Sur le Web” site, complete with video summary. They got it from the Courrier International blog.
When 90% just isn’t good enough
Here’s another stupid idea: Giving small business tax credits for speaking French, something they’re supposed to be doing anyway.
How do you accurately judge something like that without doubling the size of the language police?
