Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois says she plans to call a public inquiry after learning about anglo Quebec’s best-kept secret: an exclusive expressway that avoids traffic jams and brings anglo drivers from the West Island to downtown in under 20 minutes.

News of the secret expressway, known to all Quebec anglophones but to no one who speaks French, leaked out on Monday evening after former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe said he heard someone talk about it while he was at CTV Montreal’s studios for an interview on the election campaign. He said he was horrified to learn that this secret road had existed for years and that anglo drivers had been using it, all the while “laughing at Quebec’s francophone majority every morning and evening.”

The expressway’s route isn’t entirely clear, but appears to go from just west of Highway 13 and Highway 40 all the way to downtown Montreal through a tunnel that emerges in an out-of-the-way spot near the Ville-Marie Expressway.

“This is unacceptable,” Marois said.

It’s unclear how, if the Quebec transport ministry is unaware of this passage, how it’s maintained. Some people who had used it regularly said it was self-financed, charging tolls to the anglos who drove through it, as well as rent to a few businesses set up inside (gas stations, coffee shops and the like).

Marois said the passage should be immediately shut down until it can be determined that it’s safe. She worried in particular about its structural soundness and whether it had proper ventilation.

A preliminary report is expected within the month.

Québec solidaire campaign poster

An embarrassed Québec solidaire had to ask voters to please not take the party’s campaign posters literally after hospitals in Montreal reported dozens of cases of the party’s supporters causing themselves injuries trying to vote with their heads in advance polling this weekend.

Doctors said the injuries suggested some people tried to hold their pencils with their teeth in the voting booth and accidentally swallowed them. Others simply laid their ballots flat on the desk in the voting booth and bashed their head against the name of the candidate they were voting for, giving themselves a concussion.

There was also one report of a voter trying to cast his vote in blood, although it’s unclear if this was a Québec solidaire supporter or if he or she was doing that because of misreading a poster or for some other reason.

(I’m unclear if voting with blood is considered legal.)

“We want our supporters to actually vote the normal way,” said spokesperson Françoise David. “We want them to choose with their heads. … And their hearts.”

David jokingly suggested that volunteers would go around town and add stickers to the posters that say “pas littéralement”.

Bell Media has sent legal letters, complained to the CRTC and is raising all the hell it can after news leaked that Virgin Radio competitor The Beat 92.5 is planning to rebrand once again, this time using what Bell calls a “confusingly similar” name: Fur Gym Radio.

Described in an internal branding strategy document as a way to attract the female demographic by reminding them two things they love — expensive clothes and places to meet buff guys — Fur Gym Radio 92.5 would keep the same hot adult contemporary music format, but would reflect a name that focus groups identified with more positively than the blandly-named The Beat.

Bell argues in a strongly-worded legal threat against The Beat’s owner Cogeco Diffusion that “Fur Gym Radio” sounds too much like “Virgin Radio” and that it is a “blatant attempt to confuse listeners into believing” that The Beat is associated with or endorsed by the Virgin brand.

Cogeco representatives wouldn’t comment on the threat or the rebranding exercise. As far as anyone at the station is concerned, it’s still status quo as “92.5 The Beat”.

The Montreal Stars Canadian Women’s Hockey League team is so desperate for people to actually come to its games that not only is it eliminating the $10 entrance fee but it’s going to offer free pizza for certain games.

The change comes as the result of a new sponsorship deal, which will solve the team’s financial problems if they can guarantee at least 500 people per game. That will be difficult for certain early games, hence the free pizza.

Next year’s schedule hasn’t been set yet, but the team’s spokesperson said about a third of the games would be part of the promotion, whereby anyone who stayed past the second period would get one slice of free pizza. Double Pizza has already been brought on as the sponsor. The company has provided post-game pizzas for the team in the past and will provide game pizzas for significantly reduced costs in exchange for promotional consideration.

I’m told the free pizza will be plain.

Canadiens players Carey Price, P.K. Subban, Rene Bourque, Brendan Gallagher, Travis Moen, Brandon Prust and Ryan White, who are all Canadian citizens who were born outside Quebec, all signed a letter complaining to the chief electoral officer after they said they were denied applications to add their names to the Quebec electoral list over the weekend.

The letter, which was made public overnight after journalists heard rumours about it, says that the group tried to register at the same time on Sunday, but that a representative of the Directeur général des élections du Québec refused to accept their documentation proving they are domiciled in Quebec.

“This lady asked me if I was a student, then she asked a bunch of other questions about my travel and how serious I was about staying in Quebec,” Subban said. “It was bizarre.”

The DGE is under fire after reports of students from outside the province studying in Quebec being denied the right to vote because election officials challenged whether they were truly “domiciled” here. That has resulted in a court case.

Similar logic seems to be used here. The letter alleges that Canadiens players were told that they had no roots in this province because they could be traded at any time, they spend most of their time travelling, they live out of hotels and they don’t speak French.

The DGE has not confirmed these statements or given any comment yet.

Mike Weaver and Dale Weise are also Canadian citizens, though they would not qualify to vote either way because they have not been living here more than six months.

Daniel Brière, David Desharnais and Michael Bournival are Quebec-born and had no trouble updating their names on the electoral list.

Special electoral revisions take place until Thursday. After that there’s no way to register to vote. Voting day is Monday. The Canadiens will be in town, departing next Tuesday for their final road game, Wednesday April 9 in Chicago.

The queen’s float during the St. Patrick’s Parade on March 16.

Be careful what colours you put on during an election campaign.

That’s the message that’s being heard after the Directeur général des élections du Québec fined the United Irish Societies of Montreal on Monday after an investigation showed that many of the activities during and around the St. Patrick’s Parade on March 16 were unfair free advertisement for the Green Party of Quebec during an election campaign.

Needless to say the UIS disagrees with the assessment, suggesting sarcastically that the DGE is trying to ban the colour green.

The truth is a bit muddier than that. The DGE’s decision states that slogans or signs that clearly indicate a link to Irish heritage are fine, but that signs that say things like “Think Green” and “Kiss Me I’m Green” could be misinterpreted as support for the Green Party, making them election expenses prohibited by the law.

The situation gets more complex because the investigation showed that Green Party activists were present at the parade handing out paraphernalia. Some was official, showing the name of the official agent and properly expensed. But some other stuff, including T-shirts that said “This St-Patrick’s, I’m Going Green” didn’t carry a party logo or the name of an official agent.

Two of the people found to be distributing the T-shirts denied that they were advocating in favour of a party. They said they were simply trying to get people to be more environmentally conscious.

The UIS, which is being fined because it allowed the distribution to happen during a parade it controlled, says it will appeal the fine, even though it’s of a nominal amount of $100.

Former Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau, left, current CEO Robert Dépatie, and Groupe TVA President Pierre Dion.

In the end, it was probably the most sensible decision. Pierre Karl Péladeau, who owns a controlling stake in Quebecor Inc. and its subsidiary Quebecor Media Inc., which became a problem when he became a candidate for the Parti Québécois, has agreed to sell his entire stake in the company to the Quebec government for an undisclosed price. The news was reported in this morning’s Journal de Montréal (of course).

The sale, which will effectively nationalize Quebecor Media, owner of the Journal de Montréal, Journal de Québec, Videotron, TVA and a bunch of other companies, will keep its control in Quebec. Keeping control here was the big reason why Quebecor bought Videotron and TVA in 2001.

It’s not clear exactly how the process would go through, whether it would be the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which already owns a significant share of Quebecor Media, buying the rest, or whether there would be some other branch of the provincial government created to run the company. Péladeau and PQ leader Pauline Marois said the deal would not affect senior executives or staff at Quebecor, and that Quebecor’s editorial independence would be assured. Marois left open the possibility that assets such as the newspapers or Videotron might be sold, but said there was no question that control of those assets would remain in Quebec.

Péladeau said the deal would go through regardless of who wins the April 7 election if he wins his seat. He didn’t say exactly what would happen if he’s not elected to the National Assembly. He also said he discussed the deal with Quebecor CEO Robert Depatie and Quebecor’s board.

Since Videotron and TVA are regulated by the CRTC, the deal would need to be approved by the regulator first. There might be other federal and provincial bodies having a say considering the unusualness of this deal.

The implications of this deal are a bit too out there to ponder right now, so I’ll let it digest before I analyze it further.