Union Montreal's "English" website
I got an email Friday morning, just as the municipal election campaign officially began, informing me that Union Montreal has redesigned its website.
So, of course, I checked it out with my usual critical eye. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. The design was clean and simple, the page looked fine even with the style sheet turned off. They’ve got the usual Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and Flickr accounts. They’re even releasing their content under a Creative Commons license.
Great, I thought. So where’s the English version?
After a bit of searching, I could find some pages that had a link at the bottom that said “English”. That would bring me to an English version of those pages. But then I’d click somewhere and it would bring me back to the French website. Or it would be the English page and all the navigational text would be in French.
I asked the guy who emailed me, Marc Snyder, what’s up with all that. He said they’re working on it:
We’re progressing in the right direction: I think this is what a work-in-progress is all about ;-)
Building a website that’s bilingual isn’t easy. Most cool content management systems don’t think of building in support for bilingual websites. So many do so through third-party plugins. In this case, the website is WordPress based and they’re using the Qtranslate plugin.
But to launch a website so publicly without even basic information in English (at first, there wasn’t even an English bio for the mayor) seems a fairly major gaffe. Even now, most of its content isn’t accessible in English. Instead, you get a short apology with a link to the French version.
Remember, this is supposed to be the anglo party, embracing both languages of this diverse metropolis. Vision Montreal, with ex-PQer Louise Harel who speaks little English, and Projet Montréal, which doesn’t even translate its name into our language, both have better English versions of their websites.
Maybe next time someone from Union Montreal criticizes Louise Harel for alienating anglophones, she can point out the fact that people don’t need to look up what “Arrondissement de militantisme” is before they can donate to her party.
Oh wait, she can’t. Neither can Michel Richard Bergeron. Because both Vision Montreal’s donation form and Projet Montréal’s donation form have random untranslated bits of French on them.
I realize this is small-time politics and we’re not dealing with real big budgets here, but these are forms people fill out to give you money. If you’re so careless about translation, I can only imagine what kind of controls you have on the $100 I’d be putting in your campaign fund.
Colour me pas impressionné.
“Neither can Michel Bergeron.”
Typo?
No. Projet Montréal is actually secretly run by the leader’s evil brother behind the scenes.
fagstein the copy editor, you have a typo!! Find it in the paragraph about Vision Montreal. Tsk!Tsk!
Sorry Mom!
Why should municipal parties cater to a tiny linguistic minority? Montréal is the second largest french city in the world. Only one people in 8 is english, so why would they deserve half of the electoral websites?
Why shouldn’t they? If your platform is “fuck you anglos”, that will probably get you some votes. But don’t criticize other parties for not catering to anglos when you don’t do so yourself.
Jean Naimard, your question can be answered by extrapolating that same question to another linguistic minority – french-speakers within Canada. Laws aside, why should federal parties devote “half” of their websites to french speakers, when about only about 1 in 5 Canadians is French?
Answer: because they matter. Linguistic minorities, be they french or english, have the power to change elections, and any politicial worth his salt will make a decent effort to speak to as many of his constituents as possible.
They do it in the hope of attracting the french, which is a lost cause because we have stopped voting liberal in 1984, and conservative in 1993; now, no canadawide federal party is able to gather our interest as none has anything of value to offer us, hence the string of minority governments Canada has had for the last few years…
I would dearly love to see ANY Quebec-based website acknowledge any other language in the world besides French.
Half the time I think the only reason I can spot signs in Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese or any other non-Roman alphabet is because the language police think it’s bizarre artwork and not an actual written language.
There are tons of them, several of which are actual QC Govt. sites.
This English/French debate is bullshit and getting so fucking boring. The only thing we got out of the constant Franco insecurity building (Franco’s are not insecure, the politicians keep telling them to be in the sea of English to advance their small penised agendas, yes small penised, they have no balls to build the province honestly) (anyway back to what I was saying) the only thing we got is mediocre, bland, spark-less politicians with no real agendas to do anything with our city. No one has the balls to stand up to the provincial pussies, the unions or bust the balls of the off island suburbs. Put in some fucking tolls on the bridges, pave our streets, get the fucking cops out their and ticket the shit out of the idiots rushing off to get home in time before the rush. Fix my streets, clean up my streets and protect my streets. I don’t care if you grunt and can’t put two words together but get it done. English-French fucking boring the hell out of me.
They get away with this largely because no one really cares about municipal politics. The voter turnout rate was < 40% in 2005, and I think it'll be even lower this time around. Pretty sad.
For that, you can thank the steady last 30 years the bourgeois have been hammering away at Democracy, discrediting it with a retinue of incompetent, failed businessmen that only know how to grease themselves, in the hope that one day, one saviour will come and say “vote for me, and I’ll abolish all that inefficient democracy that stands in the way of getting things done”. This is, of course, exactly how Hitler got elected in 1933…
There again, like the right wing radicals in the U.S.A bring up Hitler to compare everything bad. That is an easy cheap tool to use when you have run out of qualified arguments. This is the monster in the closest argument that goes nowhere quickly. Sure Parizeau, Bouchard,Landry et al, should all be compared to a racist mental case who whipped up anger against les autre. No we have a democracy and we vote them in and out, no shots fired, just angry words.
The turnout is low because of the schmucks running for office. No spark, no interest. White bread, bland all the way. I truly believe this is what all politicians want. Low voter turnout helps those in power. Like they say no one votes a government in in they the bums out. Look at the doorknob they have in Laval. This useless piece of work has been sailing on low expectations, he is lucky there is a lot of land for cheap houses and strip/box malls galore. He has not done a thing to revitalize the island of Laval, the older parts are eyesores and the new area are plastic. We are lucky in Montreal because of the city is much older and had some great visionaries in the past. A city does not need politicians it needs artists and dreamers to bring in culture and people and life. The politicians can go to Quebec city and count all the beans they want. Montreal needs people who say “what the fuck” and dream big. Drapeau did this, with ups and downs, the stadium being a joke and Expo being half decent. But Montreal was put on the map. Now where are those ballsey type. No all we have a boring old people playing on language. Get on the fucking 80 bus on Park ave and tell me what language Montreal speaks. Frenglish that is what we speak here. Now get these fucking old politicians out of our hair and rebuild our city.
Drapeau was the worst thing ever to happen to Montréal. He got elected on a fascist platform, to rid the city of all the clubs, whorehouses and fun places that made it a great city. He then gutted the downtown core to let highways and parking lots so the suburbanites could drive to the city, and he ripped-out the streetcars to replace them by smelly, slow buses mired in traffic so people would buy more cars to clog the streets even more.
The subway system was just sleigh-of-hand window-dressing to divert attention. So were Expo-67 (actually, it was not Drapeau who got the international exhibition, but his predecessor, Sarto Fournier) and the überdisastrous olympics.
Far from a visionary, the little führer was just a puppet for real estate promoters who gutted the old city and spread the ’burbs around and started the automotive ball rolling only to drain 20% of the Québec gross domestic product abroad. Drapeau would certainly not do anything that wasn’t pre-approved by his puppetmasters.
Prior to “his honour”, Montréal had no political parties; it still shows today: the City Charter came down hard on Géranium Pommier’s finger when an executive committee defected accross the chamber — the Charter did not allow the mayor to fire him from the exec committee. Drapeau brought in the political rot that is the party system; with a figurehead mayor, people will vote for any dope that matches the figurehead (never mind that the mayor is elected separately!!!).
As a diehard “separatist”, I would appear to be tempted to vote for the Bitch, but she is freshly-slapped-on (look closely, in the back of her neck, there is a little “slap-on tool” builder’s plate) the political party founded by Géranium Pommier, the first-class moron who gutted transit service 15 years ago. Although she claims to promote transit (they all do — phoque, even Steven Harper does, although he’d like nothing better than force everyone drive petrol-sucking cars to please his greasy little friends out west in the oil industry), the retinue of utterly stupid morons and jackasses who let the gutting of transit happen that comes attached with the party will guarantee that transit users will be the biggest losers if ever she comes to power.
Nor will I vote for the incumbent dope with the “deer in the headlights” look. Not because he’s liberal, but because his own retinue of cretins (many of them rescued from Jean Doré’s RCM) did not restore transit back to the level it was before Géranium Pommier and they certainly did nothing to prevent transit fares to rise twice faster than inflation.
All that rot and nonsense is solely the works or political parties. They prevent capable individuals from being elected and only favour moronic sheeple who will blindly follow their leaders.
Drapeau wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t pure evil either. He did big things, and spent a lot of money doing them. Some turned out to be worth it, others not. Let’s not oversimplify his administration with hyperbolic Hitler comparisons.
Our natural habitat is the city, and Drapeau ruined the city by gutting it to accommodate the ’burbs.
That’s a good reason to devile and roast him on a spit.
Respectfully, I’m pretty sure the STM’s financing is back to the level it was at before the former Vision Montreal administration cut it to the bone. The City’s contribution to the STM is 332 M$ in 2009, an increase of almost 40%. In addition, the City sent a check of almost 40M$ to the Agnece métropolitaine de transport.
I’m a Projet Montréal supporter (even though their name isn’t translated into Italian, Steve) but don’t see any reason for gratuitous sexism such as referring to Mme Harel as “The Bitch”. Personally, I think she was right about the one island, one city mergers, and even if you disagree with that it is no reason to utter sexist insults.
Vahan, Frenglish isn’t a language. On the 80, you’ll encounter people speaking dozens of languages, but that doesn’t negate the fact that Montréal is a French-speaking city, any more than the fact that I’m responding to you in English does. Lots of languages are spoken in Toronto as well. Idem London and Paris, or any major, cosmopolitan city.
Steve, sorry if I was unclear, my comment about calling Mme Harel “The Bitch” was addressed to Jean Naimard, not to you.
Maria Frenglish is the language of Montreal. Unless a law was passed to make Montreal a French city. It may be so, but it is funny when people are asked to invest in Montreal all the publicity is mentioning how we are a bilingual city. http://www.montrealinternational.com/en/profil/index.aspx. Are we lying to potential investors? Should the truth come out louder and maybe investors should think twice before putting money into our economy. Stop speak out of both sides of your mouths. Quebecois is not a language as much as the Quebecois are a nation and a people. The aboriginal are a people we are all descendants of immigrants and this plot of land belongs to all of us as Canadians. Anyway the language debate has no place in municipal politics all we need from these guys is paved streets, working subways, garbage picked up, lit parks and sewers not backing up. It isn’t glamourous but someone needs to do the grunt work to keep the engine running. Right now with this constant language debate the engine is belching out toxic fumes. So Maria vote for the party you want and realize that this is how a democracy works.
Oh? Then why isn’t the level of service back where it was before it was gutted by Géranium Pommier???
The use of the word "bitch" is certainly not implied as a sexist, but as a mere derogatory (like when I call Drapeau a "chien" ["dog", for the french-impaired]). Had I written "chienne" in french, it would not have been a sexist remark. This is the problem with the french-impaired immigrants who have dutifully learned english, as the federal government told them (in order to minorize the french), they do not understand the subtle features of the language of the majority of the people here (yes, Maria, this is directly aimed at you: you have drank the federal government kool-aid and have becomed an english and thus, you reject the french).
Yes, Harel had the great fortune to **DO** the forced mergers (this is hardly visionary, though, because that should have been done 50 years ago); her problem is that she took the party founded by Géranium Pommier, and that came with the heavy moronic baggage that are the city councillors, and those are the main threat posed by the party, thanks to their utter pettyness and general cluelessness. I do not believe that one person, however great (Harel is great: after all, she is a separatist péquiste) can reform 80 petty morons (mostly little merchants).
Money may try to live in it’s little magical wonder-word and make wish the french does not exist in Montréal, this is not the case at all.
Money cannot change the reality that the english are but a tiny minority in the second largest french city in the world.
You insistence upon making yourself believe the opposite only shows that you cannot be bothered with the french, and are utterly unwilling to even learn the language.
Yes, we do not need investors who cannot see reality. What we need is investors who will respect the majority. And History has shown that we are more than willing to pay the price for that in increased poverty thanks to economic reprisals from investors who only want to destroy the french fact.
If you want to live in english, take your money and run. We don’t want people like you who work overtime to destroy our culture by refusing to accept it.
In case you haven’t noticed, we speak french, not "québécois". There is no such thing as "québécois" language anymore than there is belgian or swiss.
Ah, yes, the "rockies is ours" argument. Yadda, yadda, yadda. I think you’ll be much happier in Markham or in Mississauga than in Montréal.
So why do the english make a fuss about Harel not being bilingual??? For the french, that’s a non-issue. Could it be that the english are unwilling to learn french and demand that other people learn english instead?
Yes, toxic fumes that may very well kill the federal plot to minorize the french by having immigrants become english instead of french, like you seem to have done pretty well…
Ah. Someone who would rather not deal with those pesky french.
We cannot build Québec as it should be done because it would go against canada’s interests.
The “provincial pussies” are so because the capital is Québec, courtesy of the puritan english (same reason why the federal capital is in the boondocks) who didn’t want the capital to be a sinful big city. When we get our sovereignty, we’ll be able to move the capital where it matters, Montréal, and finally close the embarrassment that Québec city is, and turn it the outstanding resort town it really is, so the people from Montréal can have good vacations.
As of the unions, no one is better stand up to them, they have been the locomotive behind all the social progress of the last 50 years.
As of the off-island ’burbs, the swing electorate resides there, so no one in their right mind would let Montréal stand up to those bozoes.
Can’t do that. The swing voters will come down en masse to the incumbent and you can bet your arse that the liberals will sycophanticly promise to abolish it after they are back in their rightful lace, the opposition.
Can’t do that. Not enough money as the suburbanites who come bust our streets with their cars don’t pay any taxes to us.
Can’t do that, it saddens the Montréal police when they have to give tickets to off-island ’burbanites as they are themselves off-island ’burbanites…
Move to Toronto, there’s no significant number of french people there.
Why do some read parts of posts and take what they want from them. I have nothing against the French, I have nothing against speaking French. I am sick of politicians and radicals using “language” as a divider. We are Montrealers first and we live in the city that is the engine of the province. Our goal should be to get together, stop sending our neighbours to Toronto and fightthe ugly politics that have scarred our beautiful city for over a generation.
Whenever someone says “I’m sick and tired of the language bullshit”, this means that he can’t be bothered with the french. It’s that attitude that the federal government counts on to minorize the french in Québec.
Jean. It seems that you have an axe to grind and many years of anger have built up. Learn to let go and live a little. As a Canadian born child of immigrants I could have a huge chip on my shoulder of how I have been mocked by the French citizens of this province. Don’t ever dare to mix up the masculine or feminine of a noun when you speak or speak in the wrong tense when you are learning the language. The guffaws, the jeers, the pointing of the fingers and the mocking of my trying to learn French as a kid have left me with terrible memories too. But I have gotten past the small minds and have gotten ahead. Walk a mile in our shoes. Walk around as an “ethnie”. Whatever has happened to you was done by the hands of your own brothers, how many provincial leaders do you know that have not been Francophones? They are the ones that have kept you down, go to your local church and ask them why they kept you down. Ask your provincial leaders why you can’t have your kid learning English in school so that maybe one day they may get a chance to see that there are opportunities elsewhere. Why are you choking off the youth, your children? Who would do such a terrible thing to a child? Who wants to see there own children held back while the world opens up to others? Stop pointing the finger outwards. How many provincial leaders’ children are being sent to private schools where English is being taught? That is o.k drink the kool-aid.
Awwww, poor little dear sweetheart. You should have gone to Toronto where the kids there are well behaved and don’t make fun of immigrants trying to learn english…
Why should I do? Why should I care? After all, it’s the "ethnies" who have come here; they’re the ones who have to adapt and adjust. We do our part: we welcome you here, you do your part: you adapt. It’s simple, fair and square, and that’s the way it works in every single country in the world. Why should we make a special case here?
The church did that to keep power over us, for the benefit of the english who were spared to have to compete against french businessmen. Look for my posts elsewhere here on this site, you’ll see what I mean.
You are a real english; the federal kool-aid has worked fine on you. Can’t you see that you are nothing but a tool used to minorize the french??? You are the fool in the whole story; you’re being used by the english against us. The english could not care less about you, as long as you do their bidding, which is to minorize the french.
What you are saying here is that "french=bad, english=good". Nothing else.
This is the reason why I hammer hard on you, you are the ennemy to shoot down.
Jean, you have convinced me. I am now a separatist. Good arguments and constant banging of the same drum have made me hate the English. Even though I have never for a second said I have a hatred of French. You are the man, go forth and convert others.
You said it yourself right there:
Where is that again? Because I mentioned that your kids are not allowed to learn English, that makes me hate French? Does that mean that my driver’s permit makes me hate the environment? If I use an elevator I am anti-healthcare? With your logic the whole continent of North America must despise the French, otherwise they would have been clamouring to open French language schools all across the U.S and western Canada. I see the vile contempt they have. Once again the light you have shone has taken me out of the darkness of hatred. I am enlightened.
My (hypotethical) kids are not disallowed to learn french. You, however, imply that to be "someone" or to be able to achieve "something", being french-only won’t cut it.
That makes you hate french, boy.
It means you hate the bugs that squish on your windshied.
It means you are anti-stairs.
Now that you mention it, yes, the anglo-saxons have a very long track record of despising the french, yes.
Don’t forget to turn off the bulb after you leave; leave some light for others, you pigopolist.
I just read that Harel might skip the English televised debate because her English so poor.
So what? The english will *NEVER* vote for her anyways, she’s not a liberal…
Who is this guy and why does he think francophones never vote Liberal? Take a look at the West Island, the so-called English bastion, which even thirty years ago was at least half-french.
Now you can’t even find any anglophones working at Fairview Pointe Claire, but the west is still a block of red votes.
Me? I never though that for a second. The pissous do vote liberal, they think that only the english can run the show. And the vendus, too, vote liberal, because they know that scumbags will never get it as easy as now in a truly french country, when Québec "separates".
That’s because working in a store, serving the public, is beneath the dignity of the english nobility.
You tell them Jean. The 18th century English nobility is still ruling the French with an iron fist. The powdered wig wearing, syphilis infecting, pantaloon wearing, snuff snorting, eye glass on the tip of the nose wearing English pish posh have push us Quebecois around long enough. From the beginning of time when dinosaurs roamed the earth with cavemen, the English nobility have been manipulating the churches, the government the entire nation against the aspirations of the hard working salt of the earth Quebecois. Rise up brothers. Rise up and take back Hydro Quebec from the English. Rise up and take back the Catholic church from the English, rise up and take back the Caisse de Depot et Placement from the evil English. Rise up and take back Celine Dion. Rise up and take back the S.A.Q from the greedy hands of the nobility. Rise up and wake up to see that the vast majority of National Assembly elected members are not really Franchophones, but mere puppets of tech English nobility. Rise up and take back Jean Coutu, the Cirque, the Montreal Canadiens. Rise up and take back the May West chocolate treat, the poutine is a secret ploy of the English nobility to fatten the Quebecois up, rise up and say “no more”. Rise up and take back the DuMaurrier cigerettes, don’t let the English fund the natives with the contraband. Rise up and take back the STM. The CHUM is being overtaken also. Wake up people. I have seen the light. Yes Jean you have shown me the light brother. Let us rise up and break the shackles holding us down. East, West, North and South we will overcome. The vendus will learn to regret thinking out of the box. Oh they will pay when all the jobs leave the province ohh they WILL PAY dearly. Did you know that Jean Charest’s real name is John. OMG!!!! Another sell out. They are all around us.
Whatever.
I just some news recently Ton chien est mort.
Whatever indeed. Pigopolist? Really! Boy? Really! You would be better in Ontario. Really?! What an open accepting society you are creating. We don’t accept you with open arms put a closed fist.
If you want to spend money here live by my rules, otherwise we are happy with our impoverishment.
Excellent work.
Now go work on Celine and tell her to stop hating herself by making money singing in English. How about the youth of your society? How about Simple Plan. tell them you don’t need English. Stay here at home I will finance your dreams. Tell everyone at Le Cirque to come back from Las Vegas because the English U.S dollars they want is corrupting them. Tell Hydro to stop selling to the U.S because they speak English and they should freeze. Tell Bombardier to stop their international expansion, go back to making snow mobiles, the sea doo don’t work in our winter climate and only being used by the English nobility to spread propaganda and thumb their noses at Quebec anyway.
Wh?t?v?r.
The Waste Island will always vote Liberal like clockwork even if the party were a gang of child molesters. That could probably be the third guarantee of life, after taxes and death.
Louise Harel did spend a few weeks in the summer at Bishop’s University getting english instruction. Ahh Bishop’s in the summer time…
She seemed ok in a radio interview I heard. Better grammar than me in french!