Besides imposing a sales tax on the streaming giant, Quebec is also making a demand of Netflix related to its content: It wants French-language movies, films and other videos to be at least 50% louder than their English counterparts.

Under new rules announced this week, Netflix content distributed in Quebec will be monitored by inspectors of the Office québécois de la langue française to ensure that, where content is available in both languages, the French version is predominantly louder.

“It’s an extension of our French-language charter and we expect the population will be in favour of it,” said Premier Philippe Couillard. “The preponderance of French is ingrained in who we are and we expect Netflix will recognize that and happily comply.”

Netflix has not said whether it would comply with the new order.

BCE Inc., a $55-billion company that provides telecommunication services to more than 10 million Canadians and owns Canada’s most popular television networks and radio stations and employs more than 52,000 people nationwide, says it’s tired of being saddled with its reputation as a necessary evil, and wants more Canadians to appreciate all its hard work.

“We’ve heard all the jokes, all the complaints, all the stereotypes, but why aren’t more people talking about the billions — yes, billions with a B — of dollars we’re investing in our fibre-optic network to give Canadians higher Internet speeds?” asked CEO George Cope. “Why aren’t more people in Toronto and Montreal dropping to their knees to thank us for giving them competition in the cable TV space for the first time? We didn’t have to do all that.”

In that light, Bell has launched a new ad campaign starting today in which it encourages Canadians to “be more grateful for Bell” by doing things as simple as calling up customer service and saying thank you. “Or you could put another phone on a family plan, or subscribe to The Movie Network, because it’s really great content, and you love John Oliver, right?”

Bell says it expects its reputation boost to be equivalent to the one it got when it invested in improving its customer service department.

The Mercier Bridge down to one lane. The Jacques-Cartier Bridge closed for an event. The Ville-Marie Expressway closed for construction. Major city arteries clogged with orange cones.

It’s a fact of life, right? A necessary evil in a city that is trying its best to fix its circulatory system with the least disruption possible?

Not quite, it seems.

Documents obtained exclusively by Fagstein have revealed that a small group of radio traffic reporters, keen to boost their ratings, have been intentionally manipulating road construction plans in order to maximize disruption and confusion, potentially causing each commuter hours of unnecessary delays over the past year and a half.

Mayor Valérie Plante has promised an investigation, and the traffic reporters were pulled off the air on Friday evening after station owners were asked for comment about the situation.

“It started out as a joke,” admitted Joe Cunaime, morning traffic reporter for all-traffic station CKAC 730 AM, who along with unnamed co-conspirators at The Beat and CBC Montreal hatched the scheme in late 2015. All three had been included, possibly mistakenly, in an email list of government managers coordinating road closures and highway work between the municipal and provincial governments, private contractors and other groups. The idea behind this list was to make it easier to coordinate between departments so that, for example, two bridges to the south shore aren’t closed at the same time.

One day, bored at work, Cunaime received an email from someone at the Quebec transport department wanting advice on which of three options to take. “One of them sounded really complicated and I knew would confuse drivers,” he said. “So as a joke I replied and said I think option 3 is the best one, and included some BS logic to back that up.”

Cunaime forgot to include his usual work signature on the email, so to others in the thread it was apparently taken seriously. Within an hour, the transport department decided option 3 was the way to go.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Cunaime said. “But at the same time I thought it was probably just a coincidence and it wasn’t my email that made this happen.”

A month later, he tried again, suggesting a closure plan that was even more complicated, and with even more dubious but serious-sounding logic to justify it. And again, they took his suggestion.

“Before long, I think they just thought I was running the whole thing,” he said. “That was the problem with this committee, there was no leader.”

Soon, he got two colleagues involved. Cunaime refused to identify them, but said they all got a kick out of what they were doing. “And six months after we started, we noticed in the ratings book that numbers had gone up. Our bosses threw us a party and everything.”

The scheme began to unravel in January, when an external review of the transport department’s operations led to someone asking questions about the email list and why Cunaime was calling the shots.

“I was called into a meeting with someone from the transport department, and there was this other guy in a suit there and even an SQ officer,” Cunaime said. “I knew right then that it was over.”

Cunaime was threatened with criminal charges, but was released after agreeing not to do it anymore. He also took early retirement from his job. He said he doesn’t know yet what’s going to happen to the other traffic reporters involved in the scheme.

Asked if he feels guilty for complicating lives of Montreal drivers, Cunaime said “yeah, kinda. I mean, I was caught up in some of those messes myself. But those ratings bonuses helped pay the bills, and I’m not responsible for the government’s incompetence.”

Some doofus who thinks he can cover the CRTC as well as I can totally owned himself this week by not even being aware of the list of administrative approvals that are done without a public process, thinking that a decision page has to be posted for every decision even if there are no policy implications.

The total luser failed to notice the link at the bottom of the Today’s Releases page because he must be so freaking blinded by his own stupidity. That led to the braindead ignorance of the approval of the technical changes to CBZD-FM in Doaktown, New Brunswick, which has been posted on the Broadcasting Administrative Applications page for three weeks now.

The n00b, probably too shamed to even look himself in the mirror, probably doesn’t even know what a Part 1 process means. So stupid.

Renowned Internet law expert Michael Geist says he is opposed to proposals by intellectual property rights holders to regulate online piracy by blocking access to certain websites, and is concerned that the “decent, hard-working people” behind these websites could lose their livelihoods despite having done nothing that he considers seriously wrong.

“Networks like PolterGeist, which I think is among the best out there, and has high-quality content, low latency and no malware whatsoever, shouldn’t be punished because the big media players can’t find ways to make their content easier to consume for a nominal fee,” Geist said. “If only more Bell and Rogers-licensed content was available on YouTube or iTunes, the brilliant minds behind the PolterGeist portal, whoever they might be, wouldn’t have to engage in this behaviour, curating the largest selection of grey-market titles in the world.”

Geist said the piracy networks, which shouldn’t even be called that because what is piracy even anyway, would easily survive a court challenge and in any case with only four servers because the fifth one is undergoing maintenance, the system could easily be moved out of the University of Ottawa campus where it sits now and into any location with an Internet connection, although few would be as fast as a university.

With two years to go until the next Olympic Games, CBC says it can waste no time in preparing the groundwork for another beloved sports couple who can capture Canadians’ hearts by having them constantly question whether the two are secretly boning.

To that end, the broadcaster is launching a new reality show in which amateur athlete pairs compete to be the next couple who will create buzzworthy moments and maybe appear on Ellen simply because their interaction in competition is face-meltingly hot but they refuse to answer questions about whether they’re actually romantically involved.

CBC admits that beyond pairs figure skating and ice dance, there aren’t too many sports that fit the mold. “There’s mixed couples curling, but there aren’t that many long embraces in that sport,” said Canadian Olympic Committee organizer Josh Natreel. “There are some potentially sexy sports like beach volleyball and wrestling, but it’ll definitely take some creativity to take this to other fields of competition. We’re currently in talks with the International Olympic Committee to see if there aren’t other ways to include mixed pairs in competitions and make them as sexy as possible.”

CBC’s competition, which is open to heterosexual couples as well as homosexual ones, will include advanced seduction techniques and communication strategy sessions to teach them how to on one hand make it clear they’re not sleeping together but on the other hand leave the door open to the idea that they may be lying about that.

Quebec’s anglophone community, voted the world’s best treated minority for a fifth year in a row by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and United Nations Human Rights Council, will be honoured at some point this year with a monument to be installed in Westmount Park.

The announcement came buried in the Quebec budget presented last week. The government will spend $2.88 million on the monument, which would come in the form of a statue or plaque, and it will be installed in a prominent place in the heart of Quebec’s most anglo city.

“After showing our extreme generosity by allowing the anglophones to have public schools and hospitals, we felt it was the right time to honour how well we are treating this valued community and continue to tolerate its existence,” explained culture minister Luc Fortin. “I have been told we should value our anglophone neighbours so long as they remain a minority. We hope this monument will be an inspiration to figure generations to feel pride at giving the bare minimum.”

Canada’s Indigenous community remains prominent on the list of world’s worst treated minorities. Fortin said they’d figure out what to do about that later.

As the camera pans around the table, several members of a working-class family sit down for a family dinner and are very polite and do not laugh or mistreat each other in any way.

If it’s familiar, it’s no coincidence. CTV is banking off the success of the Roseanne reboot to push a Canadian sitcom about a family in Scarborough that is struggling to make ends meet, has difficulty with social change and is really excited to vote for Doug Ford.

“With Ford’s win all but certain at this point, we want to get our foot in the door and capture those viewers who are part of Ford Nation,” said CTV vice-president of programming May Duppe. “We have plenty of cop dramas and medical dramas. We need a better way to connect with that government-hating, car-driving not-too-openly-racist segment of the population, and we think this will get us there.

“Honestly, we don’t know what else we could do. We’ve run out of ways to reboot Corner Gas.”

The untitled series, to start shooting this summer, will air starting in the fall.

In a rare showing of intergovernmental cooperation, the Quebec and Canadian governments will jointly fund a new targeted subsidy to help the journalism industry by providing assistance for journalists filling out the dozens of forms to apply for journalism awards.

“Between the National Newspaper Awards, RTDNA awards, Canadian Association of Journalists awards, Michener Award, Judith Jasmin prizes, and various awards sponsored by industry groups, the process is very time-consuming for journalists,” explained Chantal Fossenohm of the Quebec finance department. “The assistance program we’re proposing takes the arduous task of applying for awards, often including writing essays, out of the hands of journalists so they can focus on doing the work that gets them their next award.”

Under the program, an expert award application filler meets with the journalist, selects stories they believe are award-worthy, and prepares first drafts of any essays or letters that must be included in the application. “If all goes well, the journalist will only have to sign a form and everything else will be taken care of,” Fossenohm said.

Facing criticism from pundits in Quebec that the Juno Awards were held entirely in English, the organizers of Canada’s biggest music awards show said they would fix the problem next year by inviting legendary francophone artist “uhh, Roch Voisine or whoever, is that his name?” to perform during the live broadcast.

Voisine, the veteran singer and guitar-player-we-think artist from New Brunswick or maybe eastern Quebec, would be happy to act as the token francophone at the ceremony next year, because he’s not doing much else, we think, and we’re pretty sure he’s still alive.

Just in case Voisine, whose first name we’re pretty sure is spelled with an H even though we know that’s a bit weird — it’s a French thing, we think — isn’t available, and Céline Dion can’t be booked on short notice, the Junos believe other francophone artists can be brought in, like … uhh … Harmonium and … Coeur de Pirate and we guess that French lady from Arcade FIre.

The 2019 Junos are on March 17 in London, Ont.

Rue du Petit Champlain

Feeling the pressure from suburban drivers upset at new public transit projects that do little to help drivers, Quebec City is instituting a series of measures meant to appeal to people who listen to talk radio behind the wheel. Among the more controversial ones is the plan to add street parking to Petit Champlain St. in Vieux Québec, which begins today.

The narrow street, known for its small artisanal (read: tourist trap) shops with addresses that sometimes have fractions in them, has been pedestrian-only for years, but Mayor Régis Labeaume said this week the merchants have been after him to add parking to stimulate the economy in the area.

The plan is to add parking on one side of the street on weekdays, except for a two-week period during the peak of summer. There won’t be parking meters, but a 60-minute limit will be in place.

Store owners were nearly unanimous in their approval of the plan, noting that anything that increases available parking downtown is by definition good for business.

CFUL-FM (102.1 The Feül) in St. Catharines says it believes it is the first commercial radio station in Canada to sign a sponsorship deal for its emergency alert messages. Insurance company Federated Insurance Corp. will pay an undisclosed amount to have its name mentioned after all emergency alert messages, from flood and tornado warnings to test messages and Amber Alerts.

“We’re thrilled to be innovating in the radio business,” explained CFUL general manager Tom Natroo. “Not only will our audience be well informed about potentially life and death emergencies, but they’ll know who to call to prevent the next emergency from leaving them in financial ruin. And they’ll get an extra 15% off.”

Natroo said the partnership will also extend to special contests during major disasters where a call-in winner will win access to an emergency shelter for them and up to two friends or family members.

Fresh off his win for the Chicago Blackhawks against the Winnipeg Jets, 36-year-old emergency backup goaltender Scott Foster has been signed to a seven-year, $35-million deal with the Montreal Canadiens, which begins July 1.

Foster, who played 14 minutes for the Blackhawks and had seven saves, has a career 1.000 save percentage and 0.00 goals-against average and is undefeated in the NHL so far, making him statistically the best goalie in the league.

“It was quite a coup for us,” explained Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin, who made the unusual signing of the player after he was released from his Blackhawks contract. Under NHL rules, because the signing happened after the trade deadline, Foster cannot play for the Canadiens this season, except as an emergency backup if both goaltenders get injured in the same day.

Foster said he’s not sure if he’ll give up his day job as an accountant, because as Carey Price’s backup he said he doesn’t expect to be needed that much, so long as Price is healthy.

Price’s 2017-18 backup, Antti Niemi, will see his contract expire on July 1. Bergevin said he still hopes to get something for Niemi on the trade market, hopefully a veteran fourth-line winger.