Tag Archives: Quebec politics

| Media, Slow News Day

PEI’s license plates say more about the media than PEI

Ken Meaney, CanWest’s sole reporter east of Quebec City, has an article this weekend about new PEI license plates.

Actually, not exactly. The article is about anonymous comments left on the Charlottetown Guardian website about PEI’s license plates being available in French.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that any discussion of things like gun control, abortion, gay rights, religion, vegetarianism, immigration, and — in Canada — language rights on an open Internet forum is going to bring out people with strong opinions on the subject. Some of those people will have reasoned arguments and will listen to other points of view. Most will not.

The comments (and especially those of a second copy of the story posted the same day the previous one got national attention) mostly fall into the latter category, and quickly degenerate into Quebec-bashing, making rather outrageous claims about its language laws (Businesses are not allowed to have bilingual signs, people are not allowed to speak English in public, the Canadian government isn’t protecting the English language)

And yet somehow an entire article was written on this story and its 30 comments. One that wasn’t written about the original release of the new plates in April, which generated 76 comments on the Guardian’s website. But that one couldn’t easily be exploited with a stupid story to prod the populace with the language debate.

Is there no real news happening in PEI?

(Side note: The Guardian’s logo has the worst kerning I’ve ever seen)

UPDATE: The Gazette has a short editorial about the issue Tuesday. It theorizes that anonymous commenters on web forums might not represent the moderate views of the populace.

| Business, In the news

It’s supply and demand, stupid

Every time gasoline prices rise by one per cent or more, we get the SUV-driving public’s arms up in the air complaining, and opportunistic politicians climbing over themselves to do something about it.

So I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that the Quebec government is considering price caps on gasoline prices. Sure, artificially limiting the price of gas will only encourage consumption and that can only be bad for the environment, but then the gas-guzzling public doesn’t care about the environment when maintaining it inconveniences them.

This news is especially funny considering what’s going on in Zimbabwe. There, ruling moron Robert Mugabe, trying to control his country’s 9,000 per cent inflation due to his idiotic economic policies, has simply decreed that the price of everything in his country be cut in half.

As anyone with half a brain will tell you, when you force someone to sell stuff at less than they bought it for, they’ll stop selling it. So now gas stations are dry as the country continues its economic freefall.

Hopefully at some point the Quebec government will learn that copying Zimbabwean economic policy is an idiotic thing to do. Even if that means it’ll please the idiots.

| In the news, Media, Montreal

Not a victory for smokers’ rights

Sandra-Ann Fowler, the tenant who took her landlord to the Régie du logement over her right to smoke in her apartment (and therefore subject her landlord’s family to traces of second-hand smoke) has won her case.

CTV’s Brian Britt calls it a “victory for smokers’ rights advocates”, and a spokesperson for a smokers’ rights group seems to back him up.

Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true. The ruling stated that because a ban on smoking was not in the lease, Fowler has the right to smoke, even though the application form said smokers were not allowed.

In fact, the ruling apparently suggested that bans on smoking are in fact legal if they are in the lease.

I’d hardly call that a victory. She got off on a technicality, that’s all.

| Uncategorized

Bad driving, meet bad ad placement

Dangerous driving is the topic du jour in today’s letters section. One picks up on something I completely missed in Friday’s paper:

Fast driving

This article (whose deck says “Panel blames ‘fast car’ ads”) is paired with this ad, which says in absolutely atrocious grammar: “Action speaks louder than words” and “1-100km in 4.7 sec top speed: 240km over 1G of lateral force. Toyota powertrain.” I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but I think it’s talking about how fast the car goes (or more accurately, how fast it accelerates).

The letter shoots the letter by blaming The Gazette for running it. In fact, it’s the car companies who should be shot for encouraging dangerous driving.

And whoever wrote that ad should be fired.

| Montreal

Monument to a scandal

Mike Boone suggests in today’s Gazette that part of the plans for using new space at Park and Pine should include a statue of Robert Bourassa, because he thinks the man still needs to be honoured in this city:

I know. Our revered mayor doesn’t deserve a consolation prize for the ham-handed and ultimately aborted plan to rename Park Ave. But the controversy shouldn’t obscure the fact that Bourassa was a brilliant politician and visionary premier who deserves some substantial form of commemoration.

This is true, but in a rare moment of stupidity on the part of the Boonester, his suggestion would do nothing but guarantee that the controversy obscures the commemoration. People won’t remember the statue without thinking about why it’s there, and this is a controversy that Bourassa never asked for and doesn’t deserve. Let’s find somewhere else on the island, not on Park Avenue, to honour this man.

Either that, or at least wait a while so the two aren’t so closely connected.

| Uncategorized

Private members (hehe)

I saw an ad today for public consultation concerning Quebec’s new gun law (you know, the one that doesn’t actually restrict the sale or ownership of guns). I went onto the Quebec government website to check it out, and started looking at the private members’ bills that have been introduced. Each has its story, and each is a political stunt that has no chance of passing.

Bill 190 (Stéphane Bergeron, PQ, Verchères) is the antidote to the Mont Orford problem. You’ll remember last year the government caused a ruckus with Bill 23, which says (PDF) it enlarges the park, but really reduces it by putting allowing some to be sold into private hands. Though the government said in May it was not going to sell the area, the bill still passed, and Bergeron wants it repealed.

Bill 191 (Daniel Turp, PQ, Mercier) is a proposed constitution for Quebec. Turp announced his bill in April, on the 25th anniversary of the 1982 Canadian constitution. It’s a shortened version of this old draft and includes provisions for a head of state (a Quebec president he called it in the earlier draft), Quebec citizenship, fixed dates for elections, the usual freedom guarantees, and a lot of sentences that end with “as provided for by law”. It doesn’t explicitly say that Quebec would be its own country, but this is definitely a step toward that goal. The bill hasn’t gotten much media coverage, except for an article in Le Devoir and a blog post from Jim Duff.

Bill 192 (Jean-François Therrien, ADQ, Terrebonne) is the “damn transit strikes shouldn’t affect me” law in response to the STM maintenance workers’ strike. It would guarantee 80% of regular service in case of a transit strike instead of the apparently vastly inadequate 60% of service we got in the last one. Like other private members’ bills, its language, though brief, is open to interpretation. It says “at all times”, which suggests that there wouldn’t be periods of inactivity, but maybe one in every five buses and metro trains would be pulled off the road.

Bill 193 (François Benjamin, ADQ, Berthier) is part “dub films in Québécois French”, part … I have no idea. Read it yourself. The preamble suggests it would limit English showings to be equal to or less than French showings of the same film, but I can’t find anything in the actual language to confirm this. Either way, it puts pressure on the small guys who want to show their films here. Unless it’s dubbed in French, or it’s an “art-house” film, it wouldn’t have permission to be shown here.

| Media, Slow News Day

Breaking Fête nationale news

  1. Prime Minister says Quebec is good.
  2. Police are present where a large gathering of people is taking place.

Wow. The assignment editors must be really stretching.

A comment about the CP article on police presence: Was the holiday really “often known for violence”? I know hard-liners do their hard-liner thing, but was it really enough to make the entire holiday appear violent? Or is this just an example of a reporter talking out of his or her ass?

| In the news, Technology

GPS doesn’t solve common-sense confusion

UPI has plagiarized referenced a Gazette cover story about Quebec’s law against screens in the driver’s seat. As if it’s bad enough that they can’t do any reporting on their own, they seem to misunderstand the very story they’re copying. The headline is “Canadian province turns OnStar off”, which doesn’t make any sense. Quebec hasn’t passed a law against OnStar, it’s an existing law which GPS systems may prompt an amendment to.

For those curious, the applicable section is article 439 of the Quebec Highway Safety Code:

439. No person may drive a road vehicle in which a television set or a display screen is so placed that the image broadcast on the screen is directly or indirectly visible to the driver, except in the case of a closed circuit system used by the driver to operate the vehicle, or a system used by a peace officer or the driver of a road vehicle used as an ambulance, in accordance with the Act respecting pre-hospital emergency services (chapter S-6.2), in the performance of their duties.

The intent of the law is very clear: No TV sets visible to the driver. It’s a common-sense safety law that is hardly “idiotic”. But it is in need of updating, considering an apparent study that suggests drivers consulting navigation systems are less distracted because they have a better idea of where they’re going.

Considering they’ve already given a free pass to emergency vehicles, it’s a common-sense amendment to a common-sense law.

But please, let’s make a big deal out of it.

| Uncategorized

Just call me Paula

PQ leader-in-waiting Pauline Marois has a campaign press release opinion piece in today’s Gazette, which I’m sure she wrote herself. In English.

How exactly is this not a waste of time and space? Does Marois really think Gazette readers will vote for the PQ in a general election, to say nothing about supporting her in a party leadership “race”?

Nevertheless, she makes her point:

First of all, the population isn’t ready to reopen a debate on the whole issue of Quebec sovereignty, nor does it want to get locked in a sterile discussion concerning the date, time, hour or mechanics of a referendum.

Holy crap. You mean voting against separation in two massive referendums has actually sunk in?

Marois goes on to make two demands recommendations for the future: promote sovereignty like it’s a Virgin Mobile cellphone plan to gain popular support before putting it to another vote, and start updating their social democratic platform (read: swing more toward the centre-right like the Liberals and ADQ).

Well, good luck with that.

| Uncategorized

Anastasia’s Law wouldn’t have helped Anastasia

Anastasia De Sousa’s parents at least seem happy about a new gun control bill passed in the National Assembly. It would restrict people from carrying guns onto public transit (people could carry guns onto public transit?) and oblige authority figures all over the place to report people with guns to the police.

In other words, it would do absolutely nothing to prevent the exact same situation from happening again. Kimveer Gill used a car to get to Dawson, and by the time anyone saw him with a gun there, he has already begun firing on students.

The Gazette’s James Mennie (among others) rightly criticizes the bill for having no teeth. In a sense, it’s hard to blame premier Jean Charest, since gun control is a federal jurisdiction. But they called it Anastasia’s Law, trotted out her family, and pretended like this will do something to stop gun violence (though they admitted it wouldn’t have stopped De Sousa’s murder).

Only time will tell if this makes a difference.

| Montreal

I voted for it by voting against it

There’s an error that many people make in describing the 2004 municipal demerger referendums that led to the agglomotatorship we now live in. The Gazette’s Linda Gyulai, municipal affairs reporter, (who’s the sweetest person in the world) becomes my unfortunate victim in this example:

While Tremblay had hoped for unanimous support for his plan, it fell short by three votes. The foes included two councillors from Anjou borough, which narrowly voted to stay in Montreal in a 2004 demerger referendum. (Emphasis mine)

The borough did no such thing. The vote was 7808-5883 in favour of reconstituting itself as a municipality. That’s 57% yes. But because of the insane requirement that “Yes” voters represent 35% of all registered voters wasn’t met, the referendum was considered a failure.

They didn’t vote to stay, they simply didn’t vote enough to leave.

| Montreal

For the sake of children’s health, please bring back smoking

On the one-year anniversary of Quebec’s anti-tobacco law, we have this interesting story about local youth sporting groups losing money because of the downturn in bingo revenue. So they’re asking the government to allow smoking in bingo halls, since it’s just old people and all.

The key sentence is this:

Bingo accounts for 100 per cent of the organization’s fundraising, Beaudoin noted.

Isn’t it kind of silly for an organization to put all its fundraising eggs in one basket, especially when that basket has been on fire for a year now?

So because of this ban, fewer people are wasting their money on bingo, less alcohol is being consumed at bars, and less money is being fed into video lottery terminals. Isn’t that a good thing?

These groups will just have to find other sources of revenue. Surely these old people will find other things to waste their money on, with all they’re saving by not going to bingo, not drinking, not using VLTs and, of course, not smoking.

| Media, TV

I’m obligated to tell you about today’s budget

So apparently the Quebec budget was released today. Again. You’ll remember we had a budget back in March, but then we had an election and now everything has changed.

Among the highlights that anyone could care about: A $1 billion tax cut that would mean between $100 to $1000 per family. And that’s basically it. They don’t have a plan for education, other than forcing students to pay more. They don’t have a plan for health care, so they’re starting up a task force to give them one. They don’t have a plan to control the debt, which will rise despite/because of the tax cut.

So really the only thing worth watching on the 6 o’clock news was the cool headset being worn by Todd Van der Heyden on CTV as he reported live from the National Assembly.

The CBC’s Amanda Pfeffer (“The Pfeff”) meanwhile, doesn’t have the cool headset. She’s standing on a street. Nowhere near as cool.

P.S. For some reason CTV is referring to this as “Day 4” of the transit strike. It’s Day 3. Three days. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I know they’re trying to be bleeding-edge, but there are limits.