Tag Archives: Toronto

| Canadiens, Opinion

Was that supposed to be French?

To the public announcer at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto,

You should be fired. Like, immediately.

Or am I being too demanding in suggesting that someone who works as a public announcer at a hockey game should be able to speak both of Canada’s official languages?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that there were bilingual announcements tonight, but that mockery of the langue de Molière brings shame upon a city that you’d think couldn’t look worse in the eyes of the rest of the country.

P.S. For those watching tonight’s Habs/Leafs matchup, Mike Boone has his liveblog at Habs Inside/Out.

| On the Net, Opinion, Web design

Français go home, says Toronto

RadCan’s Sur le Web makes an interesting point (I’d link to the post directly, but I can’t) today about the Tourism Toronto website (which should probably be called the Toronto Tourism site considering its URL, but who am I to judge?) that was featured in a recent Globe and Mail article about the increase in domestic tourism to the city.

Tourism Toronto doesn’t have a French version.

It took me about five minutes to find the links to different language versions (they’re on the bottom of the page), in the form of flags for different countries under the banner “international sites.” There’s a Chinese version, a Korean version, a Japanese version and a Spanish version. But no French. (Incidentally, there are flags for Spain and Argentina which link to TorontoTourismMexico.com, which I’m sure isn’t going to offend anyone, right?).

I haven’t asked the site’s creators what their motives are, because that’s no fun. So let’s speculate about them here. Did they forget? Are Korean tourists more valuable than French ones? Is there some other website for francophone Canadian tourists? Are they trying to get back at us for winning the bagel war?

| Blogosphere, Montreal, Public transit

Toronto bus transfers: fascist?

At French School Confidential: A comparison of Montreal and Toronto bus transfers.

I would only add that the main difference between the two is that Montreal transfers are designed to be read by machine (and bus drivers who understand their codes), while Toronto transfers are designed to be read by people.

I’ve always liked our punch-card transfer system. It just works, and has so far resisted modernization efforts that have changed just about everything from mechanical to electronic: Parking meters, thermostats, car windows/ignition/steering/locks, radio tuners… How long before the transfer goes too?