French versus English Volume 67

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Entrepreneur humiliates Marois in public

A Quebec entrepreneur who won an award for excellence, unloaded on Pauline Marois who handed him his trophy.
Luc Paquet, president of Fordia a company that does business in the mining industry surprised a packed house for remarks made to Pauline Marois.

"I have three sins, he said to the Premier. I am a manufacturer,  I serve the mining industry and I make money. '
Fordia describes itself as the world leader in the manufacture of diamond tools, which are used among other things, for drilling. Its products are available in 34 countries and employs 304 people. Its headquarters is located in Dollard-des-Ormeaux.

"I expect you will cure me of my third sin," he then said, half joking. Link{fr} .

Marois who is a pro at deflecting body blows, took the criticism with a smile and soldiered on....

Sovereignty support at historic low

A new CROP poll published in La Presse indicates that in the face of a global economy, 83% of Quebecers perceive a membership benefit for Quebec to remain in Canada.  

Despite electing a sovereigntist government, 66% consider the sovereignty issue as outmoded.
More than one in two, 56% expressed agreement with the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, when he says that sovereignty awakes "old constitutional wrangling of the past." 
As for the possibility that the province eventually becomes a sovereign country, it is still a utopia dream for 67% of Quebecers, but if asked to vote in a new referendum, the sovereignty option would lose rather convincingly, 61% to 32%, or two to one against.
 
While the Minister of the Environment of Quebec, Daniel Breton, announced that he would prevent the Alberta oil industry from selling its oil in Quebec, 74% of Quebecers are very favourable to the idea of Western Canadian oil being sold here rather than sending it to Asia. 

Self-hating Anglo serves up the mother of all apologies

An opinion piece in the Montreal Gazette ruffled quite a few feathers as an American who has moved to Quebec City, charged the Anglophone community with being insensitive, coddled and selfish.
Read the story, it's a must;

"English is not at risk, and anglos are not an oppressed minority" Alternate link

  My favourite passages:

"Just as a man from Alabama whose father had to drink from a separate water fountain would never be expected to forget the colour of his skin, so a French-speaking Quebecer whose ancestors lived as a colonized majority cannot really be expected to forget the characteristic — language — that was used for centuries to differentiate her."

"...The root of it seems to be nostalgia for the way things used to be, before many of today’s anglophones were born, when their parents and grandparents had advantages that in retrospect can only be deemed unfair. .."

Readers, I'm going to let you do the critique in the comments section, I'm sure you'll have lots to say.
The only thing I will comment upon is this statement in order to set Mr. Lipson and the record straight.

"English is not dying in Rouyn-Noranda, but French in Moose Jaw is an assimilated mess."

Now I doubt if Mr. Lispon , the author of the article ever visited Rouyn-Noranda or knows anything of its history, because if he did he would understand that he couldn't have picked a worse example.

Rouyn-Norana was indeed the home to many Anglos and Americans who worked in the mining industry, The city of Noranda was created by the English, the name a contraction of "North" and "Canada"
The English community was well-established and quite vibrant and even had its own newspaper. In fact if you take a stroll on Ninth Ave., up towards the DAVE KEON (a native son) hockey arena, you might recognize the trappings of an old synagogue, complete with cornerstone in Hebrew and English, now converted into an apartment building.
In you look closely, you can find street names that include, Churchill, MacDonald, Murdoch, Ste. Anne and Pinder.
And contrary to your stated opinion, Mr. Lispon, English did die out in Rouyn-Noranda, you'd be hard pressed to find any vestige of the community today.

Clearly your ignorance about the city is telling, something that pervades the rest of your opinion piece.
(Okay readers, I couldn't resist)

PQ continues installing friends in high places

As I described in a post earlier this week, the PQ is in a hiring frenzy, firing highly paid civil appointments and replacing them with friendly separatists.
The Liberals hit the roof in the National Assembly in reaction to Daniel Breton, the militant ecologist Minister of the Environment's announcement that he had replaced the head of the agency that reviews environmental projects with an old friend, Pierre Baril who is similarly militant. The PQ had already fired the second in command as well and replaced him with another journalist.

All this is going to cost a pretty penny, the old president of BAPE was just given a contract extension for five years, which may have to be paid out in it entirety! Ka-ching!

Coalition avenir Québec leader François Legault, called Breton dogmatic and dangerous and accused the PQ government of politicizing the independent agency. Link
In the meantime;

"As Premier Pauline Marois was setting out an ambitious blueprint for Quebec's economy Friday, two major bond-rating agencies issued a warning over one of her election promises.
They warned that they might lower the rating of one of the province's financial cornerstones, the Caisse de depot et placement, if her government tinkered with it in a major way.
While Marois was extolling the virtues of innovation to a business luncheon, Standard & Poors's and DBRS said in reports that the status quo is just fine for the province's big pension-fund manager."  Read more

Way to go Pauline. Keep on truckin'!

Another day, another corruption revelation

When I described the ongoing saga of the revelations coming out at the Charbonneau Commission looking into corruption, I wasn't exaggerating when I said it would make a good Mafia movie.

On Thursday a contractor revealed how the Mafia intimidated him in an effort to get him to stop bidding on projects;

"Quebec's public inquiry is getting a glimpse into how the Italian Mafia used its muscle to maintain control of the construction industry in Montreal.
With death threats and intimidation, the Mob would seek to squeeze out companies when they competed for work against members of the city's construction cartel.
An out-of-town construction owner testified Thursday that he received multiple threats after bidding on contracts in Montreal.
The Quebec City man, Martin Carrier, said he got a phone call at home in 2004. His daughter answered the phone and passed it to him.
On the other end of the line was a man with a heavy Italian accent. He warned him to stop working in the city, in the first of two similar phone calls Carrier received.
Carrier asked the man for his name. That prompted a curt reply.
"Never mind who I am," the caller said. "Because the next time you won't be walking away from here...
"Thank you and have a nice day."" Read the rest of the story.   Thanks Todd for the link

For those who missed my Tweet yesterday, former Mayor of Laval, Gilles Vaillancourt is the subject of a serious plot to kill him, likely by those who don't want the truth to come out about corruption in Laval.
The RCMP developed the information and deemed it credible enough to pass on to the Laval police. When the former mayor gave his resignation speech, it was obvious something was afoot with some very serious looking cops doing guard duty.
Incidentally, five days after resigning, the city of Laval cut a $250,000 cheque to the ex-mayor as his severance package.

Odds'n ends

This English sign in Quebec City had several people up in a lather LINK{Fr]

Le Droit, a French language newspaper in Ottawa devoted a whole article about the abominable situation in a Hull shopping centre where horrors of horrors an immigrant employee who could not speak French was working as a sales clerk.
Blowhard president of Impératif Français, Jean-Paul Perreault, was dutifully furious, demanding that shopping centres not rent space to stores that didn't provide French speaking staff. Link{fr}

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Bilingualism will never trump merit or the ability to get along with colleagues when it comes to appointing judges to the Supreme Court, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson argues in a recently released letter.  Link


 **************************** Opposition leader Louis Harel showed a lot of class when she was questioned over the suitability of Michael Applebaum acceding to the mayoralty based on his poor French accent.
"I only wish I spoke English as well as he speaks French" was her response.

**************************** Last week I caught a round-table discussion on LCN, the French news channel where the panel lamented over the fact that it would be a dirty rotten shame if Tony Accurso's various companies, all built on corruption, were to fall into foreign or Canadian hands in the face of Mr. Acurruso's problems with the law.
Yup, another Quebec jewel.....
Just sayin.....

****************************And lastly I'm printing this picture of a woman interviewed on television complaining about English store names.



I'm sure she regrets giving the interview now, but I'm memorializing it for her.
I'm having a mean-spirited day, especially after reading that article by Brian Lipson.

Have a good weekend!