French versus English Volume 74

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PQ  follies

"Sometimes even a government can score in its own net, actually it happens more often than not, but perhaps this was a first;

Parti Québécois MNAs were red-faced Wednesday morning after realizing they had actually voted in favour of a joint opposition party motion denouncing the government’s own spending cuts to universities.
The incident took place Tuesday when the legislature resumed sitting – apparently in a moment of distraction.
The motion has no impact and the government is in no danger of falling but it marred the government’s return to the house.
“There was confusion,” said Terrebonne MNA Mathieu Traversy, who is the government’s deputy-house leader and was in charge at the moment the motion was tabled by the opposition parties." Link

Ex-cabinet minister Daniel Breton, who was humiliatingly booted from the PQ cabinet early on in the Marois regime made a not so triumphant return to the National Assembly on the first day of the session.

Caught more than dozing, he was outright sleeping when Parliamentary reporters snapped this picture.
In his defence, Mr. Breton claims that he has an as yet, un-diagnosed case of sleep apnea. Watch him snooze on YOUTUBE

He promised to go to the doctor to check it out. Let's hope he has a family doctor to give him a referral and that he won't have to wait months to see the specialist!

"From rising political star to dozing denizen of parliament’s sleepy suburbs — it’s been a gruelling few months for Daniel Breton.
The star recruit for the Parti Quebecois had been catapulted from green activist into the prestigious role of provincial environment minister last fall.
But he was swiftly demoted to the backbenches after some personal controversies. Now he’s being forced to explain his struggles to stay awake in the legislature.
Breton was caught on camera repeatedly dozing off during question period this week. Asked about it, he said Wednesday that he could be suffering from a sleeping disorder. Link

Former PQ MNA Jean Filion has won his case seeking a transition payment after leaving the National Assembly. These payments are part of the political landscape in Quebec, where those who leave office, for whatever reason, are given a bonus to reintegrate into the private sector.
But the National Assembly was loath to make the payment to Filion because he was in jail, having been convicted of frauding the government by paying people through his parlimentary budget who had nothing to do with running his office. Link
After his six months in jail, Filion decided to sue and has prevailed, although the judge knocked down the indemnity to almost half.
You might recall disgraced Liberal MNA Tony Tomassi, who resigned after being charged with accepting an illegal benefit. His trial has yet to take place, but he already collected his $122,000 transition payment. Link

For Jacques Parizeau, his resignation after his referendum night drunken gaffe has always been a bitter pill to swallow and he's taken it out on every PQ leader since, undermining their authority with contrary and sometimes insulting pronouncements.
Parizeau has publicly undermined Pauline by telling all who would listen that he'd be voting for Option Nationale, the other separatist party and rival for the affections of Quebec's sovereigntists in last September's provincial election.
Nicknamed the 'mother-in-law' for all his meddling, Parizeau struck again last week, publicly backing the radical student association in calling for free college and university tuition.

“The zero deficit has spoiled everything. As soon as you set a deadline for reaching a zero [deficit] objective and that it becomes a religion, you stop thinking. You cut back on everything and you stop asking questions,” Mr. Parizeau said in an interview with the Montreal daily Le Devoir.
The harsh assessment, coming from a prominent and influential former party leader, embarrassed the Marois government, which is facing strong criticism over the summit in two weeks on the future of universities. Link

The PQ has enjoyed a long history of fratricide with leaders being pushed of the cliff by party heavyweights on a regular basis.
But to my knowledge, it's the party's first attempt at sororicide.

In another attempt to consolidate power, Pauline Marois rejected the idea of the three sovereigntist  parties working together by not running candidates in certain ridings so as to avoid vote-splitting.
Both Jean-Martin Aussant, leader of Option nationale and Québec solidaire's Françoise David railed against the intransigent Marois, claiming that the PQ doesn't have exclusivity when it comes to sovereignty.
What both fail to realize is that Pauline doesn't really share their agenda, that is sovereignty. For Pauline, it is all about power and in her world, winning means that all the other parties  separatist or federalist must lose.  Link{fr}

By the way, in another cave-in to public pressure, Marois much to the chagrin of nationalist groups has decided to let school administrations decide on implementing the Charest government's initiative of intensive English for francophone sixth graders.

"In response to public pressure, the Parti Quebecois has softened its position on English classes taught in elementary schools across the province, QMI Agency has learned.
PQ Education Minister Marie Malavoy, who called English a "foreign language" in October, had previously announced that her government would cancel a program that obligated schools to add 369 hours of intensive English courses to its Grade 6 curriculums.
However, sources told QMI Agency that after consultations with teachers' unions, parents and school administrations, the PQ will still cancel the program, but will allow individual schools to decide if they want to add English courses." Link

Corruption Watch ...this week

There were no startling revelations made this week at Quebec's crime commission, probably because it didn't hold any public sessions and it was actually a good thing, it seems we could all use a respite from the bombshells dropping on a daily basis.

But alas, it was not to be.
A front page story in the Journal de Montreal revealed that Arthur Porters' right hand man, Yanai Elbaz, built himself a 1.7 million dollar mansion in St. Laurent.
It seems that a construction company doing business with the hospital that Elbaz helped run with Porter, picked up the tab for over a half a million dollars of the cost.
When reporters asked Maurice O’Hana, owner of the said construction company for an explanation, he had a swift attack of amnesia, claiming he really didn't remember.

Despite all that is going on, Quebec francophones show unshakable faith in Quebec, only 24% believe that Quebec is more corrupt than other provinces. Anglophone Quebecers are not so trusting, two and a half times as many told pollsters that Quebec is more corrupt than the other promises. Link{fr}

 Metro versus Métro

Another humiliation for Yves Michaud?

It seems that French language militants made a demand at the the company's shareholder's meeting that Metro, the giant supermarket chain, change its name to include a diacritical accent over the 'é'  to better reflect its French heritage.
Two resolutions were put forward asking that the company change its logo and to use the 'new' name exclusively.
When shareholders considered the millions and millions such a change would entail, they voted with their wallets, rejecting the motion by almost 99%!
At last year's shareholder's meeting, blowhard activist Yves Michaud, already branded a bigot by a unanimous National Assembly motion, put up a big stink, demanding that the change be made to safeguard Quebec's heritage.
As one would expect, the humiliating rejection was a difficult blow to shoulder and militants railed against shareholder apathy towards the French language. Link{fr}
Read my piece Is is Yves Michaud Racist?

PQ's 'Friends & Family' sovereignty push. 

As I told you in the last post, the PQ campaign to promote sovereignty is nothing more than a cynical device to satisfy the party's militant base.
Just the same I decided to keep a watch out for the campaign and report my findings to readers. On Wednesday I deconstructed the study in a post entitled 92 Reasons to Ignore Sovereigntist Nonsense.
Today I'm following up on the formidable YouTube campaign promised by Pauline Marois.

In that regard I headed over to the PQ YouTube channel to see what I might see and was surprised to find that I was the very first viewer to have the privilege of watching Pauline's masterful speech introducing the campaign which I have dubbed the "Friends and Family Sovereigntist Campaign," because the only people interested in it are, well.....friends and family!

Here is an unretouched or Photoshopped screen grab of both Pauline's speech and that of Bernard Drainville, which I was a bit late to the party, being only the third person to screen the videos.



At any rate, I visited the site on Monday and went back today (Thursday) to see how much interest the videos were generating and how many more people watched the videos. YouTube

In the five days since the posting a grand total of a little over 2,000 people watched Pauline's video, this in a political party that supposedly has 90,000 members. I'm not sure how many 'influencable' viewers would be left after the 'friends and family' numbers were subtracted.

As for Bernard Drainville, his speech didn't do quite as well, with a view count of under 300, it hardly seems worth the effort.

Considering that our good friend Abdul Butt's video about the French language militants' protest over the Montreal Canadiens' English coach last year, garnered over 100,000 views, I'll let readers draw their own conclusions as to the impact of the Friends and Family Sovereignty campaign.

Ah... what the heck, it's Friday and if you haven't seen this great video give it a whirl.



Hmmmm. Maybe Pauline should hire Abdul...
Here's another story that will just warm the cockles of your heart.

The trial of 42 year-old man Yvan Grandmaison wrapped up on Thursday with the judge taking the verdict under advisement.

Mr. Grandmaison ran down an elderly couple one evening while they were walking near their home in a Montreal suburb. The women died and the man was badly injured.
But the driver plead not guilty claiming that it wasn't his fault, because he had been prescribed a new medication that didn't agree with him.
But the fact that he admitted to drinking four beers, doing some cocaine and taking a couple of sleeping pills before venturing out in his car on a beer run, didn't seem to faze him at all.

The accused claimed that when he ran down the couple he was perfectly sober and lucid.
However when he was arrested by police a little later on, they reported that he was completely intoxicated, a fact confirmed by tests.

True, said the accused, but the effects of his drug cocktail only kicked in later, well after he hit the couple. Read an extended account

So readers, what do you think his chances of being acquitted are?

Well, they're a lot better in Quebec, than the rest of Canada, Quebec's courts are almost three times more likely to acquit than courts in the rest of the country.

With 23.2% of Canada's population, Quebec is responsible for 76% of the country's total criminal acquittals
While 6.3% of trials in Canada end in acquittal, that figure jumps to over 16% in Quebec. See some stats.


Further weekend reading;

Zombie apocalypse emergency training cancelled by Quebec government
Zombie apocolypse debated in Parliament (video)

Zombies participate in Montreal's 2012 Zombie Walk

Nutbar goes mental over English in the Metro

West Island suicide rate lowest in Montreal region

Radio Canada's hatchet job on Quebec Chinese community

Quebec towns gearing up to save bilingual status

Montreal condo home to bikers, Mob figures, police say 

Sask Premier not sorry to see Quebec leave conference

How the woman behind three Quebec premiers survived her lover's bullets


It's Friday so here is your laugh of the week, provided by Diogenes, who swears this is an actual memo sent by Sun Life Insurance to health insurance policyholders in Quebec

“Alert - Quebec massage establishments 

Sun Life Financial has identified a growing number of massage establishments in Quebec that operate as massage parlours, offering body rubs or additional services of a sexual nature in lieu of or together with a massage, while advertising that they will issue receipts for insurance purposes.
Under the terms of our plans, coverage is only available for therapeutic or medically necessary services as accepted by standard medical practices. As a result, we will decline all massage therapy claims from such establishments – even if a receipt has been provided.
To avoid having a legitimate massage claim denied, we encourage you to research any massage provider you are considering to ensure it is a legitimate provider of therapeutic massage services. Any clinic that offers “additional” services or is a 24/7 operation will likely not meet the criteria as a quality provider.”

Not every story can have a “happy ending” I guess...-Diogenes

One last last thing, a brainteaser....... You have 3 seconds to respond....

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 together
The bat costs a dollar more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost.

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Did you answer 10 cents? ...sorry, incorrect.
It's no trick, just do your math..
If you can't get it, go here....Youtube

Have a lovely weekend!
Bonne fin de Semaine!