La Belle Province

The Parti Quebecois seems quite bitter about its loss of popular support within Quebec. They have sacrificed so much on behalf of Quebec sovereignty. Life is just so unfair. Ask the Bloc Quebecois, for they too have suffered. What ignominy, each of them to have enjoyed such high esteem among the electorate to whom they promised so much, only to be rewarded in this undignified manner.

"We have a good program, but people aren't listening to us any more", groaned one member of the national assembly. "The population has to start loving us", another claimed. Yet another PQ member stresses how urgent it is to imbue the voters with the impression that the PQ is able to succeed at its original purpose: to make Quebec into a sovereign nation.

They blame the volatility of voters' attention span, veering off to other pastures, most notably, at the present time, leaving both parties with the bleak realization that they've been massively rejected. While the NDP, promising them virtually the same pie-in-the-sky has been able to capture the popular imagination in Quebec. Life is so unfair - have I already said that?

It's the fault of the uphelpful press. Truly a Third Column. Never to be trusted. "My mother always said I should not eavesdrop at the door. That it's not polite. Well, it's part of life. but when I look at you (in the media) I ask myself if you don't want to see the PQ die. Sometimes I ask myself the question." Um ... really?

Seems the Prime Minister has asked himself the same question. And he's come up with an interesting solution. Little wonder. After all, he's gone out of his way, repeatedly, and rather annoyingly, to mollify Quebec, to offer it what it continually whines about, and yet he (and the rest of Canada) have been rebuffed. So, alright, already.

Angelo Persichilli, a newsman of some repute whose Conservative-supportive writing has obviously impressed Stephen Harper, has been appointed the Prime Minister's incoming director of communications. French-Canadians have become accustomed to being served and serviced wherever they happen to be, in their language of choice, and surprise! that choice is generally French - because they are entitled.

It started with a Quebecer, Pierre Trudeau who invested the country in Official Bilingualism, and it progressed until Jean Chretien expanded the ranks of senior public service jobs to "bilingual imperative". All this language-imperative focus at the expense of outstanding unilingual candidates whose professional expertise should have trumped in job placements has been extremely costly to the taxpayer.

Civil servants whose positions would never or rarely demand French proficiency, let alone basic French, paid to learn French, paid annual bonuses for qualifying, then rarely-to-never using an increasingly rusty tool. Those who didn't make the grade didn't get the position, looking on with frustration as other far less-professionally-qualified, but French-speaking candidates, did.

Oh, too delicious for mere words: Angelo Persichilli speaks no French - haltingly or fluently. He will have no intention whatever of acquiring another language. Any who wish to address him with a question must do so en englais seulement. His response will be in like verbal coin. And they will simply adore his having written this little priceless tidbit:

"Many are tired of the annoying lament from a province that keeps yelling at those who pay part of its bills and are concerned by the overrepresentation of francophones in our bureaucracy, our Parliament and our institutions."

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.