National Crises

Seriously? The Member of Provincial Parliament for Ottawa-Orleans is concerned that the eventual move of Department of National Defence offices to the new campus in the west of the city at the former Nortel site, now being retrofitted to suit the needs of DND will have the effect of dreadfully discommoding francophone DND employees?

The concern is twofold, evidently; one that there would be an excruciatingly long commute for those employees currently living in Orleans -- travelling from the city's east end where they currently reside to the west end where their employment will be re-located. Two, that those who decide to sell their east-end homes and re-locate their residences to the west end will discover themselves to be in language-alien territory.

Orleans is said to be roughly 35% francophone, and the west end a mere 5% francophone. This obviously represents a human tragedy of disconcerting proportions. The estimate for the number of people affected is in the range of six thousand, inclusive of RCMP and Canadian forces. RCMP personnel also have been re-located to the distant western reaches of Barrhaven. This harmful migratory shift is unprecedented and dangerous.

The MPP has taken his complaint to the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. For the 'vitality' of east-end Orleans will be deleteriously affected by the situation, as well. "It will be a matter of days before we decide if we can review this or not", commented a spokesperson for the language office.

Transit patterns will also be affected, points out this MP helpfully. The downtown core will be harmed and the move will have the effect of creating additional urban sprawl, with people moving to Kanata and as far as Arnprior.

But the Official Languages Commissioner is a very busy man. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to shoehorn in another bit of language malfeasance on the unthinking, oblivious, disturbing part of the Federal Government. 

The Commissioner is already deeply involved investigating why it is that the Julian Fantino, Minister for International Cooperation, has instructed that all letters coming his way be in English solely. This severe transgression of Canada's official bilingual policy is indefensible; that a Cabinet minister feels more comfortable in English than French is simply intolerable.

And yet another Cabinet minister has been caught in the ever-vigilant net of the language commissioner. Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade John Baird, that peripatetic and ferociously engaged individual speaking Canada's mind on international affairs, has the unmitigated gall to order English-only business cards.

 He does, mind, also have bilingual business cards, but appears to prefer the latter variety when he's handing out cards to colleagues and peers abroad for whom English remains the international language of communication.

Two sets of cards, according to Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser, violate provisions of Canada's Official Languages Act. "Providing bilingual business cards on some occasions and cards in English only at other times does not foster the promotion of linguistic duality in Canada and abroad, and does not express the equality of both official languages which is at the heart of FIP (Federal Identity Program) objectives and stipulated by the (Official Languages) Act."

Gratitude is extended to the NDP's official languages critic, Yvon Godin, for responding to the call of duty above and beyond anyone's expectations and alerting the language office to this unforgivable infraction. The country owes much to this man for his vigilance and rectitude, his concern for the country and for the indispensable need to blather on in the language of the minority demographic in the country.

The studious observer of parliamentary affairs has never noticed Mr. Godin's attention focusing on the situation in the proudly francophone Province of Quebec, blissfully engaged in destroying the language rights of its English-speaking minority.

Shameful Bilingualism

To permit the merest hint of language accommodation in Quebec to enable minority English-speakers to access information otherwise closed to them through a lack of facility with French is to impose a humiliating experience upon public servants in that province. A province of Canada, which is an officially bilingual country and where federal offices and many provincial offices along with municipalities in the rest of Canada make concerted efforts to provide translations for their French minorities.

That federal agencies must do so is the law. Quebec has passed a language law that explicitly frowns on the provocative presence of the English language in that pure laine province. The sound of English is painful to the ears of French speakers. We have it on the highest authority governing the province. The introduction of Bill 101 consolidated that position, making it mandatory through the Charter of the French Language that children in Quebec must attend French schools unless they or their parents have attended English elementary schools, and they are Canadian-born.

Hearings are currently in session into the new Parti Quebecois government's introduction of a supplementary bill (Bill 14) to strengthen existing legislation in support of the primacy of French, and the exclusion of English in the province. The Syndicat de la fonction publique et para-publique du Quebec (SFPQ) tabled a brief at the National Assembly, pointing out the dreadful experiences foisted upon public servants when faced with non-bilingual citizens.

Examples they provided were: A technician asked to submit an English version of a form to a company based in the province since its payroll department was located in Winnipeg, where the staff located there was not functional in the French language. A rental board clerk who deals on occasion with those incapable of understanding file decisions written in French, so he must therefore translate vital passages into English to aid in understanding.

"What emerges from these few testimonials is the obligation for frontline staff to provide services in English under pressure from citizens. While they should feel supported by their immediate superiors [in insisting on working in French], employees fear the warnings and penalties that could follow", testily observed the union. The issue of "shameful bilingualism" is making itself distastefully known in the workplace, and it is an intolerable issue, according to union president Lucie Martineau.

The PQ's new Bill 14 updating the language charter fails to address this issue. Making it abundantly clear that the 'gaping holes' existing in the original Language Bill 101 are not being adequately addressed. A government advisory body on language had something to say about the dreadful situation as well; that fewer people in Montreal work exclusively in French than was common 20 years ago. Strange; this despite research showing that the French language is secure now, and more Quebecers are comfortable using it, but this is not sufficiently satisfactory for the language police of Quebec.

"We must repair the gaping holes left by Bill 101 that allowed rampant bilingualism to infiltrate the public administration. The SFPQ asks that Bill 14 clearly state that the public administration provide services exclusively in French [except in the case of school boards, health institutions and municipalities serving majority English populations.]"  From the very minute that immigrants step onto Quebec soil all provincial government communications should be French only. And that proviso should include First Nations members.

The requirement that knowledge of English be permitted when hiring if the position demands it should also be re-thought and removed. Communication outside of Quebec should be the only instance in which knowledge of English when hiring provincial workers, should be permitted, according to the union. 

Mayors of two Montreal suburbs made their own presentations. Their concerns revolve around the issue that Bill 14 would disallow official bilingual status to their towns, from communicating in English with their citizens, to posting bilingual signs and drafting bilingual bylaws. The mayor of Cote Saint-Luc had this to say: "I can tell you that if someone tried to come to Cote Saint-Luc to touch our bilingual status and say we are going to lose our bilingual status, you are going to have chaos, you are going to have opposition that you cannot even imagine with people in the streets and you are going to lose the linguistic peace."

Question: What linguistic peace?

How Competent?

Just as well for those who simply wanted to rid themselves of the corrupt government of Jean Charest that they made the change giving the opposition Parti Quebecois a minority government.  As such, their changes to Quebec haven't been as draconian as they might have been.  The voters were, of course, forewarned, since Pauline Marois, now premier of the province, stated quite openly what her priorities were.

Perhaps that's what got her that minority instead of the majority she was hoping for.  The voters felt compelled to clean house with the election, not to sweep all their social justice requirements out of the house entirely.  As it is, anglophones in the province continue to be under-served and under-recognized, but we are led to believe that things could have been worse.

Pauline Marois and her Parti Quebecois came to govern on a promise to sweep the province clean of corruption.  On that promise alone she should be grateful that she hit the mark.  She indulged in a little bit of questionable patronage herself when she appointed former PQ leader Andre Boisclair delegate-general in New York City, along with the post of assistant deputy minister, assuring him a dandy lifetime take-home-pay-packet.

Accepting the resignation of Daniel Breton as environment minister, Premier Marois bristled at the suggestion she hadn't done an adequate background check, saying she had been aware of his background, but thought he had merit nonetheless.  Until it became public knowledge that he continually failed to pay fines and rent, was guilty of employment insurance fraud, and drove with a suspended license; some cabinet material that is.

And those dratted health taxes that we all hate?  People living in Quebec detest them as well, and would like to see them drafted out of existence, as they once were, but times are hard and provincial economies have been strained.  And although the Finance Minister insisted post-election his government would honour the promise to scrap the Liberal-imposed health tax, it hasn't been done.

This new government plans to put in place their own provincial gun registry.  If so, they'll likely have to do so from step one.  Unless they continue to wait for the federal government to cough up the data that was destroyed with the suspension of the federal gun registry as ineffectual, costly and useless.  Collecting their own provincial data will strain the already-overstrained budget of the province.

During the Quebec university/college student 'strike' refusing to pay higher tuition costs that would still leave them paying the least of any province, Pauline Marois pledged to cancel the raised tuition brought in by the Liberals and leading to student civil disobedience and violence.  Now the same students are agitating for free tuition. Ms. Marois was, before becoming premier, sensitive to their demands on that score.

This week the provincial Minister of Higher Education informed universities in the province of budget cuts of $124-million for the current academic year.  Unable to raise tuition from students, and unable to rely on provincial funding, the universities are apoplectic with disbelief.  "Unrealistic" as in beyond belief, according to Universite Laval rector Denis Briere.

So how're the Parti Quebecois and their red square, pot-banging premier doing?

 Sacred Cows

"It's really developed to the point where I don't know how we would be able to keep tabs on who's getting training and how much it costs.  It's just hard to quantify."
Nelson Kalil, spokesperson for commissioner of official languages, Graham Fraser

 "We have never covered this in How Ottawa Spends"
Bruce Doern, co-editor of How Ottawa Spends, annual in-depth assessment of federal government spending

 "We would have no way of knowing that.  We have some numbers on bilingual positions, unilingual positions, things like that.  But nothing on language training."
Annie Trepanier, spokesperson for the Public Service Commission

 No idea.  Perhaps, on the other hand, some idea, some theories, but no collected hard facts and figures.  Difficult to ascertain because the topic is politically inconvenient.  Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, famous for his insistence that government come clean on all manner of spending for various programs and government offices, was unable to offer a reliable figure.

Nor does Auditor General Michael Ferguson have any idea.  Perhaps there's an area of public tax funding that he should focus on in the near future?  We should know, shouldn't we?  Other than to hazard guesses?  The Public Service Modernization Act which decentralized language training might be cited as one reason, since all government departments are uniquely responsible for their own language training issues.

On the other hand, Kevin Page has just recently issued demands to all government departments that he wishes each of them to respond to his needs to put together collected data from all of them to enable him to arrive at facts and figures that he feels are important in judging government performance and its costs.

Treasury Board claims that each government department and agency is notionally responsible for maintaining their own records so they may be reported to the Office of the Chief Human Resources officer on request.  Might we then assume that such requests are few and far between?  Since Daniel Watson, the chief Human Resources officer himself is not in possession of those recoverable records.

Total federal government education and training spending of about $470 million was established, out of which came over $57 million paid to language schools providing the required training.  But the $57 million doesn't quite represent the full cost of language training since Public Accounts list only individual payments of $100,000 or over. 

More than $195-million in education and training expenses last year were under that benchmark figure.  An additional $21 million was listed by 2012 Public Accounts for education and training payments to universities and colleges providing language training.  The government spent $40.5 million in 2011-12 for costs over $25,000 mostly for National Defence.

Then, of course, there is worker salaries paid while on training courses.  Add to that the salaries of temporary replacement workers doing the jobs of those on training courses.  An unofficial estimate listed an all-in annual cost of language training between $1 billion and $2 billion representing roughly 3% of the federal government's annual personnel costs of $44-billion.

Treasury Board figures 41% of all government positions in core public administration were bilingual; over 83,000 positions.  Higher in the National Capital region where two thirds of positions are designated bilingual, representing about 59,000 of the region's 88,801 core public service jobs.

Is all of that money well spent?  Remember: that's just language training, it doesn't include the costs of translation services, of printed and publishing all government documents in both official languages, and other bilingual costs rather too numerous to name.  And the gain to Canada?

Just asking.

 Humbug

"It's a serious problem.  Making bilingualism a requirement for hiring worries me...  I have the impression we've gone a bit too far.  When bilingualism moves into the workplace, for reasons that aren't valid, we're getting to the point where it'll also move into society."  
Diane de Courcy, Parti Quebecoise Minister of Immigration, Quebec

On first reading the naive might think: good grief, that's what we've been complaining about in the rest of Canada since forever.  Particularly unilingual anglophones who are more than adequately suited to positions in government who find themselves out out of employment because most employment opportunities of any note in the federal government are bilingual imperative.

At the very least in the public service some French ability is required.  This is so because Canada has been mandated an officially bilingual country.  And the country has long embarked on a mission to create a bilingual population.  Propelled for the most part by a desire to pacify French Quebec which has always chafed at the notion that their language is treated as second-class.

In mollifying Quebec, it was reasoned, there would be the priceless dividend of peace between the 'two solitudes'.  Of course, nothing of the sort ever happened.  Quebec separatists simply found other plaints, other reasons to insist that they were  being short-changed, other accusations with which to clout the anglophone majority.  All reasons to campaign for sovereignty.

And now that a sovereignty-occupied political party is back in power in Quebec, a miracle has occurred.  A PQ cabinet minister musing over the unfairness of employment bilingualism.  And then reality - as it has an irritating habit of doing - set in.  Quebec, which focuses on unilingualism and sees no need to protect English in a majority francophone province, rebels at the notion that English be required of French job-seekers.

It is not right, it is unfair.  Forty years of the rest of Canada making a concerted effort to appease Quebec, strenuously attempting to teach schoolchildren basic French, hoping they will become proficient as two languages always trump one; spending countless millions on translation services, producing bilingual literature and servicing francophones in the language of their choice, is nothing and less than nothing.

For the Parti Quebecois has little but contempt for the striving and the results.  Nothing will satisfy them but separation, nothing but achieving that national identity that has meaning to them.  It is truly ludicrous that the province names its provincial parks 'national', that it is the National Assembly their provincial legislature is named, that they have been graced with recognition as a unique 'nation' within Canada.

In Quebec it is completely legitimate for those in public service to refuse to speak English to English-speakers to enable complete comfort and understanding.  But the reverse, needless to say, raises hell, should instances of francophones living in majority anglophone communities not be served in the 'language of choice'.

The Spirit of Bilingualism

"At 11:46 a.m., the flight attendant came by and asked my wife and me, 'Anything to drink, folks?'  Lynda said, "Rien, merci" (No, thank you).  I told her "Je vais prendre un 7Up s.v.p."  (I would like a 7Up, please).  She served me a Sprite."

And this intolerable slight to two passengers on board an Air Canada flight that traumatized them by its insult to Canada's bilingual imperative has become a cause celebre.  The life mission of fluently bilingual Michel Thibodeau of Ottawa.  Who, in an affaidavit filed with the Federal Court, challenged the constitutionality of Air Canada's performance in snubbing its obligations to provide bilingual service to clients.

This flight was one from Charlotte, North Carolina to Toronto, that took place on May 12, 2009.  Michel Thibodeau had suffered a similar gross indignation of his rights as a French Canadian living in the Nation's capital, and fluent in both French and English, but insistent on his right to be served in the 'language of choice', in an officially bilingual Canada, on other occasions as well.

 In an Air Ontario flight from Montreal to Ottawa, he attempted to similarly order a 7Up from a unilingual English flight attendant, and that time too, in 2000, his entitled expectations were cruelly dashed.  He took action, filing suit in Federal Court for $525,000 in damages.  His complaint was upheld by the court, the airline ordered to proffer a formal apology, and pay him $5,375.95 for hurt feelings. 

He was able, then, to buy with those proceeds all the 7Up his little heart desired. Moreover, he was also honoured for his valorous performance by the French-language rights group, Imperatif francais.  There is obviously much satisfaction to be had in challenging Air Canada's laxity in providing that most critical of all service to its passengers. 

But the battle was not over.  The Federal Court of Appeal has seen fit to overturn a portion of the 2011 Federal Court judgement finding the airline and its contact carrier, Jazz, guilty of breaching the Official Languages Act on four occasions in 2009.  All four occasions involving !my goodness! Michel and Lynda Thibodeau.  Whose righteous indignation that the sanctimonious display of entitlement to their personal dignity must see profitable closure.

The main ruling, that Air Canada has always acknowledged, those four breaches that so dreadfully upset the Thibodeaus, causing them great anguish and inconvenience, was upheld.  But the monetary damages awarded by the lower court to the couple was lowered from $12,000 to $3,000.  The lower court's finding that Air Canada exhibits a "systemic problem" in compliance with federal linguistic requirements was also overturned.

The Thibodeaus' original complaint of eight distinct instances occurring in 2009 to this well-travelled pair in which they were denied services in French at airports in Atlanta, Toronto and Ottawa, and aboard three Air Canada Jazz flights between Canada and the United States, appears to have come a bit of a cropper.  They must be mightily annoyed over yet another inconvenience in their busy lives.

But should Air Canada disappoint them again, they will doubtless yet again take legal steps to hold their corporate feet to the Official Languages Act fire of damnation.

Grandiosely Hallucinating

"What we will do in the context of a minority government is protect every shred of sovereignty already in our hands and acquire new ones."  In the pursuit of becoming "A normal country that makes all its laws, decides for itself how to use its taxes and speaks with its own voice in the world."
Pauline Marois, Premier, Province of Quebec

With 54 of the 125 seats in the National Assembly the Parti Quebecois will have to go it alone; its hitherto-unattainable dream of achieving sovereignty not quite within its grasp, elusive as always, but a dream withal.  The flag of the oppressor, Canada, temporarily removed from sight, no doubt gave the sovereigntists a delicious taste of what they hope to become their future.

In the meanwhile, because they have become the government, they have the power to test an already-overtested economy, in the pursuit of fulfilling all manner of election promises.  Taking great delight in reversing the previous Liberal government's attempt to begin to balance its books by imposing a more reasonable tuition fee on the province's university students who would far prefer to pay nothing.

First things first; the Parti Quebecois cabinet in place.  A 35-year-old lawyer, Alexandre Cloutier named Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Sovereintist Governance to whom Madame Marois was pleased to give these instructions, that "remaining a province of Canada constitutes an unacceptable risk for Quebec." 

(While, of course, becoming a separate nation risks losing transfer payments and the wherewithal to pay for all the province's social welfare programs.)

He is therefore tasked to use "all means necessary" to defend Quebec's interest, demanding from Ottawa new powers as befits its exceptionalism. Asymmetrical federalism to start, full separation in the fullness of time, but not too much time; patience wears thin. 

Then on to the seasoned former advisor to earlier PQ premiers, elected for the first time and ready to go as Minister of International Relations and External Trade.  "What I ask you is to open wide the doors of the world on Quebec."  And Jean-Francoise Lisee will doubtless struggle to do just that, to the very best of his considerable abilities in lock-step vision with Madame Marois.

He is double-tasked to pay due attention to Montreal and the anglophone community that resides there in its long-suffering inequity and newly-acquired-once-again, fearful anticipation.  "Make them feel that they represent a treasure for all of us and that they are full members of the Quebec nation", Madme Marois urged her Minister of International Relations and External Trade.

"If there is one field in which all Quebec political parties agree, it is that one" - Madame Marois enjoined former Bloc Quebecois MP Maka Kotto, under instruction as Minister of Culture to make very effort to obtain additional powers and accompanying (of course!) budgets from big, bad, remote and nasty Ottawa.

Finally, rounding up the really important portfolios and sending their holders on to their demanding missions to accomplish what previous, majority Parti Quebecois governments never manged to gain, Ms. Marois assigned Diane De Courcy, as Minister of Immigration and Cultural Communication, the job of proposing a new, more muscular Bill 101.

Obviously anticipating all of this and more, a swift rejoinder emanated from Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Quebec lieutenant.  "We have no mandate to dismantle the federation, so we're not going to start improvising on all sorts of fronts", explained Christian Paradis in an oblique acknowledgement that the PQ game plan is to seek confrontation for the purpose of proving to Quebec how implacably disinterested the federal government is in enabling their search for fulfillment.

Not the least little bit taken off stride, Madame Marois - Premier Marois - instructed her new Minister of Democratic Institutions, Bernard Drainville, to proceed with representing Quebec's interests vis-a-vis Ottawa, "propose mechanisms allowing for increased citizen participation", so that a citizen-led initiative for separation can commence apace.

Here.we.go.again.

ne plus ul·tra

noun \ˌnā-ˌpləs-ˈəl-trə, ˌnē-\

Definition of NE PLUS ULTRA

1

: the highest point capable of being attained : acme

2

: the most profound degree of a quality or state 

 

Pretty cool, isn't it, to name a private French-language instruction school NEC Plus Ultra?  If that isn't a neat play on words and meanings, what is, then?  All the more so when the owner of that school has managed to gain herself the inside track, as it were.  She has engineered for her French-language-training school the enviable reputation of a winner.  Little wonder that, since she illicitly utilized copies of the government's own Second Language Evaluation tests to prepare government bureaucrats for their exams. 

She's way, way ahead, understandably, of all her competitors.  Who, either because they haven't been able to get their greedy little hands on the same documents she's been successful in acquiring, or because they recognize that something that is copyrighted is not meant to be used for their private financial benefit, have abstained from emulating her.  These irrational and petty hindrances to those with an ethical conscience, however, don't appear ever to have bothered Madeleine Rundle, the school owner.

She pleaded in court that her business (and her bank account) would certainly suffer irreparable harm if she were to operate on a level playing field, just like all the other language-training schools out there, also trying to drum up business, and lagging behind because her school through her clever machinations, has had the inside track.  Federal lawyers point out that she was operating in a blatantly unfair manner and in the process undermining the government's entire language testing regime.

In his written decision, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith granted an injunction against NEC Plus Ultra, at the federal government's request.  "Allowing her to use a copy of the SLE test questions invalidates the test results and gives her students a very unfair advantage", went the written decision, arrived at three years after the lawsuit was launched by government for copyright infringement and breach of confidence.

The legal suit resulted from a Public Service Commission audit dating from May 2009 concluding that NEC Plus Ultra gave its French students practice tests that were dead ringers to the official reading and writing tests used by the commission itself on the government's behalf.  Moreover, government was forced to lay out $1-million to revise those tests once it became aware that their usefulness had been compromised.

And then, the Public Service Commission became aware that NEC Plus Ultra had once again obtained a copy of those new, altered tests, once again attempting to enrich herself at a cost to the taxpayers, and in the process destroying the useful integrity of the new, revised tests.  And how's this for chutzpah?  Ms. Rundle's argument went like this: it was not she who was at fault for the situation, it was the government's responsibility to safeguard test questions.

That the tests are conspicuously stamped protected and copyrighted doesn't appear to have given her pause.  Practice materials that she presented to her students were copies of the government's documents.  Ms. Rundle's school's reading comprehension test was replete with 98% of questions from the official text; the writing test represented 89% of the official text.  To comment, as did Justice Smith that "there is a strong case" that the school's tests were directly copied from the government's represents a clear understatement.

NEC Plus Ultra is one of roughly fifty such language training schools in the city.  But its success rate in turning out candidates that produced superior results, ten times more advanced than other schools for people applying for bilingual positions with the federal public service ensured she would have the lion's share of applicants.  Guess she'll now have to resort to legitimate training sessions without an insider's leg up, henceforth.

Psycho-Social Passions Unleashed

Playing with peoples' emotions, manipulating peoples' propensity to guarding themselves against those who are alien, too different from themselves to be acceptable, a clear threat to their well-being, and you provoke within them sometimes surprising tendencies and sometimes harshly ungovernable reactions difficult to control, posing their own very dangerous risk to society.

In Europe political parties on the far right have gained in strength on the basis of their exhorting members of society alarmed at the changing face of their culture - their heritage, their values with the introduction of unfamiliar cultures and a religion that has itself impelled many of its believers toward a fearful terrorism they name the jihad of the faith-  has invoked a backlash.

Norway saw the result of one man, Anders Behring Breivik, coming cannily unhinged to the point where he emulated the fanatical Islamist attacks on both Western and Muslim targets to compel a purer Islam among the believers and the fear of conquest or death among the unbelievers with his own planned-and-executed terror attack. 

This man developed his very own ideological structure of striking back - against those symbolic of his countrymen who allowed his beloved country to absorb the stranger, and accommodate itself to that stranger's faith, threatening that of the indigenous population, and the country reeled in horror that any among them could descend to such madness of logic.

In Quebec, there is another kind of fear stoked by francophones invested in saving their culture and their language from assimilation into the prevailing English majority.  The French in Quebec achieve their goal at the expense of the human rights of the anglophones in direct contradiction to the federal legal status of official bilingualism.

And, having achieved a remarkable level of success, they remain adamant and invested in creating even greater linguistic and cultural disparities between the "pur laine" francophones and the anglophone and allophone populations that have long called the province their home.  The psychological push-and-shove has created a climate of mutual suspicion.

And in this latest election result that has restored the Parti Quebecois to power albeit with a minority government whose life may not be as long as its leader Pauline Marois anticipates, a sufficient level of insecurity and rage was raised within the apprehensive mood of at least one resident of the province to persuade him to commit incomprehensible violence.

Richard Henry Bain, owner of a Laurentian sport-oriented resort fatally shot Denis Blanchette and wounded David Courage at the Metropolis nightclub in Montreal on the occasion of the victory speech being delivered by Madame Marois.  The two men were sound technicians who just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time.

The Front de Liberation du Quebec, a Marxist-Leninist paramilitary group whose goal was Quebec secession organized violence and created acts of terror in the province, setting explosives in mailboxes and kidnapping and murdering a Quebec cabinet minister, Pierre Laporte in their revolutionary zeal; rioting university students recalled that time just recently when they urged that Premier Jean Charest be put in a car trunk in response to his raising student tuition fees.

And this man, Richard Henry Gain, owner of 21 registered guns brought five of them with him when he drove to Montreal and appeared at the Metropolis to demonstrate his displeasure with the Parti Quebecois, and in all likelihood meant to target Madame Marois so his message would be clear and unforgettable.

His goal was achieved; Madame Marois is alive and well, one man is dead, another severely injured.  The Norwegian mass murderer insisted on his being found totally sane in his commission of mass murder.  Mr. Bain, charged in a Montreal courthouse with 16 counts, from first-degree murder to weapons and explosives charges does, in fact, suffer from a severe personality disorder.

"He had to take pills - but how severe was his illness, I don't know.  In the last year, he had been pretty calm.  So this really surprised us", explained a friend and neighbour of Mr. Bain who has known him for 40 years, and knew he was being treated for bipolar disorder. One might wonder how it is that someone with such a mental illness, however controlled, could legally own firearms.

 It represents a supreme irony that the Province of Quebec too suffers a type of collective bipolar disorder.

It is beyond tragic that a young man, father of young children, became a victim of an enraged anglophone who felt his province's language laws pushed him too far and completely unhinged his moral compass to make of him an odious murderer.

In All Gracious Modesty

"I hope it will be an opportunity for us all to find our pride again as a people."  Pauline Marois, leader of the Parti Quebecois, Premier-in-waiting

 The rest of Canada is resigned to having Quebec play out its little charades again under a minority Parti Quebecois government.  For that matter, since only 32% of francophones voted for that same government to have another go at sovereignty, that would assume that 68% of the Quebec electorate may be similarly resigned to a few more years of social and political turmoil.

Are they, however, prepared for a business downturn, yet another exodus of Quebecers leaving the province, viewing it once again as a sinking ship?  After all, Quebec once had a much brighter future, as a place where investments were safe, and Montreal was the capital city of finance and industry, a distinction that Toronto is grateful to have capitalized on, bearing the torch for the rest of Canada.

Quebec may now anticipate the fruits of the Parti Quebecois electoral promises to bloom - and as they do, the opportunities, civil, social and political, will wither.  Heftily increasing the taxes among those earning in excess of $140,000 to $250,000 annually will certainly shrivel the attraction of living and working in La Belle Province.  An increased levy through capital gains tax will be yet another incentive to relocate.

The re-locating of manufacturing plants in a more business-congenial environment in neighbouring Ontario will never have looked so inviting, and the towns and cities of Ontario that would salaam before such welcome moves are many indeed.  The heavy-handed re-interpretations of Bill 101 in small businesses, making the province effectively unilingual French represents yet another disincentive to remain.

Surely it must be in defiance of the Constitution to insist that Quebec is entirely within the law and its right to declare itself a unilingual nation with French alone recognized as its official language, impacting as a result on the presence of those civil servants who toil for the federal government?  Limiting opportunities to English-language proficiency for students from primary, elementary and secondary on to CEGEPs yet another intrusion into the Charter and human rights.

Effecting a new layer of citizenship, so that those who qualify - mostly pure laine - will proudly show off yet another identification card in their wallets, inaccessible to second-class Quebec residents; yet another blow to the Constitution and the primary rights of Quebecers whose origin is not French-Canadian.  Want to hold public office, then, forget it unless you invest in language, the official Quebec one, that is.

Violation of the Constitution Act which claims, under Section 133 that both French and English are the acknowledged languages of the courts and legislature...?  Anomalous, but then who hasn't heard of asymmetrical federalism.  The Parti Quebecois simply insists that their rights and the obligations of the federal government to accede to them, are simply a little more asymmetrical in view of Quebec exceptionalism.

Getting It Right

She is intent on dragging Quebec, kicking and whining, out of Confederation and into national sovereignty, finally achieving full separation from that blighted anglosphere called Canada.  Her display of flashes of lurid xenophobia, socialism and creeping racism peg her as the bottom-sweepings of the Quebec separatist movement.  With her as premier, Quebec will reflect the qualities the Parti Quebecois holds most dear.

The French language must be shielded with an iron curtain that will not permit English to leak through despoiling the purity of French speech.  Quebec separatist elites may educate their offspring in English ensuring they remain competitive in the world outside the province, but this is a privilege that will be denied all others unworthy of those forbidden delights.

English-language CEGEPs will be off-course to allophone and Francophone students, those slaving away in public institutions can place their distinctive ethno-religio symbols on a high, high shelf and prepare to resent the sole appearance of crucifixes which celebrate Quebec's distinctive heritage.  Quebec university students will be delighted at a promise of free tuition as a reward for upsetting the populace through intimidation tactics.

And the voters who plan to squeeze Pauline Marois through to a minority government will wait with bated breath to see her challenge the unions to ever greater demands she will be pleased to accept, while she somehow manages to separate them from the talons of organized crime, and clean up the corruption that the province has been bathed in for far too long.

Condemn her?  Perish the thought. She did get one thing right.  The Parti Quebecois, once in the business of running the government again will cancel the $58-million loan Jean Charest's Liberal government promised to the asbestos industry.  And Ms. Marois is prepared to aid the few hundred workers in Asbestos in diversifying the regional economy.

"All the trends are headed there.  We know the health studies illustrate that.  We can still spend an hour or two with (workers) to correctly clean up the file and take the decisions that need to be taken and show people that they can count on a PQ government because the financial resources will be there for diversifying the region."

Well now, good on her.  The chrysotile asbestos industry in Quebec is an embarrassment to a civilized society, with the knowledge of the health dangers involved for workers handling the material, as a carcinogen.  It is long overdue that it be put to rest.  Once seen as a valuable resource and used extensively as a fire retardant and insulating agent, it is now recognized worldwide as a deadly commodity.

So the PQ will invest in diversifying the region to ensure that several hundred workers will be employed in something other than asbestos extraction.  And the PQ will offer free tuition to university students.  And the PQ will give sober second thought to potential investors in the Province fearing French-language restrictions impacting on their communication modes.  And the PQ will offend minorities and religious, encouraging them to leave the province.

And with separation, the PQ will suddenly find itself administering a province with far less disposable income to continue their proud social programs when transfer payments suddenly drop off.  Good luck on that file, Madam.

Cost-Bleeding Bilingualism

The problem of escalating municipal costs being faced by most cities in Canada and the need to re-adjust budgets and priorities are being visited everywhere. In the capital of Canada's one officially bilingual province, the taxpayers are facing, like taxpayers everywhere, the options of having their taxes raised and/or looking hard again at some services to determine their cost-effectiveness and necessity.

Fredericton is like the federal government in respect of its official status on bilingualism. Committed to providing information in the language of choice to its residents. Equal representation. Respect of each of the two founding languages and cultures. And the cost burden of ensuring that the letter of the law is continued weighted against the benefit seems rather askew and even absurd.

New Brunswick's Official Languages Act requires municipalities to produce all official business in both languages; by-laws, agendas, minutes of meetings must be translated. Fredericton City Council meets every two weeks and for those meetings, regardless of how long they take, two translators must be present in case someone in the audience requests an oral translation.

$1,214.75 is the price-tag for each of those meetings for the two-translator services who sit through the meetings whether or not anyone requests meeting translations. "They have been there since 2003 and I only recall using the headset once. Once in eight years", mused a councillor. The entire translation effort costs Fredericton $281,000 annually.

Francophones represent roughly 7% of the population in the Fredericton area.

"It's not an attack on the French-language people in our city. It is a cost-cutting idea and times are tough all over. This seems like an easy fix and is common sense", said the councillor who is recommending a change in routine. That anyone desirous of having translation done at a meeting inform the city in advance, filling out a form. Which would enable the city to bring in a translator for that particular event.

Effectively precluding the need to have two translators on hand every other day at meetings just in case someone might wish to have the meeting translated. "From my experience on council, that's seven-plus years, I really haven't seen the translation devices used very often, perhaps ever", explained yet another councillor.

Typically, as soon as the discussion aired in public, there were complaints. And the councillor who put forward the idea for intelligently reasonable change and the resulting saving to the taxpayer through cost-cutting has now been informed that she may now expect more francophone residents will be requesting the use of the translation service.

That brilliant cost-saving measure will doubtless be abandoned. In fear-bondage to manipulated offence.