SDA Flashback September 8;
Christine St-Pierre, a veteran Ottawa correspondent for French-language public broadcaster Radio-Canada, wrote an open letter to Canada’s 2,300 troops telling them to ignore mounting criticism of the mission.
[…]
Radio-Canada suspended her for breaching internal rules that stipulate employees are not allowed to express their opinions on controversial issues, La Presse said. No one at Radio-Canada was immediately available for comment.
CBC/Radio-Canada chairman Guy Fournier has sparked outrage from the Lebanese community in Quebec. In his bi-weekly compilation of ‘facts’, jokes and statistics for the magazine “7 jours”, titled “Bizarre? Mets-en!” he included: (Translated)
“Lebanon, the law makes it possible to the men to have sexual intercourse with animals in the condition which they are females! To do the same thing with male animals can involve the death penalty! ”
Printed in the most widely circulated magazine in Quebec, the false statement has sparked outrage. La Presse reported that a Montreal Lawyer Joseph Daoura from the firm Ferland, Marois, Lanctôt confirmed that no such law exists and the he would seek a retraction from the puiblisher TVA publications and sister publisher Quebecor media.
Fournier did not write the source of the information. He told La Press that he was amused by the controversy: “One should not leave in war for nothing. I do not understand how that that can insult people. In any context, it is rather funny”
Reaction from Radio-Canada: “We do not have comments to make.”
Thanks Kate – what a perfect comparison, showing the bias and hypocrisy of our nationally funded CBC – and in particular – the hidden problems within the isolate mindset of Quebec.
Quebec is a subset, a ‘kept nation’ within another nation. As such, it doesn’t have to confront any situation directly – whether in the economic, political or social realm. It has focused therefore, on setting itself up as a ‘fictional nation’ with a lifestyle that it could never, ever, fulfil on its own. It can only exist in this mode because it is ‘kept’ by the ROC.
This includes the problem of its enormous debt load, in the multi-billions, which is beyond its capacity to deal with; its fictional lifestyle based on a top-down socialism that requires a constant heavy financial input from the ‘equalization’ monies of the ROC. [Quebec ought to be a ‘have’province, but its disastrous economic mode ensures that it requires the ROC to support it]. These include its below-cost university tuition, its below-cost daycare, its bloated bureaucracy, its high-cost unionized and federally subsidized workforce, its high taxes which disable home-grown investors in Quebec, its high taxes which have led to a huge black market economy in Quebec etc.
As a ‘kept nation’, Quebec CBC will reject any action that requires direct relations with the rest of the world, and particularly, the anglophone world. That means that it rejects the war on terror and will fire Christine St. Pierre for her support of it. And, it will remain quiet on ‘immigrants’ because Quebec has the lowest immigration ratio in Canada, with almost 95% of all immigrants found only in one city, Montreal and essentially non-existent in the rest of the province.
We’ll see what Radio-Canada does to Fournier, but my bet is – nothing.
The CBC Ombudsman forwarded my letter on to Radio-Canada and this was the response.
Regards,
Pat
Dear Sir,
I acknowledge receipt of your message, which I have shared with the management of News and Information.
Your truly,
Laure Simonet
Assistant of Mr. Renaud Gilbertthe Ombudsman, French Services Société Radio-Canada
Once again the left wing bias in Canadian broadcasting is my issue.
Christine St-Pierre was suspended for having an opinion of supporting Canadian Troops and yet the opinions abound that support the left wing agenda without recourse. My tax dollars are not to be used to support a given political viewpoint but to represent the news, not make it.
Regards,
Pat Patrick
Powell River, BC.
Really good points ET. Knowledge that I had but had never connected it.
Thanks,
Pat
Quebec, the Potemkin Province that aspires to be a Potemkin nation.
Always remember that many Quebecers of the separatist ilk believe that after they become a nation, Canada will continue to send subsidies, pay for pensions and Quebec will retain unlimted access to Canadian markets, even in cases, like the dairy farmers, where they currently have a much larger government mandated share of that market.
They like to be holier than thou dreamers and that pathology is what Trudeau and his pack brought to Ottawa and inflicted on Canada.
The pendulum is swinging slowly back as the rest of Canada slowly realizes that the Trudeapian emperor is not wearing clothes.
If they can’t take a joke they shouldn’t be one….
More wasted time and money on bottomless-pit organizations whose sole function is to do what exactly?
Agree ET that Quebec is like a “kept” mistress, with no responsibilities for bringing up a family nor being a self-sufficient adult. But that applies to Canada as well. We’re kept. There’s no way that Canada as the second largest land mass in the world could sustain itself if our next door neighbour were any other country than the powerful, yet benign, USA.
Canada is “kept” secure, so we’re the lowest spenders in the Western World on defence. We don’t even spend on foreign aid.
On top of that, 40% of everything we produce is bought by the USA. We don’t need to spend on marketing to global markets, not on research, nor on legal expenses and foreign subsidiaries. So we kid ourselves on how successful we are. Canada lives in a bubble and Quebec is bubble within that bubble. Still, Quebec has managed to run up $120 billion in debt. Its per capita debt load is already unsustainable and its demographics are in decline so the situation will worsen. Yet socialism and unions rule, especially government unions. It can’t hold.
Ignatieff and Harper are the only leaders willing to even put the topic on the table:
How Quebec will fit into the future of Canada, which needs to become more global in its commercial affairs and in Foreign Policy?
I reviewd the remarks en francais, just to be sure there wasn’t some hideous idiomatic mistranslation; but there wasn’t. Where to begin? — The naked, condescending bigotry? The juvenile sense of “humor”? The sheer hypocrisy of Liberal-run institutions which we know would scream for the head of any conservative making similar remarks (rightly so in this instance)? But will this guy be taken to task — heck no. In the Liberal club he’s “one of us”. So they’ll just close ranks around him while Christine St. Pierre is booted out on a flimsy pretext.
Good post ET. It reminds me of the quip by a Quebecois comedian that “Every sovreigntist’s dream is a free and independent Quebec in a strong united Canada.”
Thanks, ET, for disabusing me of the naive notions that the old prejudices of the past had been, if not dead and buried, at least on waning life support by the intractable old guard that you represent. But you and some of your cheerleaders have proven time and again, with your venomous hatred of Quebec, that this Confederation, which I thought was working reasonably well despite all its flaws, still has a long way to go.
You show your contempt for Quebec by referring to it as having an ”isolate mindset.” The very use of the word “isolate” – one of whose definitions is “an inbreeding population isolated from similar populations by physiological, behavioral, or geographic barriers” – demonstrates that irrational contempt you zealously harbour.
You claim to support the Conservatives and Stephen Harper (whom I do support wholeheartedly), yet you seek to undermine the overtures he has made to garner support in my province with your incessant torrent of hatred.
I will not bother trying to counter some of your pronouncements, because YOUR “isolate mindset” would require an enema to dislodge it.
I am curious, though. You write “its high taxes which have led to a huge black market economy.” How would you know about a huge black market economy, unless you yourself participate in it? Or do you believe everything that the MSM feeds you? Or do you believe only the bits of information you can use to validate your venting your spleen against Quebec?
You also state: “And, it will remain quiet on ‘immigrants’ because Quebec has the lowest immigration ratio in Canada, with almost 95% of all immigrants found only in one city, Montreal and essentially non-existent in the rest of the province.” You present this gem as though it were a problem limited to Montreal, yet StatCan can attest to the “problem” existing in other Canadian cities as well.
http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11F0019MIE/11F0019MIE2005255.pdf
Page 3:
“In 1981, about 58% of immigrants who had come to Canada in the previous 10 years lived in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal; by 2001, this had increased to 74% (Statistics Canada 2003), triggering debate on the merits of a more “balanced geographic distribution of immigrants” (Citizenship and Immigration Canada-CIC 2001). Policies aimed at directing immigrants away from major gateway cities in many western countries have focused on the choice of initial destination, and little effort has been made to aaffect subsequent mobility. But such policies will work only if other, non-gateway regions, can keep immigrants or maintain balanced in- and out-migration.”
In other words, the “problem” of redistributing immigrants is not solely a Quebec “problem.”
Furthermore, your wish to re-distribute those immigrants to the regions sounds very much like the social engineering you constantly rail against. That’s quite an authoritarian streak running through your discourse. And this is not the first time I read your rant that there are too many immigrants concentrated in Montreal. Do you have something against immigrants? Or only those who make an effort to learn BOTH OFFICIAL LANGUAGES of Canada, whether you approve of French being one of them or not!
When my parents immigrated to this country with their 4 children in tow, I’m sure that at the beginning they sought the comfort of knowing there were others like us, who understood our language and our customs. They started a business catering to that community, and slowly adapted to their adopted country. That story has been repeated countless times in this wonderful country, which I love despite its flaws. Mr. Harper’s Conservatives, I am confident, will succeed in making this country even better. However, with so-called friends such as your bigoted self, I fear he’ll have a hard road ahead.
What bugs me here is that cbc is funded by TAX PAYERS. If we are funding them, doesn’t that make us all “share holders”? If so, why can’t we dismiss management that aren’t qualified to manage?
It’s bad enough that we fund this wounded duck but, we can’t believe a damn word they tell us !!
Time to cut the cbc loose. Let them try to make it on their own. Any bets as to how long they’ll last?
Quite right, gabby, this confederation is not working well. Actually, I don’t think I represent the intractable old guard but the new guard, for more and more, people in Canada are rejecting the model of Quebec as a perennial ‘have-not’ province, supported by the rest of Canada, and living a lifestyle alien to the economic and political well-being of that rest of Canada.
Isolate mindset, with your expanded definition, is indeed a correct description of the Quebec mindset. They average Quebecois does not view the rest of Canada as ‘part of their society’ and views Quebec as ‘distinct’ and not a part of Canada. You can find that view in all kinds of surveys, as I’m sure you are aware.
How can I, a single individual, undermine the support that Harper is hoping to develop in Quebec, by my ‘torrent of hatred’? Again, I’m only one person, and I’m deeply impressed by your assumption of my powers over Harper and all Quebecers, but I think that reality would deny your claim. Furthermore, a criticism is not equivalent to a hatred. I’m not emotionally involved, but your problem is that you react emotionally to any and all criticism of Quebec.
How would I know about a black market economy unless I engage in it? That’s silly; do I, as a researcher, have to actually engage in car theft in order to know about it? Do I have to actually have a disease in order to study it? The black market in Quebec is heavily researched – don’t you even remember Charest’s ads of a few years ago, publicly urging people not to move into black market interactions????
As for immigration in Quebec, it IS a Quebec problem. It isn’t about ‘distribution of immigrants’ – and remember, Quebec alone controls its own immigration, whereas the other provinces don’t. Makes a difference. Quebec has the lowest ratio of non-European immigrants in the country and almost all are concentrated in one city, Montreal. That’s a fact and has nothing to do with distribution as a statistic but with the Quebec culture being unwelcome to non-European immigrants.
Where did I say that I ‘wish to redistribute the immigrants’? Kindly stick to my words and don’t attribute intentions to me that I don’t have. I am criticizing reality, not making it. You are using the fallacious tactic of ‘diversion’. And another diversion is where you are accusing me of being against immigrants. Nonsense. Don’t change the issue – which is Quebec’s hostility to non-European and non-francophone immigrants.
I certainly don’t approve of two official languages in Canada. The basic reality is that the skewed proportion of people who can use both languages means that the reality is that we, operationally, are not a bilingual population. I don’t care whether it’s swahili and latin – the facts are what matter – and the facts are, that Canada is not and never will be, a bilingual population. That means that we have set up a dangerous political infrastructure. I’m not into governance-by-fiction. Are you?
Oh- and I’m all in favour of Harper too. Even if I am a bigot. Cheers.
A stunning and brilliant expose of the “kept little whore of Canada”
To which I can add only my outrage for the continuing shameless double standard that ROC and it’s duplicitous partner, the evil MSM seek to conceal from complacent, misguided, and most ignorant Canadians
ET,you rock!!! well said.RE;Quebec’s child=care subsidies.If this was brought nation=wide as the liberals esp.Mr.Dryden had envisioned,we would be forever piling up debt.
I wrote this letter to the CBC ombudman in regards to both the Christine St-Pierre and Samir Qantar stories:
“To whom it may concern,
Something must be done in regards to our “nationally owned news media” the CBC. It is becoming more and more clear that they are not balanced in their reporting and, at times, favour the side of known international criminals. All of this and suspending a journalist for having the guts to vocally support our troops. I would like to see someone reprimanded for the report on Samir Qantar. Imagine our CBC showing the weeping mother and whining brother of a despicable man such as this. This man killed a child in front of their father and had a mother so afraid that she accidentally suffocated her other child. Could you imagine this? Can you imagine a nationally owned channel in Canada seeming to show the “human” side of a tyrant such as this?
While the CBC is doing the above they are suspending Christine St-Pierre for vocally supporting our troops! This is asinine! We are living in a time when we are faced with the possibility of terrorist attacks on a daily basis and our nationally owned news station is showing the “human” side of tyrants while suspending a journalist for wishing our troops well.
This must be stopped even at the expense of shutting down the entire operation. The CBC must be made to serve in Canada’s best interest or cease airing. It has become a national embarrassment!
Thank you”
Recieved this reply:
“Dear Derek Cadden:
I will be conducting a review of the Qantar story as soon as possible
and I will share the findings with you and the programmers involved.
I am taking the liberty of sharing your note with Renaud Gilbert, the
Ombudsman for Radio-Canada. Ms. Saint-Pierre works for the French
Service
Yours truly,
Vince Carlin
Ombudsman, CBC”
Sounds like it could be promising. I’ll keep you posted.