Don Macpherson, (in a farewell column for the Montreal Gazette);
“It’s because you don’t count.”
That’s what a francophone journalist told me back in 2003, after I remarked to him that the non-francophones who were the Quebec Liberal Party’s most loyal supporters were underrepresented in Jean Charest’s new Liberal cabinet.
What he said was brutally frank, but he was right about the political influence of non-francos in this province. And he will probably be proven right again in the new year, when our federal government as well as our provincial one are to present new language policies.
Recent developments have not been encouraging.
In Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week his Liberal government will amend the Official Languages Act to protect the right to work in French in Quebec businesses under federal jurisdiction.
This could mean the end of equal protection for the language rights of anglos and francos in federal jurisdiction.
It’s not time for Quebec to go, it’s time for us to go.
Go where?
Hide behind your Mommy’s skirt?
If you are any or all of English, White, Conservative, Christian or Male, you are and have been a Government-mandated, Court-sanctioned, Media-approved target for at least the last 42 years.
And what have you been doing?
Do you really think that continuing to take a knee is going to make things better?
Of course not.
Bullies get worse not better when not confronted.
Look around you. Serf.
Constitution by and for politicians and lawyers.
No property rights.
Deliberately.
Section One. All your nicely enumerated “rights” are subject to veto.
Deliberately.
A completely not blind legal system that may become a justice system if you pony up enough canadian pesos.
Deliberately.
Phony Country through and through. Even your pm calls it postnational. I blame the Phony Education System.
Phony Bilingualism. Don’t speak French? No management soup for you.
Phony Borders. Liberal voters always welcome. Listen for the sounds of gunfire in Toronto the Good.
Phony Army(boots on the ground half the L A police dept)
Phony Navy(billions and billions boondoggle ships and giggles for submarines)
Phony Air Force(if they can stay aloft, it’s like watching history fly by)
Phony RCMP(your affirmative action coattails are showing)
Phony Media(the Swamp’s Media. Stealing elections for the Swamp’s Liberal Party forever. Zero pushback)
Canadian conservatives are making world records for passivity, ignorance and cowardice.
Apparently frozen in fear or bovine contentedness.
This lifelong conservative has to ask.
Is there anything more pathetic than a canadian conservative?
Shotski: Well done sir! You have eloquently summarized what so many of us from the same species have been thinking and saying over the years in bits and pieces here in the SDA comments.
I would suggest adding three more characteristics of today’s Canada, which are further evidence of our rapid decline:
Phony public servants (over 20% of those employed; most don’t serve the public; grossly inefficient; stifling the private sector; increasingly corrupt to serve the interests of their political masters).
Phony nation-to-nation relations with over 620 First Nations (more $billions every year to serve the chiefs and their enablers while the vast majority of indigenous people live with depression and poverty).
Phony universal health care (the only developed country in the world which outlaws competition with the “system” from the private sector; rapidly rising costs while wait lists get longer and more bureaucrats are hired.)
Excellent additions OttawaMJ!!!
Much like dumb relatives, I suspect everybody has a Phony Canada favorite.
So much to choose from in our 100% mixed race country with language and color and gender and hunting and fishing and rioting laws for some but not all.
Reminds me of this special New Brunswick Public Service moment.
A few years back, our brilliant Liberal Provincial Government showed some good old-fashioned creative canadian socialist ingenuity.
Not only would they solve New Brunswick’s endemic unemployment problem, they would also solve Gender and Income Inequity!
Bells rang, angels sang and bullshit reigned/rained.
The amazingly wunnerful masterful solution you ask?
Hire Public Servants.
Lots and lots of them.
And, and I know! Let’s make them all women!
Even better, let’s pay them way more than they deserve or the market supports.
More Government, more Women, more Income Equity!
A trifecta of Stupid.
Results you ask?
70,000 Public Servants in a province of 780,000.
The vast majority women, being severely overpaid in a bankrupt province doing nobody knows what.
Maybe you too can get rich the NB way!
Just give your kids a huge allowance.
Borrow if you have to.
Math doesn’t matter to Liberals.
It shouldn’t matter to you.
Respect the science.
++++++++++++++/\ Shotski
Bury the bastards. Crude right, well there is little left in this country except crude.
shotski, nice list, and well stated. Unfortunately you are right. As to the language, it’s obvious that the natural progression of laurentian planning would pass such a goal post. We English sheeple are just to stupid to realize they are not, and never have been, and never will be, our friends. Payback for the plains of Abraham. It took four hundred years, but that is the truth of it. It just shows how petty, mean, nasty, and vindictive, the laurentian elites are. Your list is self explanatory. If it ain’t French, it ain’t needed, and anything they can do to water down English validity will be used. They are jealous that English is the international language of business and diplomacy, and still insist that it should be the French language.
For years now English has been the language for international business and diplomacy, while French is now only spoke in a few shithole African nations. A lot of nations now teach English as a second language in schools. But typically Canada is worried and wastes resources on a dead language.
Yes, chauvinism is a powerful thing. Similar foolishness in Ireland where they insist on using an incomprehensible dialect just because it’s not English.
Precisely.
In my time teaching ESL, no one has asked me to teach them French.
You are correct.
Even though their demographics look like…
Chinese 73.4 %
Malay 13.4 %
Indian 9.0 %
…English is the language of commerce in Singapore.
That’s it that’s all.
There are over a million English-speaking exiles from Quebec who have settled elsewhere in Canada. They were forced out by anti-English and anti-business laws and regulations put in place by the provincial government starting in the 1970s. Pandering to the French majority in Quebec, the federal government did nothing to protect the rights of English speakers.
There are still over a million English-speakers in Quebec, almost all in the Montreal area.
The best solution to deal with the constant whining by, and preferential treatment for, French Quebec is to partition Quebec into two parts, one part to stay within Canada and one to become an independent country. There is a compelling legal argument for partitioning – most of what is now the province of Quebec was not part of the territory of France when it ceded that territory to Great Britain in 1763.
The part of Quebec that stays in Canada would have one official language – English. The new Canada would have only one official language – English.
Yes, I remember years ago, I could not get service in French in a Montreal Sears. Well, I learned English and barely use French anymore. I always found it strange that people that lived in Quebec for generations could not be bothered to learn French, a language spoken by 90% of the people in the Province.
I grew up in “Eeengleesh” Moan Reall, back when we ducked exploding mailboxes. I used to work in northern Kaybec, later in life. Local businesses refused to deal in French, insisted on Eeengleeesh, sent their kids to English schools in places like North Bay and Sudbury.
We pay baksheesh from Alberrrrdah (payola, that’s what it is), to keep these commies (that’s what they are) around and gave them all jobs in the Sibble Serpents ’cause billingue, country wide and they lecture us about the industry that feeds us out here, while they flooded miles of northern Kaybec, generate electricity for export to Nu Yawk and don’t have to include that income in what makes up Equl’zation. Travel to the National Parks, lotta bilingues in parts of Kan-eh-duh where English and Cree are spoken. Went to Baffin Island once, I thought I was in Kaybec. K’riss tabernac. Most of the white population there could barely speak h’Eeeengleesh. When they weren’t looking, I’d switch to Fwench to tell them that if they want to hide behind their language to spit on les Anglais to their faces, make damned sure we don’t speak the lingo, too. They were Federal employees, to boot. MF’s!
I see no mention of taking money from English speaking provinces.
Trudeau, in order to win a majority in the next federal election,,, needs to win ridings in Que-becK
KuebeKK
What can one say?
It is right for Q’bec to decide on what is going on in Q’bec. They don’t have right to demand of other provinces to pay for it.
By the same standard it is right for Alberta to decide what is going on in Alberta.
The problem of course arises when people of Alberta have to pay for what Q’bec decides to blow money on.
Q’bec does not want to separate, they are in the dough, why would they. It is sufficient for them to threaten to separate, therein comes the money.
The real dilemma is that there is no politician in this country that would tell Q’bec, no more other people’s money, take it or leave it.
Q’bed will not separate, there is no money in it.
On the other hand it will be very good for the rest of the country it they did.
Q’beckers should be encouraged at every opportunity to go their own country.
End of story.
Right – economically – why should Quebec itself choose to separate? It has set up an infrastructure where it is economically secure – far more securely than if it were a separate nation. Its industries, whether dairy, Bombardier, SNC and etc, are privileged and protected. Its citizens, as bilingual, are all given federal job positions and essentially run the federal government. It even has its own separate federal political party which its citizens alone vote for – yet, this same party makes decisions about ‘the Rest of Canada’ – without electoral accountability.
It receives millions in transfer payments – far more than it contributes in taxes. It alone of all the provinces [and Quebec does not consider itself a province or part of Canada] runs its own immigration system; has its own legal system; has guaranteed numbers on the Senate – and costs Canadian taxpayers millions with the requirement for bilingualism in all documents. It need not provide its own defense budget – and ..transfers many of its costs [refugees, etc] on to ‘the ROC’.
Therefore – with such a comfortable set-up, presenting itself always as Victim of anglophones – why on earth should Quebec separate? That’s why it’s vital for the West to finally stand up for itself- and separate from Quebec. Why? Economics. It’s simply too expensive for the people of the West to support not only themselves, but also Quebec.
What equal protection? The fact is, that bilingualism is a necessary requirement for office, both elected and unelected, in the federal government. That’s our Charter, Section 15.
This is not merely for key CEO and deputy roles; it’s basic to the whole federal bureaucracy – and is a key employment area for Quebecois.
And since at least 85% of the Canadian population is not bilingual – then, this obviously means that the majority of Canadians have no role in their own governance [ah, except for the once-every-few-years-irrelevant-vote].
This is what is known as an oligarchy, aka, the Laurentian Elite. And – it’s embedded in concrete, stone and mythic self-glorification and ‘feelings of guilt and compassion for having won the war’ and entrapping a separate nation in the morass of North American anglophones. [Quebec makes no distinction between Americans and Canadians – they are both ‘other’].
Confronted by Quebecers about his Constitution, Trudeau told them he had given them the keys to the country, so use them.
First time a Trudeau told the truth to your typical “Tu me prends vraiment pour une conne” English.
Perfect example of conquering a country without firing a shot. No wonder the Commies and the Democrats love their Libranos. Respect.
Although I suspect human life is not a priority for any of them. In fact, persecution, purges and pogroms are often features.
Certainly, English Premiers of the time richly deserve kudos as the Greatest Canadian Cucks of All Time!
Or the Dumbest F*cks.
Still today, nary a whimper from the Canadian Mice.
The wails and lamentations to come will require a new canadian word for schadenfreude.
“It’s because you don’t count.” – the Spawn’s sentiments about Western Canada.
Correction: “It’s because you never did count.”
BADR: I think your comment is about Western Canada, and I agree it never counted. However, English-speaking Quebeckers were, at one time, in control of Quebec, both economically and politically:
“English-speakers have gone from overrepresentation to underrepresentation in the provincial government. In the century following the British conquest, the political establishment was disproportionately dominated by English-speakers.”
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/english-speaking-quebecer
Note: the British conquest occurred in 1759-60 and was formalized by a treaty with France in 1763.
I’m not sure of your point. The anglophone world was dominant in Quebec because the francophone population was itself repressed, if I may use the word, within the ‘other’ key governmental force in Quebec: The Church.
The Church kept the francophones from the industrial and business world – and isolated in what was really a peasant- and unlingual- agriculturalism – for centuries. That meant that the anglophone population moved into the industrial market economy – particularly since it required interaction with the anglophone populations of the ROC and the USA. Quebecois at the time, were not bilingual and almost terrified to venture into the anglophone world. Such isolationism is still in evidence – and there are many Quebecois who have never ventured into the ROC or USA and, if they travel, interact only with francophone nations.
I, at one time, naively thought – as we were taught in school – that Quebec was ‘one of the provinces’ of Canada. It wasn’t until I moved there, that I realized what a false narrative this was!!!
ET: I don’t disagree with your comment which helps explain why the English in Quebec were dominant for a time. My point was in response to the quote in the Macpherson article regarding English-speaking Quebeckers (“It’s because you don’t count”). For over a century, English-speaking Quebeckers did count, until the “revenge of the cradle” raised the French-speaking population to being overwhelmingly dominant in the province.
Never counted? Can’t really say that.
Essentially, the West did matter for awhile. That is, as long as the French could control the language we speak. They failed. It was a stain on Wilfred Laurier’s career as PM as far as the French were concerned. They will never let the West live it down.
The crux of the matter i.e. the alienation between the French Québéçois and the West can best be described here. From the link below:
“Alberta and Saskatchewan aka The NW Territories mattered to Ottawa (mostly) between 1900 and 1905. Since the turn of that century the Canadian government had been actively trying to encourage settlement in the territories particularly from new immigrants to Canada. Clifford Sifton, Minister of the Interior in Wilfrid Laurier’s government, spearheaded the campaign to attract people from Europe and the United States to come and enjoy the opportunities offered by “the last best West.” with the promise of 64 hectares of good farm land.
In the early days of Territorial government, French, Roman Catholic education had equal status with English, Protestant schools, but over the years this had changed. By the time Alberta and Saskatchewan were to be created as official provinces in 1905, education was primarily in English. The Autonomy Bills creating the new provinces had a clause added to them that would bring back French Catholic schooling, but Clifford Sifton opposed the idea and resigned. Laurier decided to compromise by accepting Sifton’s resignation, but letting him rewrite the clause anyway. The result was to anger Quebec while losing a strong voice for the west in Parliament – a loss on all sides for Laurier.”
Otherwise, we would all be speaking French now if Laurier
had had his way, back then.
http://canadahistoryproject.ca/1905/index.html
P.S. Perhaps the big POW-POW coming up will be to remove the image of Sir Wilfred Laurier from the $5 Bill?
Nice map eh?
The fact that the federal government as well as the Quebec provincial one are to present new language policies in the new year should be no surprise to anyone. That they like to constantly tinker with their anti Anglo laws and remind Anglophones of this, is par for the course with them. They never quit. They do this because they are afraid of their own demise in terms of losing their own French language and culture within their own province. So it is! Political influence of non-francos is and always will be such that we just “don’t count.”
Back in 2018 Premier François Legault took over the job of the Minister responsible for “Relations with English-Speaking Quebecers”(official title). It used to belong to Minister Kathleen Weil:
http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/deputes/weil-kathleen-33/index.html?appelant=MC
She is the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, aka N.D.G. in Montreal, a very Anglo part of the city. This particular job was created on October 11, 2017 and lasted until October 18, 2018. It was taken away on the 99th anniversary of the birth of Pierre Trudeau. Coincidence? I think not. He was part of that legacy in the province. He created what he did as his own legacy. Like Joke Biden said, “you know the thing,” in this case, it was the Quebec Crisis. This is the way these people operate, they like to change history but they actually remember it by their actions. They are fooling no one.
Secondly, the Gazette’s Don MacPherson writes:
“Three years ago, during the great bonjour-hi “crisis,” I wrote that I had discovered the secret of happiness for Quebanglos: just ignore the politics.”
Exactly. The “spoken” word does not even apply. The great bonjour-hi “crisis” was pure nonsensical theatre. The language law is only applicable to the written word. According to the law any language that is spoken is not against the Quebec language law. Again, they are fooling no one. The Quebanglos are right to ignore the politics, for their own sanity, or else leave, like I did in the great exodus of the 1970s.
Lastly, happy retirement to Don MacPherson and thanks for your contribution to one of Canada’s oldest shamatas, The Montreal Gazette. Au revoir et merci, in case you are in Quebec, you’ll have to respect this piece as being within the law, being a piece that is BILINGUE!
P.S.
“Quebanglos?” That’s a new one! Ha ha!
Froggy is an endangered species. His influence is diminishing by degree and he knows it. The arrogance of the fwench is widely recognized – they are universally despised for it.
They import immigrants from the fwench speaking world but these people don’t give a hoot about quebek, it’s history or culture. They are only interested in getting to Canada….and maybe not even staying in quebekkie.
As the % of the quebek population continues the slide toward English as their first language expect restrictive language laws, and individual rights to be trampled on by the fwench minority and their Prime Ministers.
Quebec is Canada’s largest De Facto Indian Reserve. It’s an ethnic ghetto, centuries-marinated in Anglo resentment, blessed with corrupt governance, collectivist and pandered to by the federal government. The Indian Reserve is actually the model for all of Canada to which the Liberal-NDP-Green-Media complex party aspires.
I live in Ottawa.
For those of you from other parts of the country, many here in Ottawa refer to K-bec as “The Dark Side.” If you say I’m going to The Dark Side people know exactly where you’re going – across the Ottawa river to K-bec.
There are a lot of English speakers who hate the French.
I don’t and they shouldn’t.
I respect them because they take care of their own.
Its also why I’ll never vote for a political party led by a K-becer.
And yet the dumb assed canadians will still vote liberal, there is no cure.
MacPherson: ” I remarked to him that the non-francophones who were the Quebec Liberal Party’s most loyal supporters were underrepresented in Jean Charest’s new Liberal cabinet.”
Estis la! Are we to shed tears for a water carrier of the Laurentian Elites cuz he’s a disenfranchised Anglo in Quebec? Comprenez un chose: Quebec est Quebec.
The Quebec nationalists sent many of the Laurentian Elites and their water carriers packing to Toronto c. 1970. Meanwhile the Quebecois have been able to cut out federal powers for themselves that the ROC can envy. Back then, Canada was being sold out and being turned into a foreign owned branch plant economy.
One lone voice in the great white Northern wilderness called attention to the sell-out: Mel Hurtig. He was silenced by the Laurentian elites. Did the Anglais water carriers care that the country was being sold out?
In the past 4 decades the Laurentian Elites have turned globalist. Other than for some unwashed deplorables, do the Anglo water carriers care any more today?
“”Historically, the Laurentian Elite were Upper Canadian Anglo-Protestants and Québécois Patricians, and their descendants still dominate the upper strata of politics, the bureaucracy, Crown corporations and agencies, academia and media. Private-sector membership tends toward legacy industries (particularly banking/finance and manufacturing), often dominated by multi-generational families.”””
The Laurentian Elites have turned globalist – and not Canadian; that is, their economic interests have nothing to do with the population of Canada or with the development of the Canadian economy but only with the global economic interests of these Elites.
As for the federal powers – the fact that bilingualism means that Quebecois effectively run the government, both elected and unelected/appointed; and that they even have their own Quebec-vote only party in a federal government – etc is hardly something to be proud of. That is, to continue to define oneself as ‘part of Canada’, to take money from the other provinces – and yet, give nothing in return, is an identity that lacks ethics and integrity.
Was Harper Laurentian Elite? Harper brought in a new equalization formula in 2007 that ended up paying Quebec even more. Years later some Western premiers balked and wanted the formula changed? Harper did NADA. Why? Because it would have been political suicide for the CPC to cut payments to Atlantic Canada and Quebec.
Where’s the lack of ethics and integrity? On the part of the community in Nova Scotia or Quebec getting the Bingo hall renovated or on the part of the CPC government buying votes to keep hold of the reigns of power?
Quebec doesn’t use the money for trivia – ie, the bingo hall renovated – and you know it.
You are ignoring the key points I made – that Quebec receives far more in ‘equalization’ payments than it contributes – despite it hardly being a ‘have-not’ province. And the benefits it receives, in the way of official bilingualism – which means it runs the federal govt; and its own immigration and legal system; and the control over key non-elected institutions [by virtue of set numbers on boards, eg, Senate, Supreme Court]; by virtue of its being allowed its own political party in the federal legislature…
Political suicide? Yes – a population that self-defines itself as ‘more deserving, more worthy’ of extra benefits than the so-called ‘other provinces’ [and Quebec does not see itself as a province] – would indeed vote against any government that insisted that it be treated as an equal – and not special. So- is such a threat, such an insistence on ‘being special’ and requiring extra, extra, extra – is that ethical? Is that a sign of integrity?
I will happily fund as many abortion clinics as possible in the pur laine areas of Quebec. Play the long game and remember, the future belongs to those who show up.
Mel Hurtig was a nationalist and a socialist IOW a national socialist. Let me see….. isn’t there another word for that?
It will be interesting to see Qubec’s final solution to the English question.
Using the third world for your maternity ward has consequences. Who knew?
“This could mean the end of equal protection for the language rights of anglos and francos in federal jurisdiction.”
Obviously Mr. Ferguson has forgotten the Orwellian Prime Directive of the Liberal Party when it comes to Quebec: “some animals are more equal than others.”
Hi people from SDA! this is my first post here for 10 years…
glad to see ET is still here. I remember her from the comment section on acoyne blog back in 2004.
Anyway.
The reality is that bilingualism is rarely a requirement even at the federal level. Another thing is that many anglophones are tagged as bilingual even if they are not really.. (they just have some very minimal french language skills). Once they are tagged bilingual they remain for life even tho they end up losing their skills with time.
The idea that in 2020, Quebec run the federal government is laughable.
The reality is that Montréal is increasingly anglophone and hostile to french. This is especially due to the constant influx of immigrants who assimilate into english in Montreal.
The idea that english “rights” is being attacked is totally false. English is the dominant world language and QC anglos benefits from that a lot.
Don Macpherson is an interesting guy: while he has no personal hostility to the french language at the personal individual level (he himself speaks french at near native level, tweets in french a lot), but he is clearly hostile to french as a politic goal.
Anyway, french should stay the dominant language in Quebec. Anglo must accept their minority status and stop whining. Bilingualism is fine as long as its not subtractive bilingual and french should remain dominant in Quebec.
Quebec should protect its french language the same way Israel protect its jewishness (see Israel nation-state law). Imagine Quebec doing the same thing?
“Equal protection”… ha… thats a good one.
When french language supremacist Peeair the Turdhole imposed french on an English speaking nation he never envisioned it as an act of ‘equality” it was always an act of radical bigotry granting a special status to the minority french talker, thats what the imposition of Turdholes OLA was all about and that is what it has achieved.
The setting up of a racket, a french language racket run like a mafia organization unaccountable and untouchable to the taxpayer who are forced to pay for it whether they like it or not.
While french language supremacist Peeair Turdhole was busy imposing french on Canada and all of her institutions his fellow french language supremacist comrades in Queerbek were imposing french as the “official language” of Quuerbek.
The bigoted tail has been wagging the beleaguered and estranged dog ever since.
The OLA was Peeair Turdholes way of imposing institutional bigotry that benefits one group, franco talkers, and his imposed Charter is the document that constitutionalizes and protects that bigotry. It was deviously clever to refer to the imposition of french under the term, “bilingualism”… it fools people into believing that this obscenely expensive inherently bigoted scheme has something to do with the English language when in reality its sole purpose was the constant and consistent imposing and promotion of french, solely benefitting the french talker, but paid for by the English speaker… nice racket. In other words its a bigoted constitutionally protected FU#k You to English speaking Canadians from a malice driven, mentally deranged, french language supremacist and his comrades.
The decline of Canada and its institutions from stability and greatness into the abyss of corruption, unaccountability and incestuous tribal bigotry can be laid at the feet of this deliberately divisive, corrosive and bigoted scheme. Just what the country needs more of, apparently.