The following is a real video clip from Quebec, not a comedy segment from The Onion. More here.
Thankfully, the backlash through social media, appears to have sufficiently embarrassed the Clouseau-like clods enough to back down for now.
Let’s hope that Alberta & Saskatchewan’s hard working citizens are content to see how their taxes are being spent. 🙁
It all seems funny when all’s well that ends well, but on second thought just another example of the chilling Kafka-like faceless bureaucratic totalitarianism that is endemic to modern government everywhere..
And on further reflection one sees just how far down the road we have traveled to Pavlov-like acceptance of the legitimacy of all-encompassing govt meddling/regulatory control when one hears/sees the restauranteur calmly aver that he didn’t really mind “reasonable” bureaucratic suggestions to wording changes/font size on his menus; it was just that they had gone to far you see..
Gone too far indeed..
I waiting for QuebecNDPissed to respond to this critique of his day job.
My favourite dish:
allongés à base de blé nouilles avec des boulettes de viande et sauce tomate
Give those Separatist Quebec Language Police “frog” legs, and the will “jump” all over you.
The same goes for the NDP(Q) – they have become the spokes-party for Quebec Separatist and “jump” at anything supporting Quebec separation.
When I went to the CTV video link, a Saskatchewan government ad started running, a commercial in which they promote Saskatchewan as a great place to move to, get a good job, and raise your family. I wonder if Brad Wall is so smart, that he had his people book that space, because the news report after should be cause for any “right” thinking people to get out of Quebec and prosper elsewhere.
I feel warm all over that 8.5 billion dollars rolls out of deficit ridden Alberta every year to placate the French welfare babies, since they are so pro abortion, it is time Alberta and Saskatchewan aborted this downs syndrome province, let the orange wave have it. These useless takers should be made to pay their own way, children never grow up until mommy and daddy quit paying all the kiddies bills.
Don’t get knots in yer toga…
Remember Queerback can’t build a safe bridge….
Bingo.
The restauranteur isn’t concerned at all about the gross rights violation that the language laws represent – as a matter of fact, he supports it.
He’s just irritated about the pettiness of this particular action.
He deserves the ride he’s getting…and going to get.
I always thought that the only words you needed to know in Frog is “I surrender”, so you don’t hurt their soldiers after they give up, and I don’t even know that. Now, the french are trying to academize any place in the world there someone might speak frog? I hope the word “frog” really upsets the quebecizis, since the insults I got from them in france were much worse. We still do have the First Amendment here in The US, which we defend against our speech police (libruls) although, I notice our cousins up north have no such protection from the speech police.
Anecdote: Way back in the ’60s, outside the caserne in Portier, someone had painted “Yankee Go Home” in huge letters on a concrete wall facing the entrance. The Newsies made real hay out of this shouting how much the french hated their American “guests”, “saviors?”, until someone published a picture of American soldiers painting the sign.
I watched the video for a while, and it struck me that what’s wrong with Canada right now is that this guy on the TV was surprised. He’s shocked at the behaviour of some government apparatchiks, doing something that is clearly arbitrary, unfair and pointless.
Then I read Virgil Xenophon’s comment above, citing the Kafkaesque nature of this behaviour, and that comment is right on. We are all frogs in a pot, and the water is getting really hot.
I watched it, and the thought that I had was that some day SOON we are going to see a video of some guy hauled before a tribunal or a court to defend the type of shoes he’s wearing. Or his belt buckle, or the number and type of chairs in his house, or some utterly insane and pointless @ssh0lery that is being taken deadly seriously by a government department.
Like how many rounds a magazine takes, just for instance. That’s insane and pointless, but its the hottest topic in government right now.
The communication which must be made to people like this restaurant owner is that this insanity is the PURPOSE of big government. This is not a surprise, its the predictable and intended result.
They’re doing it on purpose. Grab a clue, dudes.
It’s remarkable that this poor fellow is being victimized for a simple word that the “inspectors” dislike, when if one was to stroll along rue Salaberry in Cartierville you are presented with shop after shop displaying huge signs in Arabic with not a single french word to be found.
I guess the inspectors aren’t as stupid as they appear.
To paraphrase from the Gomery Commission, Quebec’s Language Law makes the world classless province look “small-town cheap”.
They should know better.
Watching news reports from provinces east of Manitoba is like watching foreign TV when you are traveling. It’s kind of interesting but I don’t feel any connection to them or their self-inflicted problems. Lately watching Quebec news is like following a really low budget TV drama produced by 1st year drama students. I cannot believe how much status is given to a province so lacking in political integrity and common sense.
Wasn’t the intent of the “Quiet Revolution”, to free les quebecois from isolation to the rest of the World? Wasn’t one of the features of that isolation that most of the population spoke only an ancient version of French?
Won’t the result of the current francization of Quebec simply lead to a return of that isolation?
Rhetorical questions, I know.
Why is the conversation always about ‘we’ dealing with Quebec? Quebec is not important to most Western Canadians, we don’t even think about it except with gritted teeth when we pay our taxes. Quebec does not think about Western Canadians either unless the cheque for ‘province support’ is not as big as the blocistas want it to be. English speaking people are not welcome in Quebec – only their wallets are welcome; why should Western Canadians strain to please unpleasant Kebecers when they move or visit here?
The facts are above: so someone please tell me why Western Canadians are paying for French translations on everything here? Why are we paying for public (taxpayer funded) French schools outside of Quebec? Are Western Canadians stupid cowards (like the guy in the video)? Western Canada owes the east nothing – the east has always been on the receiving end of this lopsided country – the western end of this country should be rattling sabres, not Quebec.
Jema, I don’t disagree with anything you said. However, are you aware that all of the following things in BC are directly related to Quebec:
1. The number of MPs we have.
2. The number of dairy farmers.
3. The number of egg farmers.
And probably a whole lot of other things too. I was not aware of #2 & #3 until the “Bellingham Costco Milk Fiasco” occurred. When I learned of them, I was speechless.
Well the Saudis have their Religious Police while
Quebecers have the Language Police.
Same mindset.
Well the obvious answer is because Quebec still has enough ridings to make it relevant but this relevance is waning after each census. The West’s economy and population is growing faster than Quebec. Even Sask has had a small baby boom over the last few years. Quebec will now have 78 seats while BC/AB/SK have 42/34/14 for a total of 90. The last census gave Que. 3 new seats while adding 6/6/0 to the western provinces.
Ontario (124 ridings) voters seem to be choosing to align with the more financially stable West and less interested in appeasing the bankrupt drama queens in Quebec.
Economically and demographically, Quebec is circling the bowl. I doubt young people from Quebec will be willing to be tax serfs to pay for the debts of the previous ‘social justice’ generations. It’s really just a waiting game.
Robert – I was not aware of those stats – interesting – I live in the Yukon and most of the milk on the shelves is imported from far away Quebec milk. I always buy the Western brand – even if it costs a few cents more.
Big box stores bankrupted the dairy/egg farmers who once operated here.
With the dairy, poultry, and eggs. If one province pulled out of the marketing boards, they would be flooded by the others to educate them. The days of supply management are numbered as countries are becoming less willing to do trade deals with protected markets intact.
First of all, if there is no word for ‘Pizza’ in the french language then this guy should demand one. Have the ‘National’ (frig I hate that term) Assembly determine a french word for pizza. One that is acceptable to all other (at least partially) french centers in Canada (Edmonston, Sudbury, etc.) Then have France and any other country around the world accept the new term as well. This will give the restaurateur something to work with.
Ultimately, I think it should be up to the Montreal mafia to post a few ‘persuaders’ in each Italian restaurant that has this issue (hey, it may be Montreal but those guys still like their pasta and this can’t be the only place that is being affected). If ‘language police’ officers started going all Hoffa it would send a message to the top. And the mafia guys are equipped to make that happen.
“Mama! Ou est papa?”
“Dunno kid, he’s late for dinner – about 12 years late…”
“aborted this downs syndrome province”
That’s a pretty classless metaphor, whatever your feelings are towards quebec.
mhb23re
my first question was, what lefty party did this guy votes for at election time, as most EyeTies vote lieberal. So maybe he got what he votes for
If the Monty Python crew ever needed inspiration for a re-start, Quebec – with its asinine language laws, insularity, crumbling infrastructure and infantile economics – would provide years of source material.
I mean, how much dope would a guy have to smoke to make this stuff up?
This preoccupation of the Frogs with having a Gallic equivalent for every word in existence is a peculiar, puzzling perversion of that race. Every other language grows organically and Slavic languages are shameless importers of English technical terms; so much so that knowing only a smattering of Russian I can easily read Russian computer articles. This perversion is so profound that even words which are almost identical in English and Frog are required by law to be on a sign; a useless waste of space. Also, a great many English words are imported Froggish following the Norman invasion.
If the Frogs were truly concerned with preserving their culture, then they could learn to breed again instead of aborting their fetuses and using totalitarian laws to impose Frog signs and language on the population. Quebec is a total irrelevancy and should be the first province cut loose from Canada. We’d save billions/year in welfare payments, no more hiring of silly servants whose only talent is being able to speak two languages, an end to Frog labels on products, and a saving of the huge amount of time that is required by people living in the west to black out the Frog sections of product labels to make them readable. Based on the cost of my time, I estimate that there’s $5K or more of medical billings I could have done in the amount of time it takes me to use a black felt marker on Canadian product labels and government forms. I do make a point of crossing out all of the Frog on any document that various government departments want me to send to them regarding medical issues.
The only way that we’ll end this statist idiocy is through as much ridicule as possible. These morons in Quebec can’t handle ridicule and they’ll be getting a lot of it now that the world has discovered this self-parodying population in Canada.
Lower Canada has untold mineral wealth, oil and gas waiting to be tapped, and farmland that feeds more of its share of the dominion. Any French Canadian who wants to leave Canada knows where Dorval airport is, and good riddance. They’re not taking a square inch of the Dominion with them.
I estimate it would take only about what is sent to Quebec City in equalization payments in a year to buy every French Canadian a one-way plane ticket to any land whose rulers are daft enough to take them in. Permit them to take the clothes on their backs and whatever petty personal effects of purely sentimental value will fit in their carry-on luggage. That’s more than they planned to allow loyal Canadians if Quebec became “sovereign,” so if I didn’t know better I’d expect them to be grateful.
The contents of the Caisse alone would cover the cost several times over and leave enough to clear most of the Queen of Canada’s debts—almost all of it racked up by the French in the first place. Following behind that windfall would be ample oil and gas revenues to pay for a national dividend, see off the GST, or both. Lower Canada could be re-opened to British settlement and finally become the asset to the Dominion it could be rather than the burden it is.
Then again, the small things are often the most important. In the rest of Canada, I expect people would mostly be grateful to never again have to hear another word of French.
“..The only way that we’ll end this statist idiocy is through as much ridicule as possible…_
Amen. It’s a tactic that works on politicians, pundits and pequistes – expose them as the posturing dinks that they are. They have never had it pointed out to them how pathetic, laughable, and insignificant the really are.
I knew that something was wrong when I couldn’t figure out whether the big box on my driveway held a refrigerator or a refrigerateuer. Since I live in Oklahoma we call them ice boxes. The frogs are proof of the cliche that “Some are born wise and some otherwise.” At least I know what Hecho means – it is a lizard that lives in Mexico. If you pronounce the “H” in spanglish, you get the name of an insurance company.