The new consensus (Apolitical Staples)

Greg:

I was with him up to the end. The ADQ will only help Harper in so much as the rest of Canada ignores what the ADQ stands for. The minute someone wants “autonomous” spelled out, the ADQ becomes a liability to Harper outside Quebec.

Posted by Greg | April 9, 2007 1:29 PM

Posted on April 9, 2007 13:29

Ted:

I concur with Greg. Adam is probably correct right up until the end when he concludes the Quebec election was definitely good for Harper.

Here’s what I wrote in the comments over there:

Nice summary. Although I think, if you were to be a little bit non-partisan about it, you would classify the results being good for Harper as being MAY BE TRUE.

He spent a ton of ROC capital to win Quebec voters. The latest SES polls show that for every additional supporter he gained in Quebec, he lost one in Ontario and the prairies and BC.
Fiscal conservatives are steeming with all his broken promises on fiscal and economic issues and his huge spending increases. When they see that going into Quebec and when they see that going into individual Quebecer pockets via Charest tax breaks funded by the rest of us, are they going to rally around Harper or stay home?
Ontario and Quebec have a general pattern of voting in opposite directions provincially and federally. So you have a Liberal government in Ontario and a Conservative one in Ottawa: from Trudeau-Davis, Mulroney-Peterson, Chretien-Harris and now Harper-McGuinty, it is a clearer pattern in Ontario.

In Quebec is seems to be federalist-separatist: with Levesque, they were content to vote for a federalist like Trudeau or an appeaser like Mulroney; with Bourassa, they pushed and eventually created and voted BQ federally; with the PQ in power in the mid-90s, they voted BQ but also Chretien. The pattern is not as tight in Quebec, but we are seeing a shift. There is another Mulroney-like appeaser heading the federal government and so they may give Harper a chance. If Quebecers see Dumont as a federalist or someone willing to work WITH Harper and Charest, they may want a stronger Quebec-first-and-only voice in Ottawa and vote Bloc.

Similarly, Dumont, now closer to real power, may feel compelled to distance himself from both Charest and Harper. If he’s politically smart, and he is, he’ll wait for Harper to hand over even more cash to Charest yet another favourable deal, and then say it isn’t enough, that Harper and Charest are selling Quebec the autonomous nation short of its due.

The point is that it is too early to tell whether this is good for Harper or not. It is, however, possible to conclude that it is not immediately bad for him.

Posted by Ted | April 9, 2007 3:16 PM

Posted on April 9, 2007 15:16

Anthony Silvestro:

Speaking English is not shameful

Brigitte Pellerin

Remember the Eaton’s lady who allegedly traumatized an entire generation of Quebecers by telling them to speak English in a Montreal store? She’d be a refreshing choice as the country’s Commissioner of Official Languages, instead of yet another anglo who seems to feel it’s somehow shameful that the majority of people in Canada speak English.

It gives me no pleasure to give the knuckle-bone shampoo to Graham Fraser, the former Toronto Star writer who just replaced Dyane Adam in that post. I don’t know him well (I believe we briefly met twice), but he strikes me as a kind and gentle man. And yes, his mastery of the French language is remarkable – he speaks much better French than many Quebecers. But his complaining that Ottawa is not welcoming to francophones is wrong, misguided and anti-useful.

“You put yourself in the shoes of a French-speaking Quebecer who has come to Ottawa,” he said, “and you think: ‘There is not a lot of outreach here, there is not a lot of welcome, not a lot of indication that this is my capital city … that it’s welcoming me’”.

He also told a House of Commons committee, “I am sometimes astounded to see that, as far as language goes, Ottawa is not very welcoming to francophones. I think that it is a tradition in Ottawa to be resistant to francophones’ demands. I think that businesses in the capital should realize that in strictly commercial terms, there is a market of francophones, who are unilingual and much more comfortable in French in this city. People should not find themselves in a unilingual city, to all intents and purposes, once they leave Parliament Hill. As a resident of Ottawa, I sometimes find it ridiculous that Ottawa does not offer a more welcoming face to francophones.”

I’m told similar arguments can be found in Mr. Fraser’s recent book, Sorry, I Don’t Speak French, and I heard him make them in a television interview he gave Radio-Canada just before taking office. If he said anything about how the Quebec government treats its English-speaking minority, it wasn’t in that TV bit. But I did hear him, in a different interview, lament that English-Canadian universities don’t churn out bilingual students – as though French-Canadian universities fared any better.

What is he even talking about? I am a French-speaking Quebecer who came to Ottawa from Montreal almost six years ago. True, there was no welcoming committee – er, I mean, “outreach” – to mark my arrival. Nobody sent me so much as a box of Belgian truffles, an oversight about which, I admit, I am still miffed. But other than that, to say Ottawa is not welcoming to newcomers like me is a piece of gratuitous slander on the good people of this city.

Never have I felt unwelcome here. Not once. Nobody ever laughed at my accent or told me to go back where I came from. I was made to feel so much at home from day one that now it’s Montreal that feels kinda weird. If you were to go around town asking French-speaking Quebecers who now live in Ottawa whether they were made to feel welcome in their new city, I’m pretty confident you’d get a resounding yes from most of them – except, of course, the ones who make a point of wearing a chip on their shoulder the size of the Gaspé peninsula.

Mr. Fraser’s comments are also misguided because they suggest his main concern is francophones’ self-esteem and comfort level, as though they were the only ones worthy of his attention as the country’s official languages commissioner. Sure, francophones are a minority in North America and that’s why many people (self not among them) believe they deserve a bit of governmental coddling. But would it be too much to ask that anglophones’ rights, particularly in Quebec, at least be paid lip service to?

Even more annoying and counter-productive than this glaring one-sidedness is him using his office to tell francophones they are right to feel badly done to, despite decades of federal politicians pandering to their needs and millions of English-speaking Canadians struggling to learn French and making their kids learn it, too, simply because they believe that’s what good Canadians ought to do. I’ve seen worse linguistic persecution.

Ideally, the country’s Commissioner of Official Languages should be dedicated to fairness, balance and reason between the two linguistic groups. Since I’ve no hope of ever seeing such a person appointed, I’m starting to think it might be a good idea to bring back the Eaton’s lady.

At least she wasn’t ashamed to live in a country where most people happen to speak English.

This column first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, Thursday October 19, 2006 (A-16)

Our linguistic imbalance

Brigitte Pellerin

Never mind the fiscal imbalance where, the theory goes, all the money is on one side. Now we’ve got a linguistic imbalance. Where, as we now know thanks to the Affair of the French-Only Health Clinic, all the fairness and common sense are on one side only. Guess which one.

I’m pretty sure Shirley Ravary did not mean to create a big fuss when she showed up at the Centre de santé communautaire de l’Estrie in Cornwall to see her family physician about a stubborn cold. Her doctor had recently started working some of the time at the Centre de santé, and Ms. Ravary figured she could ask to see him even though she did not have an appointment. She was summarily turned away, not because the doctor could not see her or because the clinic does not take walk-in patients, but because Ms. Ravary is not a francophone.

Nobody asked her whether she needed emergency care or whether she would like to, I don’t know, use their phone to schedule an appointment with her doctor at his other clinic. All the staff at the Centre de santé cared about was that Ms. Ravary clear the premises of her annoying anglo presence.

Of course she’s mad. And so is her francophone husband. But apparently, there’s nothing wrong with turning away a non-francophone patient at an Ontario health clinic because, Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman explained, her case wasn’t urgent. (Yes, Mr. Smitherman is that good. He can tell from a distance. I am suitably impressed.)

Look, offering targeted services to minority groups who may otherwise have difficulty obtaining them is not necessarily a bad idea. It’s good that there’s a Montfort. In a perfect world, there’d be enough doctors for everybody and there would be no problem having francophone doctors treating francophone patients, Mandarin-speaking doctors treating Mandarin-speaking patients or bridge-playing doctors treating bridge-playing patients. But there aren’t enough doctors, and in any case we expect those there are to put patients ahead of politics. It’s certainly not fair to punish Ms. Ravary, whose doctor obviously speaks enough English to treat her anyway, just because he decided to work at a French-only clinic some of the time.

To test this proposition, just imagine if St. Michael’s Hospital in downtown Toronto turned away a patient who spoke only French, let alone if one in Quebec did. Can you hear the uproar in Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City, Sherbrooke and Gatineau? Me, too. And I’d think folks would be right to protest. But turn away an anglo woman from a French-only clinic and you’ll hear nary a peep.

Yes, the Citizen covered the story pretty extensively. But even Montreal’s anglophone paper the Gazette buried the story on page 10 last Friday, and I didn’t see any mention in the French-language dailies. There was no outraged op-ed, no indignant editorial, not even a letter to the editor. Why not? If a francophone patient had been turned away from an English-only health clinic in Westmount, we would have heard about it.

What’s that? You say there are no English-only health clinics in Westmount or anywhere else in Quebec? Well, that’s because they are not necessary, according to Health Minister Philippe Couillard. Of course.

A few years ago, a report funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage found virtually no English services outside of Montreal for victims of conjugal violence. Do you remember the outrage at the time? Me, neither. Apparently anglos aren’t necessary in Quebec, let alone welcome. For dare expose your customers to English lettering that’s not at least twice as small as the French, and you’re in big trouble.

Even if you’re displaying English expressions that are used every day by pizza-loving pure-laine French speakers. In 2003, a museum in Trois-Rivières promoted an exhibit on the evolution of the family meal with an billboard showing, in the words of the news story, “a giant nipple dripping with milk.” The museum received complaints, but not about the explicit image. It was the title of the show that was found offensive: “Québec All Dressed”. Few were upset by the picture.

And just this week, while people everywhere praised his televised performance, Bloc Québécois MP Réal Ménard found the time to complain that Justice Marshall Rothstein couldn’t speak French, which Mr. Ménard says should be mandatory for Supreme Court justices. Evidently, it’s not enough to have at least three judges (out of nine) from Quebec on the highest bench. They all have to speak French as well.

Yes, we do have a linguistic imbalance in this country. I don’t know about you, mais moi, je n’aime pas ça du tout.

This column first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, Thursday March 2, 2006 (A-14)

Canadian culture – or Quebec’s?

Brigitte Pellerin

Excuse me while I shake off the mud from the election campaign. Ahh, better. Now that we’re all properly spiffied up, let’s talk about culture. And about Quebec’s disproportionate influence over Canada’s cultural policy.

A little news item last week mentioned that federal Heritage Minister Liza Frulla had announced a $342-million increase in arts funding. It was lost in the sea of commentary about whether Stephen Harper ought to apologize for claiming the motorcycle-riding Liberals helped the mob break every law in Quebec (or words to that effect). His remarks were completely silly, of course – as far as I am aware, the Liberals never tried to sell yellow margarine in Jonquière. But the few people who noticed the arts-funding announcement made a point of emphasizing how the country’s cultural elites wept with joy.

It also sounds silly. And really, $342 million is not much for a federal government that spends close to $200 billion a year. So why worry?

Let’s see. There’s Ms. Frulla; she’s a talented politician and very dedicated to the cultural cause, which is fine. But she makes no secret of her ambition to craft a Canadian cultural policy based on the one she introduced in 1992 when she was the Quebec provincial cultural affairs minister in Robert Bourassa’s Liberal government. A policy that, according to many observers including columnist Marc Cassivi in last Thursday’s La Presse, made her “a darling of Quebec’s cultural milieus.”

Oh boy, just what we need. The 1992 Quebec cultural policy is, as you might expect, highly interventionist, and is working about as well as you’d expect: great for a few well-connected people who know how to get the subsidies, not great at all for the rest.

It’s not about to get better, either, thanks to the new UNESCO convention on cultural diversity that will make it easier for states to subsidize and sponsor “cultural expressions” without running afoul of international trade laws and treaties. The cultural diversity convention will also allow governments, if they are so inclined, to limit their citizens’ access to other countries’ cultural exports – say, to take an example completely at random, American movies, magazines and TV shows. If you thought Canadian culture was already suffocating under the heavy burden of state regulations, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The convention was strongly supported by France and Canada, very much including Quebec. Or should I say “and Canada because of Quebec”? Support for the convention is very strong among Montreal’s cultural elites. Quebec’s National Assembly voted unanimously earlier this month to adopt the, er, international convention, prompting Quebec’s Culture Minister Line Beauchamp to pronounce November 10 “un grand jour pour le Québec et pour la culture québécoise.” She also emphasized that before the UNESCO vote in Paris last October, no fewer than four Quebecers spoke in favour of the convention, including herself and Ms. Frulla. Not as infuriating as former Parti Québécois culture minister Diane Lemieux’s claim that Ontario has no culture, but not by much.

Something else. There’s a shift in focus and interest, within the federal government, from the Commonwealth to la Francophonie. Maybe you noticed that Prime Minister Paul Martin cancelled his appearance at the biannual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta last week, becoming the first Canadian prime minister to miss the event. Then Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew pulled out as well, without bothering to offer an excuse. So it was left to Senate Speaker Dan Hays and foreign affairs assistant deputy minister David Malone to represent the country.

On this at least, Mr. Martin’s government is no better than Jean Chrétien’s. As Chris Cobb wrote in the Citizen in March 2004, “For largely political reasons, the Chrétien government shifted enthusiasm, resources and funding to la Francophonie, the worthy but limited group that now includes the great French-speaking nations of Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. Canada contributes about $30 million in core administrative support to the Commonwealth and, through various routes, funnels about $50 million to la Francophonie. It’s small money in both cases and obviously doesn’t include hundreds of millions of dollars in unilateral and multilateral aid. But it does show where the commitment lies.”

Indeed, it does. And you don’t need me to draw you a little picture, do you? It’s one thing for Quebec to promote its own distinct culture. But it’s quite another for one province to influence Canada’s cultural policy so disproportionately.

It may not be as entertaining as mud-slinging contests, and perhaps not as crucially important as deciding which politician is the biggest lying liar and which is the scariest scary crow. But it matters. This is your country, too.

This column first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, Thursday December 1, 2005 (A-18)

A Quebec export we don’t need

Brigitte Pellerin

Oh boy, are we in a world of trouble. Now that Clarence-Rockland has become the first Ontario town to enact a bylaw requiring new business signs to be bilingual, we are faced with one big, enormous problem: What to do now that Quebec-inspired language regulations have crossed the border? If you listen to Ottawa politicians, nothing. Because the issue is, all together now, divisive. At least they got that part right.

Some, mind you, have felt the need to utter series of words that managed, somehow, to add nothing valuable whatsoever. Like Ottawa Centre MPP Richard Patten commenting that, “What would anyone have to complain about, unless they’re an absolute right-wing paranoid group and feel any growth in the sign of French is a conspiracy against the nation? Come on, we live in a bilingual country for God’s sake.”

Well. Leave aside, for the moment, the little problem of not understanding the difference between “having two official languages” and “being bilingual” and focus instead on Mr. Patten’s other objections. I don’t know about you, but I certainly qualify as “right wing” and yeah, let’s say I’m paranoid. (At least, I do lock my door at night.) But I do not see French signs as a threat to anything or anybody. You wish to advertise your products and services in French, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, English, or a mixture of all these? Be my guest. If I can’t read the sign, chances are I won’t go into your store. That’s your choice, and mine. It’s nobody else’s business.

At least, it shouldn’t be. Unfortunately Rockland’s bylaw, like Quebec’s language legislation, uses the coercive force of the state to regulate how private businesses and citizens address one another, thus dividing rather than uniting us, and trampling Sec. 2b of the otherwise beloved Charter in the process. Having two official languages means making sure government services are available in English and French and public servants who deal with the public are fluent in both languages (or at least that enough French-speaking employees are available in primarily anglophone areas and vice versa to meet demand). Please leave the rest of us in the non-public sector alone.

I understand the motive behind the spread of Quebec-type language legislation to this side of the river. Francophones fear their language is slowly disappearing, because youngish people who live, work or study outside the regulated French-only world tend to “assimilate” into the giant anglo melting pot. It’s true that the proportion of French-speaking Canadians is decreasing – it’s a trend that’s been around for some time. And it upsets a great many francophones, for reasons that aren’t necessarily unreasonable, whether you or I agree with them or not.

That said, how in the world will forcing businesses to put up bilingual signs in Ontario help slow the rate of assimilation? Even in Quebec, where conditions are more favourable, look at the evidence from almost 30 years of Bill 101: French-only signs there have done nothing to prevent francophones from moving out of the province and switching to English. And they haven’t kept franglais off the streets of downtown Montreal.

The fact is, we live in a world where French is a great and sophisticated language to know but not, for the most part, an essential one. It’s not something I like or dislike. But in any case, it simply is. The world would be a poorer place without French and many other languages and I encourage folks to teach their own children various languages. And by all means wear your heritage in a pleasant manner. Be enthusiastic about it. Share its beauty, encourage non-native speakers to learn about your language. But please leave the chip off your shoulder. The besieged mentality only annoys people, and in the end it’s counterproductive.

Francophones are a strong majority of Clarence-Rockland residents. If they really prefer businesses that advertise in French there is no need for a bylaw, and if they don’t there is no cause for one. If some merchants are dumb enough to alienate this large a potential clientele, let these customers drive them into bankruptcy (I only wish anglos in Shawville had the same right).

Rockland’s new bylaw will do nothing to foster harmony between the two linguistic groups. Worse, as a caller to CFRA mentioned last week, it will prevent new businesses from advertising in French only if they so desire. I wonder what Richard Patten has to say about that.

Oh right. I forgot. These things are divisive so we can’t talk about their negative effects lest we be branded right-wing paranoids. Dear me, what kind of trouble are we in now…

This column first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, Thursday January 20, 2005 (A-14)

On the fine art of anglo-blaming

Brigitte Pellerin

There are days when trying to make sense of Quebec politics is like rolling lemons up the street with your nose. It can be done, but it’s unrewarding.

Take the latest blame-the-anglos kerfuffle over the municipal de-amalgamation referendums, courtesy of Parti Québécois politicians and assorted nationalists. Most predominantly anglo suburbs in Montreal chose to demerge from the largely francophone megacity, see, and to the nationalists that’s proof positive that French-speaking Quebecers should separate from Canada since it’s clear English-speaking Quebecers are not their friends. (They don’t quite say it like that, but you know what I mean.) I don’t like this stuff any more than you do, but because the PQ and their allies will likely spend the next few years harping on this point, we might as well understand where it’s coming from.

Of the 22 Montreal suburbs where a referendum was held, 15 voted to demerge. Of those, only one is east of St. Laurent Boulevard, the mythical division between francophone and anglophone Montreal. The French-speaking commentariat predictably decried the arrival of yet another ugly linguistic divide in their otherwise idyllic “nation.” And anyone who pointed out that there are quite a few francophones living in the West Island, as well as a bunch of anglos on the “wrong” side of St. Laurent Blvd., or that four out of five former municipalities in overwhelmingly francophone Longueuil also decided to demerge, was treated as a pitifully naïve fool.

For instance, Municipal Affairs Minister Jean-Marc Fournier’s oft-repeated claim that demerger is “not a question of language, it’s a question of citizenship” was derided by many, including Le Devoir’s Bernard Descôteaux, who wrote that the minister had “modestly averted his eyes” from the painfully obvious phenomenon. As to Premier Jean Charest’s comment that “There has been only one common language in Quebec for a long time, in fact for 30 years, and that is the French language,” it would be too cruel to quote the reactions it prompted in Quebec’s fashionable circles.

No, the cool kids in this story are the ones who engage in what could technically be described as utter gooblahoy. First among them, of course, is PQ leader Bernard Landry (who, by the way, recently boasted he’s the most popular politician in Quebec – not that other guy, Whosit Duceppe). “We did the mergers in part in the interest of social justice and the redistribution of wealth,” he said. “The (referendum) split in the case of Longueuil was not linguistic but it was rich versus poor. In the case of Montreal, it was linguistic but it covers rich and poor.”

Le Devoir’s Jean-Robert Sansfaçon was more direct: “The rich and anglophone West Island has pronounced a categorical No to making common cause (with francophones) in the new city,” he said. “For them, the name Montreal was synonymous with dispossession, with assimilation into the great French chaos.” Writing in Le Journal de Montréal, Michel C. Auger didn’t let restraint clutter his prose. Demerger victories, he wrote, are “proof that in Montreal, there are anglophones who don’t really want to live together with francophones.”

Boo, hiss.

It would be absurd to deny that language played a role. But it’s not the whole story. Montreal Gazette columnist Henry Aubin has discovered “a close correlation between home ownership and demerger sentiment, since demergers are widely seen as a way for citizens to get more influence over services and other quality-of-life issues.” In Baie d’Urfé and Senneville, two wealthy anglo suburbs that easily demerged, 93 per cent of residents own their home. In middle-class Dorval, the rate of home ownership is 56 per cent. It qualified for demerger. “The three major boroughs that failed to demerge,” Mr. Aubin added, “also have low rates (of home ownership): LaSalle (39 per cent) and St. Laurent and Anjou (both 41 per cent).”

How much interest has his theory generated? As far as I can tell, none whatsoever. And here’s another thing to consider: To the extent that language was a factor in demergers, the anglos might not be the principal source of tension. After all, one of the main ideas behind the forced mergers was to do away with the handful of officially bilingual municipalities on the island of Montreal.

I find it really annoying that Quebec nationalists (out of the closet or otherwise) always find a way to create ethno-linguistic tensions on every conceivable issue, whether it makes sense or not. I don’t believe that behind every smiling, easy-going Québécois lies a rabid anglophobe. But let’s just say their general lack of zeal in dispelling the unpleasant impression is not helping the cause of mutual understanding.

There. Can I pick up my lemons now?

This column first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, Thursday July 8, 2004 (A-16)

Why the Bloc won’t go away

Brigitte Pellerin

In honour of the festive spring-cleaning season, here’s another installment of Why Is It The Bloc Québécois Just Won’t Die?

The erstwhile separatist bunch is like a stubborn olive-oil stain on your best linen. Always there, staring you in the face and forcing you to place the candle-holder in a strategic spot when you’ve got company over for dinner. So annoying. And so resistant to any counter measures.

It no longer makes any sense for Quebecers to keep the Bloc in Ottawa, even for those who still believe, despite all contrary evidence, that Quebec’s sovereignty is just around the corner. Yet Gilles Duceppe’s party is doing surprisingly well in public-opinion polls at the moment, thanks in large measure to the sponsorship scandal. So much so that Quebec’s chattering types have generally concluded that Lucien Bouchard’s old party might regain quite a few of the seats it has lost over the years, possibly winning as many as 50 of the province’s 75. It’s by no means an unreasonable assumption, although it is one I do not share.

Let’s see: Some prominent Québécois are urging their fellows to have a good look at the Conservative party. Leader Stephen Harper has changed, they say. He recognizes Quebec’s “unique language and culture,” and – wonder of wonders – he acknowledges the so-called fiscal imbalance. He even speaks adequate French!

Sure, the Tories will make some gains in Quebec, but not a whole lot. The party has no homegrown stars as of yet, and it will hurt them because Quebecers tend to distrust outsiders – or more precisely in this case, candidates who are perceived to be controlled by outside forces.

As to the New Democratic Party, it might finally break through the wall of indifference. Probably not to the point of actually electing anybody, although strong, well-known local candidates and a clever campaign by leader Jack Layton might make things interesting in a few urban ridings.

No matter. The Battle for Quebec will be fought between the Liberals and the Bloc. With the former banking on Mr. Martin’s inexplicable popularity with francophone Quebecers as well as the good old the-Bloc-wants-to-destroy-your-country scare tactics. And the latter blaming Mr. Martin for the sponsorship mess, his unwillingness to concede that there is a fiscal imbalance, and what they see as a misappropriation of employment-insurance surplus, all the while denouncing him for his business dealings in relation to Canada Steamship Lines.

That’s the predictable stuff. What goofy things people will do and what effect it will have on the campaign, I know not. Or maybe I do a bit. Former Parti Québécois premier Jacques Parizeau (my overall favourite), in the typically disconcerting way he has of talking to journalists before conferring with political colleagues, has said publicly that he’s ready to help the Bloc in the upcoming election. When reporters asked Mr. Duceppe whether his party would welcome such assistance, he looked even more startled than usual and mumbled something about having to talk to Mr. Parizeau first.

Now, as Don MacPherson of the Montreal Gazette recently noted, Mr. Duceppe is stuck. He can’t turn Mr. Parizeau down without offending his purs et durs supporters who simply adore the former premier. But he can’t really use Mr. Parizeau either because nobody knows what he’s capable of doing – remember how he derailed the PQ campaign last year with a rendition of his 1995 “money and ethnic votes” comments. Also, Mr. Parizeau is a major turnoff to the majority of Quebecers.

So. We have a professional, experimented and powerful Liberal machine campaigning on the fact that Paul Martin is not Jean Chrétien against a dishevelled assembly of well-meaning folks who can’t seem to agree on the best way to promote their constitutional option without annoying the daylights out of the majority of soft nationalists. Why would voters send them to Ottawa once again even though there’s no referendum on the horizon? They’re having trouble with that one, too.

Here’s my guess: Faced with a tired, scandal-plagued Liberal government, many will be tempted to throw the Grits out. Others will want to do the same out of anger at Jean Charest’s provincial Liberals – not that it makes sense, but there you have it.

Fine, but who else to vote for? True Bloc supporters will vote the usual way, as in the end will dedicated Liberal fans. The rest will sit this election out. Leaving us with the province split roughly 50-50 between the Liberals and the Bloc, just like it is now.

Which is why the Bloc won’t die just yet. We might as well focus our energies on something useful. Like cleaning our windows.

This column first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, Thursday March 25, 2004 (A-18)

Quebec’s mulligan on our history

Brigitte Pellerin

One of the things I learned last summer was how to take a mulligan. I’m new at the game of golf, you see, and sometimes editing out a really lousy shot has kept me from throwing my rental equipment (closely followed by my unspeakably irritated self) into the nearest pond. But while relaxing the rules is a good idea in the early stages, once you get better it’s called cheating. Somebody should mention this principle to Quebec’s language zealots.

Most reasonable folks agree it’s OK for Quebec to take certain measures to ensure the French language and culture continue to thrive in North America.

Many also accept that the Quebec government has a right to ask that workplaces within its borders function in French, or that businesses advertise their products in adequate French.

Me, I believe the state has no business regulating private activity, which helps keep my name off the list of “reasonable folks”.

Quebec’s language zealots are working even harder to keep their names off that list. For instance, in the way they hit David McMahon over the head last week, when the Office québécois de la langue française asked him to make sure his website complies with the province’s language charter or he’ll be fined.

The thing is, Mr. McMahon lives in Chelsea, on the Quebec side of the river, but he runs his sports video production company out of Ottawa. His business is registered in Ontario, his web servers are in Ottawa and most of his customers are non-Quebec residents. Even so, his website, www.xczone.tv, has a French section. It’s not particularly eloquent (it reads a bit like it was translated from the English using a pocket dictionary), but it’s more than adequate.

Details, details. The Office received a complaint from a customer and decided to investigate. The Citizen reported that Gérald Paquette, a spokesman for the Office, said Quebec language law does not apply to Ontario companies but to be exempt, company owners must prove that no part of their business in is Quebec. “We told him (Mr. McMahon) to advise us of the measures he would take to make the website comply with the Charter of the French Language and if he didn’t comply, he could be fined,” Mr. Paquette added.

The Office dropped the case just a few days ago, but that doesn’t mean businesspeople in Ontario and elsewhere aren’t getting the message loud and clear: You’re not welcome in la belle province.

No wonder, as happened just last Christmas, companies like Sears refuse to ship unilingual English toys to Quebec addresses.

This startling episode has some people worried that the guys over at the Office de la langue française are still living in the Parti Québécois era even though the nominally federalist Liberals are in power.

Pfft, that’s nothing. Some language zealots are still living in 18th-century Nouvelle-France. Such as Jean Dorion, head of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, who came out swinging last week against what he sees as the erosion of French-school enrolment in Quebec. A study commissioned by the société shows a slight decline in the percentage of Quebec elementary students in French schools (to 88.58 per cent from 90.54 per cent over the last 12 years) and an increase in English schools (to 11.42 per cent from 9.46 per cent).

Mr. Dorion blames this decline on Section 23 of the Canadian Constitution, which says a child whose parents or siblings were educated in English in Canada has a right to English education in Quebec. So he wants the Quebec government simply to ignore this section since no Quebec premier has ever signed the Constitution. He says “immigrants” from other parts of Canada should not be allowed to attend English schools in Quebec. Not only that, but “The coexistence in the same territory of public schools in different languages is an anomaly in developed societies,” he said.

“New France didn’t have English schools. The duality of language education in Quebec is a result of the defeat in 1760,” he added.

Perhaps it is. Perhaps it’s even a bad result, though I don’t think so. But neither means it didn’t happen.

Ignoring a wretched shot when you’re struggling through the second golf round of your life and you’re getting nasty looks from the foursome behind you is fine. But you can’t take a mulligan on history and live your life pretending the Conquest never happened and the Constitution doesn’t apply to you just because you’re of French descent.

Taking a mulligan is cheating. Believing the score you then write down is madness.

This column first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, Thursday January 29, 2004 (A-18)

Quebecers’ silence condones terrorism

Brigitte Pellerin

It looks like vehement intolerance of English-speaking Quebecers is still acceptable to a large segment of the province’s francophone population. That’s the unfortunate conclusion I came to after observing the reactions to last week’s attacks in Montreal’s West Island.

There has no doubt been improvement since the old days of extreme ethno-linguistic tensions. But clearly not enough, judging from the utterly shocking lack of indignation displayed toward the “patriotic militia” members accused of vandalizing the former Baie d’Urfé town hall with “Anglos go home,” “FLQ” and other extremely offensive graffiti while intimidating the residents of the tiny borough by showing up with ammunition and home-made explosives.

You can call me an optimist, but I was hoping Quebec had evolved from the day, in 1981, when Parti Québécois members gave a standing ovation to Jacques Rose, a member of the Front de Libération du Québec’s Chénier cell responsible for the death of Pierre Laporte. After all, Quebecers these days are no longer divided between two clear-cut solitudes. I thought we’d learned that violence is neither romantic, constructive nor democratically legitimate. Apparently not.

It’s not because francophone Quebecers lack the ability to express their opinions. Far from it. Last winter and spring, there was no shortage of letters in the French-language newspapers expressing outrage at the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and demanding it be stopped immediately. But I haven’t noticed any letter expressing unqualified outrage and demanding anti-anglophone terrorists be stamped out immediately. Showing support for Saddam Hussein is much more fashionable in Quebec than standing up for the right of Anglo-Quebecers not to be targeted, threatened and attacked by the 2003 version of the FLQ.

With the notable exception of one opinion writer with a Sherbrooke newspaper who called for unanimous denunciations of FLQ-type “events,” I am not aware of any unambiguous condemnation in the French-speaking media. Two writers from La Presse almost qualify as having come close, with one saying: “If our society shows the slightest leniency toward (Mouvement de Libération Nationale du Québec leader Raymond) Villeneuve and his sympathizers, Quebec’s image will be tarnished once again. Therefore we must treat them like we would any terrorist, small or big.”

Yeah, having your province’s image tarnished is a real bummer. But what about terrorizing English-speaking Quebecers, who are as much at home in Quebec as any French-speaking pure laine? Isn’t this at least a little bit wrong? Not just tactically wrong. Basically wrong.

And don’t hold your breath waiting for politicians to lead by example. Premier Jean Charest said “This kind of behaviour is very, very isolated in Quebec society. These people have a certain point of view that isn’t supported by the vast majority of Quebec citizens.” Public Security Minister Jacques Chagnon didn’t sound much more reassuring with his, “Mr. Villeneuve is a hare-brained man and he’s totally out of his mind.”

Uh guys, you’re missing the point. Everybody knows separatist terrorists are kinda crazy and that they’re a very small minority in Quebec – some suspect the “patriotic militias” number about 100. But they are very determined. One day after the arrest of the seven men in the Baie d’Urfé attack, MLNQ vice-president Pierre-Luc Bégin was on CTV explaining his group’s position. “We still hope that the democratic way will be enough,” he said. “But if not, we will fight by any means necessary to achieve our independence.” He did not clarify what he meant by “any means necessary.”

He didn’t need to. In an interview with CFCF-TV last week, Raymond Villeneuve warned the violence could soon escalate. “There is no limit. The Algerians, the Palestinians, they kill themselves because they are occupied,” he said. This is the same Mr. Villeneuve who, shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America, said, “If 19 men, with limited means but strong in their convictions and possessed of infinite inventiveness could shake the economy and change the world order, imagine what 100 Quebecers could do to shake the Canadian empire, even if they were only half so determined!”

You can see where this is going. Coming from a guy who was convicted of manslaughter for the bombing death of a night watchman in the early 1960s, that sort of comment should warrant an extremely harsh reaction from public-security authorities and the province’s francophone majority. It didn’t. The scandal here isn’t a small hard core of bad people threatening violence. It’s a majority tacitly condoning it.

Anti-anglo terrorism is bad, but not nearly as much as indifference to it.

This column first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, Thursday November 6, 2003 (A-14)

It’s time to police Quebec French

Brigitte Pellerin

In politics, the best way to get rid of an opponent is to embarrass him or her publicly. A good dose of ridicule, skillfully administered, is eminently more powerful than any set of rules and regulations you care to think of. Why shouldn’t the same principle apply to the politics of language?

You saw the story in the Citizen last week about Shawville businessman Bill McCleary and his run-in with Quebec’s Commission de protection de la langue française. Refusing to pay a $920 fine for displaying signs on which, oh scandal, the French lettering wasn’t double the size of the English, he was supposed to see his belongings auctioned off last Monday to cover the fine and other administrative expenses.

Until it became front-page news, this story was running along extremely predictable lines. Mr. McCleary, like others placed in similar situations before him, was determined to force the language commission to apply Quebec’s language laws to their fully preposterous extent.

The plan was for the Montreal-based anglophone-rights group Alliance Quebec to buy as many items as necessary to cover the fine and expenses. It would get publicity and he wouldn’t suffer financially, because Alliance Quebec was then going to host a much-publicized lunch during which it would have made a show of giving Mr. McCleary his stuff back.

It is as absurd as it sounds. Which might explain why, at the last minute, the commission discovered a “clerical error” that put an end to the circus.

Apparently, officials realized last week that Mr. McCleary’s brother-in-law and former business partner, who had been charged along with Mr. McCleary for the same offence back in 1998, had paid his fine. According to a fine collector at the provincial courthouse in Gatineau, “As it is a conjoined file, if one paid, then the second one is paid.”

I don’t know about you, but I find the timing of this discovery highly suspect. And it’s hardly a victory for freedom of speech or due process if Quebec authorities enforce strict language laws only when the media is looking the other way. But is there some way for the Quebec government to promote and preserve the French language without harassing the province’s anglos and other linguistic minorities?

Trying to make French lettering predominant in mostly English-speaking small towns is not helpful – it’s only annoying. What the language police should do instead is crack down on the widespread use of the Creole-sounding joual that does far more to jeopardize French than anglos speaking English in a small anglo town. Sort of a linguistic fashion police.

Yes, fashion police. Just like what we do to discourage men from wearing white tube socks with dress pants: Stare at them until they go red in the face with shame at having committed such a faux pas.

Instead of prowling the land, measuring tape in hand, in search of offensive non-predominant French lettering, the language officers should simply enforce basic grammatical and vocabulary rules in French-speaking neighbourhoods by ridiculing offenders.

They could start with the irritating use of là with which francophones pepper their speech.

Pay attention to it next time you hear a conversation in French and you’ll be amazed. It’s everywhere. At the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of at least one sentence in three. Sometimes several times in each sentence. As in Ben là, là, j’comprends pas.

Then the officers could crack down on mangled words like moé instead of the correct moi and on the abominable use of the pronoun tu where it doesn’t belong. As in Je l’sais-tu, moé? They should stare until the sinner realizes the proper way to describe the situation is Je ne sais pas. Then they could move on to more complicated tasks, such as getting rid of pleonasms like monter en haut or descendre en bas.

The possibilities are endless, and I haven’t even mentioned written French yet – another fertile ground for horrifying mistakes.

I’m not saying francophone Quebecers should speak snooty, Parisian French. Pas du tout (as opposed to the incorrect pas pantoute). I’d be happy to hear normal, grammatically correct French, complete with regionalisms and delightful accents; just like they have all over France. But bad usage is not charming; it’s ugly and inarticulate.

Instead of harassing the minority of Quebec anglos into displaying predominantly French signs in English-speaking neighbourhoods, the Commission de protection de la langue française should focus on embarrassing francophones into speaking their own language properly. In tasteful dark-hued socks.

This column first appeared in The Ottawa Citizen, Thursday July 24, 2003 (A-16)

Quebec leaves its mark Canada-wide

Brigitte Pellerin

It may come as a surprise to you, but there is a significant number of people in this country who believe Canada has turned into one giant Quebec. That since the late 1960s with the beginning of the Trudeau era, and continuing to this day with Jean Chrétien, the Liberal Party of Canada has transformed a proud and principled nation into a wimpy, waffling and whining bunch. In two official languages to boot.

Inside Quebec, it sounds bizarre. The first time I heard it I thought I had stepped into some kind of parallel dimension. Why, I had spent virtually all my life in francophone Quebec, where opinions on English Canadians range from the nationalist “they despise us no matter what we do” to the slightly mellower “they can’t understand why Quebec is so different no matter how hard they try.”

Like many Quebecers, I believed my native province was home to a unique cultural minority in North America. I didn’t agree with the nationalists who said such a situation called for independence, or at least some kind of official privileged status. But I considered it futile to deny that Quebec was a different place than Ontario, Nova Scotia, or British Columbia. Then a few years ago I realized many English Canadians did, in fact, understand Quebec distinctiveness so well, and resented it at least as much, because it had invaded their lives. It didn’t make any sense.

And yet… When the Ottawa Citizen reported on Tuesday that Quebec had received more than 60 per cent, or $5.15 million, of the $8.3-million Celebrate Canada budget last year (dispensed by the ever-generous Department of Canadian Heritage to help celebrate Canada Day throughout the country), I expected major outcry. Not only did Quebec receive almost three times the amount of money that its share of the Canadian population would warrant (whereas Ontario, with over 40 per cent of the population, got just 10 per cent of the money), but the province used some of this money to fund nationalist St. Jean Baptiste celebrations.

Does this sound unfair? You bet. But to my surprise, it didn’t cause the stir I was anticipating. It’s almost as if English Canadians outside Quebec were no longer upset by that sort of thing. Or maybe they’re just used to it – it’s hardly the first time Quebec received more than what seems like its fair share of federal money, be it job-creation subsidies or festival-financing schemes.

It’s just one small example of Canada’s “Quebecization.” The consensus in Quebec on big government and liberal social mores is not exactly widespread but you’d never know it by watching the federal government. While public opinion in the rest of Canada is divided, Quebec has already passed a law allowing same-sex unions. Decriminalization, or legalization, of marijuana? Most Quebecers are in favour of it – with Quebec Justice Minister Marc Bellemare asking his federal counterpart to recognize a hypothetical Quebec model whereby simple possession would be treated the same as shoplifting is. In the rest of Canada, the debate is still raging. Abortion? Find me one Quebec politician who’s in favour of restricting access to the procedure. As far as I know, Action Démocratique leader Mario Dumont is the only one who even said that, while he wouldn’t challenge a woman’s right to choose, abortion is not something he would favour in his personal life. And he was pilloried for it. Unambiguously pro-life politicians are not legion in the rest of Canada, but there are quite a few.

On all three questions, Quebec has won. Abortion is legal, and the Liberals are not even thinking about revisiting this issue. All signs point to the decriminalization of marijuana. And as to same-sex marriages, they will become legal in Canada within a month if the federal government doesn’t appeal a court ruling allowing them, which Justice Minister Martin Cauchon doesn’t seem willing to do.

Want to talk about the war in Iraq? Or the federal government’s long-time neglect of the Armed Forces, who are no longer allowed to fight wars but are sent on United Nations-sanctioned peace missions? While those policies (or, in the case of Iraq, lack thereof) reflect the Quebec consensus on how a country should handle foreign affairs, they face strong opposition in some parts of English Canada.

There are many people in the rest of Canada who understand extremely well how Quebecers differ from them. And they resent the fact that, as they see it, over the last three decades, their federal government, with its string of powerful Quebec politicians, has turned their country into one giant Quebec.

Things look so weird here in the Anglo dimension.

This column first appeared in The Montreal Gazette, June 6, 2003 (A-23)