08 October 2014
19 September 2014
01 July 2014
Déclaration du chef du NPD à l’occasion de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste « NPD du Canada
Déclaration du chef de l’Opposition officielle à l’occasion de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste « NPD du Canada
«En ce jour de fête nationale, je me joins aux Québécois et aux
francophones de partout au pays pour célébrer la richesse de la langue
et de la culture françaises d’ici.
Quelque 500 ans après l’établissement au Canada des premiers
Européens, il y a de quoi être fiers de l’épanouissement du français en
terre d’Amérique. Ensemble, nous formons une nation riche, forte et
diversifiée où des valeurs d’égalité et de respect nous rassemblent.
Au nom du Nouveau Parti démocratique, je souhaite à tous une belle
Saint-Jean-Baptiste et des célébrations marquées par la joie de partager
un héritage commun. »
«En ce jour de fête nationale, je me joins aux Québécois et aux
francophones de partout au pays pour célébrer la richesse de la langue
et de la culture françaises d’ici.
Quelque 500 ans après l’établissement au Canada des premiers
Européens, il y a de quoi être fiers de l’épanouissement du français en
terre d’Amérique. Ensemble, nous formons une nation riche, forte et
diversifiée où des valeurs d’égalité et de respect nous rassemblent.
Au nom du Nouveau Parti démocratique, je souhaite à tous une belle
Saint-Jean-Baptiste et des célébrations marquées par la joie de partager
un héritage commun. »
23 June 2014
Quebec Values
(via interfaithcalendar.org/)
(N.B: All outlooks that give meaning to the lives of adherents are included in the term "religious")
Materialism understands the world as it is now to be the only reality that matters for humans.
Adherents include atheists, secular humanists and various other forms.
Some adherents are aggressively opposed to traditional religions other than Roman Catholicism.
Some actively promote the abolition of religion that takes seriously a divine being and a reality beyond the perceived world and universe.
“You cannot say we’re going to allow for the postponement of the vote according to one religion, because other religious communities will also demand the same,” he said.
(i.e., religious accommodation is unreasonable)
“The issue here is the principle of not setting the election date according to the different religious holidays. There are more than 100 religious holidays in the calendar.
(NB: Not all holidays are Sabbaths)
The PQ has proposed that non-Christian religious symbols be banned in the public sector, but that the Catholic crucifix would still be allowed, reflecting Quebec’s heritage.(Catholic Christianity is 'established')French
Beaulieu says, “Let them walk,” when asked what unilingual anglophone transit users, who cannot speak French to métro ticket-takers, should do.
(French is the only language that service personnel should use)
Maclean's: A bit of background on Mario Beaulieu
So Mario Beaulieu, president of Montreal’s Société-Saint-Jean-Baptiste, is peeved at how during the election,
“Anglophone media in Quebec and Canada multiplied accusations of
xenophobia and all sorts of other slanderous insinuations towards
sovereignists and defenders of French.” Let’s put aside the tar-brush
generalization of “Anglophone media”—we aren’t all the same, Mario—and
the fact that he didn’t cite a single example of Anglo media’s supposed
overindulgences in his letter. Rather, let’s have a look at the recent
past of the organization that is making these accusations.
In 2006, the SSJB hosted Fleurdelix et Les Affreux Galois,
a band with ties to the “Rock identitaire français” movement. Two of
its members, Jonathan Stack and Simon Cadieux, are former members of a
band called Trouble Makers, which was on the Southern Poverty Law
Center’s list of known white power rock bands.
Fleurdelix et Les Affreux Galois played the SSJB’s headquarters on
Sherbrooke Street at the behest of François Gendron, then the SSJB’s
youth wing president. Gendron has longtime ties with noted Front de
Libération du Quebec member and convicted murderer Raymond Villeneuve ...
20 April 2014
Globe editorial: Couillard should bury the Charter of Values
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/couillard-should-bury-the-charter-of-values/article18061611/
Here’s the thing about the Charter of Values: It was the perverted solution to a problem that never existed. Mr. Couillard knows as well as anyone that the bill was created by the PQ to sow fear and division in Quebec, both of which serve the darker side of the separatist cause. To his credit, he kept saying as much before and during the election campaign. And his popularity grew as a result.
There were simply no crises that precipitated a call for a law banning conspicuous religious symbols from the offices and bodies of public servants. The Bouchard-Taylor Commission had spent a year examining the question of reasonable accommodation and concluded it was not a preoccupation for the majority of Quebeckers. If anything, the commission said, Quebec should do more to accommodate religious minorities, though it suggested that judges, Crown prosecutors, police officers, prison guards and the president and vice-president of the National Assembly be prohibited from wearing religious symbols.
How that was twisted into the Charter of Values, with its draconian call to eliminate religious garb from tens of thousands of public-service jobs, even if that meant eliminating the employee in the process, is a mystery that will forever be confined to the consciences of the PQ’s now-redundant election strategists. Mr. Couillard should leave it there. If he truly feels that the combined force of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Quebec Bill of Human Rights and Freedoms, the courts and the ongoing maturation of modern Quebec society are not enough to manage the reasonable accommodation of minority religious rights in Quebec, then perhaps his government can make itself feel better (and keep the PQ quiet) by adopting an anodyne motion restating that Quebec’s government is secular and that men and woman are equals. But the smarter play is to just wait. After six months go by, and then another six, and then a few years, and Quebeckers realize the supposedly imminent threats that the Charter of Values was purported to be a bulwark against never existed in the first place, they will lose interest in the subject and develop even more of a distaste for politicians who play the identity card.
Here’s the thing about the Charter of Values: It was the perverted solution to a problem that never existed. Mr. Couillard knows as well as anyone that the bill was created by the PQ to sow fear and division in Quebec, both of which serve the darker side of the separatist cause. To his credit, he kept saying as much before and during the election campaign. And his popularity grew as a result.
There were simply no crises that precipitated a call for a law banning conspicuous religious symbols from the offices and bodies of public servants. The Bouchard-Taylor Commission had spent a year examining the question of reasonable accommodation and concluded it was not a preoccupation for the majority of Quebeckers. If anything, the commission said, Quebec should do more to accommodate religious minorities, though it suggested that judges, Crown prosecutors, police officers, prison guards and the president and vice-president of the National Assembly be prohibited from wearing religious symbols.
How that was twisted into the Charter of Values, with its draconian call to eliminate religious garb from tens of thousands of public-service jobs, even if that meant eliminating the employee in the process, is a mystery that will forever be confined to the consciences of the PQ’s now-redundant election strategists. Mr. Couillard should leave it there. If he truly feels that the combined force of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Quebec Bill of Human Rights and Freedoms, the courts and the ongoing maturation of modern Quebec society are not enough to manage the reasonable accommodation of minority religious rights in Quebec, then perhaps his government can make itself feel better (and keep the PQ quiet) by adopting an anodyne motion restating that Quebec’s government is secular and that men and woman are equals. But the smarter play is to just wait. After six months go by, and then another six, and then a few years, and Quebeckers realize the supposedly imminent threats that the Charter of Values was purported to be a bulwark against never existed in the first place, they will lose interest in the subject and develop even more of a distaste for politicians who play the identity card.
12 April 2014
William Johnson: Quebec — land of political myth
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/04/12/william-johnson-quebec-land-of-political-myth/
The Supreme Court established that Quebec can only secede by revolution or — with the agreement of the other provinces and the federal Parliament — with an amendment to the constitution. Such a negotiated agreement would include defining new frontiers. A credible third referendum could not merely ask about a preference for independence over federalism; it would have to define the territory that would emerge with independence. That would almost certainly exclude the lands of the Inuit, the Cree, the Montagnais, the Mohawks and — probably — the Outaouais region. Would the Québécois still vote for a new country cut by half?
The secessionists are not alone in having fundamental assumptions to rethink. The Quebec Liberal Party, ever since the Quiet Revolution, has also been formulating its constitutional policies under an illusion. All the premiers, from Jean Lesage to Jean Charest, have called for a supposed renewal of the federation. But what all of them offered was not a federation, but rather a confederation, a union of two sovereign states, on the model of the European Union. And all assumed that Quebec could demand whatever constitutional change it really wanted and, if it failed to obtain it, the alternative was to secede.
The demands for constitutional change were in fact revolutionary, and hence unworkable. We have been at an impasse from the start. If Philippe Couillard decides to pursue an amended constitution, he will have to begin by discarding all the federalist illusions and utopian dreams of the past six decades. Only then would an agreement become possible.
Macpherson: Only federalists can awaken the sovereignty movement
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Macpherson+Only+federalists+awaken+sovereignty+movement/9729247/story.html
Former PQ leader Pauline Marois wanted to take the initiative with a strategy of “sovereignist governance,” trying to create winning conditions by provoking crises between Quebec and Ottawa.
Her government was defeated before it had much of a chance to apply the strategy. But it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.
The sovereignists need federalists to prove to Quebecers that Canada doesn’t work. And for the past 19 years, the federalists have refused to co-operate.
Former PQ leader Pauline Marois wanted to take the initiative with a strategy of “sovereignist governance,” trying to create winning conditions by provoking crises between Quebec and Ottawa.
Her government was defeated before it had much of a chance to apply the strategy. But it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.
The sovereignists need federalists to prove to Quebecers that Canada doesn’t work. And for the past 19 years, the federalists have refused to co-operate.
07 April 2014
20 March 2014
Cape May offers tips on French Canadians | The Daily Journal | thedailyjournal.com
Cape May offers tips on French Canadians | The Daily Journal | thedailyjournal.com
Dining is a good example. Wieland said French Canadians have a
European philosophy about dining. It is taken very seriously. They don’t
want to be rushed. They want the waiter or waitress to be informed and
helpful.
Wieland said the tourists are very value-conscious, and
they tip based on the quality of service, starting at 10 percent and
with 15 percent the top end. She noted Americans usually tip at 20
percent no matter how bad the service is.
“They don’t eat — they
dine. If you rush them, which often happens in the summer, they will tip
as they feel is necessary,” Wieland said.
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