30 November 2011
29 November 2011
Source? Hells belle province
"Where there is smoke, there is fire. It is a very well-known fact that in Montreal, nothing gets done without "l'envelope" & it does not take a world class memory to recall the Globe & Mail expose, over the years, of the near immunity the Hells Angels have had in La Belle Province."
28 November 2011
Canada News: Montreal-area board considers making French mandatory in schoolyards - thestar.com
Canada News: Montreal-area board considers making French mandatory in schoolyards - thestar.com
MONTREAL—The Quebec government is reacting favourably to a plan by a Montreal school board to ban any other language than French from its schoolyards.
Culture Minister Christine St-Pierre says the French-language Commission scolaire de Montreal would be making an important effort to promote Quebec’s majority language.
“I think that children who attend school in French must obviously speak French among themselves,” she told reporters at the provincial legislature on Wednesday ...
18 November 2011
We're Numero Un
Canadian high schools flunk history: Study
Maybe it's time for provincial education ministers to start hitting the books.
Four provinces received a failing grade for their Canadian history high school curriculum in the latest Canadian History Report Card, released Monday by the Dominion Institute of Canada.
"And nobody got an A, so nobody can sit back and say everything is fine," said Marc Chalifoux, executive director of the Dominion Institute. "The results are, frankly, troubling."
Quebec took top honours with a B-plus. British Columbia, the Yukon and Ontario received Bs. At the other end of the scale, Alberta, Saskatchewan, P.E.I., Newfoundland and Labrador and the Northwest Territories all failed.
Chalifoux said in Quebec, the primarily French-speaking province earned accolades for recently instituting two years of mandatory history.
16 November 2011
"Sovereignists want Quebec to defy Supreme Court ruling on Bill 104"
http://tinyurl.com/ydbomgl
MONTREAL – A downtown rally Monday evening will kick off “a vast campaign of public mobilization” designed to pressure the Quebec National Assembly to declare it will defy an Oct. 22 decision on English-language schooling in Quebec handed down by Canada’s highest court, prominent Quebec nationalist Mario Beaulieu said ... The court declared Bill 104 unconstitutional. The Quebec law had tightened access to English schooling in the province
...So much for sovereigntists respecting democracy, a large element of which is the rule of law, with all its checks and balances..
[Bill 104] had been adopted in 2002 by the Quebec National Assembly – unanimously, Beaulieu and others noted repeatedly during an afternoon news conference at the SSJB headquarters ...
The National(ist) Assembly does a lot of things unanimously; that doesn't make them sound. Take the long-gun registry ... please.
“This judicial decision threatens the survival of the French language in Quebec,” Beaulieu declared, stating that Quebec never agreed to Canada’s 1982 constitution.
Thus judicial decision affects about 1000 students per year; statistically insignificant in the French school system, but lifeblood for the anglos.
Besides, Quebec may not have signed the constitution, but it is bound by it. That's also in the constitution.
The first of what Beaulieu said will be a series of events around the province is to be held at 7 p.m. Monday near the SSJB offices, at the Just for Laughs museum, 2102 St. Laurent Blvd. just south of Sherbrooke St ...
Just for laughs? That's for sure.
14 November 2011
Quebec ponders legal action over gun registry records - Politics - CBC News
Quebec ponders legal action over gun registry records - Politics - CBC News
In a rare showing of unity, the governing Liberals and opposition parties unanimously agreed on the resolution, tabled by the Parti-Quebecois's Stephane Bergeron.
13 November 2011
"Understanding diversity in English-speaking Montreal"
Below an excerpt from a speech given by Dennis Smith, GMCDI Chair, to launch an event held on Friday May 22nd.
http://community.gmcdi.ca/blogs/gmcdi/archive/2009/05/25/understanding-diversity-in-english-speaking-montreal.aspx
http://community.gmcdi.ca/blogs/gmcdi/archive/2009/05/25/understanding-diversity-in-english-speaking-montreal.aspx
"What better place to begin a conversation about diversity than in Montreal, the most diverse community in Quebec and one of the most diverse in Canada and North America. Montreal’s English-speaking community has a longstanding tradition of embracing diversity and is considered by many to be a model of successful integration.
The GMCDI represents a group of community volunteers that wishes to engage and consult English-speaking Montrealers, community leaders, and local professionals on key issues affecting the English-speaking communities of the Greater Montreal Area. The 2007 Greater Montreal Community Development Initiative Report indicates that Quebec’s English-speaking communities have the highest level of diversity among provincial official-language minority communities in Canada in terms of their ethnic origin, place of birth, religion and visible minority status. The 2001 census indicates that one quarter of English-speakers in the Greater Montreal area identified themselves as members of a visible minority. Newcomers have continually modified the community’s composition and have been fundamental in contributing to the vitality of English-speaking Quebec. The strong presence of ethnic communities in the metropolitan area is the main reason organizers of this symposium exploring diversity in English-speaking Quebec decided to hold a specific forum about Montreal. Here the issue of diversity is specifically relevant and it is a key issue for the English-speaking community of Greater Montreal.
While some individuals reluctantly accept the minority label, here in Quebec everyone belongs to a minority community and many are proud of that fact. The English-speaking community is a minority within a French-speaking majority that is also a minority. Ethnic groups are also minorities within those two groups. While we Quebecers have a lot in common, we do not always know how to address the issues we have in common as minority groups. We hope today's forum will help launch that important dialogue and we hope today’s conversation between Montreal’s diverse minorities is the first chat in a long lasting conversation.
09 November 2011
08 November 2011
School Boreds
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Life/Finally+anglos+some+clout/1691806/story.html
In the 1998 province-wide school-board elections, the participation rate was only 12 per cent in the French boards. But in the English boards, it was nearly five times as high, 53 per cent, as an aroused anglophone electorate defied attempts by the PQ government to discourage it from voting.
03 November 2011
La Ligue des droits et libertés s'oppose à cette atteinte à la liberté d'expression
( 3 novembre 2011 ) –
Suite à la décision du maire Régis Labeaume d'ordonner l'éviction des manifestants du mouvement « Occupons Québec » dans le quartier Saint-Roch, la Ligue des droits et libertés exprime son opposition à cette atteinte injustifiée à l'exercice de la liberté d'expression.
En regard des enjeux de société fondamentaux soulevés par les « indignés » de Québec, les raisons invoquées pour éteindre leurs voix apparaissent bien dérisoires.
Le maire Labeaume prétend que les manifestants se sont fait entendre et qu'ils devraient maintenant rentrer chez eux, comme s'il était du ressort du maire de Québec de fixer les limites de la liberté d'expression de ses citoyens.
La capacité de durer témoigne du sérieux des occupants et fait partie de leur message.
Ce mouvement international initié par les manifestants d'Espagne et de Wall Street lance un message politique qui devrait être préservé et non pas étouffé.
La Ligue des droits et libertés rappelle à la population et aux élus que la liberté d'expression est reconnue comme étant le socle de la démocratie.
Elle est reconnue dans la Déclaration universelle des droits de l'Homme et dans les pactes internationaux.
Au Canada, elle est affirmée dans la constitution, dans la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés et dans la Charte québécoise des droits et libertés de la personne.
Il s'agit d'un droit fondamental déterminant pour la démocratie.