Quebec entrepreneur denied non-French business name - Ottawa - CBC News

Quebec entrepreneur denied non-French business name - Ottawa - CBC News

Since posting the video, Ménard said he has heard from others who have had similar problems with the registrar.

About nine per cent of requests for business names are rejected in Quebec every year because they do not meet the guidelines of the charter, according to the registrar.

Ménard is not sure what his next step will be, but said he may appeal again.

NatPost: 'Resisting multiculturalism, one packed lunch at a time'

Chris Selley: Resisting multiculturalism, one packed lunch at a time | National Post

Of course it is unfair, on its face, to allow Jews and Muslims to bring a lunch but not everyone else. But just because something is unfair doesn’t mean you should have the time or the inclination to lose your mind about it, and too many Quebec commentators and politicians are miles on the wrong side of that line. Only in Quebec can a sane person get so quickly from an odd policy at an amusement park — or a Sabbath-related parking rule — to fulminating about a poisoned society.

La Ronde is essentially just a sugar shack with roller coasters. Would it be able to throw a Muslim Family Day, as Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in California did last year, complete with “a Halal all-you-can-eat Buffet, and an area for daily prayer,” and be left in peace to do so? I wouldn’t bet on it.

So, great, at least the politicians stayed out of it this time. But this controversy has nevertheless enriched the broth of intolerant paranoia simmering on Quebec’s back burner — all the tastier for politicians when next they feel the need to stir the pot. If they’re going to say anything, they should be telling people to calm the hell down. But in Quebec’s provincial politics, that remains a decidedly fringe position.

NatPost: 'Montreal amusement park ends ‘special privileges for halal and kosher food’ amid uproar'

Montreal amusement park ends ‘special privileges for halal and kosher food’ amid uproar | National Post

“After hearing feedback from our guests, La Ronde would like to clarify that only guests with special medical dietary needs will be considered to bring outside food with them as they enter the park,” communications manager Catherine Tremblay said in a statement.

 Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies, said the backlash over La Ronde’s accommodation is a sign of growing “accommodation vigilantism” in Quebec. “I think that before companies give in to accommodation vigilantism they have to think about the broader ramifications,” he said.


 The hunt is back on, and the level of journalistic rigour is scarcely better. Just consider when the Journal decided to undertake its sting — during Ramadan, when most healthy Muslims fast from dawn until sunset. The reporter’s sandwich may have been the only purportedly halal food to pass through La Ronde’s gates that day and for weeks to come.

Montreal Gazette: PQ picks a suspicious time to raise royal objection

Editorial: PQ picks a suspicious time to raise royal objection

Whatever else the PQ administration might feel about the monarchy, it comes off as unseemly and churlish for a province with a female premier and a Catholic heritage to oppose this change. 

In the parliamentary vote, even the Bloc Québécois backed the legislation. That was back in March, and it is curious that the Quebec government uttered not a peep of protest at the time, but chose the day of the royal birth to voice an objection. 

The likely explanation would seem to be that it could not resist injecting a sour note into an otherwise joyous royal occasion.

No Dogs or Anglophones: Canada's Value-for-Money Monarchy

No Dogs or Anglophones: Canada's Value-for-Money Monarchy

It is a particular bugbear amongst the sophisticates and separatists to disdain the monarchy as an archaic institution that has no place in our modern society.

Survey after survey indicates that Canadians are a disinterested bunch when it comes to the House of Windsor, but to this observer that fact is the proof that in many cases, polls outright mislead, where responders answer what they believe they should say, instead of what they actually feel.

I'm not a royalist by any stretch of the imagination, but for that matter, I would oppose the abolition of the institution of the monarchy on a variety of grounds.
It would in all likelihood cost more to abolish the monarchy than to keep  it, but that is hardly the point.

'Au Canada, c’est en anglais que ca se passe aussi'

Gazette: Menchie’s distinctive plastic spoons stay put

Menchie’s distinctive plastic spoons stay put | West Island Gazette

The manager was told to remove the spoons while the inspector waited. The event was captured on the store’s security videotape.

 The inspector also spoke with the store’s owner, former Montrealer David Lipper, who is now based in Los Angeles.

 The story was picked up by the media and by the next evening, Lipper had received an apologetic call from the OQLF telling him the store could continue using the spoons while the file was being studied.

 “Construction of the Laval store was supposed to be finished four months ago, but we kept getting our permits refused, once because there wasn’t enough French on the plans, another time because the plans were rolled, not folded. Then there was the construction strike and now there is the construction holiday. I have no idea when the opening day will be.”

 “The process hasn’t changed my love for (my hometown), but it is very difficult to do business in Quebec,” Lipper said. “If I’d known at the very beginning that the process would be even 50 per cent as difficult as it’s turning out to be, I would never have done it.”

'Jan Wong ordered to repay Globe separation payment'

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/07/05/jan_wong_ordered_to_repay_globe_separation_payment.html

Journalist Jan Wong breached a confidentiality agreement with The Globe and Mail and must pay back an undisclosed severance payment, an arbitrator has ruled.
The decision by arbitrator Louisa Davie comes after Wong’s former employer objected to a book she wrote about her battle with depression, as well as some of her Tweets and media interviews.
Davie ruled this week that Wong’s 2012 book Out Of The Blue breached a Memorandum of Agreement signed by herself, the Globe and her former union, the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, Local 87-M.

Wade Rowland: The Private Industry Is As Rich As the CBC

Wade Rowland: The Private Industry Is As Rich As the CBC

As the financial plight of the CBC/Radio-Canada deepens, there are signs of a genuine debate emerging about how to restore the public broadcaster to health, and sort out the industry at large.

CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais announced later last month that the CRTC will begin consultations with citizens and media players this Fall: "It's time to ask if the assumptions that lie beneath our current regulatory policies still hold true," he told an audience in Banff.

And a week later, Kevin Crull, CEO of Bell Media, the nation's biggest media conglomerate, responded in print to a suggestion of mine that Ottawa sharply reduce or eliminate its lavish subsidies to private broadcasters, and instead channel more money to the CBC -- enough to allow CBC television to get out of the commercial sponsorship game and become a true public service broadcaster.