Trust a partisan (not) for a cheap shot.

http://www.rabble.ca/babble/national-news/quebec-solidaire-wins-seat-three-cheers-amir-khadir

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Trust toddsschneider to pull out of one more Montreal Gazette hate-laced Op-Ed[,] the paragraph were [sic] Don McPherson singles out the only Left politician in the Assemblée Nationale, eschewing MacPherson's critique of Mario Dumont and Monique Jérome-Forget's "transition allowances".

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I eschew nothing, besides the facile (and faulty) description that Macpherson is among the hate-mongers. One need not be a federalist to recognize a venal move among the Quebec political class, but it never hurts.

Besides, Macpherson spares no legislative party in this critique, left, right or centre, so he singles out no one in particular.

I posted the the link to the whole article for any interested (but fair-minded) readers to come to their own conclusions. I can't wait to see the Quebec solidaire press release on this one.

"The friends of Pauline"

"PQ leader donates to Jeunes Patriotes du Québec, the sovereignist goon squad"

http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/features/viewpoints/story.html?id=66c7fd76-2e6e-46fa-944e-83e8770b21c7

The source of the threats remains unclear. But any such threats should have been taken seriously, considering the organizations that put pressure on the concert's producer, the C4 agency, to cancel the performances.

These organizations are the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal and the Association culturelle Louis-Hébert de Rosemont/St-Michel, an offshoot of the SSJB-M and a sponsor of the concert.

View Larger Image

Young men prepare to march in the May 18, 2008 parade organized by the Jeunes Patriotes du Québec.

JOHN KENNEY, THE GAZETTE

Both have close ties to the Montreal-based Jeunes Patriotes du Québec, the radical "street sovereignists" known for creating politically motivated disturbances, usually at federalist gatherings but once even at a meeting of the Parti Québécois ...

The Kyle Wozniak file

http://rabble.ca/babble/central-canada/bureaucratic-bs-could-force-montrealer-english-school

If Canadian federal-jurisdiction workplaces are strictly federal, then it should be hands off from provincial interference. Unless of course, the interference is for a principle you support, like the prima facie-tiousness of French in Quebec.

But federalism, like democracy, is a series of checks and balances. Schools are a provincial jurisdiction under the Constitution of Canada. Educational rights in the official languages are enumerated there. The so-called Canada clause, where access to English schools in Quebec is granted, was whittled down by federal-provincial wrangling all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Thomas Mulcair of the federal NDP is a former Quebec provincial cabinet minister, and a putative federal one. His comments and insight on Quebec are germane and welcome at any time.

But Kyle Wozniak's father's presence or absence is not germane in this case. His educational history and Kyle's mother's rights are.

Now you care about Kyle's education. Kyle's mother presumably went to French school in Quebec, but since she didn't move anywhere, she has a presumptive right to schooling her child in English.

The majority and the minority both will have to suffer along with the political types' endless appeal to insecurity. Recall Proposition 08 against gay marriage in California (please). Minority rights balanced against those of the majority are another price we all owe each other.

Maybe Woody Allen would be as hard-pressed to satirize Quebec as Mordecai Richler was: just present the facts and no one will believe it's not a put-on.

Who are they, and where do they live? Names ...

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/580773

When Ignatieff spoke of the strategic importance of the Alberta oil sands on a daylong visit to Montreal last month, I could not think of the last time a federal leader had spoken of Canada in Quebec, or at least done so outside the narrow confines of what more the federation could do for Quebecers.

Quebec sovereignists lost the last referendum; their cause has been in decline ever since and yet, almost fifteen years later, the Bloc has a virtual monopoly on speaking of Canada in Quebec and for Quebec on the federal stage.

Ignatieff will not have much of a shot at bringing the boom-and-bust Quebec federalist cycle to an end unless he brings more of the Canadian conversation to Quebec, and a more engaged generation of francophone federalists to that conversation. Those federalists actually exist. But more of that in another column.

[CHANTAL HEBERT]

Keep in mind ...

http://galganov.com/editorials

... By federal law, Canadian Banks and Insurance Companies must be headquartered within Canada. There go the banks [out of Quebec]. By law, airlines cannot pick-up and deliver passengers from one national location to another national location unless that airline is headquartered in that nation. Goodbye Air Canada ...

Then there’s the Canada Export and Development Corporation that underwrites just about all of Bombardier’s sales abroad. Goodbye Bombardier along with other federally financed corporations in Quebec ...

Goodbye all the federal government jobs that disproportionately employ French Quebecers. Especially those who can speak some English ...