The Suburban News | The brutish temper of Quebec’s times

The Suburban News | The brutish temper of Quebec’s times



In December of 2010, this paper first raised the alarm on an OQLF (Office québécois de la langue française) directive to Quebec government agencies. That directive mandated those agencies not to communicate with any business or employer in any language but French. And that included businesses of under 50 employees to whom the Francization provisions of Bill 101 did not even apply ...



We have seen it through the values debate. Not that it should be our greatest concern right now in Quebec, but the government could have put forward reasonable lay regulations that affected only the legislature, courts and security authorities. There is precedent in western law and history for that. But it went as far as it did — into health care, social services and every aspect of our public square – precisely to once again stir up that voting mass of narrow-mindedness from which it seems to draw more and more of its support. It is practicing what the courageous writer Jean-Charles Harvey called — in the time of Duplessis — “La politique de la peur.” ...



 By its actions, the Marois administration is not only violating Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but Quebec’s own protections against linguistic discrimination as well as the UN Covenant on Religious, Ethnic and Linguistic Rights of 1992, which Quebec acquiesced to by reference. Further, whatever one’s position on the language laws, law must never be retroactive. The acquired rights of all must be respected. Respect for acquired rights is a central organizing principle of all civilized systems of law ...

The Suburban News | Anglophones demanding more respect for English

The Suburban News | Anglophones demanding more respect for English

In the last year, from the perspective of the anglophone community, the main Quebec political battles have been focused on what appears to be the successful fight against the proposed tougher language law Bill 14, and the ongoing fight against the proposed Charter of Quebec Values, which will heat up during upcoming hearings.
But a lesser known battle has been brewing in the last few weeks of 2013 — the battle for more respect for the English language, in areas where such respect might be assumed.
The battles against the provisions of Bill 101 softened in recent years, since the disappearance of the original Equality Party and Alliance Quebec. There have been notable exceptions in the form of “language eruptions,” mainly coming from misjudgments by the Office Québécois de la Langue Française that resulted in the international embarrassments of Pastagate and the frozen yogurt spoon saga

Graham Fraser: For a ‘foreign body,’ Canada does a lot to include Quebec

Opinion: For a ‘foreign body,’ Canada does a lot to include Quebec

The Quebec government’s minister of international relations, Jean-François Lisée, said recently that Quebecers no longer have a connection to Canada, and that Canada has become a “foreign body.” He is not alone. Former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said something similar a year and a half ago in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation.
I don’t think this is the case.
To begin with, when exactly was this golden age characterized by a Quebec commitment to the rest of Canada? During the First World War?

PQ releases self-help holiday guide to defending Quebec values charter

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/pq-releases-self-help-holiday-guide-to-defending-quebec-values-charter/article16099773/

Just call it the Parti Québécois self-help holiday guide to defending the Quebec Charter of Values.
As Quebec families prepare to gather over tourtière and a bûche de Noël, the PQ has released a six-page document intended to address all the pesky questions that have arisen over Bill 60, the controversial legislation that forbid public employees from wearing conspicuous religious symbols on the job.

Matt Gurney: Protecting the French language, one lunch break at a time | National Post

Matt Gurney: Protecting the French language, one lunch break at a time | National Post

The case for fixed book pricing in Canada | National Post

The case for fixed book pricing in Canada | National Post

Don Macpherson: So much for a calm, respectful debate on the values charter

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Macpherson+much+calm+respectful+debate+values+charter/9210755/story.html

Khadir, who is a political adversary of Benhabib, told Le Devoir that “certain incendiary statements” by the former PQ candidate created “such a hostile environment” toward Conradi that, rather than try to continue speaking to an audience “that clearly didn’t want to listen to her,” she walked out. “And I walked out, too, in solidarity.”
In her defence, Benhabib told Le Devoir that Conradi had been “disrespectful to me and to the audience when she interpreted the comments of some participants as perceptions.”
So we have apparently reached the point that to refer to someone else’s beliefs as “perceptions” has become an irresistible provocation that must be met with booing and heckling.

Globe: Quebec Liberal Leader rethinks stand on religious-symbols ban

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/quebec-liberals-open-to-religious-symbols-ban-for-judges-police/article15511635/

The Liberals may go as far as to embrace the recommendation of the 2008 Bouchard-Taylor report on religious accommodations, which recommends a ban on religious symbols for some public servants in position of authority. The Coalition Avenir Québec as well as the Québec Solidaire party support that view, which could mean a common front by the opposition against the PQ minority government.

Don Macpherson: McCarthyism, Québécois nationalist style

http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2013/11/12/mccarthyism-quebecois-nationalist-style/

There’s just something about articles written by English-speaking Quebecers for New York publications criticizing Québécois nationalists that sends the latter clambering up the curtains.
You may recall the furor over the late Mordecai Richler’s article on Quebec’s language legislation, Inside/Outside, in New Yorker magazine in 1991, which Richler then expanded into a book, Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!
On Tuesday, the New York Times published an opinion article, titled “Quebec’s Tea Party Moment,” criticizing the Parti Québécois government’s proposed anti-hijab law (or what I call the Charter of Pants). It was written by Martin Patriquin, the Montreal-based Quebec bureau chief for Maclean’s magazine.
Patriquin isn’t the first Quebec commentator to compare the PQ, since it proposed the Charter of Pants, to the conservative Tea Party movement in the United States. Shortly after the PQ presented its initial “values” proposals in September, Jérôme Lussier called the PQ the “Tea Parti Québécois,” because of its “populist xenophobia,” on his blog for L’actualité magazine.
But Lussier kept his criticism within the French Quebec family, while Patriquin was writing for the English-speaking world.
So, inevitably, Patriquin was accused by Québécois nationalists of “besmirching Quebec’s image,” or, as it is commonly called, “Quebec bashing.”

Analysis: The political strategy behind Quebec's values charter (CBC.CA)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/the-political-strategy-behind-quebec-s-values-charter-1.2418405

Pauline Marois has already said that she would be “proud” to invoke that notwithstanding clause to pave the way for her new law.