Bill 101 Can't Save Quebec Culture

Quebec sovereigntists, language militants and French firsters live with the fantasy that Bill 101 has and will continue to safeguard Quebec language and culture. But 40 years later they are forced to admit that while you can lead a horse to water, you cannot make him drink.

For them, forcing immigrants to adopt French would hopefully transform Africans, Asians, Caribbeans and South Americans into model Quebecers who mimic their hosts not only in language, but also in thought and demeanour.
It hasn't worked before and isn't likely to succeed in the future.
While many foreign communities have adopted Quebec as their new homeland, they largely have kept much of their traditions and culture, something that irks militants to no end.
Some communities have integrated on the English side of the language equation, some on the French side and some split, but whether on one side or the other, most of these communities have kept up their traditions, values and religious affiliation much to the chagrin of purists who demand that speaking French isn't enough and that adopting Quebec 'values' is necessary as well.

Years ago I watched with amusement the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on reasonable accommodations and as Premier Charest said a the time, it was the best entertainment on television featuring many crackpots and racists.
But perhaps the most poignant moment for me came when this statuesque Black Quebecer, an obvious immigrant from Africa complained in excellent French that 'they' (whoever that may be) are demanding that she eat poutine and maple syrup, an allegory that rightly explains language militants expectations.
A little later on in the hearing a North African complained comically that there wasn't enough foot(soccer) on television, again underlining the clash of cultures.

From a solidly white/Catholic Francophone society with a minority English community tucked away in western Montreal, Quebec is moving to a pluralistic melting pot, at least in the greater Montreal area, due to massive immigration and a precipitous fall in the birth rate.
Here language is irrelevant to those who see the 'barbarian' invasion as a threat to what Quebec used to be and blame the immigrants for staying true to their heritage, culture and religion, something bad when it comes to 'les autres,' but something good when applied to Quebecois de souche (old stock)

Generations later, these immigrant communities have stubbornly held onto their own set of values, infuriating language and culture purists who had assumed that these people would lose their religion, taste for ethnic food and cultural mores over time.

While Bill 101 forced these immigrants to adopt French, it cannot transform them into the image of their hosts, crashing the dream that Quebec could be multi-ethnic yet French and culturally homogeneous.
Language extremists are faulted for claiming that the sky is falling, but are largely correct. While Quebec is becoming more and more French, it is becoming less and less Quebecois in culture.

The stark reality is that the only way to stem the cultural derivation of Quebec society is to increase the anemic birthrate among Quebecois de souche, something that even the most strident language militants dare not suggest.
What language purists propose instead is unrealistic, placing the onus on immigrants to reinvent themselves.
Bill 101 was and continues to be popular among Francophones because it relieves them of the responsibility of safeguarding their own language and culture. It remains a convenient cop-out.

Support for safeguarding Quebec language and culture among francophones is strange in that the majority of Quebec francophones (57%) want to strengthen Bill 101, yet a majority (53%) want to be able to send their children to English schools. Over 63% of francophones want the right to an English CEGEP education. It's hard to make head or tails of those statistics.

And so the die is cast.
Unless Quebecois de souche increase their birthrate, Quebec will evolve where historical Quebecers and their society will have to share the province with those who speak French, but who are more religious and who hold different values, customs, food and traditions.

Bill 101 can't save Quebec from going down that culturally diverse road, only a dedicated effort to have more babies can, and that gentle reader, you and I both know it isn't going to happen.

Bill 101... 40 Years of Hate

There's a bit of a media hoopla over the 40th anniversary of the infamous Bill 101 language law, which placed restrictions on the use of English in Quebec and led to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Anglophones from the province.

A lot has been written and a lot has been said by proponents and opponents of the bill but few on either side are willing to admit the truth, that Bill 101 was an instrument of ethnic cleansing, not language protection.

The author of the law, Camille Laurin, was an Anglophobe extraordinaire, a man who believed that the independence of Quebec could not happen as long as the Quebec English community thrived. Bill 101 by his own admission was an attempt not only to regulate language but an attempt to break the Quebec English community as a political force, once and for all.

And so Bill 101 was not conceived primarily as a language law, meant to redress language issues as much as it was an attempt at ethnic cleansing. The law would put the hated Anglos in their place and hopefully 'convince' them that Quebec was no longer hospitable and that for those who stayed, a promise of second class citizenship.
Laurin filled the Bill with outrageously restrictive clauses that he knew were clearly unconstitutional because he intended to provoke a fight, understanding that every inevitable defeat in the Supreme Court would be characterized as a humiliation, fuel for the separatist movement.
Every time I  think of the hateful Camille Laurin I imagine him conducting a Quebecois version of the Wannsee conference, deciding rather coldly how the destruction of the Quebec Anglo community would proceed.

 René Levesque, Premier and leader of the PQ at the time, never supported Bill 101 as it was written, believing it was too restrictive and vindictive. But his cabinet secretary Louis Bernard, aligned with Laurin, rallied the cabinet to the hard line, leaving Levesque with no other option but to support the bill. That being said, Levesque walked out of the National Assembly when Laurin tabled his bill, a snub that Laurin never forgave.
The PQ understood exactly what Bill 101 would do to the English community and in an interview years later, Louis Bernard admitted that an Anglo exodus in reaction to Bill 101 was a price that the PQ was willing to pay. What he didn't say or wouldn't admit is that this result was exactly what the PQ planned.

Still today, language militants continue to propagate the myth that Bill 101 was 'torpedoed' or 'butchered' by Ottawa instead of admitting that the constitutional challenges that led to the invalidation of many of the punitive aspects of the law were always part of the game plan. They continue to sell the big lie that Bill 101 was the innocent victim of a federalist plot to reduce Quebec's power.

But in both respects, Bill 101 was a rousing success, it chased hundreds of thousands of Anglos out of the province and elevated French to a position of domination over English in public life. It effectively broke the English community's back and when the rest of Canada decided to accept Bill 101 as the cost of keeping Canada together, the appeasement sealed the fate of the English community in Quebec.

I wonder how all the leftist Liberal and NDPers who supported this idea of indulging the separatists in order to preserve the country, would react to Israel creating a law that restricted Arabic?

Israel and Quebec both share some commonalities, they are about the same population and have a linguistic minority. Both are surrounded by neighbouring countries which speak a hostile language. Hebrew is as much at risk in Israel as French is in Quebec.
So what if Israel proclaimed that the only valid language and culture is Hebrew and that public life would henceforth be conducted in Hebrew only.
What would be if Israel enacted a Bill 101 of its own? I'm not talking about occupied territories, but Israel proper. That law might prescribe that Arabic signs could not be erected without a Hebrew equivalent, which would be obliged to be of bigger characters than the Arabic. This would apply all over Israel even in towns and villages that are predominantly Arabic, the same as in Quebec where towns like Hampstead which are 80-90% English must also post French signs according to the law. What if some public services were mandated to be offered in Hebrew only and what if restrictions would be placed on Arabic education.
What bloody Hell would break loose at the United Nations where nation after nation would lambaste Israel as racist, with Canada's NDP and Liberals front and center in the criticism.

Today separatists lament that perhaps Bill 101 was too successful because it addressed the perceived  linguistic grievance, and thus the impetus for sovereignty was forestalled. Boo hoo....

Bill 101 remains the same hateful hammer, a mean-spirited and evil concoction meant to intimidate and punish the English community with the hopeful outcome of keeping English in check.

Whenever I argue with those who say that Bill 101 has nothing to do with hate, retribution or domination, I remind them of the rule that forces an English speaking immigrant student from Jamaica, New York or London, whose mother tongue is English and someone who speaks nothing but English into the French schooling system.
Nothing could be more stupid or cruel, the argument that these people must be integrated into the French side of the language equation utterly laughable and unattainable.
Forcing Anglophones into French schools is the height of vindictiveness, an overt action of hate and aggression, meant only to punish.

Bill 101 was more about destroying the English community than protecting the French language.
It was and remains a vindictive law that successfully persecutes Anglophones for political motives, all with the quiet acquiescence of the cowardly rest of Canada.

Haitian Border Jumpers- Your Tax Dollars at Work!

Border crossers lining up for Quebec welfare payments

There are two types of Canadians, those who believe that a border is a border and potential immigrants
or refugees must go through a process to be admitted to Canada. Then there are those who despite understanding that Haitian border jumpers are breaking the law, remain sympathetic and want Canada to turn a wilful blind eye to the situation and let them in.
It's hard to reconcile the two divergent opinions and the hard and soft positions make for a lively political discussion in Parliament, the media and even across the family dinner table.

So let us examine a few things that are not in dispute or subject to subjective opinion.

Almost all these border jumpers are ineligible for consideration as immigrants, or for that matter refugees.
These people are economic migrants who seek a better home than the squalid conditions in Haiti, which is not a criterion for consideration. Almost half of the men crossing the border have criminal records, an automatic disqualification for entry under any circumstances.

But no matter, the Trudeau government, like the German government under Angela Merkel has sent signals that Canada is open, willing and able to accept those who cross the border illegally and hence the trickle of border jumpers has turned into a torrent. Who could blame those Haitians from taking their chance given their limited options and the very real fear that Trump will finally boot them out of America.

This week the Quebec government has announced that it will give these border-jumpers monthly welfare checks of $623 and more for families.
So far this year 10,000 people, mostly Haitians have crossed illegally into Canada, the vast majority through Quebec. Although the government is reluctant to give hard numbers, it is believed that up to  250 people a day are making the crossing. In July alone over 3,000 crossed into Quebec.

In the end, almost none will be ruled eligible for admission, but it isn't likely that many will be returned to Haiti. After a lengthy immigration process that will include interminable appeals that will stretch out into years, most will go underground rather than return home willingly.

So how much will the ongoing fiasco cost?
It's hard to say, given that we aren't being told how many will ultimately be let in. The potential number of those wishing to come to Canada is staggering and the situation cannot be allowed to continue, even for Trudeau's Liberals who will face a building backlash that will culminate near the next general election.

But let's crunch some numbers for the fun of it, even though it is probably an exercise in futility given that we just don't have enough information, nor can we predict how many will come over the border in the near and far future.

So let us start where we are, with 10,000 already crossed, of which 4,000 individuals and families will receive welfare payments starting at $623 per month. Interestingly, the Quebec government has cleverly omitted telling the truth about the payments to families, who make up the majority of the border-jumpers. Welfare payments for couples run about $1,000 a month and those with children increase those benefits by a couple of hundred dollars.

Now a straight calculation of what the Quebec government has led us to believe is that it will spend  $623 x 4,000 = $2.5 million dollars a month, or $30 million a year and that isn't even adding in the cost of free medicare.

But given that families are being paid more than the minimum, it is safe to say that the real amount being shelled out is much higher and since we don't know that number, let us take a guess.

All 10,000 'refugees' are being covered by 4,000 cheques and so let us hazard a guess and say that of the 4,000 cheques, 2,000 are going to individuals and 2,000 to families of four (adding up to the 10,000.)
So here is a new calculation;
$623 x 2,000 = $1.25 million dollars a month for individuals and $1,200 x 2,000 for families = $2.4 million dollars, making a new grand total of $3.65 million per month or $44 million a year.

Now let us suppose that in the next twelve months, in addition to the 10,000 already arrived, another 15,000 jump the border, which is an ultra-conservative estimate.

That means after all the calculations are done, the so called refugees are costing the Quebec government and its taxpayers over $100 million dollars a year.

In discussing the issue with a friend of mine who supports the open border, he rightly points out that although a $100 million sounds like a big number, it is actually only about 1/10 of one percent of the total Quebec annual budget of $90 billion.
Fair enough.

But $100 million taken by itself is a rather large number and an opposition leader made a very poignant point about what that money can buy.

Earlier this year the government admitted that seniors living in government old age homes (CHSLD) are being given only one bath a week because of the expense.
It seems that a second bath per week would cost $30 million dollars a year, money that the government could not authorize in good conscience because of other 'pressing' needs.

When called out on this fact by Jean-François Lisée, the Premier bristled and said that it is sad the leader of the PQ would dare to make such an association.
I actually think that it was a very good argument, one that brings the value of money spent down to a level where average citizens can understand the real cost of the refugee program.

And that gentle readers is the long and the short of it.
In the end (if there is one) Quebec can expect to dole out over $300 million dollars over the next three years and when the migrants ultimately land, either returned to Haiti, granted official refugee status or gone underground, the cost will ultimately be much higher.

Can Things Get Worse for the Parti Québécois?

It seems that ever since Jean-François Lisée took over the Parti Québécois the fortunes of the party have gone from bad to worse.
Trailing both the Liberals and the CAQ, with just 22% support in the polls, each passing month sees more of its base dying off. With collapsing support in its youth wing, its hard to see the party renewing itself and with about 70% of Quebecers rejecting sovereignty, the raison d'etre of the party, it is hard to see where the PQ can go.
It occurs to me that if a poll was conducted over Quebec sovereignty in the ROC, a higher percentage of Canadians would support Quebec leaving Canada than the percentage of Quebecers wishing to do so.
Its gotten that absurd.

With sovereignty off the table, the PQ tried to harness Quebec's natural xenophobia, in proposing the Charter of Values, but overestimated the pushback. In that effort, the PQ tried to face-off the Montreal region with the rest of Quebec and surprisingly (or not so) the effort turned into a calamity, chasing the PQ from power and ushering in the current Liberal era of Philippe Couillard.

The latest humiliation comes courtesy of Statistics Canada which reported that the number of Quebecers having English as their first language in Quebec has had a meteoric rise since the last census.
This was of course fresh fodder for the hapless Lisée, a man and a party searching for some relevancy and so the "bad news," of the rise of the anglophone community is 'good news' for a PQ in desperate need of an issue.
The spectre of the evil anglophone community growing at a breakneck pace is a gift-wrapped issue for those who believe that Quebec is being attacked relentlessly by an English horde of barbarians at the gate.

And so like Chicken Little, Lisée has gone to town, declaring that the linguistic sky is falling by characterizing the notion that a growing English community is an existential threat to the preservation of French in Quebec.
He has proposed all sorts of changes calling for a new Bill 201 that would turn the thumbscrews on all aspects of English. He has demanded that no immigrant be allowed into Quebec if they cannot speak French and that a student cannot graduate an English CEGEP without mastering French. He wants to force federal agencies and companies to comply with Bill 101 (they are now exempt by federal statute) and he wants small business' to be subject to language laws.

It was a couple of good days for Lisée, spewing his tough new stance on English on every news channel and radio station that would have him, and there were plenty of takers.

But this all came crashing down today when after complaints by Anglo activists that the numbers Stascan published were nonsense.

In the race to find fault with the English, nobody in the francophone media looked at the Statscan numbers with an ounce of scepticism, a curious case of journalistic laziness. The numbers were so clearly in error that Anglo activists questioned the accuracy almost immediately.

"Are there almost five times as many English-speakers in Dolbeau-Mistassini, in the Lac-St-Jean region? Has Quebec City gained 6,000 residents whose mother tongue is English since 2011?
So say the results released last week from the 2016 census.
But some researchers who study Quebec’s anglophone minority aren’t buying it.
“It defies logic,” said Jack Jedwab, the executive vice-president of the Association for Canadian Studies. On Wednesday, Jedwab wrote to Statistics Canada questioning the accuracy of the findings on language in Quebec."  Link

Today StatsCan admitted that the entire 60,000 increase in the Anglophone community was an error, plain and simple. They botched the calculations.
The Anglo upsurge was but a figment of imagination, an error that not only humiliates StasCan but bleeds all over the PQ and Lisée who built a whole new election platform on a false premise.

What fun!

I don't know how Lisée can spin this. Does he retract the anti-English platform based on the fact it was built on a lie, or does he brazen it out and tell us that just the same, the policy is one that the party will continue to support.

Gender Parity in Parliament is a Bad Idea

I've heard complaints from women, not just feminists, that the number of bathroom stalls accorded to the ladies room in many venues, especially older facilities built when women participated less in public society, is unfair when compared to the facilities in the mens' room. They rightly complain that physiology and indeed other factors like clothing and social mores contribute to the fact that women spend twice as long as men in the bathroom and facilities should be built or retro-fitted to reflect this reality in order to reduce wait times in the ladies' room to equal that of the men's room.
Fair enough, I agree wholeheartedly.

But the argument actually underlines the fact that although supposedly equal, men and women are different, a fact feminists want us to ignore.

Much has been made of the fact that women earn on average 72 cents for every dollar earned by men, a dubious fact that feminists trot out as proof that women are discriminated against in the work place.
But putting aside the veracity of that fact (which is highly disputed,) the correlation between pay and gender is not ipso facto a result of discrimination.
It is like saying the fact that our prison population is 90% male is proof that our justice system discriminates against men.
Perhaps we can better deduce that men by nature are more likely to break the law than women. Take your pick

Yes, dear feminists, men and women are different, equal but decidedly different. It is when feminists ignore this glaring fact that we get into the absurdities of the gender equality movement.

A great example of this is the controversy launched by tennis star Novak Djokovic who complained that the politically correct trend of offering women equal prize-money in major tournaments like the US Open or Wimbledon is unfair since men are responsible for generating much more revenue.

In a convoluted rebuttal in Money magazine writer Kerry Close's number one argument for equal pay is that;

 "Female tennis players work just as hard as men."

Really?
According to this train of thought, an artist who works as hard and expends as much effort as Michelangelo should command the same price for the sale of his or her paintings. Hmmm....
She then goes on to say;

 "Female tennis players....already realize that both genders should receive equal pay for equal work."

The equal pay for equal work is a valid argument when the product of the work is equal, not the case in men's and women's tennis.
Two employees who shuck oysters may work equally long and hard, but if one shucks double the amount of oysters in the same shift as compared to the other, he or she deserves higher pay.
But that isn't even the case in women's versus men's tennis where men spend considerably more hours at work.
At Wimbledon in 2015, Novak Djokovic spent 16 hours on the court to win the championship, while his counterpart on the female side, Serena Williams needed only 10.6 hours to win her championship.

And finally  the author makes this argument;

"It's a myth that fans are always more interested in men's tennis." 

Alas, also not true. The author cleverly alludes to several rare exceptions that essentially prove the rule. Women's tennis generally attracts about half as much fan interest as men's tennis.
At Wimbledon this year, a tournament that offers equal prize money for men and women, viewership for the men's final was 9.2 million, while that for the women was 4.3 million.  Link
And so any argument for equal pay for women's tennis players is not based on economics, but rather irrational feminism where reality is always tempered by flights of discrimination.

There are actual domains where women make considerably more than men, the fashion industry a good example where the top male models make a fraction of what top women models make.
Is it discrimination or economics?

And so too is ridiculous the complaint that women pay more for dry cleaning or hair cuts because of discrimination. Unfortunately, few are willing to confront this feminist nonsense.
Women pay more for dry cleaning and haircuts because they want to. They are much more particular about quality than men and thus pay a premium.
If women were as price driven as men, certainly somebody, perhaps a smart woman, would open a dry-cleaning business and charge women the same as men, with the resulting avalanche of business from disgruntled women assuring that the enterprise would become a rousing success, leading other dry cleaners to follow suit or lose customers.  How come it isn't so?

If women earn just 72% of what men earn, why wouldn't a smart boss hire only those women and ignore the overpaid men. If the women produce as much as the men, then the company would have an astounding competitive advantage and profits would soar!

As for hair salons, nobody but nobody will disagree that women are generally much more concerned with their hairdo than men and willingly pay more for the right result. Otherwise, low-cost women's hair salons would flourish. Let us remember that most women's salons are owned and operated by women, so any perceived discrimination is self-imposed.
Now there are a few salons across the country that now charge by the length of hair, not by gender, but they are few and far between, making my point that choice isn't always about price, especially among women.
And by the way, should not those long-haired individuals complain about discrimination by virtue of their long hair being charged more?
Should fat hungry people pay more at the lunch buffet and if so, should not women pay less because they consume less food?
Isn't it age discrimination when children and seniors pay less at the movies?
What about happy hour where women pay less at night clubs that give out free drinks to women to encourage them to come?
All discrimination....

We live in a free enterprise society where businesses can and do easily jump in when opportunity presents. If women are over-charged or underpaid, there are simple market remedies that present. When bars want to increase the number of female patrons, they offer incentives. Theatres understand that kids and seniors have less disposable income and so offer discounts.
Markets generally regulate themselves, unless subject to monopolistic conditions. Barbershop and dry-cleaning prices aren't controlled by an anti-women cabal, they are a result of market forces.
It is too easy to blame perceived inequalities between men and women on discrimination when other factors are really at play.

Now to the idea of gender equality in Parliament, an idea that every feminist holds sacrosanct.
Regardless of what feminists say, political parties are bending over backwards to recruit women and visible minority candidates, even to the point of encouraging and promoting the under-qualified.
One only has to look at Justin Trudeau's gender equal cabinet that has led to the promotion of under-qualified women, two of whom which have flamed out spectacularly with others floundering in inexperience or incompetence.
The Liberals have elected 30% of its sitting members as women, yet offer them 50% of cabinet positions. This is a clear case of discrimination, or as feminists like to put it, affirmative action.
Clearly more competent men were left out to satisfy Trudeau's feminist fantasy where quality takes a back seat to gender politics.
Now let me preface all this with the opinion that women make equal or better politicians than men. If anything they are generally more honest and involved in corruption but a fraction of the time men are.

But there will always be fewer women than men in Parliament unless the numbers are goosed unfairly by idiots like Justin Trudeau who view perception as more important than substance.

There are a variety of reasons that women see being a Parliamentarian as less compatible and desirable than men do.
Parliament means long hours away from family and members cannot take maternity leave in good conscious, leaving constituents without representation. Unlike the office accountant who goes off on maternity leave and is replaced with a temp, women Parliamentarians cannot be replaced temporarily, and so face the difficult decision of having a career or a family.
Generally, women choose work that keeps them close to home and family to a higher degree than men, a fact which is a result of choice.

To blame society for the lack of gender equality in Parliament is to ignore reality, the withering fact is that for some very good reasons, women in a much higher proportion don't see the job as desirable. That is called choice and free will.

We can accept that Parliament will always have a disproportionate amount of men versus women because that is what women want.
Or we can promote from the lower ranks of the unqualified to fill the imaginary gap and suffer the consequences.

Fewer women in Parliament is not discrimination, but more women in Parliament certainly is discrimination.