My last two editorials have created quite a stir amongst ethnocentric Québécois nationalists. I didn’t realize so many of them read my articles.
All the letters I received ranged from being indignant to downright nasty. A few told me what I can do to myself sexually. And all of them accused me of being a liar for the history I wrote about Quebec’s relatively recent past (See Archives October 16, 18, 2004).
Not one of the letter-writers took the time, or made the effort to prove my historical claims false. They would do well to understand that hurling insults at me does nothing to change history.
What was really incredible, was that all of the letter-writers claimed to be FEDERALISTS.
They were passionate about remaining Canadian. And did their very best to express their outrage that I would be so uppity as to promote the concept of de-Confederation.
The writers couldn’t understand why I am against Quebec having all kinds of special privileges and rights the rest of the country didn’t have.
They couldn’t understand that Quebec is a POVERTY province with an outstretched hand to Ontario and Alberta. And without equalization, transfer payments, and the enormous amount of grants, interest free loans and jobs that come from the federal government; Quebec would be nothing more than a backwater.
I can understand how ethnocentric Québécois nationalists rail at the suggestion that they are not the center of the universe, since this is a concept they’ve been spoon-fed for more than 100 years.
The ethnocentric Québécois nationalists who are so upset with me, seem to believe that it‘s only “normal” for Quebec to have all sorts of special benefits not available to the rest of Canada. And that the restricted (illegal) use of the English language in Quebec is fine. But the rest of Canada should be bilingual.
Remarkably, they hated me when I defended the concept of keeping Canada together. And now they hate me as much, and perhaps even more, now that I want to take Canada apart.
This past week, an English speaking lawyer in Toronto, engaged a law student to beat a traffic violation on a technicality, that the traffic sign she disobeyed in Toronto (no left turn) was only in English, and should have been bilingual.
The Justice of the Peace agreed with the kiddie lawyer wannabe, and found the “admitted guilty party” not guilty.
Based upon this jurisprudence by a pipsqueak judge in favor of a language virtually never heard or seen in Toronto, all of Ontario’s major cities will have to change all of their traffic signs.
The cost to do this will be in the HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of DOLLARS. But Toronto’s going to fight the court decision. And that should only cost a few million dollars if it goes all the way.
What happens though, if Dyan Adam, Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages, who is in reality the federal watchdog to promote the French language across Canada outside of Quebec, decides to intervene on the behalf of the traffic violator?
This isn’t a stretch, since the federal government’s Justice Minister, Irwin Cotler, sent a federal lawyer to the Supreme Court of Canada as an intervener against Brent Tyler who was defending the RIGHT of Canadian children, who live in Quebec, to have the choice between receiving an English, French or Bilingual education.
If Ottawa decided to side with Quebec’s ethnocentric nationalists over the issue of equal language rights for children in education, why then would it not be plausible to imagine Ottawa siding with the likes of Dyan Adam over spreading the French language on traffic signage throughout Ontario and beyond? But NOT in Quebec.
What makes this situation laughable, is the army of French speaking people, including Dyan Adam, whose personal quest is to make the French language more visible throughout Canada, while Quebec makes the unrestricted use of the English language ILLEGAL. Even to children.
To the ethnocentric Québécois nationalists who detest me for saying what really is, and for quoting history that really was, this is just a small example of an avalanche of unfairness within Canada between Quebec and the other provinces.
When successive Parti Québécois and Liberal governments crapped all over the rights of Quebec’s minorities, the rest of Canada couldn’t have cared less. And still don’t. It wasn’t in their back yard. But now, that the “influence of what Quebec wants” is imposing itself on the rest of Canada, especially in Toronto, it’s becoming a different story.
If Quebec should decide to have another referendum on leaving Canada, there will be no huge pro-Canada rally like the one we saw days before the October 30, 1995 vote.
Canadians will not get in cars, on busses, trains and airplanes, most of whom traveled at their own expense from across the continent, to keep Quebec from leaving Canada. This time around, the rest of Canada will most probably offer to help carry the bags of the departing Quebec to the curbside.
I know that I will.
I sort of feel sorry for the ethnocentric Québécois nationalists who hate my guts because I wanted to keep Quebec within Canada. And now hate me more so because I want Quebec out of Canada. They’re deeply confused and conflicted.
I also feel sorry for them because they don’t have a clue about their history. And because they can’t possibly understand that a real country must be equitable for everyone with no special status for anyone.
And I feel sorry for them because, when the rest of Canada finally wakes up and sees just how screwed they’ve been by Quebec, and Quebec’s federal leaders, the ethnocentric Québécois nationalists won’t know what hit them when the rest of the country starts to campaign for the exit of Quebec.
Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada got my vote during the last federal election, but he won’t see it again.
Quebec has even got to him, and instead of working to either de-Confederate Canada, or tell Quebec where to get off, he’s become just one more failed federal politician whose career will crash in a blundered attempt to reconstruct Canada to appease Quebec. His vision is the “Belgium model”. Whatever that means?
Ethnocentric Québécois nationalists have so polluted the politics of Canada, that we’ve lost all semblance of being a real country, and are watching our politicians make it all up as they go along.
Amongst my French Canadian friends, business suppliers and clients, they’ve had enough too. When the chapter will finally closes on Quebec’s current relationship with the rest of Canada, many of them won’t be making their home in DISTINCTLAND.
Even now, where I live in Ontario, relatively close to the Quebec boundary, house sales to retiring French Quebecers wanting to get away from Quebec are brisk. And to identify them, all you have to do is look at the highest flagpoles flying the Red Maple Leaf.
I kid you not!
One Comment
Love all your articles, but this one is the best! We just have to leave all in the hands of God now. Clean up our own act, and pray & pray. California just had an election, and the Dems won, hands down! Very few people went to the polls, sorry to say. Most don’t even care or follow what’s going on. Our loss. I liked the above comments. Yes, come to either Utah or Texas. You would fit right in with those God-fearing people! God bless you, Howard. He knows where you belong.
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