The Age of Miracles has not yet passed:
"There is a tendency (in Quebec) to portray the poor French Canadians as abused by the English, which is wrong," he said. "If we have democracy today it's because we got it from Britain."
That might seem like so much common sense, and basic history, but dans la belle province these days it's akin to a capital offense. For some militant Quebecois nationalists saying nice things about England is comparable to an American black saying nice things about Jim Crow. The politician in question, Stephane Gendron the mayor of Huntingdon, is now being fitted for his Uncle Tom custom. The one unforgivable crime of modern Quebec is admitting that, hey, perhaps the British Empire wasn't so bad.
Underpinning the narrative of modern Quebec nationalism is victimhood. Not so unusual that. Many ethnic nationalists portray themselves as victims of Great Power machinations. Thing is that many of those ethnic nationalists do have some legitimate historical complaints. The Quebecois nationalist does not. Instead they have to exaggerate the slightest misunderstandings into attempts at genocide. Thus the spectacle of Quebec politicians attempting to frighten their electorates with stories of their grandparents not being able to get service at department stores in French.
This would have been at about the same time that Hitler was running riot across Europe.
Prioritization has never been a strong point for pure laine obsessives along the North Shore. Case in point:
But even among Quebecers who do understand the need for language protection, there are some who question how it’s enforced. Many businesses have come forward saying they are being newly targeted by Office québécois de la langue française inspectors for using foreign words—like the words “on” and “off,” discovered on a restaurant microwave.
Oh, Mordecai Richler. Canada hath need of thee.
M. Gendron went onto say many interesting things in this interview. That he prefers to conduct council meetings in English and French since, well, about half the town is English and the other half French. Everyone just kind switches back and forth depending on whatever is easier. Apparently Hizzoner the Mayor thinks that language is a means of communicating with fellow human beings. Such quaint notions these small town folks have. In modern Quebec language is tool to be used to extract money from the federal government, while providing profitable employment for busybody mediocrities in the province's bloated bureaucracy.
And like we keep reminding our readers here at GCH: You're paying for all of this.
Not just paying in the sense of funding the equalization racket. Also paying in the sense of seeing fellow Canadians denied their basic rights because they had the poor luck to be born in Quebec, rather than over the Ottawa River in the comparative sanity of Ontario. It's been half a century since Dief spoke of One Canada. It seems longer. Between the bilingualism fetishists and the multicultural cultists, the energies of thousands of government employees across Canada are directed toward turing us into a sub-arctic version of the Balkans.
There's only 34 million of us. Dividing Canada even further along tribal lines is both wicked and stupid. Wicked because in runs against basic notions of justice and common humanity. Stupid because we live in a world where China and India, countries that have cities with populations roughly comparable to the whole of Canada, are coming into their own. We are no longer the 7th largest economy in the world. We're not even in the top 10 by some measures. Give it a few more years perhaps not even in the top 20.
A small ship in a big sea is just that much easier to capsize. M. Gendron seems to get that.
Apparently Pauline Marois & C0. never will.
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