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Is it just me, or has this World Cup season been pretty quiet on the local front? Italy’s not in it, so that leaves out one major party of fans that we usually hear from.
Portugal’s fans were probably just about to celebrate on Monday afternoon when Iran equalized at the last minute, so that didn’t happen.
Any other ebullient honking spotted around town? I haven’t noticed any yet, but then I may not have been in the right places.
If you thought the Grand Noirceur was ancient history, ponder this: Quebec’s first ever education minister has just died. Paul Gérin-Lajoie was 98. He created the first education ministry under Jean Lesage in the 1960s. He’s credited with making education free and mandatory till age 16, among a list of other achievements.
I’m seeing tweets that Gérin-Lajoie will get a national funeral. Le Devoir collects a scroll of elegiac tweets.
Tony Accurso has been found guilty of all five corruption and fraud charges he faced connected with municipal contracts in Laval. Accurso was acquitted earlier this year of similar charges in connection with contracts in Mascouche.
The show selling the most tickets so far at the jazz festival is called SLĀV, a co-creation by Robert Lepage and singer Betty Bonifassi, and it’s going to be talked about, as explained here by T’cha Dunlevy: she’s collected slave songs over several years and is going to perform them herself.
Dunlevy evokes cultural appropriation right from the headline, then shows Bonifassi trying to justify herself. He doesn’t do her any favours, calling in academic opprobrium on the other side of the balance. The cited professor thinks the show should have used “a black singer and more specifically one whose ancestry is rooted in transatlantic slavery.”
Update: Bonifassi has been performing this stuff for awhile. Example.
Some might say it’s typical of anglo media to run a story with the headline Ignore the alarmists, there is no language crisis in Quebec, economists say. Actually the piece is an interview with one economist, UdeM prof François Vaillancourt, who’s written a report with numbers showing, as the writer says, that Bill 101 has worked and French is now more dominant economically and numerically here than ever.
One, is there any sign of a language crisis? As I noted this weekend, the Fête nationale always brings a flurry of pieces about the perilous position of French, but it’s largely a gesture toward tradition.
And two, does an economist’s numbers really count against perceptions? It’s perceptions that get people out in the street, impel them to vote a certain way, change how they feel. As we’ve learned so far in this millennium, the successful politician needs to tinker with perceptions, not present cold hard facts.
And a minor three: if there’s one type of lede I despise, it’s an order to forget or ignore coming from a journalist or newspaper. Even when it’s something like “Forget foie gras, everyone’s eating poutine now!” I recoil. Tell your story, don’t order me around.
Gabriel Jacob of the Montreal Then and Now Facebook group has unearthed the YouTube channel of Louis Pelletier, who’s been digitizing a lot of old film footage of Montreal back into the 1920s.
A man suspected of killing a woman in Laval on Saturday was spotted on security footage at Cartier metro on his way into town. Article has various photos and details of Christophe Oliviera’s appearance and previous acts of violence.
Despite their different ages and genders, and being unrelated, the two were apparently housemates for a short time. Clearly, cohabiting or even renting space to people has its hazards.
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