Quebec is investing $950,000 in an exhibit about the French language at Pointe‑à‑Callière museum, for next summer.
La Presse’s Mario Girard inquires who needs 17 new museums about Quebec history. And of course, as announced this week, the old St‑Sulpice library is currently meant to become a museum about Quebec song.
Trying to blog on Sunday morning, and despite the furore about violence in the city, there isn’t one police blotter story on the entire island.
I’m struggling with what to do about Quebec politics stories. I started this blog years ago with the firm intention not to turn it into an angryphone platform, so that when I read that Simon Jolin‑Barrette wants to basically remove the Canadian charter of rights and liberties completely from Quebec legislation, I don’t know what to do with it.
It’s becoming more and more clear that while the CAQ won’t campaign for explicit separation of Quebec, they’re simply acting as if it’s a fait accompli, and managing to do it so they can still get money from Ottawa.
I remember reading a piece during the lead‑up to the 1995 referendum in which a journalist quizzed random Quebecers on what they thought Quebec separation would mean in practice. A surprising number of people imagined that Quebec would still get federal transfer payments, be able to call on the Canadian armed forces, use the Canadian dollar and so forth. At the time I remember thinking that a lot of folks, even people self‑declared as sovereignists, hadn’t really taken in what it would mean for Quebec to be a fully sovereign state. But maybe it was a prescient diagram of what the typical CAQ supporter wants.
It wears me out. Somebody bring me a nice story about a festival or a gangster or something.
There’s room to emphasize how Montreal is distinct in a way that fits neither anglophone nor francophone narratives, and that compares it to other cities around the world rather than the rest of Quebec. I think the blog, along with writers like Toula Drimonis, is doing that job quite nicely.
The lead-up to the 95 referendum also revealed that many people thought separation would mean they’d no longer have to pay federal income tax — with no corresponding increase in Quebec income tax. They literally thought they’d be cutting their income tax in half. #facepalm
If only some political thinker, preferably from France, could examine a democracy that mistreats minorities in order to warn the majority that just because they are are exerting the apparent will of the masses does not mean they have the moral justification to do so and as a result were at risk of becoming tyrants.
This one hit me hard. We are living in a wonderful metropolis with some real issues, but are held hostage at the provincial level by the suburbs. Where have I heard this one before?
The parallels to our friends to the south are not fun to think about.
Anyway chin up, Kate, this blog is the furthest from angryphone letters to The Suburban you could get.
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