Some delegates to COP15 had never seen snow before. Journalist talks to people from Cameroon and Brazil.
Updates from December, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Two men behind the J’achète des maisons CA$H signs around town have been charged with fraud – big surprise there.
Michael
10 years ago I visited a house that was for sale by these guys. It was all renovated though. The Blumenthal guy was very odd, couldn’t read him, and gave off an aloof feeling where you didn’t trust him at all.
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Kate
François Legault has been criticized by the PLQ for agreeing to meet with Justin Trudeau in Montreal instead of in Quebec City. As it happened, the meeting was cancelled over a pretty mundane December snowfall.
On Twitter, Léa Stréliski observed: Trudeau a annulé sa rencontre avec Legault prétextant la neige et je pense que c’est la chose la moins canadienne que j’ai lue de ma vie. Tu peux pas être PM du Canada et utiliser la neige comme excuse, c’est comme si Macron venait pas parce qu’il y a du vin.
GC
There is so much that both of them can be criticized over, but people are chirping over this?
Legault is supposedly a world leader, in some people’s eyes, so shouldn’t he be at COP15, anyway?
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Kate
A crash between two vehicles earlier this month in Montreal North is now being treated as a homicide – #39 of the year.
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Kate
According to the OQLF, Montrealers between 18 and 34 are shopping too much in a language other than French.
Spi
At what point do we cross the line of protecting the French language and telling people how to live their lives?
Ephraim
We passed that line years ago… try ordering from Bed Bath and Beyond and a few other companies only to find that they won’t even SHIP to Quebec over fear of the OQLF going after them
Michael
6000 complaints in 2021-2022… Boy are they whiny as hell. What I would give to shut down OQLF permanently…
Kate
I’d love to see a breakdown of complaints by individual. I bet there are a handful of people who make an avocation of wandering around town with a clipboard and making a complaint every time they hear someone in a store say “Bonjour, Hi”.
Uatu
I think they should be around to enforce 101 that way they could have shut up these two obviously francophone teenagers who were obnoxiously talking and swearing loudly in franglais on the metro last week.
Ephraim
@Kate – And their family name is all Quislling 🙂
I still the day they shut down Quebec’s access to Steam, Epic Gaming, Apple Store, Microsoft Store and Google Play for any apps not available in French, is the day we will see an end to this nonsense. I don’t care how separatist you are, the gamers will rock their world 24 hours after being shut out
Kate
Ephraim, Quisling was not the same thing. Vidkun Quisling sold out to external forces, and that’s nothing like what’s going on here.
Some people are ardent in their belief that their culture is under constant attack, and there’s nothing that an anglo can say by way of counter‑argument. Our very existence is evidence that they’re right – here we sit, in the middle of Montreal, arguing in English.
walkerp
While the bureaucratic excesses of the various bodies attempting to protect french language and culture can be tiresome, I have to say as an anglophone, I find the sneering, cheering tone of the comments on this thread to be callous and lacking in empathy and understanding. They reflect badly upon us.
Yes there are some loud ideologues out there, but many francophones are truly suffering from an anxiety about the loss of their language and culture. I had an interesting discussion with a francophone friend whose sister married an anglophone, moved to the west island and only speaks english at home. His mother wants him to speak to her grandchildren (his niece and nephew) in french, but they don’t understand him when he does! I can see how that would be a pretty awful feeling.
The other advantage that we all get from overzealous french restrictions is that it is somewhat of a buffer against the tidal wave of American/english consumerist monoculture. I for one appreciate anything that makes it a little harder for Amazon to sell their crap (and exploitation model) here. I also appreciate living in a multi-lingual world. I would much rather the ruler-waving bureaucrats being annoying from time to time than live in a sea of identical shopping malls, which is basically the world out west.
jeather
Yes, whatever happens AFTER high school, or maybe cegep now, is different, but we still have the two solitudes in the school system. (I also zero believe that a francophone married an anglo, had kids, stayed in Quebec and was like, yup, no need to teach my children a single word of French, it will work out fine.)
Robert H
Is there a single barometer of change that has ever been missed by the OQLF? This is the topic that everyone says they are tired of hearing about and talking about. But they will never stop, because it is such a fundamental part of life in Quebec, that it is immune to even boredom and exasperation. I’m certain most anglophones and plenty of francophones would agree with Michael, but Walkerp is right. Through periods of intensity and tranquility, that cultural friction is always there in the background. So, if the pain-in-the-ass OQLF didn’t exist, there would be something else in its place because it is actually needed. It’s a consequence of dueling contexts: francophones see themselves as a tiny, outnumbered population chronically, existentially threatened on a continent that primarily speaks the world’s lingua franca and seduces with an attractive, powerful consumerist monoculture that Walkerp cited. Anglophones see themselves as a tiny, outnumbered population chronically, existentially threatened in a jurisdiction that seems to resent them for breathing the same air as Les Gens de Souche. So the pendulum will keep swinging until it finds its temporary equilibrium. Then we can await the next disruption. I am reminded of a complaint I’ve read and heard within another context: “What the hell is it with you people? Whine, whine, whine. Everything is about ______!” Sound familiar?
CE
Thank you Walkerp for so eloquently putting all the feelings I’ve had about this debate into words.
Meezly
But what’s causing the sneering and frustration?
If francophones are truly suffering from anxiety about losing their language, they keep electing a government that uses fear-based policies that persecute English-speakers and minorities. I would never be the kind of person that sneers, and do wish non-francophones can be more understanding, but I do find these exclusionary laws quite sickening. It reflects badly on Quebec francophones.The CAQ has injected a significant amount of money into expanding the OQLF which is a reactionary rather than proactive organization that acts like the language police. Meanwhile, French public education has barely improved, teachers are still underpaid, and there’s still a chronic shortage of teachers, you know, who can teach the new generation the French language. Community French language programs and the buildings that provide these programs have been shuttered.
Meanwhile, immigration policies aim to be more selective rather than inclusive. Economically, this will have a negative effect on the province as it becomes more protective and insular.
And the OQLF are having a hissy fit cuz the 18-34 set are shopping too much in English? Like WTF? No wonder there are sneers!
By protecting French in a reactionary, fear-based way, the powers that be are really going about this the wrong way, so it’s not surprising that divisions keep growing, instead of shrinking.
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Kate
Things to do on the weekend from CultMTL, CityCrunch, Sara’s weekend list. Pre-Christmas events in Time Out.
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Kate
The Franco festival is now to have a comité de francisation following an investigation by the OQLF.
You couldn’t make it up.
Kevin
LiveNation wants to make enemies with everyone in music.
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Kate
A demonstration against the sharp rise in the police budget for next year interrupted the adoption of the 2023 budget at city hall on Thursday. Ted Rutland had posed a question about police funding and is quoted here also asking, after the event, why the city is not devoting more of that cash to homelessness, youth activities or social housing instead of policing.
The budget was adopted unchanged.
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Kate
Metro notes that 2022 will have the most homicides seen here since 2007, when we had 42. As of this moment, we’ve seen 38. (Update later Friday makes it #39.)
Episodes of gunfire are down, though.
On Twitter, Radio-Canada’s Pascal Robidas lists the numbers from 2007 till this year. It varies from 2007’s high of 42 down to only 23 in 2016. I’m no stats maven but this seems to me a fairly unremarkable variation in a city this size. I’m not sure you can make these variations mean anything.
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Kate
The Gazette’s Paul Cherry tells a tangled tale about how a police bug in a suspect’s jeep solved a homicide – but not the one they expected to.
Blork
Actually, it solved a SHOOTING where there were no injuries, not a homicide.
Kate
Right. I became confused.
I wonder how many people in Canada have the given name Gretzky.
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Kate
Two more nurse practitioner clinics have opened in town. People will be directed to these clinics by 811 if their health issues aren’t serious enough to need a hospital ER.
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Kate
A march was held Friday morning in the snow to Rouen and Parthenais, the intersection where Maria Legenkivska was killed on Tuesday in a hit‑and‑run. (The driver has since turned himself in and been released on bail.)
Protesters, while sad, were clearly also angry at the city’s failure to control drivers speeding on the streets in their area. The city has already made changes so that the intersection will be safer.
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