Note to French Newspapers: Anglos will not vote for a candidate who refuses to speak English
There is an article in this morning's Le Devoir, bemoaning the fact that anglophones and allophones made up a large part of Gerald Tremblay's victory Sunday night.
"Leur conclusion? La victoire à l'arraché de Gérald Tremblay a été possible grâce à deux facteurs: la langue des électeurs et le poids des anciennes villes qui ont intégré Montréal."
Translation: Their conclusion? Gerald Tremblay's victory, won by the skin of his teeth, was thanks to two factors: the language of the electors and the weight of the merged municipalities (that didnt demerge)
They are complaining that anglophones exercised their vote in favor of Tremblay. I will give the same history lesson I gave to my friend John Lennard, who at the time was leaning toward Harel.
Louise Harel, with her friends in the Parti Quebecois, have built their careers eroding the rights of anglophone Canadians living in Quebec. Whether it be education rights, blocking skilled immigrants from settling here for not speaking French, pursuing businesses for having signs that are of equal size in English parts of Quebec, the Parti Quebecois has taken every possibility to eliminate the anglophone presence in Quebec, especially with their infamous language police (kept by the provincial liberals). That's right. We have a police. The criminal is English...
One of the reasons I love Jean Chretien so much was based on something he once said at a Liberal convention I attended. He said that when he had the option of increasing rights or taking them away from people, it was up to the government to increase rights.
My friend John told me that he knew of Harel's PQ past and it would not influence his decision. I reminded him that if a party so callously disregarded the rights of one minority, nothing separates that from disregarding the rights of others. Would he feel the same way if Harel spent her life campaigning against the rights of gays or Blacks? Probably not. He voted against her, as any person who cares about rights should...
I will never vote for someone who campaigns to take away my rights or has done so in the past. If Louise Harel would apologize to anglophones for her efforts to diminish the anglophone presence in Quebec, I would consider voting for her.
Maybe I am asking for too much...
However, Harel refused to campaign in English at all during the campaign. Anglophones tried to set up a site called friends of Louise Harel and couldn't find any, so they bought some stock photos from the United States...(the irony is amusing)
Harel snubbed the anglophone community and Le Devoir and La Presse are SHOCKED that they didnt vote for her. They can blame the language barrier, but I challenge them to find an example of a majority of Quebec voters voting for someone who did not speak French.
La Presse and Le Devoir campaigned openly against Tremblay, pandering to their readerships and effectively becoming part of the problem. They do not bring up the fact that Harel did not campaign in these areas. They did not explain that Harel forced the merger of these communities in 2002, making her a despised figure in the suburbs. It is the fault of anglophones and allophones because they are not francophones...
I can only imagine what they would write if all the island municipalities were part of Montreal, the way Harel originally intended. A unilingual francophone is UNELECTABLE in that election. On the island of Montreal, anglophones and allophones make up over 50% of residents and well over 50% of homeowners, who vote far more often than tenants.
Montreal deserves a bilingual mayor. La Presse and Le Devoir should put that in their next diatribe...
"Leur conclusion? La victoire à l'arraché de Gérald Tremblay a été possible grâce à deux facteurs: la langue des électeurs et le poids des anciennes villes qui ont intégré Montréal."
Translation: Their conclusion? Gerald Tremblay's victory, won by the skin of his teeth, was thanks to two factors: the language of the electors and the weight of the merged municipalities (that didnt demerge)
They are complaining that anglophones exercised their vote in favor of Tremblay. I will give the same history lesson I gave to my friend John Lennard, who at the time was leaning toward Harel.
Louise Harel, with her friends in the Parti Quebecois, have built their careers eroding the rights of anglophone Canadians living in Quebec. Whether it be education rights, blocking skilled immigrants from settling here for not speaking French, pursuing businesses for having signs that are of equal size in English parts of Quebec, the Parti Quebecois has taken every possibility to eliminate the anglophone presence in Quebec, especially with their infamous language police (kept by the provincial liberals). That's right. We have a police. The criminal is English...
One of the reasons I love Jean Chretien so much was based on something he once said at a Liberal convention I attended. He said that when he had the option of increasing rights or taking them away from people, it was up to the government to increase rights.
My friend John told me that he knew of Harel's PQ past and it would not influence his decision. I reminded him that if a party so callously disregarded the rights of one minority, nothing separates that from disregarding the rights of others. Would he feel the same way if Harel spent her life campaigning against the rights of gays or Blacks? Probably not. He voted against her, as any person who cares about rights should...
I will never vote for someone who campaigns to take away my rights or has done so in the past. If Louise Harel would apologize to anglophones for her efforts to diminish the anglophone presence in Quebec, I would consider voting for her.
Maybe I am asking for too much...
However, Harel refused to campaign in English at all during the campaign. Anglophones tried to set up a site called friends of Louise Harel and couldn't find any, so they bought some stock photos from the United States...(the irony is amusing)
Harel snubbed the anglophone community and Le Devoir and La Presse are SHOCKED that they didnt vote for her. They can blame the language barrier, but I challenge them to find an example of a majority of Quebec voters voting for someone who did not speak French.
La Presse and Le Devoir campaigned openly against Tremblay, pandering to their readerships and effectively becoming part of the problem. They do not bring up the fact that Harel did not campaign in these areas. They did not explain that Harel forced the merger of these communities in 2002, making her a despised figure in the suburbs. It is the fault of anglophones and allophones because they are not francophones...
I can only imagine what they would write if all the island municipalities were part of Montreal, the way Harel originally intended. A unilingual francophone is UNELECTABLE in that election. On the island of Montreal, anglophones and allophones make up over 50% of residents and well over 50% of homeowners, who vote far more often than tenants.
Montreal deserves a bilingual mayor. La Presse and Le Devoir should put that in their next diatribe...
par / by Anthony à / at 8:41 a.m.
4 Commentaires:
very interesting, insightful commentary, esp for those of us on the outside.
however, I do recall that La Presse (A. Pratte) endorsed NO ONE in the mayoral election.
At least they didn't blame "le maudit vote ethnique" for their loss this time.
As a Francophone outside Quebec, all you whiners now know how we feel. We had politicians representing us for ages who couldn’t speak a word of French. I agree; it is not acceptable either in Quebec nor elsewhere in Canada.
And how many times have I been to meetings where the majority was Francophone and the meeting turned to English to accommodate one or two who never made the effort to learn the other official language of Canada. In my opinion, asking every Canadian to be able to speak both official languages would not be too much to ask. It is not bilingualism which is expensive, but the converse. Trudeau had this vision of Canada. Ask yourself the question; who resisted bilingualism the most, French or English Canada?
I thought I would get some feedback from my comments; I assume you all agree with me.
Je pensais qu'il y aurait eu des réactions à mes commentaires. Il faut croire que vous êtes tous d'accord avec moi.
Post a Comment
<< Home