Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Too soon, by Richard Martineau
Richard Martineau
08/09/2010 4:39
In October 2009, the Minister Claude Bechard was interviewed very touching and very lucid Josélito Michaud. "If it comes back, I know it's over," he said. It comes back. And he died at age 41, hours after it was bizarrely announced his resignation.
We always repeat the same phrases about the death.
No justice
"Death is the only justice here", and "should live each day as if it were the last."
Both statements are probably the dumbest sentences ever imposed.
Indeed, how can death be considered a form of justice?
Bastards die in their sleep 92 years while citizens are best carried by terrible diseases in the prime of life.
Where is where the justice in that? The Spanish dictator Franco died at 83 years. Maurice Papon, the French war criminal who helped the Nazis in deporting hundreds of Jews, dead at age 97. Henry Kissinger, who instigated the coup in Chile and authorized the bombing of Cambodian civilians, 87 years and has always delivered speeches at the four corners of the planet.
Claude Bechard, he died of pancreatic cancer at age 41, survived by four children ...
No wonder that man invented God. How could we endure such injustice, if not?
The last day
The second sentence is equally stupid.
Because let's be honest: if we lived each day as if it was the last person would not work, we would be all in Olomouc Olomouc islands, a cocktail in each hand ...
At the end of his life when he felt the breath of the Grim Reaper on his neck, Claude Bechard said that had he known he would not have so much work, he spent more time with his wife and children ...
"During the night, you think child that you do not have time to do," he told Denis Lessard.
This year, he was able to attend the show year-end of his two biological daughters.
"It was the first time ... and you can not stop thinking that this may be the last, "he said, choking with emotion.
Under the carpet
It works, it works ...
Why? What it gives, at the end? More money? Some honors?
Do you really think that at the end of your days when you feel the life leave you, you say: "I had to work a little more? Spending a few extra weekends in front of my computer?"
We all behave as though we were immortal. Mind you, this may be the only way to live. Sweep this big monster under the carpet, and line ...
Face death
As my idol, the journalist Christopher Hitchens, who is dying of cancer of the esophagus, Claude Bechard has faced death with dignity and fortitude.
"We can not always put his plans later, he launched Josélito. They must do it now ... "
The young minister had already established the "other side" when he said that.
But we who inhabit the land of the living still, are we able to hear this message?
Labels: Parti Libéral du Québec, Québec, Richard Martineau
Bastarache Commission: the hacker, by Richard Martineau
Richard Martineau
07/09/2010 4:40
The Committee Bastarache still a funny, sensitive sound hacker, you can not find?
After all, the Gomery commission was based on facts.
There was an investigation by the Auditor General, information, evidence, reports in the newspapers showing by example that the government had paid $ 550,000 to a marketing firm for a report that no one could find, etc..
In short, this commission was based on the solid. We had every reason in the world of developing.
On sand
However, the Committee Bastarache based on unproven allegations and not proven.
Bellemare said the Prime Minister said such a matter. Charest said that it is false.
No fact, no evidence. What assertions. As Anglos say: "He says, hey says."
Or you believe the Prime Minister or you believe the former Minister of Justice.
Unless a last minute surprise (a cookie hidden in closet that has heard it all), the commission will never succeed in revealing what really happened between these two men.
Doubts continue to float.
Haters will Charest fiduciary principle of presumption of innocence and convict him. Those who love it will defend tooth and nail, saying he was the subject of a settling of accounts.
No skeptic will be confused, no believer will not be converted.
Duelling
In fact, Bastarache is not a commission. It is a duel.
Marc Bellemare has launched claims questioning the honesty and respectability of Jean Charest. Charest went and created a commission of inquiry to clear his name.
At other times (at the time of muskets and top hats), Charest slapped his former minister in public and would have summoned to appear at the edge of a forest in the early hours of the morning with a witness and a pistol.
Contrary to the Gomery commission, the commission took no both been set up to inform people that wash the honor of a politician.
Come see comedians
The LCN network card disseminating board hearings Bastarache. Normal: this is the best theater in town.
Given that such allegation can be proved, it is all about the game and the credibility of the belligerents.
The issue is not "who will tell the truth?" (They probably never would have known), but "SEEMS as telling the truth?"
So we carefully scanning the faces of the two adversaries.
The slightest blink of an eye, a drop of sweat, the slightest tremor of the cheek are analyzed, dissected, skinned.
It's like when the American judge Clarence Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill.
The Republicans took to him. The Democrats took for her.
But what has really happened between these two people? Nobody can say with certainty.
Our vision of the facts depends on our political allegiance.
A disturbing experience
In the twelfth century, Ibn Munqidh Syrian prince attended a duel between a blacksmith and an old man.
The experience was profoundly shocked.
"Where was the justice in that?," He cried. Where was the criminal? Where was the innocent?"
Damn good question.
Labels: Parti Libéral du Québec, Québec, Richard Martineau
Monday, July 26, 2010
Is this the end of the subversive humor?, by Fabien Deglise
The kings of the joke are now less caustic, less subversive, but also more consensual and soothing. Whose fault?
They may be funny, but ultimately they deceive their audience. Proof: while pretending to laugh at everything, the comedians, who seized gently Montreal for the 28th edition of Just for Laughs Festival, have tended considerably reduced in recent years, the subject and object of derision.
And that's not all: far from being offended that several rebels claim to be, those kings of the joke are now less caustic, less subversive, but also more consensual and soothing. Whose fault? With the industrialization of humor, a little, but mostly moralistic screed that arrived from left field, would have befallen our societies ... sadly for the survival of humor that strips, which disturbs and makes you think, but also for the freedom of expression, said the French journalist Martin Leprince, author of a fascinating essay on the state of humor, entitled Gone laughing. Can we still laugh when we're left? (Editions Jacob-Duvernet).
"The comedians are lying," says the other end the head of the Paris office of the regional daily Nord Eclair. Le Devoir has bothered during his vacation at the beginning of the week. "They like to portray themselves as troublemakers, the better to sell, but finally chilly artists who practice self-censorship and operates a humor that is on the marked trails. The political correctness that has invaded our societies has also polished the sphere of culture." And as far as awareness, to fight poverty, he said.
The change of tone in humor is easy to understand. It is today, "laugh at what is not funny is not only distasteful, it is an incitement to hatred," he writes in his book. "We felt the liberating laughter, able to soothe tensions. It would only worsen."
Laugh about scandal
Comedian Louis Morissette is clearly not the opposite. Last night, on stage at the Theatre Saint-Denis, he has chaired, along with his friend Jean-Francois Mercier, a gala for the Just for Laughs placed under the sign of the "scandal". The object stage thought to be aired on the TVA is replayed tonight. It refers to a little media storm in which the two comedians met in the aftermath of the presentation of Bye Bye, vintage 2008.
Reminder harm: a joke about Nathalie Simard, but also the poor and Barack Obama referred to the dark side in a parody of the show by Denis Levesque on LCN, had aroused criticism in general and Le Journal de Montreal in particular. In the first weeks of 2009, the tabloid has spent six of them controversial. Basically.
"It was clearly a chicane media was made on the backs of creators, analysis retrospectively Louis Morissette. In their obsession with us, a newspaper group has attacked the Crown corporation [CBC broadcaster of Bye Bye] to undermine his credibility and calling into question its financing. The controversy has been created from scratch to provoke reactions."
The reading of events, which is now the driving force promoting the duo that calls itself outrageous - "we knew it was going to talk", took the former Man comic - is perhaps valid. But there are certainly more, believes Martin Leprince. The last lot of comedians on the public square is induced by the guardians of mainstream values, which "like all the guardians of mainstream values, do not like that we laugh with them," he said.
But in the 1980s, "advocates of communitarianism have succeeded in imposing rectitude in the political sphere, rectitude that has since moved elsewhere," says the author. "Today, we can not laugh any more victims, religions, disabled, homosexuals without being publicly accused of xenophobia, racism, intolerance" ... or even of infamy and crime of lese-majeste, the joke is good or not.
The French comic Alévêque Christopher, who has previously blasted the boards of the House Theatre of Montreal, has also recently discovered. During a TV show, "says Mr. Leprince in his book he described as" ridiculous guys who are 40 years of rollerblading "stressing" they should have two neurons. Erreur. Error. It has unleashed the wrath of the community who started to invade his inbox messages of hatred and insulting. Roller Magazine has even threatened the comedian to "get him". Nothing less.
Not shocking to live
The proof is made. "When humor is trying to be subversive, questioning established values, we find all the ways to limit it, continues Leprince. This ultimately makes moralizing posture comedians chilly, and what to avoid trial by crowd could make them lose market share.
Because folk art, humor has become, like many other components of culture, a paying industry in which artists work as trademarks. "In this context, any comedian can not afford to be disliked by the media, said Mr. Leprince. For these cases flourish, it should shock no one and can therefore only show consensual."
The development of "a laugh that perfectly meets [the] humanistic feelings without hurting the hypocrisy," as the French journalist wrote, Quebec is no exception either with its small market where the funny must seek consensus to make a living from their art, said Louis Morissette. "Nobody comes out a winner of a controversy here." And he adds: "However, I feel that the public is always a little ahead of the media for tolerance for humor. What I read in my newspaper, this is not what I hear in my family dinners when I'm with my friends when I meet people on the street."
Martin Leprince hope elsewhere, claiming it loud and clear, as a remedy to the correctness room, "the right to laugh at people who take themselves too seriously," as Coluche, a famous comedian in his country, the often put forward. "By nature, stupidity is everywhere, right and left. We must laugh, not only in the places marked. Today, comedians, even those who say they are committed, no longer fit in opposition to the dogmas of our time. They embody these tenets." This observation certainly calls to laugh, to avoid weeping.
Link
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Quebec - Allahu Akbar: "I want to hunt koufars Canada. Only their deaths will make Islam triumph"
Note that "koufars" refers to the infidels, or non-Muslims.
A Quebec man has posted messages on the Internet encouraging Al Qaeda to attack Canada. This message is part of a series of messages similar to the tone of concern to authorities in the fight against terrorism.
The author of the messages, who uses the pseudonym Altar, praised terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden and asked why Al-Qaeda was focusing its efforts only on Europe instead of Canada.
Link
Labels: Al-Qaeda, Québec, Terrorism
Monday, March 08, 2010
A police niqab? No thank you, by Michèle Ouimet
What a beautiful case for throwing gasoline on the feu. A immigrant of Egyptian origin was expelled from his French courses at CEGEP Saint-Laurent because she refused to remove her niqab, the full veil that hides all face except the eyes.
This is not the college has decided to expel the pupil, but the office of Immigration Minister Yolande James.
The college has done everything to meet the lady who could wear the veil and make presentations at the back of the room, his back turned to students. During one lesson, she even asked the men to move because they faced him.
His claims were clearly unreasonable, yet the story has dragged on for months. The Ministry has finally decided she had to remove her veil, if it was the expulsion.
She chose deportation.
Why this issue has made it to the office of Minister James? Why the college Did not make the decision alone?
Because the issue of reasonable accommodation is always delicate, too explosive. A minister who is involved in a class to solve a problem of sailing! It is micro-management. Yolande James said she consulted the Prime Minister Charest before making his decision?
This story also shows how institutions are disadvantaged when demand spiked lands on their desk.
The Bouchard-Taylor commission has nothing resolved? However, Quebecers have played a huge part in its work: 17 regions visited, 800 witnesses, 900 written submissions. An incredible success, a great group therapy.
The two commissioners have delivered a report intelligent, nuanced. A brick of 310 pages that the government was quick to hide in the back of a cupboard, merely delivering a vague contract of citizenship that immigrants should sign their arrival in Quebec.
Since the beginning of the year, reasonable accommodations haunt the Liberals. Jean Charest thought getting rid of this troublesome debate by creating the commission Bouchard-Taylor.
Mistake.
***
When my colleague Vincent Marissal told me this story niqab, I told myself: "Oh no! yet the debate on reasonable accommodation!" I already saw the defenders of secularism rigid hands on deck to require the adoption of a law banning the full veil in public.
The France wanted to adopt such a law. Although the vast majority of French MPs are against the niqab and the burqa, they have recoiled from the idea of the ban. How to apply the law? By giving tickets to women who go around in burqas in the streets?
Who wants to have a policy of the niqab? A bit obnoxious, not to a country that prides itself on being democratic?
In Canada, the reality is different. A law is unthinkable, because "it would clearly be against the Charter of Rights, which guarantees freedom of religion," said the lawyer Pascale Fournier, a professor at the University of Ottawa.
Unnecessary, therefore, to go to Supreme Court. It has nothing to do with our time and our money.
???
A teacher or a lawyer might wear a headscarf that leaves the face uncovered without endangering the secular character of the school or court. With the burqa, we fall into another universe.
Someone in authority should not wear the full veil, because it is a strong symbol of inequality between men and women, like it or not Muslims.
By cons, secular society is not threatened because a woman is walking down the street or the subway with a burqa. Anyway, they are only a handful to wear the full veil. It does still not pass legislation to fifty women are often poor and isolated.
The issue of reasonable accommodation can not be resolved with legislation that would trace a line clear. It will always be the case by case basis.
The government can acquire the tools by creating, for example, a "board of harmonization" to assist institutions facing a complex problem of accommodation, as suggested by the Bouchard-Taylor commissioners.
If I were Jean Charest, I would go for the report of the commission in the back of the closet. Whether he likes it or not, the problem is far from settled.
Link
Labels: Arab World, Islam, Québec, Secularism
A Muslim expelled from a course because of niqab
Unlike the hijab, niqab covers the mouth. A teacher of Cegep St. Lawrence said that its port limited interaction skills of a student taking a course in French. This archive photo was taken in Egypt.
Vincent Marissal
La Presse
The Department of Immigration of Quebec was reached last November, to expel a French courses for immigrants a woman of Egyptian origin who refused to reveal his face in the classroom.
After months (February-November) attempts to accommodate the part of the teaching and direction of Cégep Saint-Laurent, the situation became tense may cause clashes within the institution.
According to what the press could learn a senior officer (Roger Giroux, CEO of francization the Immigration Department) intervened personally to ask for the umpteenth time, the lady to remove her niqab (which leaves appear as eyes), otherwise it would be expelled from the course. She refused, demanding a written confirmation from the Department's position, what she got.
In the letter, Mr. Giroux said that the reasons were clearly explained to students excluded that it could pursue its way with her niqab but it had plenty of time to complete the training online.
The lady has complained in the days before the Commission on Human Rights, who will study in the coming months.
The whole story began in February 2009 when the Egyptian immigrant was enrolled in a French course at CEGEP Saint-Laurent. She has the permanent resident status in Canada. To register, she provided a photograph of her face was uncovered and she met without niqab, the evaluator francisation services.
So far, so good. Problems arise however when the first courses because some men are in the class and she refuses to disclose in their presence.
Conciliatory, teacher supply, in agreement with the direction of the college, hide with her in a corner of the class to do exercises dialog. For these special sessions, the student agrees to withdraw her niqab.
An oral back
This arrangement is flawed, however, soon struck the very objectives of the course, which will facilitate exchanges between students, oral presentations and scenarios. In addition, the woman refuses to increasingly comply with the agreement with his teacher. The latter, along the direction of CEGEP Saint-Laurent, reminds him that for educational reasons, it is essential to see the faces of students in trade in order to correct their speech and to see their facial expressions.
At one time, we push the same accommodation to enable the student to make an oral statement at the bottom of the class back, because there are men in the room.
The relationship between Muslim students and a teacher, but also with the rest of the class gets tough on the edge of open conflict. We finally reached the point of no return when the lady, after a pause, asked three men to move because they face it in class, arranged in U by the teacher for precisely facilitate trade. The men and the teacher agree, but the situation became untenable and clearly we are heading towards a confrontation.
According to our sources, students veiled while systematically refusing to uncover her face, even alone with his teacher, and she shows more and more militant, even aggressive.
Therefore, the case "goes" to the department and even to the office of Immigration Minister Yolande James, who follows closely with its staff, its evolution.
The ultimatum and the expulsion of the student were decided at the political level, with the intervention of a senior official and the concurrence of the Minister James.
File politically explosive
Many Quebecers applaud the government's firmness on this issue, but politically and legally, the ground is slippery.
At the time, in several European countries, a debate rages on religious symbols, especially the veil (hijab, niqab or burqa), Quebec intervenes for the first time in a classroom. Two similar cases have arisen recently in French classes for immigrants at Cégep de Sainte-Foy, but both students were bent to the demands of the course.
Compete by the principles of secularism and equality between men and women, pillars of the policy of the Quebec government, and freedom of religious practice, recognized by the Quebec and Canadian charters. This is a crucial test for the government and the first strong political reaction from the Bouchard-Taylor commission.
In Quebec, it thus follows the case closely. Our sources say the government is hopeful of winning its case before the Commission on Human Rights.
"We believe having done everything reasonable to accommodate this person, but there is a limit, and we have taken here. For us, it is important to send a clear message", said an informant close to the case.
In his complaint to the Commission on Human Rights, students veiled invokes freedom of religious practice. The government, for its part, says that wearing the niqab is incompatible with the educational goals and that many attempts have failed a reasonable accommodation.
Quebec also remember that all immigrants are engaged in writing for the month of January 2009 to respect Quebec values (including gender), they are learning about these common values and they must learn French.
If they are unwilling or unable to follow these courses in person, newcomers can do online, and all information on common values is explained in several languages, including Arabic, on the ministry website Immigration.
Conciliation or hardline?
This is not the political decision that is subject to a test with this case, but also throughout the approach established by the Charest government in the wake of the report of the Bouchard-Taylor commission.
According to all recent polls on the issue of reasonable accommodation, the majority of Quebecers think their government shows usually too conciliatory.
In recent years, highly publicized cases, the SAAQ particular have fueled the controversy and ignited the open-line programming.
In government, as the debate rages between proponents of conciliation and the supporters of hard-line debate spiced by the positions of opposition parties.
It is unlikely that the government legislates on wearing religious symbols. Legal advice circulating in some state departments are, however, communication problems and security-related wear the niqab and burqa.
Another known case is currently before the Commission on Human Rights. Sondos Abdelatif, a Muslim girl who was training to become a prison warden, filed a complaint in 2007 after being dismissed by Correctional Services of Quebec because she refused to remove her hijab.
She advocates freedom of religious practice while his former employer says that wearing the headscarf poses risks to the security guard.
Link
Labels: Arab World, Québec, Religion and fanaticism
Monday, February 15, 2010
When Indians become racist, by Francis Chartrand
Did you know that in Canada there are people who have the power you pack your home because you're the wrong race? The Band Council of the Kahnawake reserve, just across from the Honore-Mercier Bridge between Châteauguay and Saint-Constant, has received complaints that the 25 white, often couple with mohawks, interfered with the Local purity.
Most fascinating in this story is that the band seems to have the law on his side. In 1981, he has banned mixed marriages remain on the reservation except those who were married before that date. The law has vindicated the band council to control marriage within their territory:
In 1981, the community announced a moratorium on mixed marriages, which meant that non-natives who married Mohawks after that year would no longer have the right to live on the reserve. Any non-native who had married a Mohawk before the moratorium is still permitted to live on the reserve.
In the 1980s, some Mohawks contested the policy before the human rights court, but lost. The courts have ruled that Mohawks can make any membership policy they deem necessary for their survival as a people. Full article in the National Post:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2515716#ixzz0edFmrwFM
Imagine a political authority as a municipality in Quebec invokes an identity due to expel from its territory a minority. With good reason, this situation would be denounced in every forum. Is not this what happened? Unfortunately, it is often two weights, two measures when talking about Native American ...
Well, my comment now. Savages expel white people, damn. What is their goddamn problem? Imagine for a moment: I am with my girlfriend and I see in a bar in Pointe-Calumet two goddamn Indian, one is fat, ugly and smell the drink, the other is not bad, still watchable, despite its Aboriginal dark complexion, and yet they know how to live, despite the fact they come from the reserve.
Should I tell them "Get the fuck out of here, fucking bitches," because if so, I pass for an Aryan white racist and misogynist. We beat the Quebec and Canada in the sweat of our brow, us, white, English and French. This dish is, but the color of our ass has aboriginal rights in this part of North America, much more than some think.
So before an Indian of Kanawake put me outside of its reserve, I'll crown him outside his bar and his Mohawk Casino, which I paid with my taxes. Mohawks come on and rise up, remove the corruption of your reserves, do as Wendake and become more sociable. I pais too many taxes to keep quiet.
Link
Labels: Francis Chartrand, Québec
Sunday, February 07, 2010
The radios who are silent, by Francis Chartrand
Corus Entertainment silenced two of its radio stations. AM Info690 Montreal and AM940 Montreal's Greatest Hits ceased operations Friday night at 19 pm
For Corus Entertainment, "it is clear that stations Info690 and AM940 are not viable". The company claims to have lost one million dollars per year for the past eight years, with two radio stations.
The broadcaster said this decision despite the fact that "Corus Quebec and its employees have invested time and energy to revive these units".
This decision affects 10 private broadcaster posts in total. These are positions of journalists, columnists assigned to traffic as well as operations staff.
However, Corus will retain eight of the ten affected employees: Five journalists and three columnists to traffic will be diverted to other stations in the group, such as CKOI and 98.5 FM.
Corus news does not cease to exist because it will serve all our partners, such as Radio North, and will be present in our network is in Quebec City, Trois-Rivieres, Saguenay, Ottawa short, everywhere where they broadcast.
- Annick Bélanger, spokesman for Corus Quebec
The CRTC will recover the operating licenses of the two AM stations.
Info690 station whose call letters are CINF was began broadcasting in December 1999. She took over from CKVL present in the radio world Montrealers since 1946.
Info690 was owned by Metromedia CMR, which subsequently sold its radio holdings to Corus Entertainment. The company employs 466 people in Quebec. The direction of Info690 had already eliminated 12 jobs in the newsroom in February 2009.
A changing media landscape
Let's recall that the CBC had sought, with the CRTC, a license to launch its own news channel on the 940. This frequency was also the former frequency of CBC on the AM band, before the CBC does not migrate to FM 88.5.
But ultimately the project of the CBC had not been retained by the CRTC.
Radio-Canada.ca with the Canadian Press.
Well, my comment now.
Info 690 in Montreal and 940 News were in service since December 1999, when CKVL 850 was spent at 690 and CIQC 600 was spent on 940. Why? Because radio frequencies are allocated to consortia. And that CBC and Radio-Canada had no more their AM stations. CBF had increased to 690 and 95.1 CBM 940 was passed in 88.5.
The management of Corus (CKOI, CFQR, CKVL, CIQC) wanted to acquire two radio channels of all news, as Bloomberg Radio WBBR 1130, WCBS 880 or WINS 1010 New York stations that can sometimes catch a vehicle in the Montreal area. What was to be a first in Canada.
At the same time, the same project surfaced in the management of the CBC. And they are Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa for their pilot project, a "RDI" and "Newsworld" on the AM with the local traffic to 10 minutes, the national weather for 13 minutes and a reminder of the headlines 15 minutes.
Project Name: Info Express and News Express. In Montreal, the CBC is still the owner of AM frequencies 690 and 940. The solution: take them back. Anyway the CBC were other ambitious projects: the TV Arts (now ARTV), Bande à part, which would see the day to 104.5 as CBC Radio 3 which would see the day 91.9 and Sports Extra in French on the AM frequency 900 and in English on AM frequency 650.
If all the projects had emerged, we would have in Montreal: the First Channel 95.1, Espace Musique at 100.7, Bande a part at 104.5, Info Express 690, Sports Extra, 900 CBC Radio 1 at 88.5, CBC Radio 2 to 93.5, CBC Radio 3 to 91.9, Express News Sports Extra 940 and the 650. That's a lot of radio stations with our taxes, you say. But what does think the CRTC?
The CRTC had therefore asked the SRC to determine in its many projects. And while Corus would recycle its 2 stations, and CKVL CIQC, then cut the CRTC to move forward in granting a all news license. And refusing to be beaten by the CBC, Corus plans to move its frequency to those who belonged to the CBC. CKVL passed to the former CBF and CIQC went to former CBM.
Then came the 2000s, a decade when people became more and more followers of MP3s, listen to more music. People let go of the format "talk radio", always more and more disgusted by the current international, political correctness, the sports disappointments Montreal (Canadiens less present in the playoffs, the Expos between life and death), and the consequences of September 11 leaves a climate of fear which does taste more people to learn. Finally, the era of "I don't wanna know" and "I don't give a fuck" begins for a decade.
Even the station attracted more than 1 300 000 listeners in 1995, CKOI, falling to 600 000. People have CD players in vehicles. CD engraved replace MP3 MIX 96, CKOI, CKMF, CHOM. The sports websites replace the sports programs at CKAC and CKGM short, the website will play a major role in the future of radio, as well as other forms of media.
Then came the 90s, where the failures of the Canadian and Quebec society are felt. The Oka Crisis, the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, the referendum failed about Charlottetown Accord, the first Gulf War. People are moving away from more information and more.
We go to merge the two largest networks of private talk radio, Radiomutuel and Telemedia. In Montreal, Quebec, Chicoutimi, Hull, Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivieres, stations will close in 1994 as CKLM 1570 in Laval. CJMS 1280 Radiomutuel to merge with Montreal CKAC 730 of Telemedia, CJRP 1060 Radiomutuel to merge with Quebec CHRC 80 of Telemedia, CJMT 1420 Telemedia to merge with Chicoutimi CKRS 590 Radiomutuel in Jonquiere, 970 CKCH Telemedia merged with Hull CJRC 1150 Radiomutuel in Gatineau, CJRS 1510 Sherbrooke Radiomutuel to merge with CHLT 630 Telemedia and CJTR 1140 Radiomutuel at Three Rivers merged with CHLN 550 of Telemedia.
Thus is born the network Radiomédia, born of the merger September 30, 1994, a network that Astral Media will own, in addition to Rock and Relaxation Radiomutuel on FM Radio which will become Energy (CHIK 98.9 in Quebec City, IGBC at Three Rivers, CIKI 98.7 in Rimouski, Sherbrooke CIMO 106.1, 94.5 CJAB in Jonquière, Drummondville CJDM 92.1, 99.1 CJMM in Rouyn-Noranda, CJMV 102.7 in Val-d'Or, CKMF 94.3 to 104.1 CKTF Montreal and Gatineau), to become Energy from 2001 to 2009, eventually becoming NRJ in 2009, curiously the extension of a network with the same name, but in France. While his station anglophone Montreal Astral, Virgin Radio, is also an extension of a network with the same name, but in the United Kingdom.
We come back to talk radio. CIEL 98.5 FM closed its doors in 2000, Corus (an Alberta company buys the frequency to a sister station to CKOI; CKOO aka COOL 98.5, an alternative rock station (which I loved to listen for that matter) who undertook format every year. In 2001 it became a modern rock station, becoming in 2003 a classic rock station, and January 5, 2004, becomes CHMP (Le FM parlés de Montréal).
The first shot of the station is going to look for hands CKAC (Astral) the morning man Paul Arcand, Gilles Proulx for the issuance of the return and it will be the broadcaster of the games of the Montreal Expos in their last season. CKAC is found in the morning with Mario Langlois morning, Jean Lapierre in the morning, Pierre Mailloux in the afternoon, sports fans to return to 4:00 PM, Canadiens games and Alouettes, Ron Fournier, Jacques Fabi to the night and Serge Plaisance and Roger Drolet during weekend.
However, having a high quality radio entertainment, this is where everything is upsetting. Astral Media talks to sell the 6 stations Radiomédia but wants to keep CJAD 800. The future of the station has been questioned in recent years due to the decline of AM radio in Quebec, while in recovery throughout the rest of Canada.
Quebecor wanted to buy the station, but this offer was blocked by the CRTC to avoid excessive media concentration. A consortium comprised of Radio North Genex and then offered to buy the station, but has since withdrawn the offer. In 2004, Corus Entertainment has offered to buy CKAC and other Astral stations for the price of eleven million dollars. The CRTC approved the transaction in January 2005. But it will not be without consequences.
The intention of Corus was initially to close the newsroom of CKAC to redirect content to sports and health. This has angered a wide audience perceived the traditional content as a cultural institution in Quebec.
And there begins a hell in which Corus sailed with both feet, as Corus owns 3 stations "talk radio" in Montréal, 98.5 FM Parlé, CKAC, and in english, 940 Montreal (Info690 being that of all news radio). On September 14, 2005, the format of continuous disclosure of 940 becomes 940 News Montreal, format "talk radio" to compete on CJAD, still owned by Astral and his rivals in the ratings with Joe Cannon in the morning, Jim Duff return (sometimes I listened), Charles Adler, in the afternoon on all the stations "talk radio" Corus across the country, and Coast to coast, the "talk radio" live during the night.
An appeal was launched to the Canadian federal government to cancel the purchase of Corus, but the newsroom was officially closed May 30, 2005. Recently the station has been criticized for his columns on sex in prime time. On 1 March 2007, CKAC announced that effective April 2, 2007 the station broadcasts only sports news and concentrate only on the sports field. Yes, it closes the famous newsroom CKAC, operating since 1922.
Then Corus gets in trouble because of financial difficulties led them to turn 940 Montreal to AM 940, an oldies station, June 6, 2008.
Corus is not his first killing. On April 16, 2007, CKRS 590 Saguenay passes to 98.3, CJRC 1150 Gatineau passes to 104.7. On August 20, 2007, CHLT 630 Sherbrooke passes to 107.7 and CHLN 550 Trois-Rivières passes to 106.9. CJTR (later CHLN) had a sister station in Shawinigan, CKSM 1220. Not having been in the transaction to Corus station died June 30, 2007. On March 28, 2009, its stations "talk radio" will all members of a new network: Memories Guaranteed, a competitor to Boom FM, another network of Astral Media. On 1 May 2009, their old AM frequencies are finally dead.
Then these 2 stations who die in Montreal. CHRC 80 has escaped this fall, becoming independent. This station is now called Quebec 800.
Yes, the future of talk radio darkens. And it scares me. Because radio stations where there are open lines where people can express themselves remain one of the vertebrae of our democracy. But if I wanted to censor, keep the public in ignorance, attack the knowledge and information, I would not take otherwise. I would cut off the microphone to all these leaders open lines and I would put some music, and some sleepy music.
Sleep, public asleep.
Because a listened radio by a radio audience is healthy.
Francis Chartrand
Labels: Francis Chartrand, Freedom of expression, Media, Québec
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Barbara Kay: Quebec's new state religion -- cultural relativism, by Barbara Kay
In September 2008, after years of pre-planning by elites without public consultation, Quebec’s Ministry of Education established a province-wide, compulsory pedagogical program called Éthique et Culture Religieuse (ÉCR).
All Quebec students — public, private, even the homeschooled — must take ÉCR (with the exception of one secondary school year) from age six through high school.
On its sunny face, the ÉCR program introduces students to the rich variety of religious beliefs and rituals in today’s “intercultural” Quebec, where all citizens “live together in the bosom of a Quebec [that is] democratic and open to the world.”
But a newly landed bombshell amongst Quebec’s chattering classes, a study produced by Ethnic Studies Phd candidate Joëlle Quérin for the Institut de Recherche sur le Québec, persuasively argues that the ideology behind the course is anything but benign, reinforcing concerns about this troubling program I expressed in these pages last December.
Following a close analysis of the course’s stated objectives, content, teachers’ roles and suggested activities, Quérin pulls no punches in her conclusion: “I wanted to verify if the course gives knowledge to children or if it indoctrinates them. I observed that it was the second alternative that prevailed.”
Two values dominate the program’s objectives: learning to “vivre ensemble” (live together) and arriving at the “bien commun” (the common good). How does ÉCR produce social harmony? By constant “dialogue” and “recognition” of other cultures, which can only be accomplished, in the words of ÉCR mandarin Georges Leroux, by inculcating in children “absolute respect for every religious position.”
But according to ÉCR, “every religious position” includes pagan animism, witchcraft (Wiccans “are women like any other in daily life”), and the nutbar Raëlian Movement (“technologically, [the Raëlians are 25,000 years in advance of us”). To bundle superstitions and cults together with authentic religions, then demand deference to all, is to discourage actual respect for any but the state religion of “normative pluralism,” the real aim of the program.
In its indifference to objective knowledge, in its crusade to hallow cultural relativism and a strictly Charter-of-rights based identity, ÉCR stimulates heritage students’ detachment from their own cultural touchstones, and chills critical thinking in all students.
Quérin cites, for example, one instance where students were invited to redesign the Quebec flag, replacing the cross with a more “inclusive” symbol, and another, an activity called “Youpi! Ma religion à moi!” (my own religion!) in which religions actually invented by students are accorded the same esteem as real ones. Such subversive pedagogical impulses dismissively mock Quebec’s unique culture, based, like all others, in a shared language, religion and collective values formed over time.
In the ÉCR scheme, teachers do not actually convey knowledge, but rather “plan, organize activities, advise, accompany, encourage, support … make suggestions, but never impose.”
But they must and do “impose” sometimes. The program harps relentlessly on “dialogue” as the principal vehicle for learning to “vivre ensemble.” But if, according to an editing team spokesman, the dialogue does not follow a politically correct script — that is, if students of independent mind or critical point of view diverge in behaviour or words from the prescribed “recognition” mantra: all cultural traditions are equal; all beliefs are good — “The teacher must intervene immediately to stop it on the spot. Any attack in class on the dignity of the person or the common good must be immediately denounced, because it is not tolerated in our society. In that [respect], the program of Ethical and Religious Culture is not neutral.”Thus Quérin darkly warns: “After having followed the ÉCR course for 10 years, the students won’t have a great knowledge of religions, but one thing is sure: no [cultural] accommodation will seem unreasonable to them.”
A May 2009 Léger marketing poll on ÉCR found that 76% of québécois prefer a choice in religious education; they think their elites have shown contempt for the population. Many parents are demanding ÉCR exemptions, if not outright abolition of the program. Grassroots resistance movements — strange bedfellows of anti-clericalists, practicing Catholics and nationalists, each with their own support network — are pushing back through political activism, the media and the courts.
As well they should. ÉCR is a creepy state foray into social engineering. Disguised as multicultural feel-goodism, the program is in reality the utopian Quebec Left’s strategic plan for societal transformation. Their tactics: the appropriation of parents’ natural and rightful authority over their children’s religious upbringing; the willful erosion of children’s pride in their Quebec patrimony; and the slow suffocation of students’ inherent curiosity and intellectual autonomy.
If Quebec does not wish to end up in the sick ward of western cultures, ÉCR must be excised in the operating theatre of popular resistance.
Link
Labels: Barbara Kay, Education, Québec
Evidence of impending genocide of the white race, by Francis Chartrand
The City of Montreal ravaged by the scourge of racism. On the verge of hysterics, the municipality adopted an emergency plan.
Seen on several posters in Montreal:
"Advice to young white couples who are thinking about Montreal having children. Contribute to the fight against racism. Sterilize yourselfs and adopt rather small Chinese girls or Haitian boys. We must at anyway, eliminate the white race, responsible for so much misery on Earth.
Besides with the affirmative action programs in education and employment, your kids, yellow, brown or black will have much better chance in life than a white child ontologically racist and whose ancestors who built Quebec the sweat of their brows were vile and despicable beings, colonizers and responsable of Native American genocide. You do not want your child to bear such a burden of shame and guilt in life!
A message from the City of Montreal, in collaboration with SOS Racisme, the Ministry of Families, the Ministry of Immigration and the Ministry of Education, Sport and Recreation."
Well, I have no picture with me, but believe me when I say, people can testify.
Let's make us a gift in 2010; fuck the City of Montreal outside the province of Quebec, we will be able to breathe easier.
Labels: Francis Chartrand, Hostile races, Human mistake, Montréal, Québec
Polytechnique in our heads, by Richard Martineau
Richard Martineau
Journal de Montréal
06/12/2009 07h20
Each year, the same thing. The more we approach the fateful date of December 6, the more masculinist radical groups are excited on the Internet.
They are like vampires who feel dawn the first glimmerings of dawn. They scream, spit, to convulse as if they threw the holy water.
THE FAULT TO FEMINIST
The worst of the strip, the more hysterical, the most worrisome are members of the group L'Après-rupture.
"The major organs begin feminist victimizers motion to mark the 20th anniversary of the Polytechnique tragedy, they wrote this week. Sad recovery based on emotions, melodramatic statements included in chorus by the media who prefer to serious analysis shows, impartial.
"Polytechnic, deplorable recovery by feminist organizations who must maintain their propaganda to ensure the payment of annual profit grants.
"Nobody asks the question: why Marc Lépine posed such a gesture? The answer is very simple. Lepine lived burgeoning feminism that demonizes men ..."
In short, if Lepine showed up at Polytechnique and shot 14 women, it is because of bad feminists.
This message would be laughable if it were not so disgusting ...
HE LEARNED IN THE FOOT
That masculinist groups campaigning to get more grants to help people in distress is one thing.
But does this mean Lépine portray as a poor victim of "feminist propaganda handsomely subsidized with taxpayer money"?
The members of L'Après-rupture did not they make that they shooting themselves in the foot by taking such a speech? They completely discredit their cause?
The solution does not remove money from groups of women: it is to give more groups of men!
As they say, we don't need to undress Ginette to dress Jacques. We just buy clothes for both ...
Instead of constantly shooting each other, and compare their wounds to know what sex is the most messed up, groups of men and women's groups should work TOGETHER to build a more harmonious and less aggressive.
A COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE STRATEGY?
That said, if I do not share the speech paranoid, misogynist and revenge L'Après-rupture, I confess I feel a certain unease in the discourse surrounding the Polytechnique massacre.
Not because I think the use of Poly is a "recovering feminist," as like to say masculinists radicals. But because I am afraid that this strategy is cons-productive.
Let me explain ...
Over the years, Poly has become a sort of symbol of violence against women.
But do you really think the guys who regularly beats his wife in his living room identified with Marc Lépine?
I doubt it. He said: "Lépine is a monster, an extreme case, a madman, a psychotic. It has nothing to do with me ..."
When they compare there life to Lépine, the "ordinary tyrants" are very nice, very accurate ... Real gentlemen.
A BAD SYMBOL
Do not misunderstand me: I'm not saying that we should not remind us remember the tragic memory of Poly.
Instead, I think it's essential. Like it or not, this terrible tragedy is part of our history.
But I think we should not make this event a symbol of everyday violence experienced by battered women. It's too big, too monstrous, too exceptional.
Link
Labels: Montréal, Québec, Richard Martineau
Monday, December 28, 2009
The Holocaust and the masculinist, by Richard Martineau
Richard Martineau
Journal de Montréal
09/12/2009 06h52
Last Sunday, I told you that I do not understand why some groups of men portray Marc Lepine as a poor victim of evil feminists.
"That masculinist groups campaigning to get more grants to help people in distress is something I wrote. But to pity the fate of a lunatic who killed 14 women, there is a margin.
"The men can go do they not realize they shooting themselves in the foot by taking such a speech? They completely discredit their cause?"
IN DEFENSE OF MONSTER
This column brought me a nice email the group L'Après-rupture :
"Mr. Martineau, the team of L'Après-rupture like to thank you for your review. In most of us know, you send our message widely Inconvenient received ideas, thinking only about Polytechnique.
"Marc Lepine is a monster created by the radical feminist movement, a monster that this movement has recovered to better enrich themselves with money from citizens. We hope that before long, you can write on charges relating to possible criminal activities of certain feminist organizations ..."
You find this point of view twisted? Wait, you have not read anything ...
ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE SS
In the male domination, a documentary on radical masculinist Quebec filmed by Belgian director Jean Patrick, we say things even more twisted:
"Quebec is the opposite of the Taliban. The Taliban was the oppression against women. The Quebec, oppression against men ... "
"Feminism is a crime against humanity ..."
"We saw just as in Nazi Germany. And this is no more subtle than in Nazi Germany ..."
Well yes, my friends, men living in Quebec the same ordeal combined experience of European Jews in the 1940s.
This is EXACTLY the same!
Hordes of women dressed in pink patrol the streets of Limoilou and set fire to the tavern, they organize raids in Cages aux sports in the province, forcing men to wear a small brown penis in their buttonholes and send them to end their days in sexual reeducation camps run by bloodthirsty lesbians who make necklaces testicles and handbags scrotal skin.
TALIBAN, PQ
And just like Afghanistan under the Taliban, Quebec males are not allowed to attend school, can not go out into the street without being accompanied by their mother or their sister and are stoned 's they do not wear a hood in midsummer.
One wonders why American GIs do not organize a landing at Dolbeau to free us!
Link
Labels: Québec, Religion and fanaticism, Richard Martineau
The war against English, by Richard Martineau
Richard Martineau
Journal de Montréal
03/12/2009 05h58
Yesterday, in Le Devoir, the lawyer Julius Gray published a load rule against those who want to strengthen the law 101.
"Overall, it is time to stop the battle against the English," said the defender of individual rights.
What? There is a battle against the English? In Quebec? Tell me where it raged, Master Gray, for me, all I see is the opposite, ie a slow, painful erosion of French in Montreal.
EXCUSE MY FRENCH
My wife visited a "nail bar" in the city center. All information on products and services are in English only, and the clerk is unable to utter a single word in French.
We will park our car. The officer is unable to speak to me in my language, and throwing a tantrum when I ask him why he did not speak a word of French while working with the public.
We go into an activity center for children with our 20 month old son. All rhymes distributed during the workshop are English and 80% of the indications given by the instructor are in the language of Mordecai.
EN FRANCAIS ONLY
My wife points to a yoga class. The teacher does not speak a word of French, even if 75% of these people are speaking.
Last week, Montrealers were invited to an exhibition of hip young designers. Name of the event? The Smart Design Mart, "a unique platform comprised of a variety of talented young designers," said (in Klingon?) the invitation.
The website is unilingual English.
Two weeks ago, I went to a fundraising event for the benefit of a support organization for troubled youth. The indications were in English only and the organizers did not speak a word of French.
I go to a Italian restaurant: the host is unable to speak to me in my language. I go to a restaurant in Chinatown: unable to get served in my language.
I go to a furniture shop Service in English only.
All this in a few days.
A war against English, Master Gray? Really?
QUEBEC IS RACIST!
Have you read the survey that we published on the world of work in Montreal? You are unilingual English: you experience no problem getting a job. You are unilingual French: they refuse to hire you because you do not speak English.
Before yesterday, my wife enrolled in a class of stationary bike in a gym. The teacher speaks only English, even if 12 customers are speaking. My wife goes to see the girl at the front desk to complain about: the girl is a unilingual anglophone.
Back at home, my wife tells this story on Twitter.
Lesley Chesterman, a journalist for The Gazette, reads his entry and becomes crazy.
"I stopped following a Quebec media person on Twitter Because of all her Anglo bashing," she writes.
Then: "It's the only thing I hate about living in this province. It's racist and it drives me crazy. I'm tired!"
It is racist, now want to be served in French? Well.
NO PROBLEM
Meanwhile, Andre Pratte La Presse wrote that "the erosion of French in Montreal is a figment of the imagination, and Julius Gray says the time has come" to stop the battle against the English. " You're joking, or what?
Nothing
Labels: Canada, Québec, Richard Martineau
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Hurray the Swiss, by Jacques Brassard
What a fabulous democracy than Switzerland! No, but you realize! The Swiss, in a proportion of 57.5%, have decided to ban the construction of new minarets (the towers of mosques in the top of which the muezzin calls to prayer) on Swiss territory. And this, in a referendum, the result of a popular initiative. As Jacques Demers say: "Chapeau! Swiss!"
I open a parenthesis on the referendum process of popular initiative. It doe's not exist here. In Quebec, only the National Assembly, on proposal of the Government, can trigger a referendum. During some discussion on democracy in Quebec, some players have already proposed to make it possible, as in Switzerland and in several U.S. states, the referendum initiative. The trigger might be, for example, a petition containing a specified number of signatures. I must confess that I was not at the time, very hot to go in this direction. However, I am announcing that I changed my mind. Quebec should adopt such a procedure. "The Swiss show us, writes Marc Lebuis in his excellent site, tipping point, something that Quebecers could do to counter their disconnection Ave political leadership, institutional and academic Quebec: claim right to hold referendums in order to remove the hands of our decision makers the power to make major decisions affecting seriously the fate of Quebec. All this is not just Islam as such, but also reform education, the course Ethics and Religious Culture, immigration policies and the principle of accommodation." According to you, the results are they similar to those of the Swiss referendum on minarets? Personally, I am convinced. And I am also certain that the reaction of our Želite right-thinking, multiculturalists, nerd-progressive preachers of "living together" flatten ventriste would be the same as that of the European oligarchies slavishly Islamophile and viciously Christianophobia: full of indignation contempt for the people considered ignorant, intolerant and racist. This divorce between the people and Želite is a widespread phenomenon in the West.
But is it a crime so heinous that the Swiss have committed? Nonsense! The minaret is not an essential element of the mosque. That of Jerusalem, for example, has none. Therefore, writes Barbara Kay, National Post, "Switzerland does not mosques, which are the site of activity and religious practice. She banished that is perfectly understood in Islamic countries as a symbol of cultural domination." Multiply the minarets in the West to civilization Judeo-Christian roots, is, for Muslims, a demonstration of their willingness to impose a conqueror, not only ostentatious religious symbols (minaret burka) but, more seriously, values contrary to ours. This is called the stealth jihad is a process of Islamization of Western societies. In Paris, for example, there are now streets are blocked at the hour of prayer to allow hundreds of Muslims to spread their mats and prostrate themselves. In Paris!
The most shocking in all this is to see Muslim leaders offended and cry to the oppression and discrimination on the grounds that freedom of religion and worship is shamefully flouted. There is something deeply repugnant in this attitude when we know that in the Muslim world, freedom of worship, often legally and practically does not exist. "In Muslim countries, writes Pierre-Andre Taguieff, Christians are particularly discriminated against and persecuted when they have not been expelled. In some Muslim countries in the name of Islam perpetrated massacres of civilians, targeted as Christians." He continues: "In Muslim countries that religious freedoms are the least respected: Judaism and Christianity are housed in the same boat. When Islam is state religion, intolerance is institutionalized violence against non-Muslims allowed, even encouraged, totalitarianism or watching reign."
Everywhere in the Muslim world, Christians are persecuted and often killed, their churches burned, their priests murdered. In Nigeria, there are hundreds of Christians were killed. In Pakistan too, the Islamists opened fire on worshipers gathered and burned their places of worship. In Iraq, the Christian community is endangered. And in the West face of this persecution, only silence and indifference. The "good conscience" who resent the Swiss vote on minarets (Foglia as, for example), they have never outraged the massacre of Christians in the Muslim world? The progressive self-righteous and well-talkies were they ever shocked the inferior status of Christians in Muslim countries (they are dhimmis, that is to say, inferior beings that have fewer rights than Muslims )? Do you? Why worry about those silly believers arrears? After all, they are only "cathos," as Ms. Bazzo disdainfully calls, the incarnation of the Quebec goche bon chic bon genre. Where, even worse, they are only remnants of the Age of Darkness, as the Copts in Egypt. So, sleep in our media and intellectual Želite is no upset because they were persecuted because they were bullied and because the murders.
But banning the construction of minarets, then there really any crime, regardless ignomonie, what meanness! Pour nos zélites frileuses et poltronnes, c'est du racisme, du sectarisme, du fascisme. For our Želite timid and cowardly, it's racism, bigotry, fascism. However, the Swiss vote does not affect the freedom of religion of Muslims, the minaret is not essential to a mosque. But we must understand and decode the message many of Helvetian. What Swiss reject, through the prohibition of construction of minarets, Islam is also a retrograde, primitive, hostile to the fundamental rights of the individual, anti-democratic and committed to a code of law (Sharia) incompatible with the founding values of the West.
Taj Hargey is the Imam of the congregation of Summertown, Oxford. This is called a "moderate Muslim", a rare species that would probably declare the species endangered. "When European Muslims, he writes, unthinkingly endorse this perverted theology by claiming compliance with a Sharia medieval character, justifying the honor killings, stoning and forced marriage, defending the uniqueness of 'Islam and the formation of separate communities, they cause fear and exacerbate hostility towards Muslims. When European Muslims are praised as little Koranic doctrines that wearing niqap, they exclude themselves from ALL OF THE COMPANY." These words of the comforting hand of a Muslim imam. The problem is that the imams of the milling are scarce and Islamic communities in the West are largely dominated by radical Islam and jihad and are therefore involved and compromised in the war deliver the Islamo-fascists against Western civilization. And will not believe it's different in Quebec and Canada. At home, the Muslims are refractory to integration into the host society. And with immigration levels adopted by the State of Quebec, the situation will only get worse.
JACQUES BRASSARDPublié on the blog of former minister Jacques Brassard Parti Québécois
http://blogjacquesbrassard.blogspot.com/
Labels: Canada, Islam, Jacques Brassard, Québec, Religion and fanaticism, Switzerland
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