The wish of some Ontario francophones to live in a fantasy world regarding the importance of the French language outweighs their neighbours’ Charter right to freedom of expression — according to the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Okay, okay — that’s not quite how the court put it. But that is nevertheless the essence of last week’s decision in the case of Jean-Serge Brisson and Howard Galganov against Russell Township.
Four years ago, 70% of the commercial signs outside businesses in Russell Township (a municipality of about 15,000 people near Ottawa) were bilingual. For a group of francophone zealots, 70% wasn’t enough. They entreated town council to make bilingual signs mandatory for all businesses.
The proposal was highly controversial among both anglophones and francophones. Two local chambers of commerce opposed it. A committee struck by council recommended against it. Nevertheless, council passed the by-law by a 3-2 vote, requiring all new exterior commercial signs to be bilingual, with the dimension and style of lettering being identical in French and English.
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Selick: The language police come to Ontario,
These people don’t just demonstrate their holier than thou attitude here in Canada. Based on personal experience and years of travelling I have absolutely no hesitation in stating that generally speaking (overwhelmingly in fact) french Canadians are the most pompous ill mannered internationally disliked bunch of yahoos anyone could be unfortunate enough to cross paths with. They can’t even bring themselves to clean up their act when they are in foreign countries. Either Canada’s reputation means absolutely nothing to them or they are just too stupid to recognize the damage their conduct does to that reputation. My money is on the they just don’t care. It’s all about them. Following in the wake of many of these idiots I don’t know how many times I have asked foreigners to please not judge all Canadians by what they have just experienced.
Maybe, but when Francophone fascism continues to work here in Canada why abandon a winning formula?
beentheredonethat, quote: ” Following in the wake of many of these idiots I don’t know how many times I have asked foreigners to please not judge all Canadians by what they have just experienced. ”
I unfortunately have to agree with you that there are a lot of French Canadian jerks out there: I’ve even heard in the past French Canadians called ” Tabarnacos ” by locals somewhere ( Not sure where, but probably Snowbirds in Florida with huge beer guts wearing tiny tiny speedos on the beach, being extremely loud in their conversations and being impatient and impolite with hotel/restaurant staff ).
On the other hand there are a lot of polite, educated and well behaved French Canadians, but the loud ” JERKS ” attract a lot more attention: I know that when I was a little kid and we where in Florida on vacation my parents where always polite and courteous ! But then they where the same polite and courteous at home in Montreal also.
My parents where also not enamoured of the uneducated in basic courtesy of the ” Habitants/Joual ” members of the Québec ” Tribe “. ( Joual is the term for the bastardized French language of the uneducated Québec habitant of the period before the 1970′s. This mix of bad grammar, swear words and English words used with a French pronunciation plus some remnants of old French dialect was the badge of the uneducated and is now much less spoken versus grammatically correct French ).
IT’S time we start to push back at these dumb policies!!!