Quebec

Thursday October 3, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 3, 2019

In debate, Bloc leader says only his party represents the Quebec nation

Whether it was on abortion, religion, or health care, Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet hammered home a single message Wednesday night: the only party in which Quebecers can fully recognize themselves is the one he heads.

September 17, 2019

During the first French-language election debate, where leaders fought for the hearts of Quebecers — and their coveted 78 seats in the House of Commons– Blanchet repeatedly tried to position his opponents as out of step with the majority of Quebecers, whom he sees as forming a nation apart.

And the Bloc leader used the debate to try to convince Quebecers he would be the champion in Ottawa of the policies put forward by their highly popular and self-professed “nationalist” premier, Francois Legault.

Early on, Blanchet hit the Conservative leader on abortion, painting Andrew Scheer as a man who rejects a value “anchored” within Quebecers. He then described Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau as a haughty prime minister who looks down on Quebecers who desire a secular state.

And he criticized the NDP leader for wanting to expand medical coverage across Canada, calling Jagmeet Singh a centralizing politician looking to strip Quebecers of their constitutional right to determine their own health care needs.

July 19, 2019

“I am going to Ottawa to defend the right of Quebec to function in its own way,” said Blanchet, who was acclaimed as Bloc leader in January. “I don’t want to send people to Ottawa who want to undue what we are doing in Quebec.”

Blanchet asked Trudeau to accept Premier Legault’s demand that he stay out of any court challenges against Quebec’s secularism law, known as Bill 21.

The legislation bans some public-sector employees from wearing religious symbols in the workplace, such as hijabs for Muslim women and turbans for Sikh men.

Bill 21 is also overwhelmingly popular among francophones in Quebec — and with the Bloc. But Trudeau said he wouldn’t commit to staying out of any court challenges.

August 8, 2015

Blanchet said the value of state secularism is something Quebecers inherited from the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, which included a social rebellion against links between the political world and the Roman Catholic Church.

He said he has “an enormous problem” with Quebecers’ tax dollars in Ottawa going towards court challenges against a law adopted “in their own legislature” in Quebec City.

Toward the end of the debate, moderator Pierre Bruneau asked Blanchet a simple question that went to the heart of the Bloc’s purpose: How many laws has the Bloc gotten adopted in Ottawa?

Blanchet evaded the question, knowing the answer was zero.

“The contribution of the Bloc is to use all the advantages of the parliamentary system to get gains for Quebec,” Blanchet said. (National Post)

 

 

Saturday September 21, 2019

September 21, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday September 21, 2019

In Quebec, Trudeau’s opponents and supporters shrug off blackface controversy

September 17, 2019

Quebec had been the epicentre of debates about identity politics so far in the federal election campaign, with party leaders forced to confront to the popularity of a new law on religious symbols.

But the campaign shifted focus abruptly on Thursday, after photos and video emerged of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau wearing racist makeup. The desire to talk identity politics in the province evaporated just as quickly.

Even though Trudeau’s criticism of Quebec’s secularism law has been controversial in the province, none of his usual opponents on the issue were itching to rake him over the coals.

July 19, 2019

“I can understand that some people were hurt by these pictures. But Mr. Trudeau said that he was sorry. I think we have to talk about something else,” said Premier François Legault, who has clashed with Trudeau over the law, also known as Bill 21.

The leader of the sovereignist Parti Québécois, Pascal Bérubé, went so far as to play down the condemnations issued by Trudeau’s federal rivals.

“It’s a political campaign. They want to make sure that Mr. Trudeau pays for that,” Bérubé told reporters in Quebec City. “You can disagree with him on many issues, that’s my case, but he’s not a racist.”

September 14, 2013

The French media in Quebec also shrugged off Wednesday night’s revelations that Trudeau had dressed in blackface once in high school and again in 2001 while a teacher at a private school in British Columbia. A third image of him in blackface surfaced in video form Thursday.

Unlike in English Canada, few French newspapers gave prominent coverage to the images.

In Quebec City, Wednesday’s Céline Dion concert was featured more prominently on the Thursday front pages of the local papers.

The main political story on the front page of Montreal’s Le Devoir was about Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s proposal to build an oil pipeline through the province, and the possibility he could ignore Quebec’s objections to such a project.

One Journal de Montreal columnist, Richard Martineau, did put the screws to Trudeau. But Martineau, who is often critical of multiculturalism and dismissive of minority groups, seemed mainly interested in accusing Trudeau of hypocrisy, not racism. (CBC) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-reaction-trudeau-brownface-1.5289508

Quebec, Canada, #elxn2019, blackface, Justin Trudeau, minorities, religious rights, Bill 21, secularism

Tuesday September 17, 2019

September 17, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 17, 2019

‘We like to fall in love’: Which federal party will win over the fickle Quebec voter?

As the federal election campaign began last week, Canada’s main political parties couldn’t escape Quebec’s internal politics and a renewed nationalism championed by the provincial government.

July 12, 2019

The Coalition Avenir Quebec government continues to enjoy broad support among Quebec’s francophone majority, as do the government’s recent moves to cut immigration and limit the rights of religious minorities in the name of protecting Quebecers’ language, culture and identity.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet are targeting these nationalist voters, and both promise their members would defend the Coalition party’s policies in Ottawa.

And yet it’s the Liberal party, led by the unabashedly pro-immigration, pro-multiculturalism Justin Trudeau, that sits atop the polls in the province — by a large margin. However, analysts say that Liberal support is fragile, because Quebec voters are notoriously fickle when it comes to federal politics.

October 10, 2015

Trudeau’s been here before.

In the 2015 election, both he and then-NDP leader Tom Mulcair came out against former Conservative leader Stephen Harper’s election promise to ban the face-covering Islamic niqab during citizenship ceremonies. Francophone Quebecers largely supported Harper’s position.

The fight for Quebec’s coveted 78 seats will turn on whether Trudeau’s personal popularity can stop voters from switching to the two parties trying hardest to tap into the nationalist sentiment that propelled the Coalition to power, pollster Jean-Marc Leger said.

The Bloc and the Tories have repeatedly stated over the past week they wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize Quebec’s secularism law, known as Bill 21. The law prohibits some public sector workers, including teachers and police officers, from wearing religious symbols at work.

July 19, 2019

They took turns hammering Trudeau for not pledging to do the same. The Liberal leader was dogged by questions about whether his party, if re-elected, would participate in a judicial challenge to the law.

Trudeau said his government might intervene, but at the moment such a move would be “counter-productive.” But it was the other part of his answer that reflected his party’s bet that Quebec voters know him, like him and will overlook his stance against the secularism legislation.

On Sunday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was in Sherbrooke, Que., promising new powers and funding for Quebec — and dangling the possibility of constitutional reform — in a bid to revive the so-called orange wave of 2011. But with a Leger poll putting the party at six per cent in Quebec on the eve of the election, he has a steep climb ahead of him. (CP/Yahoo News) 

Canada’s federal leaders pander for Quebec votes from r/canadapoliticshumour


 

Saturday August 3, 2019

August 3, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 3, 2019

New credit card payment rules for Quebecers take effect today

January 18, 2018

Quebec’s new rules on minimum credit card payments, which take effect Thursday, will likely be followed closely by other provinces, the head of a consumer advocacy group says.

The new rules require banks to set a minimum payment of at least two per cent of the balance owing starting Aug. 1. It will eventually rise to five per cent.

“I suspect that other provinces are looking at this carefully, looking to see the impact from this, [and if there are] any objections from the credit-granting community,” said Scott Hannah, president and CEO of the Credit Counselling Society.

“But really this just makes good fiscal sense. For those who’ve gotten themselves into debt, this will help them.”

May 13, 2010

Twenty years ago, a five per cent minimum payment was fairly standard, Tanguay said. But the minimum percentage has dropped since then.

Banks have the option of raising the minimum payment rate to five per cent right away, although Hannah doubts many institutions will do so because that change could have negative consequences for people with higher debts.

There are no federal rules about minimum payments, but there is nothing preventing other provinces from coming up with their own.

Consumer protection policies can happen at a provincial level, but Hannah said that there tends to be continuity between provinces on these kinds of rules.

“Other provinces in Canada will be looking at this carefully, and if they’re not seeing a lot of challenges or uproar from consumers or credit granters, they may elect to adopt similar legislation,” he said. (CBC) 

 

Friday July 19, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 19, 2019

Chastising Trump isn’t Justin Trudeau’s job. Leave that to the American voters

In his strangely phrased denunciation of the Nixonian “America: Love it or Leave It” vulgarity that U.S. President Donald Trump customized last Sunday in the style of a racist jibe, it would be unfair to say that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was dangerously foolish, or ill-advised, or even that he made a deliberate decision to strike out into the howling wilderness of American politics on Monday.

A kind of etiquette is involved in this, and there is a heightened expectation that one should express one’s disgust with the boorish American president, particularly, at any time that an occasion to do so presents itself. So it was a banality that Trudeau was questioned on the subject, and after all, it was only in response to a reporter’s question that Trudeau addressed the matter in the first place.

June 22, 2018

And even then, Trudeau did so with a 10-foot pole, but not before expressing confidence that the entire world should be sufficiently familiar by now with the purity of his state of mind that what he thought should go without saying. “Canadians, and indeed people around the world, know exactly what I think about those particular comments,” Trudeau said. Well, okay then. “That is not how we do things in Canada. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian, and the diversity of our country is actually one of our greatest strengths and a source of tremendous resilience and pride for Canadians and we will continue to defend that.”

It does Trump no harm to have somebody like Trudeau coming out of nowhere to weigh in on behalf of the four Congresswomen, or at least to give that impression. The same goes for the similarly pro-multiculturalism New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who also expressed revulsion with Trump’s utterances. The criticisms Trump’s tweeting elicited from outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May, and from the clownish Boris Johnson, who is a hair’s breadth away from replacing May as Conservative Party leader, are just as unhelpful. Trumpism bears little resemblance to traditional Republican conservatism. That legacy is all but spent, so who cares what British Tories think?

October 18, 2016

To understand what Trump said, which was to the effect that certain novice Congress Democrats who are neither white nor male should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” it is necessary to know something about who his remarks were directed at. They are the pugnacious and notably leftish rising stars Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. All but Omar, who arrived in the United States as a child refugee from Somalia, are American-born. But that’s almost beside the point.

July 12, 2019

But just as Omar’s virtues may not be quite as impeccable as they appear, Trudeau’s virtues don’t always hold up under close scrutiny, either. Responding to Trump’s cunningly devised attack on the Squad by claiming it’s “not how we do things in Canada,” and that a “Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” is hard to square with Trudeau’s near silence on the recently-adopted Quebec law, aimed almost entirely at Muslim women who wear hijabs and niqabs. Because she covers her head as her religious piety requires, Ilhan Omar would be prohibited from teaching public school in Quebec. So that, too, is “how we do things in Canada.”

January 16, 2019

Trudeau is already too susceptible to basking in the flattery that well-to-do American liberals like to shower upon him, and the liberal American style has become so prevalent in Canada that it’s becoming commonplace to imagine that Trudeau is somehow obliged to “speak out” about the gross excesses of the American right at every opportunity.

But that’s not his job. It is up to Americans to get Trump sorted. The United States is a democracy, and on Tuesday, for the first time in a century, the U.S Congress voted an official rebuke of President Trump’s ugly commentary.

For now, that will have to do. (National Post)

A Canadian is a Canadian is a… from r/canadapoliticshumour