Predictable

As I said in my previous blog, that friend who didn't have the common courtesy to pick up my lunch tab every now and then, as thanks for driving her around, has dropped me.  Unfortunately, she doesn't have the objectivity to say, "You're right, I was being thoughtless.  I'll take you to lunch next time, my treat."  Can't do it.  Is this because in her mind that would make her a charity case?  Probably, but from my perspective, she is a charity case because I am the one doing all the work.

A thing of the past with this friend.

I have also dropped another fb "friend" because she deleted an informed, objective comment I made about the Israel/Gaza conflab because one of her friends is married to a Jew.  Really?!  This person is evidently a uninformed supporter of Israel.  Not posting a comment because one of her friends might be hurt is just dumb.  That's the problem with so many people:  They are ignorant and don't plan on changing. 

As I have said, listen to Noam Chomsky or Gabor Maté -- both Jews, by the way -- and the scales will fall from your eyes about what's really going on in Israel and Gaza.  Don't ever think I am a supporter of terrorism, I would just like to have an informed exchange with other like-minded persons who understand the history of that tormented region.  

And one more thing:  Lest we forget who's running Canada's foreign policy, it's Katie Telford on Israel, because her husband is Jewish and she runs Trudeau, and Chrystia Freeland on the Ukraine because she is Ukrainian and is a co-puppet master of Trudeau.  Mélanie Joly?  She might be foreign minister, but the other two are running that sh-t show; she's just trotted out to show up.

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If they're English, they're gone

But what I really want to talk about today is Quebec's ludicrous edict to double university tuition fees for out-of-province students.  Talk about deepening and hardening the ghetto that province has turned itself into; this is simply a losing, counter-productive strategy.  But Legault can't see past his own parochial, paranoid nose and insecurity about the French language.

The joke of it all is that a recent survey found that more than half of all francophone students tested failed a French-language grammar and spelling test.  More than half could not correctly write their own mother tongue!  What does that tell you?  

'Globe and Mail' columnist Marcus Gee had a great piece yesterday about this mess.  "The government of Premier François Legault is telling these students:  Stay home, we don't want you.  More to the point, he is saying:  We don't want your language."

On the other hand, Quebec taxpayers fund the difference between what a student pays and what the real costs are, i.e., much higher.  This difference is funded by the Quebec taxpayer, not the taxpayers of whatever province or country from which the student hails.  In other words, Quebeckers are heavily subsidizing these foreign students, so why not make their tuition higher?  That's Legault's rationale and, looking at it like that, it makes sense. 

Quebec's Minister of the French Language Jean-François Roberge said that listening to foreign students, "Express themselves in English on a daily basis threatens the survival of French."

(Note:  From a personal, anecdotal point of view, I am fluent in French, yet every time we have gone to Montreal -- at least once or twice a year forever-- and I have spoken French to a server, he/she has immediately switched to English when my slight accent gives me away as an Anglophone.  That was simply to insult me, but it's an indication that even native French-speakers are helping subvert their language by speaking English.  So, it's not Anglophones disrespecting French, it's Francophones.)

B and me being snubbed by a French server in Montreal

But I digress.  My question is, why does Quebec even need a Ministry of the French Language in the first place?  Says Gee, "If the language is so weak (it isn't), slapping a tax on young Anglos from Calgary and Hamilton is not going to save it.

"Quebec nationalists always say theirs is an open, forward-looking movement.  They insist they are not looking to exclude anybody.  Everyone is welcome in the 'New' Quebec.  Then they slam the door on innocent young people who want to come study in Montreal.  

"And all because someone didn't like hearing English on Saint-Laurent Boulevard."

Sadly, that's what's become of a once-magnificent destination.  It's now a small-minded, ingrown-toenail province with no future for anyone except Francophones who want -- or have -- to stay trapped there because their English is poor.  Apparently, they've missed the chapter about how English is the universal language of business.