Everybody's Wrong But Me

Here we go again. The display language issue in Québec. A Québec court stipulated that a section bill 101 is not in conformity with the Canadian charter of freedoms. And it is true. The Supreme Court of Canada itself said it in 1988 while adding that the circumstances (the fragility of the French language in North America) justified a thin breach in the charter.

Here is what this law says (actually just a part of it; most of this law is roughly a consensus in Québec; like the mandatory schooling in French of all new immigrants): It is illegal to have commercial signs in a language other than French outside a business.

Firstly, as soon as one speaks about the language issue, the mass media will go ask the opinions of all those whose opinion is already known. Essentially the idiots of Alliance-Québec or the SSJB (Société Saint-Jean Baptiste). The first want to transform Québec in an English only province and the second to create a pro-French Apartheid regime in Québec. I hardly exaggerate and you know it. As for me the SSJB and Alliance-Québec is pretty much the same. To see a nation as a homogeneous group in competition with other nations is a vision that carries out to you know what.

Of course, traditional media will not explain in dept the situation. All they will do in the name of the “objectivity of the press” religion is to report what these special interest groups have to say on the subject in well orchestrated press conferences. This is the purpose of mass media today: to be invited to banquets.

As always, I get carried away from the subject. Any person has the right to do what they want on their property and it is not the job of the government to get into those affairs. If somebody wants to display signs in two languages on their business it is their right. If they want to have signs only in English, it is their right. It is their right not being open to the majority of the population and to have a low sales turnover. And if you do not like that your shoe salesman only has signs in English, it is your right to buy your shoes elsewhere. It is not the task of the State to mess with those questions. The freedom of expression gives the right to express. It does not compel to listen.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 30th, 2001 at 00:00 and is filed under Canada, Issues & politics.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.