The Gazette

In 1776 Benjamin Franklin and an army of the not yet USA invaded Canada and occupied, however briefly, Montreal.  Franklin hoped to get French-Candians' support by giving them a french newspaper.  He brought in Fleury Mesplet, a young French exiled printer.  By the time young Mesplet was ready to publish, the occupier had gone home not being able to garner the support he had hoped for.
Nonetheless in 1778 La Gazette Politique et Littéraire de Montréal began publishing.  After a few years it became bilingual French/English and not long after unilingual English.  For the last 231 years it has been a Montreal institution.  Some years ago it was taken over by Canwest publishing, a Winnipeg based holding.  The Asper family managed to drive their newspapers to the brink of bankruptcy by borrowing heavily to get them...only to see the add revenues plumet and the readership vanish as editorial control was made in Winnipeg.
Now the Montreal Gazette is on the verge of being sold...or worse, closed.
231 years of history would be wiped out by a red bottom line.  This morning, Josh Freed, a regular columnist, comes up with the idea that we could all bunch together and buy the Gazette with the journalists in order to save it.  Could be a great idea.  Of course I could be a bit sentimental, my uncle Henri worked 52 years at the Gazette Printing Company, entering at 18 as an apprentice binder and retitring at 70 when the binding department was shut down.

Quel sans gêne!

M. Bernie Ecclestone veut bien accepter 75 millions de dollars de nos taxes pour venir faire des millions chez-nous avec ses Formules 1 si polluantes et bruyantes que je les entends jusque chez-moi  à 8 kilomètres du circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.  Nous débourserions 75 millions pour un évènement qui nous rapportera 100 millions en revenus pour nos commerçants qui paieront bien sûr des impôts et M. Ecclestone fera lui aussi des millions...avec notre argent.  Mais voilà, M. Ecclestone ne veut pas payer d'impôts sur ses gains et exige une garantie écrite de la part de nos 3 ordres de gouvernement, sinon, pas de course.
Je dis: "M. Ecclestone, restez chez-vous ou respectez nos lois.  Nous ne sommes plus, et depuis longtemeps, une colonie brittannique."

Party choices.

Did you know that Canada has 19 registered political parties?  There is a 20th one on the way: the Pirate party, aiming to change the Copyright and Patent Acts.  Could these parties offer a credible alternative to our worn out Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats?
For a complete list go to www.electionscanada.ca/content.asp?sec...   You will find a resumé on each party and where to reach them.  Food for thought?

Daffy Duck

Do you remember the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour?  "It's a bird, it's a star, no, it's Super Duck!", and he usually ended in a wall or other obstacle.  Well it seems Ignatieff and his party have turned into so many Daffy Ducks.  Much posturing, not much results.
  The Outremont missstep, two useless no confidence (safe) motions he knew he could not win, a useless summer committee on Unemployment Insurance later, he looks for ever more the vacuous intellectual.  He is clearly no match for Harper.
Could the Liberals pull their act together, get a real leader, even if it meant getting Chrétien back and get real action going?

Oh dear, what can I do?

On November 1st all the near 2 000 Québec municipalities go to the polls to choose their administrators for the next 4 years.  We used to have independant candidates for most seats, including the mayor's.  Nowadays, most everywhere, we have party backed slates.
Our city of Longueuil has two municipal parties.  The one in place presently has been running the town for the last 27 years.  It has been tainted with quite a few seemingly conflicts of interests although all inquiries have concluded that even if some indiscretions had taken place no actual misdeeds had happen since all the officials involved, even if their companies or legal practice had profited by municipal actions, had their belongings  in blind trusts and they had no say in the goings on.  Still it makes me uneasy.
The other party is run by a former Bloc Québécois MP in Ottawa.  Now the Bloc was set up to help bring about Québec's sovereignty and be a watchdog in Ottawa.  It is now clear that soveriegnty is a most elusive goal and that the Bloc' deputation has achieved nothing but keeping Québec fron the decision making process in Ottawa irrespective of who governs.  Thus it has become irrelevant and remaining there is incoherent.  The lady resigned recently for family reasons (?) but soon emerged as a municipal pârty leader and mayoral candidate.  Can she be trusted to be a coherent mayor?  Is she part of a soveriegnist movement to take control of our city halls?  Several Bloc and PQ MPs or MPPs are running all over.
If the incumbent party is of dubious morals, if the rival one has, or could have, a hidden agenda, what then are the voters supposed to do?

Minority saga

We will not have a snap election...for now.  Harper who, in camera and sub secreto, ranted against the coalition of Liberals, Socialists and Separatists, has given just enough of what the Separatists asked for to be saved by them.  The Bloc Québécois will vote, Friday, with the Conservatives thus keeping them in power...for a few more weeks.  As the saying goes: "Politics make for strange bedfellows".

Speed limit

The Montreal Gazette has a column called "Squeaky Wheels" dedicated to public transportation woes.  Yesterday a writer complained about how drivers respecting the posted speed limits were impeding traffic and made him pass them either to the left or, on three lanes highways, by the right thus causing him to breach the law.  And he signed with his full name.
Now I must surmise that this guy is, in advance, pleading guilty to any speeeding ticket he could get.  If the driver ahead drives at the posted speed limit then anyone passing him is driving over the speed limit and is guilty of a trafic violation no matter from what side he passes the car ahead of him.
How weird can you get?