Monday night the usual suspects held a rally in support of Bill 14. You know who they were. Impératif français, Mouvement Montréal français, etc...ad infinitum...ad nauseum.
But at the press conference before the rally - a rally attended by only several hundred attesting to francophone fatigue on this issue - one Pierre Dubuc,editor of L'Aut' Journal, decided to unburden himself of his true feelings and blurted out, with unconcealed venom, "If someone can't ask for a Métro ticket in French, let them walk!" Well M. Dubuc, here's a message for you. Why don't you take a walk! Out of here!
It is enough of pandering on the issue of language. You need to hear some hard truths. M. Dubuc, you and your cultural supremacist friends just make a living out of demonizing "les autres" and stirring up hate and insecurity among francophones. Well, M. Dubuc, non-francophones aren't bending over anymore. And not too many francophones are buying it either.
It's enough with politically correct acceptance of phrases like "the normal aspirations of Francophones to protect their language." There is nothing "normal" about discriminatory laws and second-class citizenship. You M. Dubuc are still a Canadian citizen, as are the people you disparage. This country is officially bilingual. Its constitution protects minority language rights, especially in public services. A constitution inspired by Papineau who emancipated all minorities in Quebec unlike you who marginalize all minorities. Why don't you find yourself another country to be part of if you don't like It!
We've had forty years of the great lies of the language wars. Discussion and submission have produced nothing except another attack on civil liberties in the form of Bill 14. Nothing will ever be enough for the likes of you M. Dubuc.
Francophones and anglophones came here as agents of imperial powers. Neither has a position of moral superiority M.Dubuc. Francophones are not a native people here to whom a great injustice was done in their native land as the nationalist narrative likes to tell it. Unless the injustice is that France gave up Quebec in favour of keeping the spice isands of Guadeloupe and Martinique.
So until Quebec becomes independent M. Dubuc, respect the law. But M. Dubuc, you better hope your dream of an independent Quebec will never materialize, because if it does and Quebec loses the $8-12 billion it receives in transfer payments, Quebec collapses.
And M. Dubuc, you better hope that no more head offices "take a walk" because it won't be to the bus, it will be to another province and Quebec won't have a tax base left.
And M.Dubuc, you better hope that no more citizens "take a walk" to another province, because among them will be a lot of francophones like the 450,000 that left since 1976.
You know M.Dubuc, my work as a social activist takes me from the east end to the west island. And when I'm helping community kitchens, collecting clothes for the poor,finding shelter for the homeless and defending the vulnerable against unfeeling bureaucrats we somehow have a common language. You should learn that language M. Dubuc. It's called compassion with a distinct accent of respect.
In a city where a third of the people live below the poverty line, there are plenty who need compassion M.Dubuc. They don't need $30 million wasted on the OQLF. They need to survive!
Nobody needs your words of nullification and interposition M. Dubuc. They need words of caring. Almost forty years ago your cohorts took an oasis of accomplishment, prosperity and justice and made it into a valley of dry bones. And you don't know how to fix it anymore.
Think about that the next time you open your mouth.
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