Conference kaosws::canada

    It is a step in the right direction, now all we have to do is work on
    the other 40% who are intolerant, and remove the restriction on the
    size of the "other" language. One would think that the attention of the
    UN on this subject would indicate that the Quebec has crossed the line
    into uncivilized behavior. Instead we get "don't they have anything
    better to do than defend the minority rights in Quebec?" They do have
    other things to do, but oppression needs to be opposed where ever it
    rears it's ugly head.
    
    							Derek

The Quebec Liberal party is reviewing the language law this weekend.

Bourassa and Claude Ryan (senior member) appear to me in favour of relaxing the
laws, while trying to keep a balance between the protection of the French
language and respect for human rights.

Re: the 40% who are intolerant.  Personally I think there is no hope for these
people, presumably the separatist majority.

/Mario

    "Under changes recommended by Liberals, bilingual signs would be
    allowed on outdoor signs on commercial establishments but not on
    billboards, busses and in public places."
    
    "Jean Dorion of the Societe Saint-Jean Baptist called on Quebeckers to
    resist bilingual signs."
    
    ""We can't let this pass" said Guy Bouthillier of Mouvement Quebec"
    
    "recent public opinion polls have also indicated that about 65% of
    Quebecers are willing to accept bilingual signs. But Blacburn (OF the
    PQ) says that will quickly change when Quebeckers realize the
    precarious state French is in."
    
     I'll say it is in a sad state !! I was watching the hockey game in Le
    Colesee last night, and I could hardly hear the french accent as they
    sang "We will, We will, Rock You !!". The accent was a little more
    pronounced when the crown was yelling "LET'S GO NOR-DIC". But the
    accent is nearly gone !!
    
     I say force more immigrants into French schools, That is the only hope
    for the future of French in North America. No English signs, who cares
    what the rest of the world thinks !! Were talking CULTURE here !!!
    
    
    						Derek

Derek,

It sounds as though separatists have a way of getting under your skin.  They get
under my skin too but they'll always be around to further their cause.  They
are so pre-occupied with the preservation of the French language that they'll
do anything, even at the cost of ignoring basic human rights, to further
that cause.  Just remember, they're a minitory in Quebec and have always been 
one.  That's why Quebec is still part of Canada.

Majorities rule, not minorities.

/Mario

    A news item on CBC Radio said that the Quebec government is considering
    reassigning the responsibilities of the "language watchdog
    organization" (I think that's what they said - they definitely did not
    give the actual name of the organization) to some other government
    agency as the number of complaints had dramatically reduced over the
    last few years.
    
    The implication is that French in Quebec is not threatened as much
    today as it once was...
    
    Of course, it could mean that the eradication of "minority languages"
    in Quebec is nearing completion...
    
    Regards,
    
    Garry
         

    Persecution always has that effect on me Mario, not just in Quebec.
    
    							Derek

    The UN ruling prompted journalists to dig further in complaints brought
    to the attention of the UN, di you know the self proclaimed champion of
    liberty (the USA) prohibiths it's citizens from complaining to the UN
    about ANY cause!
    
    I'm sure it's more important to discuss the fate of the poor old gent
    who can't put "funeral parlor" in front of his business than the
    situation in South Africa or Bosnia or Russia or China or...
    I guess we being more civilized might listen more to their
    "recommendations"
    
    Jean

  ?  The UN ruling prompted journalists to dig further in complaints brought
  ?  to the attention of the UN, di you know the self proclaimed champion of
  ?  liberty (the USA) prohibiths it's citizens from complaining to the UN
  ?  about ANY cause!
    
    
    
    	Back up your statement please.

    Jean,
    
     This is the CANADA notes file. The fact that the US does not afford
    its citizens the oppertunity to appeal to the UN says alot about the
    USA, but nothing about Canada. The fact that Canada does allow the
    appeal, indicates we feel obligated to respect their decisions. The
    fact that you feel it is a waste of time indicates you have no defense
    for the actions of the Quebec government, and can only resort to "smoke
    screen" entries like "Don't they have better things to do?" Please feel
    free to explain how the persecution of minorities is justified, and why
    the rest of the world does not understand Quebec's need to purify it's
    linguistic environment.
    
    
     It's an old argument, but just imagine the uproar if any other
    province OUTLAWED French signs. The concept of double standard is
    obviously lost on French nationalist types, but everyone else can see
    clearly that this is the case. 
    
    
    							Derek

    Derek, 
    
    	It HAS been done in Canada for over a hundred years and it is STILL
    being done in Alberta and Saskachewan.
    
    	The UN can rule all they want about what they want, if they can't
    get countries from nuking each other, what kind of "power" do they hold
    over language laws in Qu�bec (Canada) ?
    
    	About the US, I heard it on the CBC radio news, they also
    mentionned France would not even hear about discrimination cases
    brought to the UN because they don't have any discrimination in France
    (Libert� Fraternit� EGALITE).
    
    	They also said there were 18 US states with language laws.  This
    may be the CANADA notes, but I guess if we only look at our navels we
    will get a stiff neck, (or red in some cases).
    
    Jean
    

    
    
    
    
    
    
     It's fun to be back !!!!
    
    >>It HAS been done in Canada for over a hundred years and it is STILL
    >>being done in Alberta and Saskachewan.
    
            What is ?
    
    >> The UN can rule all they want about what they want, if they can't
    >>get countries from nuking each other, what kind of "power" do they hold
    >>over language laws in Qu�bec (Canada) ?
    
            Might is right? If I tell you not to murder someone, but don't
            have the physical strength to stop it, does that make the murder
            OK ? According to your logic it would.
    
    >> About the US, I heard it on the CBC radio news, they also
    >>mentionned France would not even hear about discrimination cases
    >>brought to the UN because they don't have any discrimination in France
    >>(Libert� Fraternit� EGALITE).
    
            It would appear Francophone arrogance is not the exclusive domain
    	    of Quebec seperatists.
    
    >>They also said there were 18 US states with language laws. This
    
             Which languages do they outlaw ?
    
    >>may be the CANADA notes, but I guess if we only look at our navels we
    >>will get a stiff neck, (or red in some cases).
    
            I am not the one refusing to accept the view of the UN.
    
                                                    Derek.

    
    
    >>Please feel free to explain how the persecution of minorities is
    >>justified, and why the rest of the world does not understand Quebec's
    >>need to purify it's linguistic environment.
    
     Sorry Jean, I missed you answer.
    
    
    							Derek

    
    
    	I believe Jean heard it on the radio.

The PQ has come up with another *genious* idea of how to soften Quebec's
language law if they come into power.

If you are the owner of a small business, 4 employees or less, and have had
education in French as a child, you would be allowed to post business
signs in French.

What will they think of next?

/Mario

>
>If you are the owner of a small business, 4 employees or less, and have had
>education in French as a child, you would be allowed to post business
>signs in French.
>

Pardon ????  In French ????

Do you mean in "English" ?

If that's so, what does it matter how you were educated ?  Surely what matters
is your clientelle ?

Stuart

    If you were educated in English, and have less than 4 employees you can
    have English signs.
    
     And Stuart, don't try  to make sense of it (like shouldn't the
    clientel be the real issue) because there is no sense in it. PERIOD.
    Just another bigoted policy from the PQ. If you don't believe they want
    all the Anglophones to assimilate or move, you haven't been paying
    attention. IMHO.
    
    							Derek

Yes, I meant English.

Looks like we got Derek going again.

/Mario

    >If you were educated in English, and have less than 4 employees you can
    >have English signs.
    
     I think it's bilingual signs, with the French required to be
    substantially larger than the English...
    

    I heard the new policy was if you didn't not have and an English
    education before you were 4, your employees wouldn't have to not wear
    English signs.
    
    Glenn

    >>Looks like we got Derek going again.
    
     Not hard to do these days, I'm afraid. Like Quebec's continuing battle
    to erode the HEALTHCARE system of this country. User fees only hurt the
    poor, and do nothing to reduce the cost of health care. But bean
    counters in Quebec (and in fairness I am sure there are others in
    other parts of the country) think it is the "cure" the healthcare
    system has been looking for. 
    
     Quebec has some good ideas on healthcare reform. I personally like 
    Quebec's payment of Pharmacists for consulting, rather than pill giving.
    The result is less conflicting perscriptions, and better (or no) pills
    being given out. As it stands now, Canada kills 6,000 senior citizens a
    year by bad/conflicting perscriptions.
    
     I am proud of our humanitarian healthcare, and would hate to see the
    system detroyed in the name of "deficit reduction".
    
    							Derek.

    My wife is a lab tecnician in a Montr�al hospital, during the victory
    parade of Les Canadiens, she had NO WORK to do, and anyone working in
    an emergency ward will tell you the same thing, work load goes down
    when a sports event is presented on TV.
    
    Now if there was a small fee to pay to get treatment, say $10 per
    visit, the cost to the average user would be peanuts compared to what
    the average united stater pays (ex: 10 visits� x $10 = $100) and that
    would keep the idiots waiting hours for a band-aid or aspirin out of
    the emergency wards and doctor's offices and would not compromise healt
    care for all at a reasonnable rate.
    
    Jean
    
    � I don't go to the doctor's that often myself.
    

    The idiots getting a bandaid are not the problem. FRAUD. Get rid of it,
    and we could still afford to provide the service. Besides, the average
    idiot would not be detered by the fee, but the average street person
    would. Is that yor intent ? Disenfranchise the poor ?
    
    >the cost to the average user would be peanuts compared to what
    >the average united stater pays.
    
     NEWS FLASH: This is not the States. If you think they have it so good,
    move there. You'll find they have just as many idiots going to the
    hospital, only it is private insurers that pay the bill, and raise the
    premiums to cover it. I would accept cutting off old age pensions/baby
    bonus to the "wealthy" before cutting into the principle of
    universality of healthcare. I don't believe we should penalize the poor
    because our Government is so messed up that it can't find the cheats.
    
    						Derek

    Try as you might you will never eliminate fraud. As long as there are
    dishonest people, there will always be fraud. The Ontario gov. is
    looking at ways to eliminate healthcare fraud. Whatever they come up
    with is sure to be inadequate.

    Glenn

      
       NEWS FLASH: This is not the States. If you think they have it so good,
    move there. You'll find they have just as many idiots going to the....
    [blah blah,blah.......]


    Derek my friend,

    	You seem to treat the statements "like the states" and "being
    Canadian" as mutually exclusive. I think you should review this
    particular biases.

    	I want to share with you, Derek, some little unknown information which
    might help you  understand our North-East neighbours position of l'love 
    your southern neighbours'.
    	
    	As a young Quebec'r is growing up, typically in their early teens,
    strong things start to happen to their bodies. All these new pent-up
    hormones trying to break loose, flooding both body and soul. (A lot of
    Catholics ya know)!
    	Weekly, almost nightly, wet dreams envelope their minds, clouding
    the thoughts of frolicking in the surf on warm white sand. The effect of 
    these dreams are strong. As powerful as the Salmon search of their place
    of birth, as intense as Spock having to reach Vulcan for the 'big one', 
    as real as Mario wanting to reply to this note. 

    When the time of passage to adulthood is reached, the father honours the
    occasion with the gift of the SPEEDO bathing suit.
    	This 'suit of choice' is kept swaddled in protective packaging
    until later in life when the trip to the 'Chosen land' is made. The
    long 40 year wait to visit Florida's warm, white sand only makes the
    trip that much better.  
    	Upon arriving, the ageing, ecstatic father of 4, enthusiastically
    prepares for his swim with the wearing of the SPEEDO which his father
    gave him in his early teen years.


    	That Derek, is why a) You have offended our Quebec'r brothers which
    	                 your biased anti-American slander
    			   b) In Florida you see so many 55+year olds 
    			 wearing Speedos on the beach trying to assimilate
    			 the natives. 

    >> That Derek, is why a) You have offended our Quebec'r brothers which
    >>                       your biased anti-American slander
    >>                    b) In Florida you see so many 55+year olds
    >>                       wearing Speedos on the beach trying to assimilate
    >>                       the natives.
    
     Mike, Do try to keep up. Quebec's facination with the Sunshine
    State is well known, and it is also well known that the Americans are
    getting a little tired of the pettitions going around to have the
    National (oops I mean State) motto on their license plates changed to
    "I remember".
    
    
    							Derek.

    Derek, I didn't say they had it good in the US of A, in fact, they have
    a tougher time (with medical care) than we do here.  I have seen many
    newspaper articles of people turned away from hospitals because they
    had no insurance coverage.  
    
    People who DO have coverage have to pay a "deductible" for each visit
    which keeps idiots from driving in for a band aid or for aspirin.  In
    my mind, "deductible" = user fee (ticket mod�rateur), this amount would
    keep idiots from cluttering emergency wards, the same way a deductible
    keeps united staters from taxing THEIR hospitals.
    
    I don't know how often you have been to the hospital, but when my
    eldest daughter was younger, we went once or twice a year for alergic
    reactions (very severe) we could walk in, and get treatment IMMEDIATELY
    while other people waited hours because their kids had a cold, I could
    just feel their hatred at me because my kid went in while theirs stayed
    out, the big difference mine WAS SICK and needed treatment to stay
    alive while theirs only needed aspirin, rest and lots of fluids (just
    like they say in the commercials).
    
    I think our system is good, it would just be a bit better with a
    "ticket mod�rateur" and with picture ID.  Qu�bec just started to ask
    for picture ID last year, 70,000 cards were NOT renewed! (a saving of
    $21,000,000 at $3000 per capita for premiums).
    
    
    Jean
    
    PS How often do YOU go to the hospital?

Wasn't the original plan to have a *ticket moderateur* but only charge you 
when you end up in emergency for something that didn't require emergency 
treatment?  i.e. you could have called the CLSC or go to the local clinic.

What ever happened to that plan?  Was it scrapped in favour of a plan that 
would bring in more revenue?

/Mario

    I don't think my one trip to a hospital (my girlfriend fainted) this
    year is the problem. I have been to a Doctor 3 times. The reasons are
    personal (but not embarassing). Have I met the grade ?
    
    
     Funny you should reply to this note today. I was going to come in and
    say on the news last night they had representitives from the 3 national
    parties. Hugh Segal (Conservative heavyweight), Steven Lewis (Liberal
    heavy weight), and some lady from the NDP (they don't have any
    heavyweights). They all agreed that user fees were not a deterrent to
    people going to the doctor needlessly. They all say this because
    studies have shown it to be true. I agree with you we need to get
    healthcare costs under control, just user fees are not the answer.
    
     							Derek

    Jean,
    
    By the way, picture ID is a great idea, and your note shows why. Nobody
    gets hurt by it, but it saves money.
    
    
    							Derek
    
    

	Yes, the presentation of picture ID sounds like a great idea,

	Is Ontario thinking of instituting this?

	Charlie

    
    re.-1 
    
    Yes, but we can't afford a photographer so Bob Rae's gonna draw little
    politically correct sketches by hand.....
    
    
    
    
    

    
    Most of the people who say user fees do not work are closely tied to
    the healt care system.   Would a doctor like to see his revenues go
    down because his non paying (neither from their pockets nor from their
    taxes) patients stop seeing him? how about the pill pushers? and the
    list goes on of people and specialities supporting doctors right down
    to his gardiner, whom he probably would not be able to pay if his
    revenues went down.
    
    Right now, the way we are going, a few people are getting rich while
    the rest are getting poorer and poorer, all this on credit to boot.
    
    Jean
    
    Another thing the provincial (Qu�bec) governement tried was to have
    social benefit checks picked up at a governement office by the people
    they were destined to, in the Hull region.  Turns out some people came
    to get them from Ottawa!!!!

    
    Re: -.1
    
    Pork barreling knows no borders, language or otherwise.
    
    Pat
    

    Like I'm sure none of the people from Hull have done the same in
    Ottawa. Right Jean, only people from Ontario cheat the system. Get
    real.
    
     Why can't you admit that user fees are not the answer ? We have had
    some positive suggestions, why concentrate on the negative ? I ask
    again, is your intention to make healthcare less accessable to the
    poor? Wether you choose to belive it or not, that is the effect of user
    fees. I doubt any of the people on the panel I mentioned were "pill
    pushing" doctors, so where is the graft get ? 
    
    
    							Derek

    Derek, I didn't say Qu�becois are not cheaters of the system, but it
    would have been improbable for Newbees (from N.B.) or Newfies to claim
    social benefits in Hull wouldn't it?
    
    As for user fees, even at $10 a visit, 4 visits per year is less than a
    carton of (legal) cigarettes.  If less money was being spent needlessly
    on the healt care system, there might be more for the education system.
    
    Why are so many "poor" people going to the US to buy groceries,
    cigarettes, beer...?  They have the time!! I don't, I have to work for
    a living 6 months of the year while the other 6 months I pay taxes to
    give them the time to shop in the US.
    
    There is a man and his wife I see walking in the neighbourhood, the man
    has not worked for the last 20 years, his wife does not work either. 
    They get free medical care, free medicine, money to pay the rent
    (subsidized housing) money to pay for clothes....they don't have to get
    up every day to go to work, can do whatever pleases them to pass the
    time.  They may not be rich money wise, but time wise they are.  And
    they also have the time to abuse the system day in and day out because
    it's a distraction to them while it's a pain in the a.. to me.  
    
    I could give more examples of similar behaviour, but it gets me too
    irritated.  A friend of my wife (works with social beneficiaries) said
    "after two years on welfare, they are not recuperable" meaning it's
    impossible to get those people to work again after a couple of years
    getting it all basicaly free.  Imagine going to work for the minimum
    salary ($5/hour) of $200 a week, on this you pay taxes, have to get
    dressed, spend time travelling to and from work and have to do
    something for 40 hours per week.  On welfare they get a MINIMUM of $110
    a week for nothing! the choice is simple for them.
    
    Jean
    

    Last night, there was a program on CBC french, titled "ras le bol" (fed
    up), where people calling an open line show were interviewed after the
    radio show.  One of them was a former Qu�bec minister who resigned when
    he found he could do nothing to rectify the economic situation, he
    showed a 700 page manual of governement waste (federal) to the tune of
    $11,000,000,000 per year, the publication of the manual is probably
    included in the list since nothing is done to reduce the deficit.
    
    Jean
    

There are many such documents that detail so-called government waste.  Some
of these are indeed genuine waste, on the other hand, also included in
a lot of these documents are assorted useful programs that the report
author disagrees with.  Some are social programs, some are economic
development programs and so on.  Add to these, the programs that for
one reason or another have failed.  These may have turned out to be waste
but they did not necessarily start out life that way.

While these reports may suggest $11 billion waste, I would suggest that 
the true waste is much smaller than that.

Stuart