Raging Duff

Not even 24 hours in the job, and Mount Royal Liberal candidate Pierre Arcand is showing the kind of election campaign this is going to be. The former Corus Quebec CEO yesterday on Radio Canada compared Mario Dumont with France’s xenophobic right-wing leader Jean Marie Le Pen.
Dumont immediately demanded a public retraction within 24 hours, failing which he’d put the matter in the hands of his lawyers.
Earlier this afternoon, Arcand backed off somewhat...in a press release, he admitted that the analogy used to illustrate Mr. Dumont’s contribution to the debate over reasonable accommodation were very strong....”I simply tried to underline the fact that, Mr. Dumont, in exploiting this debate, was dividing Quebeckers,” Arcand said. Not exactly an apology.
Is this the official Liberal line on Dumont, the most popular of the three leaders according to the latest Leger Marketing poll?
Today in the NatAss, Economic Development Minister and Outremont MNA Raymond Bachand accused Dumont of “exploiting the insecurities of Quebeckers, as others do in other countries.”
Dumont was clearly upset as he demanded that Bachand and Arcand both say they’re sorry — and that Charest dissociate himself from their comments.
This was no accidental drive-by mudslinging, this comparison of Dumont with the racist Le Pen. The Liberals aren’t much afraid of Andre Boisclair and his ragtag Puke army, but they have to worry about Mario Dumont’s personal popularity. He’s the most popular of the three leaders, at 28 percent to Boisclair’s 26 percent and Charest’s 24 percent. In the summer of 2002, when Quebec was having a summer fling with Dumont, he stole a couple of byelection seats out from under Charest’s nose and the Liberals haven’t forgotten.
Nobody’s apologizing, because this is official Liberal strategy — to tag Dumont with a label that he’ll spend his time fighting, rather than getting on with selling his own message. Quebeckers already remember Dumont as a separatist in 1995, pro-merger in 2003 and anti-reasonable accommodation in 2007. It’s going to take some washing to rid himself of the Le Pen stain — and that’s all calculated Liberal policy.
As for Pierre Arcand’s role in the new government, Quebeckers have always gone for plain-talking guys with beards. Remember Pierre Paradis? Tom Mulcair? In Arcand, Charest has a trash-talking new best friend.

Posted by Jim Duff at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I have nothing against Karla Homolka's baby, and I'm a believer in that Biblical injunction that the sins of the father - or mother - shouldn't be visited on the child, but I'm sick of hearing this revisionist pap about how Homolka has paid her debt to society and should be left alone to pursue her life.
Leanne Teale Bernardo Homolka drew a 12-year sentence because Inspector Vince Bevan and the incompetent fools of the Niagara/Holton police department's Green Ribbon Task force couldn't make a case against the pair. They knew the two had acted in concert when they kidnapped Leslie Mahaffey and Kristen French, but they didn't have the goods. Remember, this was pre-DNA and CSI-style forensics. So they cut Homolka a deal — flip on Bernardo and they'd let her cop an accessory plea.
It was only later, after Bernardo's lawyer led the Keystone Kops to the second-floor bathroom light fixture where the couple had stashed the snuff tapes that they realized they'd been had.
The tapes showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Homolka was not just a bystander, but the mastermind of the horrific crimes committed in the Bernardo-Homolka condo. She gleefully orchestrated the sexual torture and assaults committed on their victims. She operated the camera, she ensured that the lighting was good, she ordered new angles. Those who covered the preliminary inquiry saw Karla as the original Nazi she-bitch from Hell, the spawn of the Devil who allowed Bernardo to rape her own little sister after she had drugged her with horse tranquilizers stolen from the veterinary clinic where she was a receptionist.
But the moron of a judge insisted that the Crown live by their original deal with this despicable creature.
She served her 12 years and was released into an unsuspecting community.
I would willingly push the button or pull the switch to dispatch Karla to the nether world where she should spend the rest of eternity, while regretting the missed opportunity to torture her as she tortured their victims. But revenge doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the French and Mahaffey families, and to Jane Doe, the woman who survived this couple's ministrations.
I've listened to my colleagues debating this issue and I can't understand why they don't just Google the casefile, do their research to learn firsthand the role Karla played in this murderous duet.
If they did, there would be no debate about the wisdom of giving her her freedom.
At the very least, her tubes should have been tied so that this monster couldn't reproduce.
At the rate this story is being rewritten, I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if Karla sued the Ontario government for wrongful imprisonment and won a few million bucks.
No wonder she's chosen to live here in Quebec. She can complain her ordeal was un complot federal — and there are plenty of idiots who'll believe it.

Posted by Jim Duff at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I’m writing this having just spent a couple of hours at the scene of the accident in Les Cédres where four men in their twenties and thirties were killed early today.
Highway 338 is an arrow-straight east-west two-laner running parallel to the old Soulanges Canal from des Cascades to the Ontario border. It’s the main drag for traffic between the Trans-Canada Highway and the fast-growing municipalities along the north shore of the St. Lawrence in southwestern Quebec. When the bars close in Vaudreuil-Dorion and Valleyfield, it’s the road home for the closing-time crowd living in Coteau, Les Cédres and Cascades.
I’d say the chances are pretty good the four men killed at around 4 this morning weren’t heading home from a church supper when the rental car they were riding in hit a big old poplar tree about 60 feet off the road.
As I write this, I’m scrolling through my photos of the accident scene on Highway 338. Here’s one of the rescue crews finally pulling the late-model American car off the tree it was wrapped around. When I say ‘wrapped around,’ I’m telling you it was exactly that. The driver lost it, maybe because the windblown snow on that bleak stretch quickly turns into black ice. He must have been doing nearly twice the 90 kph speed limit, because the car hit that tree about six feet up, roof first.
The driver was thrown from the car on impact; it looks like he wasn’t wearing his seat belt. Not that it would have made any difference; his three passengers were crushed in the wreck. There was no way the firefighters could cut the dead men loose while the car was up in the tree. They had to saw off the lower branches before they could pull the car to the ground. Then they could use their hydraulic jacks and shears to cut the car apart to get the bodies out.
I’ve seen plenty of fatal accidents in my 40 some years in this business, but I can’t remember one this bleak or this sad. Here’s a photo of a young man, maybe a brother of one of the victims. He’s not dressed for the icy blast coming off the fields. Neither are several elderly folks who look like they’re in shock. They watch as the rescue crews and the coroner survey the crash scene.
The last photo on my digital shows the car transporter rolling past the cameras. The car is under a green tarpaulin, but you can tell it’s maybe a foot high where the passenger compartment used to be. Those young men never had a chance.
Once the investigators have cleared out and before the highway reopens to traffic, I drive up to the tree. There’s nothing to show that four young men died here except some adsorbant to sop up the gas, engine oil and the blood. The tree has some scuffs on the bark, nothing more.
•••
Last Saturday, not far from here, three young people were heading home from another bar. The driver lost control on Highway 342 and rolled the minivan. The impact amputated his arm. He’s reportedly in a drug-induced coma to prevent him from freaking out when he wakes up and discovers he’s got no left arm.
•••
I get back to the office, where I read the papers as I warm up. On page A-6 of the Gazette, there’s a story about a Quebec City Superior Court judge busted for drunk driving Dec. 7. He pleaded not guilty, so he’s still sitting on the bench as he awaits his trial.
What are we saying when even those who sit in judgment are permitted to get on with their lives while there’s still a question of their having broken the Criminal Code? Yes, he’s innocent until he’s found guilty, but surely to God the right thing to do would be to suspend him with pay pending the outcome?
Right now, I’d have to say drunk driving is the worst crime on Quebec’s roads. Drunk driving is the source of so many other road-related crimes, it shouldn’t be an issue. For what it’s worth, Quebec last month declared 2007 officially Highway Safety Year. I’ll bet all the victims and their families will be glad to know that.

Posted by Jim Duff at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I don’t know about the rest of the hack pack, but whenever I hear someone speculating about an election date, I check my calendar.
La Presse says Jean Charest and the Liberals are pulling the plug for a general election on either March 26 or April 6.
Okay, March 26 is a Monday, the only official election day in Quebec. Never mind that there are 925,000 Google entries for “March 26 snowstorm.” Maybe Charest is counting on the Pukes being lousy at getting the vote out when the weather’s bad. I can’t remember André Boisclair ever wearing rubbers, let alone a pair of snowboots.
But then I check April 6. Not only is it a Friday, probably the worst election day in the week, but it’s also Good Friday. Hey, I’m as much a believer in the separation of church and state as the next guy, but I’m guessing there would be a ruckus from the Catholics and the Protestants, both.
Could La Presse have gotten the number upside down and it’s really the 9th? Hold on — that’s Easter Monday.
Oops.
April 2?
I’d be careful calling an election that close to April Fool’s Day. Besides which Google comes up with 1.2 million references to April 2 snowstorms, including the three worst storms in Quebec history. Nobody I know is that keen to have an election.
Obviously, the Grit pollsters are frantically yelling at Charest and Co. to hit the switch ASAP. The window of opportunity is open now that Boisclair is sucking bilge and who knows whether there might be a putsch involving Duceppe taking over here and Marois sliding into the Bloc seat.
Of course the Charest crew will be basking in the afterglow of the March 20 budget and the widely expected fiscal pact with the Harper Tories that pumps nearly $4 billion more a year into Quebec. That will give Charest the wherewithal to cut taxes, reduce wait times and deal with all those other nasty unkept promises that could conceivably cost him the election.
But Easter Monday? Please Jean. That’s taking reasonable accommodation a step too far.

Posted by Jim Duff at 7:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Letters and e-mails of support and condemnation continue to pour into the municipal council of Herouxville, the peafart burg an hour’s drive north of Montreal where the town council recently adopted a resolution banning, among other things, stoning, the wearing of the Sikh kirpan ceremonial dagger and bans on women driving.
Herouxville adopted the resolution in response to what its councillors see as the growing influence of multiculturalism and minority rights in Quebec society.
And it appears the Herouxville phenomenon is spreading. Nearby Saint-Roch-de-Mékinac is reportedly inviting its 308 residents to a council meeting tomorrow night where the town council will debate taking a position on reasonable accomodation. Monday night’s council meeting in Trois-Rives will ask its 500 residents the same question.
All across Quebec, there’s a mad scramble to join the debate or risk being left out. Tomorrow, a think tank called the Institut du Nouveau Monde will be holding forums in nine Quebec cities. The topics: reasonable accommodation, intercultural relations, the role of religion in public life, the future of the French language, culture in our public schools, religious strife.
The media has been scrambling to come up with examples of this refus culturelle, but it’s nothing new. Most of us will remember how Lucien Bouchard quit in disgust after the Parti Quebecois ripped him for having led an all-parties censure vote in the NatAss against PQ co-founder Yves Michaud. Michaud’s sin lay in having slamming the monolithic Jewish vote against Quebec’s independence. There has been relentless pressure from pequiste hardliners since then to reverse that vote.
Two years ago, we saw the Charest government reverse itself on a decision to fund Jewish parochial schools in a deal similar to the one already enjoyed by the Greek community and Quebec’s powerful private lycées. The flip-flop was forced by outraged reaction from a wide cross-section of Quebec society.
But there’s been a veritable explosion of anti-immigrant, anti-multiculturalism sentiment since the Marguerite-Bourgeoys school board was told by the Supreme Court of Canada, no less, that a Sikh student was allowed to wear a ceremonial dagger to class.
In the past three months alone, we’ve seen:
• An internal Montreal police newsletter suggesting that female officers should call for male colleagues when they have to deal with Hasidic men. That provoked wide reaction.
• The YMCA on Park Avenue replaced the windows of its exercise room with opaque glass. A nearby Hasidic school paid for the replacement because the sight of semi-clothed women was upsetting the boys.
• A week-long poll on racism in the Journal de Montreal and TVA on Quebec’s attitudes toward ethnic minorities and cultural communities found 59 percent of respondents admitting to being somewhat or very discriminatory.
• A Montreal cop is hauled on the carpet for posting a song on the internet poking fun at reasonable accommodation. He’s scolded, but management knows it will make a martyr of him if they do anything.
• A core of teachers in the french-language Commission scolaire de Montreal, Quebec’s largest, opposes paid leave for Jewish and Muslim teachers on religious holidays.
The union representing Quebec Automobile Insurance Board examiners outs the board’s practice of allowing male Hassidim to demand male examiners in clear violation of Quebec’s gender-equality laws n the workplace.
Politicians wade into this quagmire at their peril. PQ leader André Boisclair suggested that crucifixes be withdrawn from all public places in the province. He backed off after his own party as much as told him he was a moron.
For as long as I can remember, Quebeckers have been urged to replace their tribalist, xenophobic vision of the rest of the planet with an encompassing world vision, one of inclusion, pluralism and acceptance. What we’re seeing now is the reaction. How far will it swing? Who will be in its path? At this point, the eyes of Canada are on the Herouxville Phenomenon — because you and I know there are thousands of Herouxvilles across this nation called Canada.

Posted by Jim Duff at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)