Foul Language

The consequences of the Official Languages Act continue to roll across the nation. Since it was enacted in 1969, it has exploded into a bloated monstrosity.  It has alienated Anglophones from coast to coast, has cost untold billions, and has forced many thousands of competent Anglophone public servants into early retirement.

• Ontario has let itself be led into developing expensive bilingual programs while serving only a miniscule population of Francophones – who are themselves, fully bilingual.
• Quebec is working desperately to fill the Supreme Court of Canada with fully bilingual judges, with Quebec being the judge of who will qualify as ‘bilingual’ and who will not.
• The Alberta government has been forced - by the Supreme Court of Canada, no less -  to fund the legal costs of a group of Francophones that is suing Alberta – in the Supreme Court of Canada - because Alberta refused to issue a French version of a traffic ticket to a Francophone truck driver. A French win in the Supreme Court is expected to cost all provinces billions of dollars to accommodate their demands.
• The Yukon Government has been ordered, by a Francophone judge, to spend $15 million to build a school, complete with a student-run radio station, for 41 Francophone students. The government is appealing the ruling.

The list of horror stories is long and it demonstrates that Quebec has absolutely no interest in a partnership with Canada; it wants to own Canada. And while politicians such Daulton McGuinty are working hand in glove with the French to give them whatever they want, most Canadians remain blissfully unaware of the disastrous consequences of the Official Languages Act.   - Gerry Porter

Canadians for Language Fairness,

July 30, 2011

By Kim McConnell

It appears that Canada is starting a new trend in human relations – SEGREGATION is in vogue, people!!!  First we have the New Brunswick government being lobbied by the Acadian community (funded by the general taxpayers) to support separate schools and health facilities for the French, while also supporting bilingual facilities for the rest of the population.  Bilingual facilities favour the employment of French-speakers – that is a fact!!! 

We have seen this happening in Ontario as well, especially in areas that have any size of French-speakers.  In the City of Ottawa (less than 15% French-speakers), SEGREGATION has been a policy supported by taxpayers for years – separate schools, separate community centres, separate health facilities!!!  The City of Ottawa itself follows a hiring policy that favours French-speakers as it is obliged to follow the Language policy which, Bob Chiarelli insisted, is “Practical Bilingualism”.  This policy at the City, along with the OLA at the Federal level, has led to more Quebecers moving into Ottawa to take jobs that are designed to favour them.

As the power of French-speakers grow, they can demand more segregation.  Don’t forget that these French-language lobby groups are fully funded by your tax dollars and they can pay high-powered lawyers whose agenda is to increase the power of the French-speakers with every victory.  The Grant School project has been in the works for many years now, carefully guided by the various French-language groups and led by many French law firms.  CFMO was given a grant of $1.9M last year to “buy” the property (valued at $3.94M) and it was given three years to turn the facilities into a mixture of non-profit and commercial facilities serving the French in West Ottawa. 

First of all, grants should not be given to commercial facilities to compete with other commercial facilities as this would be unfair competition.  I wonder if the other commercial facilities (dental clinics and for-profit retirement homes) are aware of this facility that will be set up in competition with them but with the help of taxpayer dollars.

By the way, to complete this project, at least $50M will be required - and who do you think they will get the money from?  That’s right – YOU!!!

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$4M grant will help create west Ottawa francophone centre.

Plan will see old school transformed

Ottawa Citizen, July 29, 2011

By Neco Cockburn

A $4-million Ontario government investment will help a francophone group move ahead with efforts to turn the former Grant Alternative School site into a community centre, the group's president said Thursday.

Roger Farley said the Centre multiservices francophone de l'ouest d'Ottawa (CMFO) will be able to go ahead with the first piece of its development plans - renovating the old school and transforming it into a "multi-service community centre."

The CMFO already has an agreement with the city to buy the site, at 2720 Richmond Rd., and the funding will "permit us to move forward and look at buying the property," perhaps in the next few months, Farley said.

Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli made the funding announcement Thursday, and said in an interview that thousands of francophone residents "will have a community hub" for health care, social and education services.

The CMFO project is meant to serve west Ottawa's francophone population of about 28,000 people.

The second phase of the plan includes a co-operative seniors' housing project, while the third phase involves a long-term care facility, Farley said.

City council in August approved a conditional land transfer for the property.

Bay Councillor Mark Taylor called it "good news" that the project is moving ahead.

"In Bay Ward and in the west end of Ottawa in particular, there's a large and growing francophone population, and they really don't have anywhere near the service capacity that they do in the east end of the city," he said.

"Having something in the west end is more about being equitable than it is anything else."

The project does have its critics, and became one of the issues tackled by Bay Ward candidates during last fall's municipal election. At least one candidate, Terry Kilrea, vowed to scrap the centre if elected.

On Thursday, Kilrea said the project segregates people based on language.

"Why are you making a community centre just for francophones? Should we turn Barbara Ann Scott (Arena) into an English-only complex?"

Taylor said the project is to be a "community hub" despite being a francophone centre.

"They're not intending to keep it closed off, and in fact what they want to do is open it up as broadly as they can to anybody and everybody in the community who wants to come in and take a class, or take a course, or use one of the services," he said.

Residents who attended a community meeting on the centre didn't raise concerns about language, but focused on issues such as parking and traffic, said Taylor, adding that another public meeting is likely to be held within a couple of months.

The old school was built in the 1920s and is considered a heritage site as part of the former Britannia Village. In March 2008, the city bought the school property from the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board for $3.94 million.

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The Citizen published the following letter from a concerned Ottawan.

Re:  $4 M grant will help create west Ottawa francophone centre

July 29, 2011

As a taxpayer, I am completely disgusted with this blatant attempt at vote buying by Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli and the Ontario Liberal government.

This francophone centre is "meant to serve west Ottawa's francophone population of about 28,000 people".  But, according to the last census, the number of francophones in west Ottawa adds up to less than 15,000 no matter how you look at it.  The only way to boost the number to 28,000 is by including anyone according to the census who speaks French including bilingual anglophones, something that the McGuinty government did by changing the definition of francophone.

And, why is the CMFO being given a grant when the McGuinty government recently announced that they would give low interest loans to non-profit groups to develop facilities, loans that would have to be repaid to the Ontario taxpayers.  Is it because the CMFO actually is not “non-profit” and so does not qualify for these loans because they are including for profit businesses in their plans such as a dental clinic which will compete with other private dental clinics in the area?

It is time to end all government grants to francophone centres that, once operational, will deny services to non-francophones while still requiring all other centres to serve the bilingual community.  This practice is simply unfair to the vast majority of Ontario taxpayers who are non-francophones.
Bob H., Ottawa

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http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/grant+will+help+create+west+Ottawa+francophone+centre/5176417/story.html#ixzz1TVU8wGcf

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Court orders Yukon to build $15M school for 41 francophone students

National Post, July 28, 2011

By Tamsin McMahon

Citing the need to protect minority-language rights, a Yukon court has ordered the government to give its lone French-language school $2-million and begin a multi-million-dollar school expansion to house an arts studio, separate classes for every grade and space for a student radio station.

In a French-only ruling released this week, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Vital Ouellette ordered the government to build a $15-million high school within two years to house the board’s 41 French high school students.

Maxime Faille, the Ottawa-based lawyer who represented the Yukon government, warned Thursday the ruling would create a “huge inequality between francophone students and other students in the territory.” At around one teacher for every 10 students, student-teacher ratios at the school are better than many others in the territory, Mr. Faille said.

“People in Toronto pay [up to] $50,000 a year to have their students in private schools with student-teacher ratios that are worse than what they have in this school,” he said. Meanwhile, schools for Aboriginal students, who make up 30% of the territory’s population, are so underfunded that students often have move hundreds of kilometres away to Whitehorse to go to high school.

“If another high school has to be built in the Yukon Territory, I’m not sure it should be in the City of Whitehorse for the francophone population that already has a high school, a very good one,” he said.

Whitehorse’s École Émilie-Tremblay was built in 1996 for $6.2-million, shortly after Yukon created its only school board, whose sole job is to run the territory’s lone French school, serving 184 students among a 1,200-strong francophone community.

Since then, officials with Commission scolaire francophone du Yukon have complained that the government hasn’t handed over complete control of Émilie-Tremblay’s nearly $5-million annual budget. The board argued that the government never consulted school board officials when it diverted $2-million in federal French-education funding to pay for French immersion programs in the territory’s 27 other schools.

Judge Ouellette found the government violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom’s protection of minority language education, and ordered it to return the federal money to the school.

The government said it plans to appeal the new case to the Yukon Court of Appeal, arguing Judge Ouellette, who was once president of a minority-language francophone school board in Alberta, was biased in favour of the school board, Mr. Faille said.

The territory appealed to the judge to recuse himself last year, saying he had laughed at some of the government’s witnesses and joked around with the school board’s lawyers. The judge refused, saying that while he didn’t deny he had joked around, judges couldn’t be expected to maintain their composure the entire length of an extended trial. His association with French language education in Alberta was well-known before he was appointed to the bench in 2002, he added.

In previous court rulings, the judge ordered the territorial government to build new portable classrooms at the school and give the board money to hire three new teachers.

Roughly 4% of Yukon’s population is francophone, numbers school board officials said during the trial were underrepresented because, they argued, the Statistics Canada census was flawed. The judge agreed, saying there could possibly be as many as 400 students who could qualify for French-language education in the school. English students who want to learn French can also enroll in the school.

Roger Lepage, the lawyer who represented the school board, called the ruling a “resounding victory” in a news release. “The positions of the judge are well supported and consistent with Canadian jurisprudence,” he said.

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http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/28/court-orders-yukon-to-build-15m-school-for-41-francophone-students/

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By Kim McConnell

Tim Hudak and Randy Hillier, along with Randal Denley and the other Conservative candidates for the October Ontario election should be contacted with the question of where they stand on this issue:

It appears that Bob Chiarelli and Dalton McGuinty are going after the French votes. What is the Ontario PC's policy on SEGREGATION in Ontario?  It is a well-known fact that the minority French-speakers, which make up only 4% of Ontario's population, have far more clout than the 96% majority English-speakers.  They can demand anything at the taxpayers' expense and NO political party dares to say or do anything. 

Is SEGREGATION also the policy of the Ontario PC Party?

Contact Tim Hudak:  tim_hudak@ontla.ola.org

Contact Randy Hillier: randy.hillierco@pc.ola.org

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Secret shoppers spy for Quebec

I wrote the following letter to the Ottawa Citizen in response to the “Secret Shoppers” article published this morning.

The article, written by David Reevely, and a link to it follow below.  --JGP

RE: “Secret Shoppers to hunt for laggards on bilingualism,” David Reevely, July 30

If Quebec had the ordinary self-confidence found generally across the rest of Canada, they wouldn’t need to send their obsequious servant, Graham Fraser, into the byways sniffing out businesses that fail their official French-language duties. If Quebeckers were confident in themselves and their native abilities, they would recognize that businesses would be bilingual if and when it is to their advantage.

If Quebec were a place that Canadians respected and could work with as a partner, the Official Languages Act would not exist; we would learn French simply because we wanted to. We wouldn’t have to be coerced.

When Quebec comes to terms with history and learns to earn its way, we will be their best friend and partner. However, as long as they stamp their little feet, and whimper and whine to get their way, and as long as they act the adolescent and keep their little hands buried deep in the federal treasury, Quebec will continue to earn nothing but our contempt.  - Gerry Porter

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Ottawa Citizen, July 31, 2011

By David Reevely

Secret shoppers working for the official languages commissioner are to fan out across the capital in mid-August to test whether they can get service in French.

The mission is to see what the experience of visiting Ottawa-Gatineau would be like for tourists who only speak the one language. Although the commissioner’s usual job is testing the bilingual fluency of federal departments and services, this time the plan is to case a wider net, including private businesses at likely tourist destinations.

Businesses that lease space from Public Works or the National Capital Commission typically have clauses requiring provide bilingual service, and they’re periodically checked out to make sure they’re complying. This plan goes beyond that.

A list included with the bid documents (it was originally left off, but added when The Citizen inquired) says that the mystery shoppers should visit the federal institutions downtown repeatedly — it calls for 50 visits each to Rideau Hall and the National Gallery, for instance — but also calls for one or two visits to practically every storefront in the ByWard Market, on Sparks Street, and in the Rideau Centre, along with visits to every downtown hotel, as far afield as Rideau Street motels. From hardware stores to hair salons, everybody in those areas can expect to be checked out at least once.

“What sort of impression does a French-speaking Quebecer get, visiting the capital of this country?” asked Graham Fraser, the official-languages commissioner. “My own experience is it’s easier to get an English menu in Barcelona than a French one in Ottawa.”

But, he said, his own anecdotal experience isn’t enough to draw any sure conclusions, which is why his office is conducting the study.

He said he draws the authority to examine private enterprises that don’t have any direct dealings with the federal government from the preamble to the Official Languages Act, which says that “the Government of Canada is committed to enhancing the bilingual character of the National Capital Region and to encouraging the business community, labour organizations and voluntary organizations in Canada to foster the recognition and use of English and French.”

The capital, he said, sends a lot of messages about what kind of country Canada is by the way it presents itself to visitors, and it’s within his authority to examine and report on what those messages are.

Furthermore, Fraser said, it’s plainly in Ottawa’s interests to serve French-speaking visitors well.

The country, he said, “can no longer count on a constant flow of American tourists” when there’s a strong Canadian dollar and tighter controls for Americans crossing the border. It’s useful for the capital to appeal to four million Canadians who speak only French.

The point, said Fraser’s spokesman Nelson Kalil in a separate interview, is not to name and shame particular businesses, but to produce an “impressionistic” report on what the francophone visitor’s experience to the capital is like.

News of the plan surprised Cindy VanBuskirk, the general manager of the Rideau Centre, where dozens of stores are due to be visited.

“This is private property and if there’s a mystery-shopping exercise planned, then it behooves them to inform the property owner of what they’re planning,” she said. She says she’s not against the work the commissioner’s office has in mind, and she’d have no intention of warning the mall’s merchants and skewing the results of the study, but if researchers plan to conduct a study in the Rideau Centre, they should tell the owners about it.

“Obviously the ability to serve customers in the language of their choice is a service profile that’s important, though it’s up to the individual retailer,” VanBuskirk said.

Matthew Mitchell manages Nicholas Hoare, a Sussex Drive bookstore slated for one visit. He says he’s lived much of his life in Quebec, so he’s accustomed to language politics, but he’d rather it be discussed openly rather than through a covert survey.

“No, I don’t think it’s fair, if it’s done in a clandestine fashion,” he said. He said most everyone working at the store has at least some French and he’s bilingual, so a unilingual francophone could be served with no real problem, which is what the store’s lease with the NCC requires.

“But we are an English bookstore specializing in British books, so I think there’s a bit of a hole in their thinking there,” Mitchell said.

The commissioner’s office is looking for bids, on a tight timeline, from companies willing to provide the testers. Between them, they’re to conduct about 545 checks between Aug. 22 and Sept. 30, according to the bid documents, for which the winning bidder would be paid about $40,000. The testing is to include an assessment of bilingual signs, greetings from workers and proper service once a person has been welcomed.

The secret shoppers are either to be unilingual francophones or native French-speakers who will pretend to speak no English. Kalil said that’s because there’s been very little evidence that English-speakers have trouble being served anywhere in the capital region, on either side of the Ottawa River.

“Maybe if you went off past Buckingham, you might run into that,” he said.

The shoppers are to fill out a detailed form documenting each experience. The bid documents say that similar work was done in each of the past two years, though Fraser said that refers to mystery-shopper visits to federal institutions and agencies, which he’s already documented.

The documents say that a double-decker tourist bus “will have to be used for a variety of the institutions being assessed,” but Kalil said that’s really just a suggestion. “It might be easier than fighting traffic to get from place to place,” he said. (The list of businesses to be visited does not include tour-bus or tour-boat operators.)

Bids are due by Aug. 12. They’ll be assessed on a variety of criteria, including the bidders’ experience doing mystery-shopper work and collecting research-oriented data, but the single most important category — accounting for a quarter of the total — is price.

The results of the survey will be included in Fraser’s report in 2012, he said. “We had hoped for a bit more of the element of surprise.”

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dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa@davidreevely

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Secret+shoppers+hunt+laggards+bilingualism/5179136/story.html#ixzz1ThMRVl9y

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July 1: Quebec Day?

July 4, 2011

By Kim McConnell

Today, on CFRA, the morning shows focused on the Canada Day Celebrations on Friday, July 1^st.  Mark Sutcliffe referred to the fact that the shows were too heavy on French content with 13 of the 23 noon-time performances being from Quebec. The other provinces were barely represented: two each from Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta and one each from Manitoba and Newfoundland.  I’m missing two. 

In the evening show, of the 19 performances, 11 were from Quebec, two from Ontario, and one each from Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia. I’m missing three.  So, out of a total of 42 performances, 24 - more than half, were out of Quebec.

Lowell Green played the “nice guy” telling everyone that he enjoyed the show and that people should stop being so petty as to complain because French-language performances outnumbered the English-language ones. 

Well, did he get lambasted by callers who nearly all said that the show was a disgrace, featuring really amateurish performances and that the preponderance of French-language performances was very insensitive to the English-speaking majority.  Some even said that, instead of calling this the “Canada Day” celebrations, they should have called it the “Quebec Day” celebrations.

If you have any interest in what these many callers had to say, Lowell’s show can be heard at this link:  http://devel.autopod.ca/chum/43/podcasts/

Here is one listener who sent me a copy of the message he sent to Lowell:

Dear Mr. Green,

After listening to your show yesterday, I am utterly disgusted with you for trying to minimize and trivialize your callers’ concerns about the preponderance of French culture and language during this year’s “Canada Day” celebrations. Shame on you Mr. Green, especially considering the fact that you have the nerve to write “Mayday, Mayday” in an attempt to warn and educate Canadians about the dangers of “liberal style” multiculturalism and immigration policies! What the hell is wrong with you? I could not agree with you more about the dangers of “liberal style multiculturalism” but what I can’t understand is your minimizing and trivializing what occurred on “Canada Day” this year?!!

Don’t blame the NCC, the Conservatives are in control now and have a majority Government and if they can legislate a private sector union at Air Canada back to work in record time under the guise that it’s bad for the economy then they sure as hell could have ensured that the NCC and Heritage CANADA did a better job at making Canada day less about Quebec and more about Canada!

Even before Canada day festivities really started, Harper was speaking FRENCH FIRST while introducing the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Canada.  More than half of the Canada Day shows were in French and ALL the Canada day announcements were made in FRENCH FIRST!

You once said that you basically don’t know what you where thinking back in the days when you were a Liberal and supported liberal policies – well, you still don’t get it!  Why and when do you think Canada started taking a wrong turn and adopting ridiculous multicultural and immigration policies in this country?  When Trudeau introduced Official Bilingualism.

Once a country starts bending, appeasing and accommodating people then it’s the beginning of the end in terms of their heritage, national culture, identity and way of life.

Why is it that you speak out strongly (and rightly so) about Liberal style multiculturalism and immigration policies yet you are COMPLETELY silent and even supportive of Quebec?  Is it that you have a perverted sense of respect for Quebec because they defend their culture at everyone else’s expense or is it that you just don’t get it?

I hear you complain (and I agree with you) about the “left’s moral relativism” yet you suffer from this condition yourself.

Your behaviour on your show yesterday was pathetic and grossly irresponsible. Your book “Mayday, Mayday” is a waste of money as far as I am concerned because it only deals with half the problem this country is facing and you did not touch on what is irrevocably destroying this great country - excessive political correctness and pandering to minority groups at the expense of the majority of Canadians. It is, slowly but surely, ripping this country apart.

I am so disgusted by what happened on Canada day that I cancelled my Conservative party membership and cut off all party donations as this is the only way that the Conservatives will learn.

With all due respect,

Mark K. & family,

Ottawa

I too listened to Mark Sutcliffe’s broadcast this morning.  He’s a good, common sense talk show host.  I watched very little of the televised entertainment portion of the Canada Day show on the Hill.  What I did see was amateurish & for the most part just plain bad!  I  appreciate Canada’s historical connection to the UK & the Crown in general but I’m not much of a fan of specific royal family individuals.  However, I do have sympathy for William and Kate who had sit through the hour & a half of this garbage at mid day & then had to come back in the evening to sit through yet another hour of the same junk.  They reportedly sat through  this ordeal without a single grimace.  Surely it must have been a thoroughly boring experience.  Front-line royalty is, with some exceptions, generally well disciplined. And of course, keenly aware that many cameras are focused on them at all times!

I agree with the caller who proposed that the organization of a substantial part of the Canada Day events on the Hill be taken away from the NCC & placed in the hands of an independent body.  As to the French connection & the NCC  - over the years, regularly watching the local news hour on CTV/CBC,  I have never witnessed an NCC spokesperson who did not have an obvious French accent. This, and the year-after-year over representation of Quebec “entertainers” suggests a built in bias.  But then, I may have acquired a degree of the French paranoia...by osmosis.

Kip Mc.

There are also many complaints about PM Harper and his penchant for starting all his political speeches in French first.  It made sense when he was leading a minority government and Quebec was holding the lynch pin, having 75 seats under their control.  Now that he has a majority government and certainly does not need to pander to Quebec, there is NO need to carry on this charade.

We would like to start a letter-writing campaign on this aspect of Harper which should be slapped down as quickly as possible.  Anyone who would like to submit a sample letter may do so.

Kim

No New Seats For Quebec!

The following letter was written by Kim McConnell, and she invites everyone to send a copy to your MP and to the Senators.  --JGP

Dear [insert recipient’s name]

The underlying reason for this correspondence is the persistent rumour that our majority government is now seriously considering giving Quebec new seats in the federal parliament. I can only hope that such rumour proves to be ill-founded. To the extent that it isn't, it's my sincere hope that this letter can convince you to alter course with respect to a decision that can only damage our nation. 

As you well know, the constitutional provision for adding parliamentary seats is one of many democratic measures meant to entrench, in a practical manner, the fundamental principle of equality, and to give tangible assistance to the ideal that Canada should be a place where one elector's vote in one part of our country is accorded no greater weight than another's somewhere else.

Should Quebec be granted new parliamentary seats, an unambiguous message will be sent to Canadians: the votes of "New Canadians", or those who have uprooted their lives and families to move westwards in order to seek opportunity and grow our country's economy, are "less equal" than the votes of Quebecers. The deafening silence on this issue over the past week, as Layton and the self-serving Quebec political class caterwauled for more seats, merely served to diminish us as Canadians.  

Any deviation from a policy of allocation based exclusively on the fundamental principle of equality will almost certainly be construed outside of Quebec (especially in the West) as reeking of corrupt backroom dealings and pandering to the worst elements of the Quebec political class who wish to continue using their excessive political influence in federal affairs to blackmail the rest of Canada.

In the end, we all know that there will never be any satisfying the Quebec political class. Should Quebec be granted one seat they will ask for two. Should they be given two, they'll ask "why not four?" Should they be given four, they'll ask "why not as many as Ontario?" It should be clear by now, that no equitable allocation of new seats will ever satisfy any element of the Quebec political class, who will use the opportunity to further their never-ending assault on our nation's values and institutions. As such, the proposal to toss them a bone in the form of a seat or two is tantamount to the continued appease the province of Quebec.  As Winston Churchill said, "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last". Stop feeding the croc!

Having now won a parliamentary majority essentially sans Quebec, it is up to the Conservative Party to boldly take up this issue, and to cast Layton for what he is; an unprincipled charlatan, a hypocritical advocate of asymmetric federalism, and unprincipled enough to play the "knife at the throat" game perfected by unscrupulous Quebec nationalists over generations. Let us never forget, that in the past generation, Canadians have resoundingly rejected by referendum (and continue to reject) this assinine notion of asymmetric federalism. I can only hope that we see fit today to reject it as well.

Best regards,

Making Parliament fairer

June 4, 2011

The Conservative government is going to implement a bill that was raised in the last parliament by Min. Steven Fletcher (Bill C-12) but was not successful because of their minority situation.  You can read about this at this link:  http://openparliament.ca/hansards/2338/33/

Of course this has led Quebec to start complaining about the fact that this is going to reduce their proportion of seats.  Representation by population is the democratic way and Lorne Gunter gives us a run-down on the fact that this basic tenet of democracy is absent in Canada.  Adding 30 seats in total to the Parliament is raising a lot of concerns among Canadians because it will mean more money to support the extra MPs.  Our Constitution has given certain guarantees to certain provinces for historical reasons and adding seats to the under-represented provinces is the only solution.

Quebec is already over-represented (with 23.2% of the population, they have 24.4% of the seats) but that doesn’t even enter into their heads when their politicians start demanding more seats.  The intransigence of Quebec politicians has resulted in more concessions given to them by previous governments because of the belief that their support was needed to win a majority government.  The last election has proven that to be false – the Conservatives won their coveted majority without Quebec!!!  We no longer need to kowtow to Quebec – let’s not start now by giving them an extra seat that they don’t deserve!!!

Kim

Making Parliament fairer

National Post, June 3, 2011

By Lorne Gunter

Canada has one of the most unbalanced parliaments in the Western world. Adding a total of 30 new seats to the House of Commons for Ontario (18 more), B.C. (seven) and Alberta (five) will help redress the disparity, but won't end it entirely. To come closer still to the principle of one person, one vote, the new Tory majority government will also need to reverse a perversion in the seat-calculation formula inserted by the Mulroney government in 1985.

According to the Mowat Centre, a public policy think-tank at the University of Toronto, "the distortions in the Canadian House of Commons are far worse than in the legislatures of the United States, Australia, Germany or Switzerland. The reality today is that 61% of Canadians are underrepresented in the House of Commons." And all 61% live in the country's three richest provinces. In fact, according to Mowat Centre research, Alberta, B.C. and Ontario are so underrepresented that they are among the five worst represented states or provinces in the industrialized world.

Dividing the national population (about 34.5 million) by the number of seats in the Commons (308), yields an average of 112,000 residents per riding in Canada. The nearer a province comes to having 112,000 residents per riding, the nearer it is to being properly represented in Ottawa. The value of a single vote in such a province would be 1.0, exactly what each vote should be worth nationwide in an ideal world.

But only Quebec, with about 111,000 residents per riding, even comes close to the ideal. The value of each vote in Quebec is 1.01, according to the Mowat study.

The higher the value of the average vote in a province, the more overrepresented that province's voters are in Ottawa. Prince Edward Island, where each vote is worth 2.88, is the most overrepresented. Meanwhile, B.C., where each vote is worth just 0.9, is the most underrepresented.

Saskatchewan, where each vote is worth 1.39, is the second-most overrepresented. Ontario and Alberta - 0.91 and 0.92, respectively - are also nearly as underrepresented in Parliament as B.C.

We will never have perfectly even representation in the House of Commons. There are too many constitutional "floors" - guaranteed minimum seat totals - to permit all provinces to be equal. For instance, Quebec's share of the national population has fallen from about 27% to just over 22% in the past 60 years. Yet it is guaranteed to have 75 seats no matter how small a percentage of Canada's total population it makes up.

Similarly, the small Atlantic provinces benefit from a 1915 rule that ensures no province will have fewer Commons seats than it has Senate seats. So P.E.I. with four senators is guaranteed to have no fewer than four MPs, even though its population would warrant only one or two.

But these constitutional floors are small change compared with the primary cause of the current disparity in Ottawa - a 1985 law passed by the Mulroney Tories that distorts the way per-riding averages are calculated.

Instead of finding the proper number of voters per MP by taking the national population and dividing that by the current number of seats in the Commons, Ottawa divides the population by the number of seats in 1985. This makes the smaller provinces look less over represented than they are and has the practical effect of keeping the three "have" provinces from receiving the seats they deserve.

Unless and until the Mulroney amendment is repealed, fast-growing provinces will always be at a disadvantage, playing catch-up.

There will be those who claim the Tories are only going ahead with these added seats to solidify their hold on power. After all, their party is strongest in the provinces that will receive new seats. In the May 2 elections, the Tories won 48% of the vote from Ontario westward. Adding extra seats in areas their party is doing well in would seem to favour the Tories.

Except the new seats will hardly be in Tory-friendly territory: Most will be added in large cities and multi-ethnic ridings. The Tories showed last month that with plenty of hard work they can win urban ridings and ones with large, ethnic populations, too. But it's clear that they are adding seats for the good of our democratic equality, not their own electoral hopes.

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lgunter@shaw.ca

http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Making+parliament+fairer/4884967/story.html

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Danielle Smith in Quebec

Danielle Smith's speech to the Reseau Liberte - Quebec Convention

En Francais: Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for this opportunity of speaking to you. It is an honour. And it is a pleasure to visit your wonderful province — to renew old friendships and begin new ones —  and to hear and see a culture and place so very different from my own.

Alberta and Quebec are like two houses on the same street. From the outside they are just houses

– you pass by them every day, but  you know little about them. It makes so much difference to be invited inside. Thank you  for inviting me inside.  I specially want to thank Eric Duhaime and Roy Eappen for allowing me the opportunity to speak here today about something I care deeply about, our relationship as neighbours and how we can improve it.

Chers amis Quebecois, I would speak to you in French if I could, but I can’t.  Like most Canadians, in Quebec and across our great land, I speak only one language. Most people in Quebec speak only French, and most Albertans speak only English. It’s one of the remarkable achievements of our federation that we Canadians have worked together on this basis so well for two centuries.

I’m sure what every Albertan notices in Quebec – beyond the obvious fact that it is almost all French- speaking – is that it is old. By Alberta standards, it is positively ancient. It exudes history in a way that Alberta does not. Three years ago you celebrated your 400th anniversary. Not long ago we Albertans celebrated our 100th anniversary. It’s startling to think that when you here in Montreal were starting to install electricity in your homes in the 1870s, there were Cree and Blackfoot hunting buffalo where the city of Calgary stands today.

We are a very young province. And when I come here and walk through the Old City, I am reminded just how young we are.

I mention this now because history matters. History defines us as a political community – our structure and language, our good and not-so-good tendencies, our attitudes and assumptions. Whether we realize it or not, these are all in large measure bequeathed to us by history.

Which brings us to the subject I want to talk about – federalism and why it must change. Federalism is shaped by three forces. The first is history. The second is economics. The third is politics.

If Canadian federalism fails – as indeed it may do –it will not be because of history. We Canadians have a very good history – one of constructive compromise, and of doing mighty deeds together.

When, for example, your forebears bridged the St. Lawrence River from Quebec City to Levis a hundred years ago, it was the longest cantilever bridge ever built. Nobody had done it before. We were great visionaries, we Canadians, and great doers. We were over-achievers, and proud of it.

We took risks – in fact 75 men died building that bridge, due to a catastrophic miscalculation by the engineers – but we kept going, and we succeeded.

Creating a prosperous civilization out of a vast, raw wilderness was no job for sissies and naysayers. It was a challenge of heroic scale, and we proved equal to it. So should we fail now as a federation, we can’t blame history. Morally, materially and constitutionally our predecessors built remarkably well.

Neither will we be able to blame the economy. We have everything anyone could ask for to succeed and flourish, to be as much a world economic leader in the 21st century as we were in the first half of the last century. I will talk about the contribution my own province makes to our national and our world economy in just a moment.

No, if Canada dies, the failure will lie in politics. It will be because politicians killed it. If Canada fractures into its component pieces – or simply dwindles into global irrelevance as we have slowly been doing – the fault will lie entirely with our political class. Not just with petty-minded politicians, but also our timid and conformist political intellectuals and a complacent media. Inside and outside Quebec, knowingly or through negligence, they have suppressed our history and hamstrung our economy.

Now I cannot possibly prove this sweeping allegation in a mere twenty-five minutes. But luckily someone else has already done it for us. Brian Lee Crowley, one of Canada’s foremost political economists, has laid out the case point by point and page by page in his landmark 2009 book Fearful Symmetry. If you’ve read Fearful Symmetry you already know the case – and if you haven’t read it this is what Crowley says.

What we have been told about our national past – about our common achievements, our founding attitudes and values, our economic development and constitutional purpose – is a systematic fabrication foisted upon us by the left-wing intelligentsia that took political control of our country in the 1960s during the ministries of Pearson, Lesage and Trudeau.

Prior to that – all the way back to the very beginnings of Canada before Confederation – we were a radically free-enterprise and small-government nation – moreso even than the Americans. “Better British liberty,” our ancestors proudly declared, “than American equality.”

Good heavens, where did that spirit of liberty disappear to? What we now tout as traditional Canadian values and virtues – unearned entitlements, paying people not to work, paying regions not to succeed – and not to secede – all these were unthinkable to the stalwart people who founded and built Canada. Today’s celebration of the easy ride and what’s-in-it-for-me were not the essence of Canadian character, they were the complete antithesis of it.

That is Crowley’s first main point. This is his second. One thing more than anything else drove this great plunge of ours into big, centralized government at all levels, and continues to drive it. That one thing – unfortunately there is no nice way to say this – is the omnipresent doomsday question of what will it take to appease Quebec. For what Quebec demands Ottawa must give to all.

Crowley explains in plain language and compelling mathematics how this perennial conundrum has twisted our Confederation into a constitutional pretzel that no longer makes sense politically, historically or economically.

Before this began in the 1960s Quebec was a perfectly viable, self-sustaining province, and by the standards of the time a fairly productive and prosperous one. Today it is one of the most publicly indebted jurisdictions in the world, and the least productive of Canada’s larger provinces. And the same policy change that reduced Quebec to dependency has been even harder on the Atlantic. That region today is but a ghost of its earlier self, one where those who stay cling to subsidized legacy industries, the luckiest people work for the government, and the resolute move to Ontario or Alberta.

To which I would add that the megabillion-dollar cost of much of this endless sloshing of funds between regions has left Alberta as the whipping-boy of the federation. How can Albertans not be just a little bit resentful? Three weeks ago NDP leader Jack Layton jetted here to stir up angst and resentment against Alberta by saying things about our base industry which simply are not true.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is doing the same by proposing a massive new wealth transfer out of Alberta through a cap and trade scheme. Your own Premier last year went to Copenhagen to accuse Alberta of crimes against the planet, and then sent a trade mission to Alberta to hussle up some oilsands business – all while receiving billions in net program benefits through the silent federal siphon that pulls money from Ontario and Alberta into Quebec and the Atlantic.

The cynicism and bare-faced hypocrisy are breath-taking to us back home in Alberta.

Let me tell you about this oil industry that we Albertans love, and that everybody else apparently hates. They say gasoline prices are too high. They say our fat-cat oil companies make obscene profits. They say the industry is a big polluter, particularly the oilsands.

Is any other resource in the world so essential and yet so despised?

We Albertans – certainly the more thoughtful among us – see it differently. Not just because so many of our people work in the business, or in businesses that heavily benefit from it. Not just because it puts roofs over our heads and food on the table. It’s also because we know that we have built our industry into one of the most significant petroleum sources in the world.

So even if you never become the huge fan of this business that I am, let me share some facts about it, and hopefully you’ll better appreciate the Alberta perspective.

If we count oil, natural gas, and liquids like propane, Alberta produces 4.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. That’s BOE. I want you to remember this acronym because I’m going to use it again.

Alberta produces more hydrocarbons on a barrel of oil equivalent basis or a BOE basis than any member of OPEC except Iran and Saudi Arabia. That’s right. In fact only four jurisdictions in the world produce more hydrocarbon fuel each day than Alberta: the United States, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Alberta has become a global player in a global business.

Listening to the opposition parties, you would never know Alberta has made Canada a world petroleum superpower right up there with America, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union.

You’d think we were just some dumb, duck-killing country cousin getting rich off a petroleum seep.

To federal politicians – especially eastern ones – Alberta is the punching bag of Confederation. Our stunted federal political discourse has truly deteriorated into a race for the bottom. Who can make our economy less prosperous the fastest? That’s why I say, if Canada fails it will be the politicians who killed it.

One of this month’s popular political myths, accepted uncritically by politicians and reported in the press, is that Alberta’s oil industry is “subsidized.” To most people the word subsidy means the government took a big wad of cash from their pockets and dumped it into big companies, the same way they did a few years ago with Chrysler and General Motors.

If that’s what we’re talking about, then there are no “subsidies” to oil companies. What’s really being talked about are capital cost or depreciation deductions on private sector investments. You spend billions building an oilsands plant or a heavy oil upgrader…creating wealth and jobs…and you get to deduct it from income taxes payable. That’s not a subsidy. All industries qualify for and receive this kind of tax treatment all across Canada.

The truth is our energy industry pays a lot of tax ­­– an awful lot of tax. In 2006 – the last census year we’ve got – our oil and gas producing industry paid $4 billion to governments for exploration and development rights, $15 billion in production royalties, $6 billion in federal and provincial corporate income taxes, and $1 billion in municipal property taxes.

Then there’s the equipment and service sector all across Canada that supports this development.

Besides employing more than 800,000 Canadians directly and indirectly, oil and gas support industries paid $9 billion in corporate and payroll taxes. Then there’s taxation on consumer products. In 2006 there was $5 billion paid in federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, $8 billion in provincial excise fuel taxes, and $2 billion in fuel GST.

So the total taxes and royalties paid on oil and gas from concept to consumer in 2006 from this so-called “subsidized” industry was at least $50 billion.

A more comprehensive study would surely reveal that no single industry in Canada pays more to governments at all levels than the oil and gas industry. What we really need is for federal politicians to spare us the “subsidy” rhetoric and leave this essential industry the economic tools it needs to continue keeping Canadians healthy, wealthy, moving and warm.

On the subject of fuel, there has been a lot of talk of alternative energy sources in the past few years, particularly those with a lower carbon footprint than petroleum and coal. It’s a good idea.

Quebec’s massive hydro-electric resources benefit everyone – environmentally, if not financially. If the world is truly running out of oil as rising prices would indicate, having energy options is essential. Cleaner and greener options are even better.

But however good they may be, they are not nearly able yet to replace hydrocarbons. A recent report by Calgary’s AltaCorp Capital compares the actual cost of natural gas, conventional oil and oilsands with the most popular alternatives such as ethanol and biodiesel for vehicles, wind power, and solar panels. It even adds a new tax of $50 a tonne on carbon dioxide to simulate environmental equivalency.

So using that barrel-of-oil equivalent again, oilsands crude costs $75 per BOE. Keep that figure in mind – $75 – as I rattle off the relative cost of using the others.

Corn-based ethanol costs consumers $130, soy-based biodiesel is $150. Onshore wind power is $160 per BOE, offshore wind power is $340, and electricity from solar panels costs about $430 – almost six times the cost of oilsands.

So you see, all the alternatives require massive subsidies to be competitive. And we’re not talking here about methods of tax-accountancy, we’re talking straight-from-the-wallet consumer and taxpayer cash.

Which brings me to my last point about oilsands and Alberta. I can’t think of any resource or industrial development in the modern world that has been so economically valuable, so responsibly developed on so massive a scale, and yet so thoroughly vilified.

Well I’m here to tell you I’m from Alberta, Albertans develop oilsands, it’s good for Canada and the world, and I’m proud of what we do. Notwithstanding that oilsands have been subjected to the most effective smear campaign in the history of the transnational environmental movement, when you balance factual negatives against factual positives, oilsands are a homerun winner for Canada.

They are good for the Canadian economy. They employ people in and from all parts of Canada. The oilsands are so vast that we need people and companies from all across Canada, including Quebec, to help us develop them. To give you an idea, one project in one year – CNRL’s Horizon project in 2008 – counted 1,334 workers from Quebec, and awarded 55 contracts to Quebec companies worth $450 million. Over the next 25 years, Alberta’s oilsands will deliver an estimated 376,000 person years of employment in Quebec, and boost Quebec’s GDP by $23.1 billion.

Oilsands are good for the environment. Billions of dollars of oilsands wealth have been reinvested in developing cheaper, cleaner, more efficient extraction methods. Mining will be used on less than 3% of the land. By law, open pit mines must be returned to their natural state, including putting back the same natural grasses, bushes, creeks and streams that were disturbed. By law, oilsands companies must get rid of their tailings ponds when they are done with them, and new technology will dramatically reduce the time needed to do this. And oilsands emissions aren’t really all that much different than emissions from conventional sources – by the time you take oil out of the ground in Saudi Arabia, ship it, pipe it, truck it, refine it, it’s practically the same. Unless you’re lucky enough to live with Avatar movie mogul James Cameron in the pristine pretend world of Pandora, what keeps your community clean is a reliable supply of cheap energy, responsibly produced.

And third, the oilsands are good for human rights. Many of the world’s oil-producing nations are politically unstable and even terrifying – Libya, Yemen, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Sudan.

President Barack Obama may consider turning his back on “dirty” Alberta oil. His only alternative is “bloody” oil, because when you buy oil from Africa and the Middle East, that’s what you’re paying for. Canadian oilsands do not fund international terrorism, nuclear bombs in theocratic dictatorships, and royal palaces overlooking slums.  No, they fund schools, and hospitals, and economic opportunity all across Canada and they contribute substantially to international prosperity as well.

I think we should ask ourselves how our federal discourse became so disconnected from reality and so utterly irrelevant to anything that matters. Our pioneer predecessors did not build our federation and help win two world wars burdened by the kind of misguided and listless political leadership we see today. How did this happen? And how can we fix it?

I have no answer to these questions beyond this.

Stop looking to Ottawa.

This country was built by small-c conservatives on the autonomy of provincial governments and the fundamental principle that they – as stewards of their land, providers of care, and decision makers in their own right – are the masters of their own destiny.

Every time Quebeckers send a Bloc MP to Ottawa, they unwittingly and ironically cede some of that destiny to the federal government in the guise of fighting for political sovereignty. What they’ve really done is legitimized federal interference in their provincial affairs.  After all, you wouldn’t send these provincially focused representatives to Ottawa if you didn’t want Ottawa’s attention on your provincial issues.

This largely theoretical argument gets real awfully quick when you have federal parties who continue to cross constitutional lines between federal and provincial jurisdiction with their election platforms.

Consider some of the promises we have seen thus far in this federal election. A national day care program. Increased health care transfers. Even a national transit strategy.

When you’ve got wannabe Prime Ministers talking like premiers and mayors – and a voting public that is apparently okay with that – we’re going to see more of the same from Ottawa – damaging public policy that compromises true reforms on important issues in the name of delicate national politics.

If Alberta and Quebec are ever going achieve what they are capable of, we have to stop viewing Ottawa as a vehicle to get us there.

That is what we are doing with the Wildrose in Alberta. So with that in mind, let me say what Alberta will do if the Wildrose Party forms our next provincial government. But first I will have to explain something that many people find hard to grasp.

The biggest cost of government in my home province is the huge difference between what Ottawa takes out in taxes and premiums and what it sends back as federal spending. We regard this as the net cost to us of Confederation. At last count it was $20 billion a year.

By comparison, even our health care system costs us only $15 billion. And for that we at least get health care. For our $20 billion annual overpayment to the federal government we get nothing, not even gratitude.

The situation is similar in Ontario. In fact it is worse, because Ontario’s manufacturing economy has been so battered by foreign competition. Ontario is in rough shape – it is even receiving a small equalization payment – yet it is still subsidizing federal programs in receiving provinces at about the same level we are in Alberta – provinces which offer levels of public services Ontario can no longer afford for itself.

The same is true in lesser degree in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

As quickly as possible a Wildrose provincial government would seek a new association with all the net-payer provincial governments. The aim would be to propose to the recipient provinces, first and foremost Quebec, constructive ways of shifting the basis of assistance from dependency to productivity gains in all regions. For this and this alone will enable the net-recipient provinces in the long run to build their own provincial economies and keep their best and brightest at home, instead of seeing them head west for jobs in Fort McMurray.

That is the first part. Honest negotiation among provinces that deal with reality, not just political platitudes. But that is limited, because provinces have no power in Parliament, and the national parties have no interest in federal reform.

The second stage of federal reform is to develop a provincially elected Senate. Such a Senate can be developed under the existing constitution – no amendments are required, only a little political will and a spirit of constructive compromise among the provinces. It comes down to this. The Senate has the power to defeat the federal government if necessary. It has never used this awesome power because it is not elected. If it becomes an elected chamber representing provincial rights and interests, it has the power to compel fundamental reform. That is why our party will be fielding candidates to run under the Wildrose banner in our province’s next Senate election, expected next year. We look at a provincially elected Senate as a crucial step in neutralizing Ottawa’s ability to interfere in our province’s areas of jurisdiction.

There is, I know, pervasive scepticism that anything in Ottawa can ever be reformed, but negativity is a luxury Canadians can no longer afford. Pessimists never succeed. I firmly believe that if our province – or any province – finds the courage to start talking honestly to the rest about the federal problems facing this country, these problems can be solved. It’s the only way problems are ever solved.

En Francais: In conclusion, my fellow Canadians, we owe it to those who came before us, and to those who will come after, to rediscover and re-establish the virtues and institutions which gave us this wonderful land in which we live. We need to re-embrace the dignity and satisfaction of hard work, self-restraint, plain speech and national commitment. We need to revive the true spirit of federalism, and stop pitting region against region. If we start treating each other with more candour, consideration and respect, I think we will be amazed at how far we can go.

Merci.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=12f7db4a61c45225&mt=application/msword&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui%3D2%26ik%3Dd1c8031a22%26view%3Datt%26th%3D12f7db4a61c45225%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dsafe%26zw&sig=AHIEtbTM6v1qI-n13BRMJvFI4DCn4bW0zg

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