(1) Quebec Premier Jean Charest is looking for a way to ease the labour shortage in his province. Nothing seems wrong on the surface – it’s a problem that is growing across Canada & the United States, and the solution usually involves bringing in outside workers from other countries. Places such as Dubai have turned this into an art form…the United States has turned it into an illegal immigration crisis…and Quebec…
…well…Quebec hopes to fill its shortage with workers from FRANCE!
FRANCE?!?
Why on Earth would French citizens, who have a standard of living equal to that of Canada, have any desire to uproot and work a (very likely) menial job in Quebec? Why would a resident of Paris, Lyons, or Nice trade in their comfortable lives for the delights of Quebec City, Trois-Riviers or Sherbrooke? They’re not exactly begging for work in France these days…and they hardly qualify as an underclass, desperate for any sort of job. Is this some attempt to simply bring in more French-speaking white people, instead of those annoying immigrants who don’t see the pleasure of being assimilated, Borg-style, into becoming laid back Quebecois nationalists? Are certain people tired of trying to be reasonably accomodating?
I can see it now: fields of happy fruit pickers from Bordeaux…waves of Normandy-bred construction workers building condos in Montreal. A new age of itinerant workers…all with impeccable manners, and spoken French so fluid and continental that no one in the Eastern Townships will understand a single word.
Spare me! Free trade with the European Union is one thing…but trying to fill a labour vacuum with more “desirable” people hints at something very ugly. Why not just hold up a banner and exclaim “Give me assimilation, or give me a baguette!”
(2) Globe and Mail columnist Murray Campbell believes that one of the reasons NOT to vote for a proportional representation system in the coming Ontario referendum is that it will lead to the creation of fundamentalist minority religious parties that could spell bad news for Ontario’s secular paradise. He throws around such lovely phrases as “splinter parties” and “balkanization”.
Hmm….taking a glance at Germany, New Zealand and Ireland – where proportional systems are a fact of life – I seem to find happy, rich and stable nations that seem to be doing just fine. I see about as much balkanization in those countries as I do in Canada…which, if you’re paying attention, is zero! For the love of all that is holy, even the Communists only manage to win a paltry amount of seats in such electoral systems.
You’d think the true reason for supporting the current first-past-the-post system (winning a majority government with less than 50% of the popular vote) would be something advocates wouldn’t shy away from defending…until you realize they’re simply trying to protect their desire to have elected dictatorships rule over us until the end of time. After all…what worked in 1864 still works in 2007…doesn’t it?
Sometimes I wonder just how stupid fear-mongers such as Campbell think the electorate actually is…and THEN I realize that the electorate CAN be incredibly stupid, on numerous occasions. I try to hope that fear and ignorance won’t sideline this referendum…but I’m cynical enough to know better. Didn’t someone once say that elections aren’t the best time to debate real issues? We’re very good at proving that statement is a truism. 
