Justin Trudeau's Aspirations

I was thinking about the recent announcement Justin Trudeau’s intention to run under the Liberal banner in the Papineau riding of Montreal. I don’t know about the political landscape of Montreal, but from what I’ve been reading, the seat is currently held by the Bloc Quebecois. I wonder how much his last name will help or hinder him in a campaign.

What I really wanted to talk about is the reaction I’ve read from English Canadians. The ones that have particularly caught my attention are the ones that say things like, “Who does this guy think he is?” or “God help us! Not another Trudeau!” or even “What has THIS guy ever done to deserve to run?” Such mindsets are absolutely asinine.

Am I biased towards Trudeau because of his late father? Yes. Regardless of how Pierre Trudeau is remembered by history, I know that without his policies and vision of Canada, I wouldn’t exist right now. Just think of the hours you folks have spent reading this blog! Thanks ol’ Pierre for that!

So what right does he have to run? He’s a Canadian citizen. He has JUST as much right to be a backbencher as any other citizen. Is he running for the leadership of the party? No. He’s not. At least not at the moment. If he wants to take an active role in politics, so be it. He’s certainly not less qualified than any number of other MPs who’ve served for multiple terms. Take Joe Fontana, for instance. The guy was in real estate and insurance before getting into city politics. Next thing you know he’s a Liberal MP for London-North Centre! Is Trudeau more qualified than him? Yes, he is.

Here’s another point to consider: Trudeau hasn’t actually won the nomination or the seat yet. While this is all well and good for headlines, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Until the man gets elected, it’s much ado about nothing, as far as I’m concerned. Alright, that’s all for now… til next time…

Ripped off- the cloned bank card fiasco

Well, how about that… ol’ Al has had a bit of a rough week, to say the least. It started off innocently enough, but it’s turned into an exercise in frustration. I was checking my account balances yesterday to make sure that my pay had gone in, and it did, but I also got another fun surprise. Someone had cloned my bank card! Apparently some yahoo made a deposit of $2222.22 (obviously an empty envelope) and then took out whatever he could from my account. Thankfully, I have limits on my access card otherwise I would have been more screwed than I ended up being. As it stands, the thief made off with half of my pay cheque.

I’ll admit that I’m surprised at how quickly the ScotiaBank’s card security team noticed the activity, and am equally happy that they blocked my card from further use pending a visit from me down at the branch. That being said, I think our friends at my local branch in Montreal need to brush up on their procedures. I went in and spoke with a teller, who then broke out a few forms for me to fill out. He also got me a new access card. That’s all fine and well, but the guy didn’t even ask me for any form of ID! I would have thought that, before handing over a new bank card for an account that had been flagged for suspicious transactions, that proof of identification would be in order!

Things went downhill from there as this teller explained to me that I would have to initiate the investigation through my home branch. Only problem is that my home branch is in LONDON, ONTARIO! A little common sense here, please?! So he assures me that he would be sending my forms on to my home branch and they could proceed from there. I was also forced to sign a form that said that, pending the results of the investigation, that I MIGHT NOT get my money back. So as the month end approaches, ol’ Al may be maxing out his overdraft to pay rent. Not cool.

So I decide to call the friendly folks at telephone banking to see who I would contact to place a complaint about the teller and their procedures and, in doing so, learned that the teller had messed up again! In creating the new card, he lifted the limits on the previously blocked card so that the information could be transferred to my new card. Then he forgot to close the profile on the old card, meaning that the cloned card was now fully operational again. Had the skimmers decided to try again, they could have taken me for more money! Please, someone take this guy aside and retrain him!

But wait! There’s more! I followed up with my branch in London and they hadn’t heard a word from the gang in Montreal. So my question is: what the heck is going on?!?! I’ve voiced my concerns to the branch manager on Montreal, as well as my home branch, so hopefully something will get resolved relatively quickly. I want my money back!

So how did this happen? Good question. I have my suspicions, though. I had gone to la Belle Province on Tuesday night because I had a craving for poutine and they didn’t have a POS machine. So I was forced to use one of those independent EZ cash machines. I hate those things because they ding me with service charges. I believe someone had some sort of card reader hooked into this one and I didn’t notice. The next day, someone in Laval is making the fake deposit and the withdrawl. And on a sidenote, the poutine didn’t particularly agree with me that night and I ended up calling in sick the next day while my account was being drained. Coincidence? Doubtful. I lose a day’s pay, plus half my last pay cheque because I had a craving for poutine. Guess we know what I’ll be giving up for Lent. Til next time…

An Underwhelming Response

Last week, I issued a formal invitation to supporters of a Free and Independent Quebec, asking them to send me something to post on my humble blog here, but the response has been underwhelming to say the least. This should come as no surprise, really, since my francophone audience is quite tiny and I believe they may be uncomfortable subjecting their beliefs to the (occasionally) scathing commentaries of some of my regular readers. One of my old sovereignist friends has agreed to send me something, but I’m not sure when he’ll get around to sending it in.

I’ve approached Loco Locass, as well, but Biz told me that they’re working on the new album at the moment and don’t have the time to spare right now. Anyone familiar with their work knows that they’re meticulous with their choice of words and never do a half-ass job at anything, so I can see why they wouldn’t want to send something that was just thrown together. It’s unfortunate that they won’t be participating in this little discussion, but I understand and I look forward to their next album.

So for the moment, we’ll have to put discussions of Quebec sovereignty on the backburner. I would like to take a moment to thank Larry Savage over at Uncorrected Proofs, who tried to drum up some traffic for me, as well. Anyway, we’ve just started Slack Week at McGill, so I don’t have classes (or assignments) due this week, which should give me time to do some brainstorming for topics. Happy Monday, everyone! Til next time…

Genie Awards!

For those expecting some sort of Valentine’s Day posting, you’ll be collectively disappointed. Much like last year, I’m opting to not do much more than casually acknowledge this “holiday.” Instead, I want to talk a little bit about the Genie Awards, held last night in Toronto. The Genie Awards are essentially the Canadian version of the Academy Awards, but unlike their cousins to the South, are barely even noticed by the general viewing public in Canada.

Anyway, I was looking at the list of winners and something rather obvious jumped out at me: almost ALL the winners come from Quebec! Now I’m not sure if the Quebecois just produce more films per year than English Canada, thus leading to a larger talent pool from which to draw, but it does strike me as odd that the awards were so lopsided. It would be nice to see a bit of competition in both languages one of these years.

In terms of the winners, it seems that the Rocket suffered from a Prince of Tides sort of effect. For those that don’t remember, the Prince of Tides was once nominated for something like 7 Oscars (including Best Picture), but the films director, Barbara Streisand, wasn’t even nominated. Alright, so it’s not the same situation at all. The Rocket was nominated in every major category and won in virtually everything (Best Actor, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, etc) but yet lost out on Best Picture to Bon Cop, Bad Cop.

For a nice change of pace, I’ve actually seen both of the main contenders for Best Film, and for my money I would vote for Bon Cop, Bad Cop. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed both films, but I just felt that The Rocket dropped the ball. It felt too… clichéd… to me. My views on Bon Cop, Bad Cop are pretty well known, so I won’t waste too much space on this, but I will say that once you really get the joke, it becomes that much better of a film.
So congratulations to all the nominees and winners! Til next time…

An Open Invitation to Quebec Sovereignists

I spent the better part of this weekend (and by better part, I mean pretty much every waking hour) doing a combination of translation homework and watching the first two seasons of Veronica Mars on dvd. Yes, I’m a wild man. No doubt about it. Anyway, when I checked my e-mail this morning, I found a rather interesting letter in my Inbox. It seems that my little ol’ blog has caught the attention of a couple of sovereignists and one decided to drop me a line with some links to some English language resources about the topic of an independent Quebec.

As luck would have it, I was already familiar with the earlier versions of the sites mentioned, but that got me to thinking. While this is not a politically oriented website, nor do I intend to make it one, I do believe very strongly in open communication and the promotion of understanding between people of differing viewpoints. So keeping that in mind, I’ve decided to open up the floor for discussion. I would like to take this opportunity to issue a formal invitation to sovereignist readers who, for one reason or another have stumbled upon my site, to submit articles on why there needs to be an independent Quebec.

I’m not concerned with whether it will actually happen (I prefer to let the future sort itself out) or whether Quebec could survive on its own as an independent state. I’m more interested in why you feel the way you do. Any submissions, whether they be in English or in French, will be posted here unedited, though I reserve the right to divide submissions up into multiple parts if they’re on the lengthy side. Articles will be attributed to the pseudonym of your choice and I will not disclose the e-mail addresses of any submitters. Articles may be submitted via the handy e-mail link that I've posted on the upper right hand side of this site.

I like open and productive dialogue and encourage discussion amongst my readers; however anything that I interpret as malicious or hateful will not be accepted nor posted. So take this opportunity for what it is: a chance to communicate your ideas to a largely Anglophone audience who has an interest in Quebec. Til next time…

Backwoods Quebecois village by-laws

Alright, this is just ridiculous. I was flipping channels during the Super Bowl (blasphemy, I know!) and decided to check out a bit of Tout le Monde en Parle. It’s a French talk show on Radio Canada on Sunday nights where (occasionally) controversial guests are invited to discuss whatever issues have gotten their shorts in a bunch. It’s hosted and moderated by Guy A Lepage, a fairly well-recognized Quebecois comedian, who is joined by le fou du roi, Dany Turcotte. The role of le fou du roi is essentially comic relief—particularly useful when you’ve got some crackpots on the program. Well, this time around they decided to invite André Drouin, a town councillor of Hérouxville.

It seems that this town is (or at least its municipal representatives are) fed up with accommodating immigrants. Get this—they passed a by-law that specifically forbids the stoning of women?!? Um, isn’t this already covered under, oh I don’t know, MURDER?!?! Was this law really necessary? Who are these people? The population of the village sits at 207! Somehow I don’t think that they’re being overwhelmed by the demands of a great wave of Islamic immigration.

Anyway, this town councillor goes on Tout le Monde en Parle and starts going on about how Charest needs to call a state of cultural emergency and start rescinding cultural and religious compromises that have been put in place to accommodate the religions of immigrants. What a bunch of backwoods hicks! So I guess we can chalk up yet another example for those that love to accuse the Quebecois of being a bunch of racist, intolerant xenophobes, eh? At least Charest has had the good sense to reject the suggestions of these yahoos in Hérouxville. Since this story has already been picked up by some American news providers, I’m sure it’ll be making the rounds soon enough. Til next time…

La Paryse

(Somewhat) fresh off of the submission of my MA application on Thursday, I needed to blow off a bit of steam and relax before throwing myself headlong into translation assignments for my classes. As luck would have it, Zahra was free and suggested that we check out her favourite hamburger place in Montreal: La Paryse. Since I’ve always been a burger and fries sort of guy, I thought, why not? Truth be told, I was far more interested in my companion than any hamburger, but that’s neither here nor there.

She had told me that the place was pretty popular and that whenever she had gone in the past, the place was always packed. Given the small size of the restaurant, I can see why that would be the case. Fortunately for us, there was a table in the back of the quaint little eatery. I would have to say that it redefined the term “intimate” for me, as they crammed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15-20 tables into a place that could barely support that. I could probably have snagged fries off of a neighbouring table. The décor was pleasant enough, though nothing really sticks out as terribly memorable. Admittedly, I was focused more on Zahra than my surroundings, so forgive my lack of a detailed description.

There wasn’t a lot of variety on the menu, which considering its reputation as a burger place should hardly come as a surprise. They also make a pretty mean milkshake, I might add. The burgers are 100% beef (no relation to the company that supplies McDonald’s) and, quite honestly, are fantastic. Messy, but fantastic. I would have to say that there’s no dignified way to eat these things, unless one resorted to a knife and fork. And seriously, who eats a hamburger with a knife and fork?

By the time we left a couple of hours later, there was a line up out the door and starting down the street. All things considered, the place deserves its reputation. Located on Ontario St, near St-Denis, it’s also close enough to some of the trendy pubs and nightspots, so it’s a good place to start an evening. If you have the chance to check it out, I recommend it. Til next time…