Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Rage Building in the West

I know that most Ontarioans don't notice or care about such a thing. (And Quebecers don't even realize where their cheques are coming from.) But there is a real anger building up over here about the Coup d'Etat. It's not only seen as a left wing power grab but a regional one.

Gary Mason of the Globe has a piece about it.

After the ballots were counted, the party had a single MP in Manitoba, a single MP in Saskatchewan and five in British Columbia, down from the 10 seats it won in 2006. The leadership of Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion was resoundingly rejected.

It was visceral. Many westerners felt no connection with the erudite Liberal Leader and believed he was a pointy-headed personification of the lack of connection his party had with their views and values. Many Liberals concurred.

...

In all my years listening to the callers who make talk radio in Vancouver such a hit, I have never heard such anger. Of the dozens who phoned in yesterday morning to Bill Good's No. 1-rated talk show on CKNW, calls were running 95 per cent against the coalition. If there were Liberals and New Democratic supporters out there who thought the coalition was a good idea, they weren't dialling in.

I posted about this a few days ago: Western Canada Check-Mated by Quebec

UPDATE: The timing for this story is bad.

Vancouver's Olympic Games have the opportunity to be a model for showcasing Canada's bilingual heritage, but more must be done, the country's official languages watchdog says in a new report.

Resources allocated to translation must be beefed up, and increasing the numbers of bilingual volunteers and staff needs to be a priority for VANOC...

From the article's comments section: Dave AAA from Canada writes: More funding to foster bilingualism at the Olympics will be approved as long there is a benefit to Quebec. Gilles will soon have the power to ensure this.

4 comments:

  1. What I find absurd is re-routing the Olympic Torch Run in New Brunswick and Quebec. There were town's not deemed French enough to run through in the original plan? Seriously?

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  2. I think the towns somehow vetoed the plan.

    "Among them, organizers have made sure the route for the torch relay runs through many francophone locations.

    The report suggests the route was modified after communities in New Brunswick and Quebec expressed displeasure at initial plans."

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  3. The town's that originally had the torch runner running through? Or town's close by that happen to have more french people? I assume the torch runner was running through towns in NB and QUE. I take it it's a boost for a smaller community to have the runner pass through so it can't be those town's that vetoed it. I assume neighbouring towns complained they were overlooked and used the excuse that they have more french people than the town's in the original route? What kind of info would they have used to rate that? Census? My Que. town has 150 french people but that other town only has 130. No fair? VANOC would ok that?

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  4. Good point! I hadn't looked at it that way.

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