The return of the sad clown. Howard Galganov runs for office.
Apparently feeling that the Québec Indépendantistes needed a little bit of help in these difficult times, Canada’s most outspoken bigot Howard Galganov has decided to run for parliament and lend his voice to the marginal but still very alive anti-French movement in Canada.
Mr. Galganov’s campaign platform is to “scrap the Official Languages Act, and to show the door to Quebec”.
Known for his extremist anti-French rhetoric, Howard Galganov first appeared on the political scene as the leader of a quite reasonable campaign to demand that some shopping malls in an English-speaking suburb of Montreal abandon their policy of having French-only signs.
The campaign failed. In the 1990’s he opened a ‘store’ for his Quebec Political Action Committee on Monkland Avenue that had bilingual signs in open defiance of Québec’s bill 101 that states that French must be prominent in commercial advertising. Many other businesses in that English-speaking neighborhood already had bilingual signs and Galganov’s store never became the political statement he wished it to be.
After failing to obtain changes to the Québec French Language Charter or to be elected as leader of the Anglo Rights group Alliance Québec he ran an unsuccessful campaign for mayor of Saint-Lazare.
Howard Galganov responded to every defeat with a more radical attack on a weaker target. From demanding of bilingual signs accordance with existing laws he moved on to demanding the right of English-speaking shopkeepers to NOT HAVE TO SPEAK FRENCH to their French-speaking customers.
By the late 1990’s he complained in a phone interview with me that his his company was losing business because his French-speaking employees had to much of an accent when speaking English.
Unsuccessful in his Québec campaigns, dismissed by Montreal’s English speaking community as an agitator and by the French Media as a clown , Howard Galganov moved to the Loyalist bastion of Alexandria, Ontario and refocused his political action against the weakest of all targets, English-Canada’s French-speaking minority.
On his website, Howard Galganov now preaches nothing less than the return of English dominance over all of Canada:
“I see no reason why 95% of Canada’s population must dance to the tune of LESS than 5% of French Canadians living outside of Quebec.
I have said it for years: CANADA IS NOT A BILINGUAL COUNTRY. This most recent federal government survey has removed all doubt.”
Forever tormented by his failure to become a leader in the Québec’s English-speaking community, Howard Galganov struggles to be the leader of something. Anything.
Reduced to speaking for an ever shrinking base of racist bigots as he loses support every time he opens his mouth, Howard Glaganov is now only a few actions away from having to face the hard reality that he only speaks for himself.
And that day the sad clown will be the only one to cry.
AngryFrenchGuy 
Though he appears extremist, I tend to agree that bilingualism is just nominal. In BC, there are some French schools, but only a small community of Francophones. French should be optional. I don’t get why the federal goverment has to spend billions of dollars and bend itself backward for Quebec, when a significant percentage of the population wants to separate anyway. Sorry but it doesn’t make sense. Not to mention, that it refuses to be bilingual like New Brunswick and Ottawa. In fact, I still can’t get over how much the Fed government does for this stubborn province. I was refused service at a bank in Montreal in English and I’m not even from Quebec…many tourists feel intimidated and never go back to Quebec. After separation, I wonder if things will really be better for Quebec. In a way, Galganov, not to say I’m a fan of his. Maybe he is desperate, but so are Quebec separatists…
Anonymous
February 18, 2008 at 10:31 am
You are sadly mistaken. Galganov has a large following. True, he failed in Quebec, but that was in greatest part due to Anglophones who suffer from the Stockholm Syndrome — wherein the captive identifies with his captor.
There is an old truism in politics: People vote against their own best interests. Quebec Anglophones are no exception.
Some half-million Anglophones left Quebec over the past 40 or so years. They couldn’t all be wrong. They have sought societies more welcoming than the Quebec political environment.
Their place has been taken, to a large extent, by North African, French-speaking people — Arabs, Jews and others — combined with Middle-East French speakers and people from Southeast Asia. These groups have no conception of what Montreal was like before they arrived and they don’t begin to fathom the feelings of the people who preceded them. No matter how glitzy and chic Montreal might feel these days, the city does not hold a candle to the atmosphere extant in Montreal before Quebec society became engulfed in separatist madness.
Civilized people do not seek to gain advantage over other groups by denying them their civil rights. This is precisely what has happened in Quebec and continues to happen.
Quebec has seen fit to trample the Canadian Constitution, enacted, ironically, under a French-Canadian prime minister from Quebec — Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
And the Supreme Court of Canada looks its other, misguided, way.
Galganov is right. Canada is not a bilingual country and Quebec is a unilingual province.
Heaven help Canada to cope with Quebec.
For a somewhat different “take” on the subject of Quebec separatism, go to:
http://www.byte-bite.com/BEAVERLAKE/
irwin wolfe
February 19, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Howard Galganov is a bigot because he wants every single citizen to have full, civil rights without oppressive laws like the ones in Quebec? That he wouldn’t support ‘English only’ laws anymore than he would ‘French only’ ones? That he believes that individual rights should surpass collective ones, um, like it should in free societies? Huh? Is this a trick question? Or have we reached a point in Quebec (and yes I am a Montrealer) that twisted logic somehow makes sense? Do I vote for Galganov so that my ‘individual’, civil rights are recognized and guaranteed? Or should I vote for Quebec politics and give them up?
And when my daughter came home from school to tell me that the teacher was planning to make the kids write lines as punishment when they spoke English instead of only French, should I have told her her “That’s okay honey. Give up your individual rights, voluntarily. It’s for ‘the cause’.” I have a book full of stories like this that Anglophones and Allophones go through every day. But just because we have become apologists or cowards to speak up doesn’t mean it’s not happening, and it definitely doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. It’s not social peace, it’s surrendering of rights.
madeincanada
February 26, 2008 at 12:52 pm
One question to you Angry French Guy, have you ever spoke to Howard Galganov via email in the past?
I had for three years now.
How come do I always get a kind answer from the man who takes up his time to write to me a poor French Quebecker?
How dare you repeat the same old stupid propaganda served by the MLNQ led by a man who commited murder for THE SUPREME cause (ironically speaking of course)?
How come when you discuss with the so-called patriots, you always get threats and insults if you are not their kind, their race?
Talk about some world turned upside down. Talk about some cheap propaganda given out by separatists media who remain dead silent when it comes the time to defend the rights of minorities.
In French we say: celui qui le dit, celui qui l’est.
Now, who’s the racist now?
Tym Machine
March 2, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Pour Tym qui écrit : How come do I always get a kind answer from the man who takes up his time to write to me a poor French Quebecker?
————–
Tu es peut-être pauvre (comme pauvre type)et Québécois mais certainement pas un francophone : tu es un assimilé, complexé jusqu’à l’os.
Musael
March 8, 2008 at 11:27 am
@ Musael,
Bon alors je prouve mon point.
Donc être bilingue fait de nous d’être des non-francophones, on aura tout vu…
Alors Gilles Duceppe et Jacques Parizeau ne sont pas des francophones puisqu’ils s’expriment très bien en anglais si on suit le raisonnement.
Il reste peut-être Pauline Marois, c’est connu…
Salutations cordiales aux gens hostiles à l’égalitarisme linguistique.
Tym Machine
March 10, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Mr. Galganov said once on a cable station here in
Ottawa if you want to be served is french move
to Quebec. I am a french canadian and a tax payer
of this country called Canada and as long as I live
here I will be served in french and I am fed up of
people like him . I have allot of respect for english speaking people and I beleive they should have the same rights as a french person regardless the numbers to be served in there language also and
I kno Mr. Galganov is against that.
Ron
March 11, 2008 at 11:25 am
The sad clown has a lot supporter in English Quebec. You would be suprised how the anglo racists support the ideas of this intolerant racist. Dilute them with english speaking immigrants, refuse them any special status and destroy their morale and attack them as being racist if they protest. That’s the game plan of these people.
Marc Authier
April 11, 2008 at 6:13 am
[…] self-proclaimed language rights activist has embarked on a campaign against the Ontario township of Russell’s bylaw that requires all […]
The Truth About Language Rights Activists in Canada « AngryFrenchGuy
June 19, 2008 at 2:52 pm
[…] self-proclaimed language rights activist has embarked on a campaign against the Ontario township of Russell’s bylaw that requires all […]
Howard Galganov Has a Legitimate Case. « AngryFrenchGuy
June 19, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Mr. Galganov is making noise again these days in the township of Russell in eastern Ontario; he’s opposed to a new municipal bylaw that now makes it mandatory for new business owners to put up bilingual signs outside of their shop. I’m a francophone living in a primarily francophone area (not too far from Russell), and I actually support Mr. Galganov’s position wholeheartedly.
What francophones have to realize is that bilingualism cuts both ways. I have friends and family who would not be in a position to serve customers in english; some would have a really hard time getting a public-facing job if being fluent in english was a requirement. Those in that position typically either hold jobs that don’t require them to face customers, or have jobs in small mom and pop shops where the vast majority of customers are french-speaking. There’s no issue–they’re perfectly content living and working in the language of their choice, and there is no need for any of them to change their ways.
If an individual who can not speak a word of english wants to start his own business and only desires to target a french-speaking clientele, then that’s his choice–I don’t understand the “need” for that individual to also put up english signs if he cannot speak the language himself. Let him operate his business in any way that makes sense to him. Such matters should be dictated by personal choice first, and then demand (if that individual has any business acumen)–not by legislation. A private business doesn’t need to be operated like a Canadian government organization. The Charter of Right grants Canadians this choice. Force bilingualism upon citizens, and you’re eroding these rights.
People against Mr. Galganov claim he’s fostering hatred between the french and english communities that are otherwise living in peace and harmony. I say it’s petty municipal bylaws that impose unnecessary restrictions upon its citizens that do.
Anonymous
June 22, 2008 at 10:16 am
having worked in embrun and having to deal with the public, being english i was treated very badly. the french have an attitude that is unbelievable. they seem to think they get the raw end of the deal, when they get everything they whine about. it makes us english people sick. why should a french person get the job the english person is better qualified for. also i am trilingual. i speak dutch, german and english but that doesn’t matter. get ride of quebec. howard has my vote.
Anonymous
September 12, 2008 at 10:02 pm
I like how only Anglos can be racist in your world. As opposed to former Quebec Premiere Jacques Pariseau? As opposed to any given member of the Parti Quebecois?
In Quebec, we have a racism codified by law: Bill 101 makes all languages second to French! This law oppresses the civil rights of minorities including the original native cultures, present before the colonisation of Quebec by European settlers.
Yet us racist anglophones have no law of any equivalence for depraving people of their fundamental human rights to cultural expression (and I mean anywhere on the planet!) as is the case in Quebec.
Mr Galgonov is fighting for these fundamental rights – You’re just peed-off that the whole world isn’t fighting for the French culture. Who ever isn’t, then they must be Francophobic – What an ingenious little Anglophobe you are!
If you are looking for the world to be filled with pom-pom girls shouting out “Oui, j’adore la langue francaise, oh oui francaise!” and want to have sex with you, go play football.
Who is the clown, honestly? Let me guess: YOU ARE!
Toutum
September 16, 2008 at 7:46 pm
inisb0bmt8bfrbcv
Jessie Valencia
November 12, 2008 at 9:36 pm
If Howard is such a racist,why is helping a francophone Serge Bisson fight to have the FREEDOM TO CHOOSE to have his business sign in FRENCH ONLY.Why are you against someone who wishes the freedom to choose?I guess you don’t believe in freedom.
Elisabeth
September 13, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Elisabeth,
C’est Brisson, pas Bisson, et il s’agit d’un autre bouffon du genre de Galganov. Leurs poursuites sont distinctes. La connerie ne se limite pas aux Anglophones, malheureusement, mais si j’en juge par les commentaires ici, elle touche beaucoup d’Anglophones.
Norm Cote
September 17, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Norm Cote,I’m sorry for misspelling Mr.Brisson,lighten up!What is the problem with the freedom to choose?People risk their lives to get out of oppressive countries.
Elisabeth
September 19, 2009 at 11:22 am
Mr. Brisson is a tool who is enabling Galganov’s fervent francophobia.
Marc
September 20, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I have never read anything written by Mr. Galganov to be racist or francophobic,either all you separatists can’t read or you just don’t like freedom and equality for everyone.I hope when you get your new fascist country you enjoy it.Anyway, I’ve learned one thing, you can’t debate with a separatist your minds are closed,you can’t even play fair with your referendums,we keep playing until YOU win,hey, maybe the Habs should try that.Why is it that it’s ok for you to yell and scream for your rights but no one else can? Salute-bye
Elisabeth
September 26, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Go Howard if the French separatists hate you you must be doing a good job. French separatsistrs are mostly facscists they want to sensor those they don’t agree with. Will they send the JPQ Jeunes patriotes de Quebec to harass and bully you again as they did to you in Montreal. Yeah free speech in Quebec is dead unlessyo
anony girl
October 8, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Go Howard Go!!!!!
anony girl
October 8, 2009 at 12:49 pm
This guy’s an angry right-winged racist who loves to complain because he can’t do anything else successfully!
Sab
March 6, 2010 at 3:50 pm
He was an asshole when he was in Quebec and it seems nothing has changed
sarah church
June 24, 2010 at 10:37 pm
You people who hate Howard I suspect haven’t read everything or anything he has written.That so called “racist” as people like to call him, would be the first one in line to stand up and defend someone’s right to put up a sign in French only ANYWHERE in Canada,did you know that?I suspect people are jealous because he has the guts to put his money where his mouth is and fight for what he believes in.Do you Sab,sarah church and everyone else?
elisabeth
July 25, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Since when is fighting for freedom of expression and equal rights racist? He wants people to be able to put signs in whatever language they want, let the customer have their say by not giving that store business.
James
July 28, 2010 at 10:08 am
If French stuff is so great, why don’t those who love it just move to France? Leave the real Canadians alone.
Anonymous
February 8, 2013 at 4:27 pm
The only thing Howard is really concerned about is Jewish interests, specifically Israel and he’ll do anything required to push his real “people’s” interest.
Anonymous
October 23, 2015 at 9:09 am