Liberals Talk the Talk. Bloc Walks the Walk.
It’s so hard to find good help these days. They have no respect, run their mouths to the neighbours and think they have all the rights of, you know, real Canadians.
Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla won’t find much sympathy out there. You can’t be young, scandalously sexy, successful, represent a battleground ridding and not expect the other side to try to portray you as an evil Veronica Lake.
We all know Ms Dhalla was accused a couple of weeks ago of mistreating three live-in domestic workers hired to take care of her mother. One of them even accused the MP of withholding her passport. The accused claims it’s some kind of vast right wing conspiracy and that its her brother who was abusing the Filipina workers anyway.
When my uncle was transferred to Singapore by his company, he told me about how the apartments literally came with a live in maid who had her one little room without Air Conditioning only two two rights: to work or to leave. This is a common way of treating workers in many parts of the world. There are many countries who recruit their labourers with temporary schemes and single-employer visas. The Middle East is notorious for these emirates where 70% of the population is made up of temporary workers with partial rights who can be asked to leave the country on at any moment.
Canada has usually recruited its workers the other way: by granting those who agree to come, after some basic bureaucratic formalities, full rights of citizenship. It’s a little more expensive to do it this way, but it tends to attract better quality personnel.
But there are a few exceptions to this rule. Temporary agricultural workers, for example. Or Live-in domestic help.
Live-in nannies and maids, contrary to other landed immigrants, are only allowed to work for one employer. They are also obligated to live with this employer and do not benefit form all social services, things like CSST (work-accident protection) in Québec, for example.
This is, of course necessary because, well, do you have any idea how expensive it would be to hire three live in workers at a real salary? You have to be serious, now.
Ms. Dhalla’s Liberal Party has always won the hearts and purses of Canada’s immigrant communities by portraying the Conservatives and, above all, the indépendantistes as evil and anti-immigrant. Of course, live-in maids and nannies don’t vote, so the Liberal were quick to dismiss them and stand behind Ms. Dhalla.
Besides, anyone who’s ever walked through Westmount, Town of Mount-Royal, Hampstead and other Liberal strongholds in Québec between 9am and 5pm understands that any salary increase given to immigrant care-takers would seriously diminish the amount of disposable income these constituants would have for things like campaign donations.
People in Rosemont and Blainville, on the other hand, can’t afford that kind of help, even the imported discounted kind. That’s probably why the Bloc Québécois (with the NDP elsewhere in Canada) has been the only party actively working for the rights of these workers way back before this latest scandal made the issue sexy and politically lucrative and why they’ve had the abolition of these discriminatory rules in their political platform since 2000.
This of course is surely only a cynical ploy to win over the nanny vote to their treasonneaous seccession projects.
You know, that horrible Republic of Québec that will treat immigrants and minorities like second class citizens that the Liberal Party is trying to protect you from…
AngryFrenchGuy 
Marc, what’s with the victim schtick? I say something that is critical and I suddenly hate you and your people? If you want to dismiss everything you disagree with on the basis that it is just another example francophobia, then go ahead.
I stay on topic as much as anyone here. If someone introduces Shane Doan or Normand Lester into the conversation, it ain’t my fault for responding.
RoryBellows
May 28, 2009 at 8:03 am
Not to mention that this is now the 874th time that the word angry has been used to dismiss an anglophone’s post on ANGRYfrenchguy.com.
The hypocriphones are out in full force.
RoryBellows
May 28, 2009 at 8:06 am
Well what are you trying to say? We point out that there is some anti-Quebec sentiment in the rest of Canada (some of which, yes, is the work of major public figures, and some of which, yes, is found in major newspapers while you guys constantly cite Vigile which I’d basically never heard about before coming here) and your answer is “no we don’t do that, you’re the ones who do it; you’re the bad guys”. In another thread, you try to prove that francophones just don’t make good hockey players even if their statistics may indicate otherwise (I asked you if there are other jobs francophones just shouldn’t do). So, do you think we have any positive impact on Canada, really?
Marc
May 28, 2009 at 8:52 am
What I believe, Rory, is that English Canadians are extremely good at keeping up appearances. Whatever they may say about the other national-level group in Canada, it doesn’t stick in people’s minds because they’ve managed to make it so the only acceptable paradigm is how generous they are toward this minority. (Also notice how I go from calling francophone Quebecers a “national-level group” to “a minority”. That’s extremely important.) So it’s always about how official bilingualism (and this French on our cereal boxes!) proves how deeply Canada cares about its minority.
Whereas we francophone Quebecers just suck at making us look good. Just look at bill 101 for example. The part of this law that’s the most controversial is also the least important one, the commercial signage law. We always hear about how poor West Island shops are being pushed to near-bankruptcy by heartless (and ungrateful) French-speaking language cops for the “crime” of wanting to live in Canada in English as is their right. Well, if I was the minister of Culture of Quebec, repealing this part of the law would be the first think I’d try to do. Not only does it bring us nothing but negative publicity despite the fact that it’s really not so bad, but it doesn’t do anything good. If a shop doesn’t think it’s a good business decision to advertise in French in Quebec so that they have to be forced to do it, you just know you won’t get any French service there. The parts of the law about language of education and work are much more important, and they get much less criticism.
Of course they do get criticism as well, because they are perceived by anglophone Canadians as a minority trying to usurp the status of a majority. I’m quite certain that’s in a large part the cause of this problem, so if we francophone Quebecers could just make anglophones accept that we are a majority group, not a minority group that’s been too much pandered to, we could solve a lot of Canada’s problems. But as I’ve said, we suck at selling our ideas compared to English Canadians.
Marc
May 28, 2009 at 9:11 am
Now you’re just ignoring what I write and making your own conclusions. How many different ways are you going to call me a racist without providing any proof?
For example, you paraphrased me as having said “no, we don’t do that” in response to a post where I said : “I know its out there” and “Its ugly” in reference to anti-francophone sentiment in Canada. I don’t don’t know where you got this “we” stuff. I’ve never used that word when talking about Canadians.
RoryBellows
May 28, 2009 at 10:27 am
You say it’s out there, but in no place that really matters. At worst, on a tenth of page 12 of a national newspaper. While you claim anti-English sentiment in Quebec to be overbearing; apparently there’s many instances on RDS every week. I think “no we don’t do that, you’re the ones who do it; you’re the bad guys” is a good summary.
I ask you, Rory: who’s responsible of the problems between francophones and anglophones in Canada? And not of this “all of us are responsible”; of course that’s the correct answer, but who’s more responsible? Who should accept that they’ve been misguided while the other ones were right all along?
Honestly I think it’s Vinster who said it best: we notice it when the other guys do it, but we don’t when we do. Even if Rory won’t use “we” to describe anglophone Canadians or “you” to describe francophones, I’m quite sure he does identify with one of the national groups.
Marc
May 28, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I do but it doesn’t take mensa material to fix a typo and your witless attempt to sidestep the issue aside, here (again, for the remedial class) is the data from the TVA poll done by Léger in the fall of 2006.
To the question Il y a un débat politique actuel sur la reconnaissance du Québec comme une nation. Vous
personnellement, considérez-vous ou Non que les Québécois forment une nation?, 26% Canada-wide answered “no” with the breakdown by English Canadian regions as follows: 11% per cent in the Prairie provinces, 19% in Alberta, Atlantic 12%, Ontario 15% and BC 12%. So for the provinces comprising over 75% of Canada’s population and well over 90% of English Canada’s population the approval of the idea averages at best in the mid- to low- teens %. Just as I said, without “letting silly things like facts get in the way of [my] arguments.” The poll had the benefit of separating results by region since in Québec alone non-francophones are somewhat less refractory to the idea, tho still pathetically so. (32%)
http://www.garth.ca/weblog/2006/11/28/canadians-reject-quebecois-nation-poll/
(again)
Click to access 061129fr.pdf
(also)
An Ekos poll done only months earlier found only marginally better results for the idea in English Canada, and still way below the levels in the poll done for the McGill think tank (gee, I wonder why….?):
Asked if “the Quebec people form a nation,” 72 per cent of Quebeckers said yes. The same question received a yes response from only 24 per cent of Ontarians and about 22 per cent of Western Canadians.
http://www.vigile.net/It-s-divisive-to-talk-of-Quebec
James
May 28, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I have a good test for you guys. Go the the Toronto Star website and just read articles from Chantale Hebert and then read the comments: it is always mention than we Quebecers do not pay taxes and use the Roc money to pay us services: every time something good is mentionned, like Nolan’s film awards winning at Cannes, it is mention than we have stole the money from english Canada, our economy is dying because language laws, Bloc should not be able to be a federal party and so on. Don’t read only a article, try two or three..Of course every nation in the world have stupid racists, but in that case, it seems be be the way many people think in the ROC..
midnightjack
May 28, 2009 at 4:54 pm
That’s certainly true. But it’s worth remembering that people who post on websites (including this one) are not a fair sample of a population. They’re often a bunch of people with an axe to grind. (If some want to include me in this group, I’ll probably concede the point, but I like to think that I’m more knowledgeable than these Toronto Star posters you’re describing.)
Marc
May 28, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Marc, those people says all the same thing about perequetion for example: that idea than Quebec live on the ROC ‘s money is largely accepted, even by those who are more tolerant.
midnightjack
May 28, 2009 at 5:19 pm
there is no easy solution to “perceptions”. but, the definitive response is to produce enough wealth in quebec so that it can be distributed to other provinces that have less.
when the day arrives that quebec exports hundred of millions of dollars “no strings attached” to parts and programmes unknown in the rest of canada, then quebecois can tell complainers outside quebec that their arguments are baseless and that essentially they should “stfu”.
at which point the national assembly in quebec city will have to deal with complainers from inside quebec crying out that these hard-earned dollars are wasted on useless programmes that are of no benefit to the people of quebec.
johnnyonline
May 29, 2009 at 9:43 pm