The Habs Discriminate Against French-Speakers

Canada has always been preoccupied with preventing French-speaking people from handling numbers. Until well into the 20th century, the Minister of Finance’s job in the Québec government could only be given to an English-speaking gentleman and when francophones in Québec demanded the end of dicriminatory practices and their share Montréal’s many high finance and management jobs in the 1960’s and 70’s, English-Canada’s very prudent and rational reaction was to move Canada’s entire financial sector 300 miles west to Toronto.

It’s still going on today with the slow but steady purge of anyone who’s ever been associated with la Bourse de Montréal from the new « merged » Stock Exchange.

Sure, there are very good reasons for this. Business and Management are English words, aren’t they? And isn’t it a man who got his MBA at Québec’s City’s Université Laval who is responsible for the near-collapse of capitalism we just went through?

But no. The truth is much more sinister. French-speakers are kept away from the numbers because if they took a closer look, they would discover that French-speaking hockey players in the NHL are undervalued and underpaid!

This is the dark secret uncovered by Marc Lavoie, an economist at the University of Ottawa. Using rigorous statistical analysis, the scientist discovered that francophone players systematically scored 10 more points per season compared with English-speaking players drafted in the same round, which either means that there is discrimination against Francos or that participation really is more important than winning…

Mr. Lavoie also established that francophone defencemen earn 25% less than Anglophones with comparable statistics.

What’s even more interesting is that Le Canadien de Montréal, that venerable institution that turned the mythology of a scrappy band of French farm boys with only third grade education but big hearts into one of the most valuable sports franchise in the world, did not – repeat not – do a better job of hiring francophones. Even the Nordiques systematically gave Franco’s the shaft.

But then, Mr. Lavoie is a francophone. For sure he got his math all wrong.

UPDATE: Prof Lavoie kindly sent the AngryFrenchPeerReviewMob a copy of the study:

https://101011001.xyz/afg/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ajes-drafthockey-2003.pdf

Enjoy.