Sunday, August 17, 2025
No Exit; be seeing you
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Rev. Charles Chiniquy's grave at Mount Royal Cemetery
Rev. Charles Chiniquy was born in July 1809 at Kamouraska, Quebec; he was a Roman Catholic priest who renounced Catholicism at age fifty; his opposition to the Roman Catholic Church is described in several of his books, both autobiographical and theological; read his final confession of faith and opposition to the Roman church. Rev. Chiniquy's lawyer, in a civil lawsuit, was a future president of the United States, it was Abraham Lincoln. Chiniquy died in Montreal in January 1899, age 89, and he is buried at Mount Royal Cemetery, Section D1, Number D2018.

Thursday, August 29, 2024
The Quebec government is destroying our universities
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The campus at McGill University, Montreal, 1906 |
One day last fall, in 2023, Premier Legault of Quebec walked out of his Montreal office, which is across the street from the Roddick Gates entrance to McGill University, and decided, as he described it at the time, that he could hear too much English being spoken and, he claimed, this was to the detriment of the French language, and therefore it had to end. And who did he blame for this linguistic pollution? He blamed out-of-province and foreign students although he probably would have liked to have included all English-speaking Quebecers. This was the beginning of the Quebec government's attempt to destroy English language university education in Montreal and Quebec.
Here is the scenario we were presented with by Premier Legault justifying cutting provincial funding and doubling tuition for out-of-province students at the three English-language universities in Quebec, Bishops University, Concordia University, and McGill University. The money from this drop in funding would go to French-language universities; the three English-language universities would now subsidize the French universities; however, Bishops was later exempted from this attack on English universities. Legault made the situation even worse; out-of-province students would now have to pay a higher tuition fee than they were currently paying (it was doubled but a few months later McGill and Concordia announced they would will subsidize students affected by this) and these students would also have to take French language courses that would add a semester to their studies, courses that are possibly beyond the ability of most Francophone students. Almost immediately applications to study at McGill and Concordia began to fall, the three English-language universities are now subsidizing French-language universities. As well, Moody's downgraded the credit rating of both universities based on Legault's pronouncement.
While Premier Legault blamed foreign students for the dystopian crime of speaking English in public, what he was also attacking was the very existence of McGill University and Concordia University and English-language higher education in Quebec. Here is a hypothetical (but equivalent) situation to what is happening to McGill University, it would be if the premier of British Columbia visited the Vancouver UBC campus and, apparently, just on a whim, announced that he was cutting funding for the University of British Columbia because the student body is more than half Canadian born Asians and 25% of the student body are foreign students; all of Canada would be appalled by this, the situation would be denounced, Federal politicians would be shocked and demand redress; Justin Trudeau would be apoplectic. What we have in Quebec is a racist attack on the English language community, an attack on both McGill and Concordia; it is an attack on our community's history and presence in Quebec. It is an attack on higher education. What Legault wants is a white French speaking province of Quebec that is ethnocentric and isolated from the outside world; if you aren't white and pure laine, then you are not a part of the Quebec nation, they want you gone. But since this atrocity is happening in Quebec, and it is against our English-language community, it is greeted with silence and even applause by our Federal politicians. From them we hear absolutely nothing, it is total silence, they want the French vote in Quebec no matter that it is destroying our community.
The wilful destruction of an institution of excellence, based on hate and hubris, is evil.
Addenda: enrollment is declining at Concordia University due to Legault's defunding English-language universities in Montreal. 29 August 2024.
Read this re McGill's "sustained excellence", https://reporter.mcgill.ca/sustained-excellence-mcgill-tops-macleans-rankings-again/
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Buckminister Fuller's geodesic dome at Expo 67
Here is a view of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome--this was the American pavilion at Expo 67--seen here from the South Shore. In the eyes of many, Expo 67 was the last expression of Montreal's greatness; money is conservative and business avoids political unrest. With the popularity of Quebec separation from Canada, many head offices left the province. Expo was followed by the summer Olympics in 1976... Montreal was still on a roll, but native Montrealers remember the Olympics because of corruption, the Olympic stadium cost about $1B and it wasn't paid off until the early 2000s. Later that same year, on November 15, 1976, the Parti Quebecois was elected to power and with it economic decline began in earnest. The PQ represented different things to different people, to English-speaking Quebec it represented ethno-centricity and the oppression of the English-speaking community. However, most English-speaking Quebeckers accepted the new order of things in Quebec, they recognized that the status quo could not continue, that the French-majority should be masters in their own province. The English-speaking population that didn't accept how things had changed (approximately 200,000 people) left the province for life in Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver. For the French-speaking majority it was a time for independence, guaranteeing the future of the French language and culture in Quebec, it was a time to celebrate.