Ha ha ha ha… I’m not that stupid. Or drunk. That is pretty funny though. 
Forgot to address this - yeah, it’s a lot easier to ignore all the scandals when you don’t have a serious contender nipping at your heels.
I’ve stayed out of this Quebec debate. I live next door and work and associate with people from Quebec all the time. This is more of a media campaign than anything else, I believe; it sells papers. The people I know and have known don’t really see any need to separate. Mind you my association is generally with educated bilingual folks. It’s like the language debate; most Quebeckers don’t give a damn about signs or what language they’re in. The media pay more attention to these issues than ordinary people do. Someone goes to the media about not being served a 7-Up on Air Canada and the story goes viral.
This is a touchy subject for me though. For the most part ordinary Anglo people are shut out from jobs in the public service, and jobs in retail in a large part of Ottawa, because we’re not bilingual.
I took French in high school (in southern Ontario even) because I was interested in learning another language. I can read French and get by just fine. My education did not prepare me for Quebecois French. I only “get” about 10% of what’s being spoken because of the colloquialisms and the accent, which is nothing like I was taught in school.
About 4 years ago I applied for an auditor’s job in the Department of National Defence. I was asked to come in and write a test, in English. I passed the test and was selected for an interview, in English. A month or so later I was informed, by email, that my interview was successful and that my name would be placed in a pool of potential candidates for the next available opening. A month or so later I was emailed a link that then asked me questions about my language skills and my area of preference for work. Well, I chose English only, and the Ottawa / Gatineau region as opposed to the GTA or Vancouver. It’s been four years and I haven’'t heard from them since. That puts a bee in my bonnet. Obviously, because I only speak English, I’m being discriminated against for job opportunities for which I am perfectly qualified. No one told me that this would be a requirement for employment when I was a kid, and I even took French for the hell of it. This is a difficult region for English people to find employment.
End of rant.
Leaffan, you’re still working in the Ontario civil service, no? My information is almost 25 years out of date, but… My wife worked as a temp in the Ontario Ministry of Labour. They liked her work, enjoyed working with her, and so, when a position became vacant, it was offered to her. She stayed a little over a year, if I’m remembering correctly. In that time, there were official accreditation exams for proficiency in French that were available to be taken, offered by provincial government. The tests had to be taken one at a time, and there was a 3 or 6 month schedule; there were also courses that were offered that were either outright free, or for a nominal charge.
My Dad’s civil service career was even earlier, but there were similar things available even back then in the 60s and 70s. My cousin Tom got his first diplomatic posting owing to his proficiency in languages, but that, too, was in the late 60s.
At any rate, between your union and your employer, there may be a way to obtain accreditation while working your present job. Such accreditation may lead to pay increases in your current position, and greater scope for advancement in future positions.
I agree, it’s frustrating that the linguistic door doesn’t seem to swing both ways. However, it’s worth looking into. My wife did quite well on the first French test with the high school/1st year university French courses for her background; your French may be better than you think.
And even in the greater Ottawa area, there are enough Francophones around that you can work on your French in day to day life. My cousin Tom always used to say “Any time you’re in a shop, try to speak French. If they respond in English, push on in French. Maybe politely say that you are studying the French language and culture, and you would appreciate the opportunity to learn from them. At any rate, you’re the customer; you get to insist.”
Good luck with it!
I work for the Federal Government at a Crown Corporation 160 Kms west of my home in Ottawa. French is not a requirement here, nor are any language classes offered. There’s no way I can get a Federal job in Ottawa.
ETA: Even the city of Ottawa has a bilingual hiring policy.
ETA again: And I’m a middle-aged white guy. Good luck!
I get it. I’m a middle-aged white guy, myself, and I work in a field where accreditation is all but meaningless. I’m only as good as my last gig/audition/recording, and nobody cares about the Second City class I took the other year if it doesn’t show up in my work onstage. (Plus you have a distinct advantage over me in job security and pension. 
)
All that being said, anything that makes you more attractive to a potential employer than some other guy is worth pursuing.
If Canada were a middle-aged white guy, Quebec would be our penile dysfunction.
I was working for the Ontario government in the latter part of the 1980s and early 90s, shortly after Ontario adopted French as an official language; and I remember the French testing for all Ontario government employees.
Everybody in our office was tested–there was a written test, and though I may be misremembering, I believe there was an oral test too. Based on the results, people were slotted into one of six “grades,” ranging from “Grade 1, doesn’t know a word of French” to “Grade 6, fluently bilingual.” (I managed to achieve “Grade 5, functionally bilingual.”)
For those in Grades 1 through 4, free French classes were offered. Grades 5 and 6 could attend if they wished, but the emphasis was on getting Grades 1 through 4 learning French–it was strongly suggested that if they wanted to get ahead and be qualified for more advanced positions, they would have to know French. The classes took place downtown, a couple of nights a week.
Somewhat understandably, nobody wanted to take French. Not only was our office located some distance from the downtown area, but to many in our office (we were an IT department), English was already a second, if not third, language. Mandarin, Urdu, Hindi–these, and a few others were the native languages of some of my co-workers; and these were the people who did the poorest at the French test. But even those who only spoke English were not happy. All were a little miffed that no matter how good they were at their jobs, the rules had changed; and now what seemed to matter most was the ability to speak French.
I don’t know how many took the classes, and I don’t know how many stayed at their jobs–I left shortly after all of this happened. But I do remember the testing, the offer of free French classes, and the grumbling.
Just learned that one of my friends, who’s a Muslim, is moving away from Montreal. Guess the PQ government succeeded in driving her out. 
Quebec’s political party leaders are having a debate right now. I don’t need to watch it, because it’s being tweeted about by several people in my Twitter feed. So I’m watching Twitter.
Sorry I am so late to chime in - exact same accident happened to us on the way back from the US near St Pierre Jolys.
Okay, in spite of the fact that we’re all looking forward to spring, this gave me a bit of a chuckle:
And all the dog poop - all the dog poop thaws and smells lovely.
Starting to look like recruiting Karl Peladeau and letting him fist pump for sovereignty was a mistake for the PQ, whose lead has been slipping:
Quebec Election: Poll finds Liberals surging over PQ:
Those numbers translate into a potential Liberal majority government:
A 45-32 lead is so shocking a swing as to be hard to believe. I suspect the lead is narrower than that, which makes the election a toss up. Quebec’s ridings are designed to help the PQ; the Liberals must lead by several points to tie.
That said it has been an incredibly terrible campaign for the PQ, who just weeks ago were headed for a majority. They have been unable to control the topics of debate and have let a dead leader take command of the news cycle. Pierre-Karl Peladeau is a fiasco, the Charter of Quebec Values that was supposed to deliver the goods has been shunted aside, and the separatism question is killing them. I can’t say yet that it’s as bad as the federal Liberal campaign of 2011 but it’s a bad campaign.
I did wonder if it was an outlier, coming from the Star. Other polls I’ve seen put the split more narrowly, but still with the Liberals in the lead - an astonishing switch, since the polls in the months before the writ dropping showed the PQ in the lead and in majority territory.
Polls aren’t all they’re cracked up to be anymore. The polls for the last provincial elections in BC and in Alberta were completely inaccurate. Polling is nowhere near as predictable of an outcome as it once was when folks had landlines and actually voted!
Not even then. About twenty years ago, a friend who worked for a major Canadian newspaper said to me that the only poll that counts is on election day. All the reporting on polls prior to then exists pretty much just to sell papers.
I don’t particularly care who wins the election, but I do hope that the PQ’s precipitous drop means that a referendum is off the table even if the PQ do squeak out victory.
Marois is caught in the usual conundrum faced by the PQ: if she says “There will be a referendum”, she turns off the voters who are mainly interested in good governance. But if she commits to “no referendum” the ardent sovereigntists in her own party will turn on her, just as they’ve turned on previous leaders who back away from sovereignty.
It’s the referendum question that’s killing the PQ. She avoided the question in the debates when asked will there be a referendum during her mandate with “when Quebecers are ready for it” while even this past week her second in charge Jean Francois Lisée has been going around telling idealistic, not living in the real world yet students that there will be one within the next four years.
Majority of people in Québec want nothing to do with it.