The CanaDoper Café, 2013 edition.

Some people don’t like folks who are different. It’s just the way it is; the world is divided into smart people and stupid oafs, and stupid oafs are often dumb enough to be racist but still clever enough to dial a phone.

Registered at Last and I may make an attempt to join the protest in montreal on Sat Sep 14, 2013. Anyone else on Ottawa area interested in joining in?

Unfortunately, I have plans for tomorrow.

I’ve never been to any kind of a protest in my life, but this is one that I could fully support, if I didn’t already have plans.

I hope attendance is good.

What is the Montréal protest about, for those of us who aren’t anywhere near there? Is it, as I presume, about the proposed Values Charter?

Yeah, here’s some info.

I notice that the apologists who always claim the separatist movement doesn’t have a xenophobic, racist element to it are curiously absent from all the online forums I frequent, what with the PQ doing something that is so xenophobic and racist it simply can’t be denied.

Maybe they’re all celebrating the Quebec Uber Alles Act.

That charter is the consequence of the PQ following their version of the “Southern strategy” that they adopted after losing the 1980 referendum when they decided to court the right-wing nationalist vote. And now, they’re losing the progressive vote. Several nationalists, usually associated with the progressives (mainly artists, but also the former BQ member Maria Mourani), came forward today to denounce this Charter.

That’s what happens when you court hicks.

I’d have no problem with the Quebec charter if they were also targeting some of the innumerable things that are named after Catholic saints or the Virgin Mary.

As it stands, this is simply Catholic medievalism (is that a word?) using modern techniques. They already kicked out the English/Protestants a generation ago and now they are working on whoever is left.

I wish I could go to the Montreal protest.

Today I had a driving lesson and my teacher and I were talking about how stupid this new Charter is. Someone once described it as “a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.”

People in Quebec can’t really be that surprised, I mean what they hell else did they think the BQ was going to focus on once they got in power ? Health care, the economy, corruption, their debt ? No, getting tough on English and brown people have been their focus. People voted them in, and a lot of people support them. The best way to protest is move out. Let them have their own country and be done with it. It’s like schizophrenic wet cats over here, been that way for decades, taught generation after generation.

I’ll add, if our federal government puts up a fight for visible minorities religious rights, they can go pound sand because both liberals and conservatives have done nothing on repeated occasions when anglophones linguistic rights were trampled on time and time again.

It’s not the BQ; it’s the Parti Québécois. Not that there’s MUCH difference, but let’s make sure we’re attributing the xenophobia to the right party this time.

There was, though, a BQ member who was expelled from her party for disagreeing with them about the Charter (she thought it was a bad idea.)

Ya, I know. And good for Maria Mourani.

I just saw that the Mayflower is closing - WTF, Ottawa?

At least brown shirts can still be worn.

Coincidentally that’s where we had our first Ottawa Dopefest, well the first one attended by me at least. I met Das Glasperlenspiel and her husband, along with Jools from Montreal and Registered at Last.

A wonderful little pub.

The high tech industry in Ottawa has taken a real beating in the last 5 years or so, something that most people who are not employed in the sector are completely unaware of.

Public service jobs have also been slashed. It’s easy enough to find your own cites for the above.

Ottawa is fairing well compared to other Ontario municipalities, but the major two players in the job market here have really taken a hit lately.

A very articulate and well reasoned letter about the proposed Quebec Charter of Values. The fact that this writer shares my opinion that this is actually the PQ being opportunistic is mere coincidence.

…and according to this article in the International Business Times, Canada has the highest number of corrupt and fraudulent subsidiaries, more than the US and Indonesia combined.

Really? I would have said we pride ourselves on our sense of fair play.

It’s all SNC-Lavalin. How the hell that company became so sleezy escapes me.

Justin Trudeau wrote an open letter to the Globe and Mail about the proposed Quebec Charter. I don’t usually post anything too political on the Dope, but I find that this is worth a read.