La Patrie
On n’entre pas au désert avec le goût du chaos
By Louise V. Labrecque on May 6, 2009
Dans les vingt nouvelles constituant ce livre, on constate un écrivain qui n’écrit pas pour s’éloigner des gens, mais au contraire pour essayer de s’en rapprocher. Salah Benlabed nous révèle que s’il n’a jamais eu besoin de certitude et que, selon lui, tout est une entreprise à perte, c’est là qu’il veut tout de même travailler, c'est-à-dire dans une entreprise qui est humaine avant d’être littéraire.
Lettres - Letters
By readers on April 9, 2009
Les apostats de la dernière pluie
By Pierre K. Malouf on April 9, 2009
Il existe pour un catholique deux façons de quitter l’Église : par une porte dérobée au fond de la sacristie, ou par la porte principale donnant sur le parvis. La manière discrète et la plus courante : on se désintéresse de la religion, on ne va plus à la messe, on ne reçoit plus les sacrements, on cesse de croire, mais sans le crier sur les toits ; la manière forte, c’est-à-dire l’apostasie...
“Arrogants, vulgaires et disgracieux!” - Downtown merchants fed up with green onions, parking rules
By Dan Delmar on April 9, 2009
Some downtown business-owners came out swinging on Wednesday, saying the Tremblay administration has lost control over its employees and is driving people out of the heart of the city with overbearing regulations...
Panicking in the sunlight
By Vincent Geloso on April 9, 2009
After reading the details of the stimulus bill in the United States, the federal deficit in Canada and the upcoming deficits in Quebec and other provinces, I began to wonder why I was the only one to see this as absolutely normal. After all I had grown like anybody familiar with economics and public choice theory to think that economic irrationality is highly reasonable in political markets. A nice way to summarize this is a saying from a former teacher of mine who used to say that governments always have crazy solutions ready that are only waiting for problems...
The Anglo exodus may be over
By Dan Delmar on April 9, 2009
Angryphone alarmists would have you believe that the hemorrhaging seen in that community following Bill 101 and the referendums has not ended; that Anglophones are still driving U-Hauls down the 401 in droves to escape our oppressive Francophone overlords. Unfortunately, pesky facts and statistics expose that argument as one that is misleading, exaggerated and rooted in paranoia. The fact is, the bleeding has stopped and some of the Anglo deserters of decades past are coming back...
L’histoire méconnue de nos libertés
By Francis Tourigny on April 9, 2009
À peu près tout le monde, dit-on, connaît l’histoire dont il est question dans le présent compte-rendu. Elle nous a d’ailleurs été répétée à maintes reprises dès l’école primaire : c’est l’histoire du clergé et de son emprise sur le Québec. On sait aussi que l’élite cléricale prônait une idéologie profondément réactionnaire, antihumaniste et antilibérale, qui se manifestait notamment par son opposition à l’éducation gratuite et obligatoire, par la haine de la liberté d’expression et de création et par un nationalisme identitaire et étroit qui confinait au culte de la « race »...
L’insensé a dit en son coeur…
By René Girard on April 9, 2009
La campagne publicitaire récemment affichée sur une dizaine d’autobus montréalais à l’initiative de l’Association humaniste du Québec (AHQ), a suscité réactions et débats. Chacun y est allé de son interprétation de la fameuse phrase traduite d’une publicité originellement anglophone : « Dieu n’existe probablement pas. Alors cessez de vous inquiéter et profitez de la vie. » Ont pu notamment s’exprimer les voix légitimes des athées, agnostiques, libres-penseurs et sans dieu, lesquelles sont trop rarement entendues dans notre société pourtant censée être laïque...
The view from the top of Debt Mountain
By Robert Presser on April 9, 2009
After the conclusion of what is probably the most important G20 meeting ever held, one can be forgiven for feeling optimistic. While unemployment in the US is at a quarter-century high at 8.3% and first world economies continue to contract, G20 leaders looked past their local economic miseries, resulting in an remarkable level of international commitment expressed in London. This solidarity was truly exceptional given the divergent opinions held by many going into the meeting.
Le Monde de Piperberg
By Roy Piperberg on April 9, 2009
Letters: Banks and Consumers
By Duff Conacher on March 19, 2009
It is not surprising that Canada’s big banks are still profitable, given that the federal government has offered them and other financial institutions more than $250 billion in direct and indirect subsidies in the past few months.
Rodéo à Québec
By Pierre K. Malouf on March 19, 2009
La Caisse de dépôt a connu une très mauvaise année. La chasse aux responsables est maintenant ouverte. Le hic, c’est que dans cette affaire il n’y a que des IRRESPONSABLES. C’est la faute à personne parce que c’est la faute à tout le monde. « Il n’y aura pas d’empreintes digitales sur l’arme du crime, car il n’y a pas de crime...
Brother Tremblay: Is Marcel Tremblay done with politics?
By Dan Delmar on March 19, 2009
The affable Marcel Tremblay – NDG councilor, Montreal executive committee member and City Hall’s resident crusader for civic-minded behaviour – is, as they say, in a period of reflection...
Broken promises: The Ala Morales affair
By Beryl Wajsman on March 19, 2009
Before we take on an advocacy issue that revolves around a single individual, it must meet one important criteria. The story must have within it a multiplicity of elements that affect us all. It is in that context that you should understand the headline of the story of Ala Morale...
Is journalism dead? I will not be reduced to Twittering for attention
By Dan Delmar on March 19, 2009
Journalists, writers are insecure manic-depressives on a never-ending quest for praise – in the best of times. In a recession, they are still those things, but also hyper-aware of a new reality; no matter how much they are loved and admired, the advertising revenue is simply not paying the bills these days. Journalism was on life-support long before the economy tanked. Now, one has to wonder if the printed word can survive, let alone thrive in new economic and social contexts..
Sunday’s C.R.A.P. demo
By P.A. Sévigny on March 19, 2009
Last Sunday afternoon, only minutes after they began to gather in front of the Mount Royal Metro station, Montreal’s CRAP (La Coalition contre la Repression et les Abus Policiers ) lost no time as they began to pick their annual fight with city’s police...
Government’s not the solution to our problems; government is the problem
By Mischa Popoff on March 19, 2009
“Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state. All this was changed by the impact of the Great War. The state established a hold over its citizens which though relaxed in peace time, was never to be removed and which the Second World War was again to increase. The history of the English people and the English State merged for the first time.”
Iran: Responsible choices
By The Hon. David Kilgour on March 19, 2009
Iran is a country with immense human, cultural and hydrocarbon resources, but its people continue to be severely repressed by a government headed by a clerical Supreme Leader and president, who practise state terrorism, flaunt genocidal rhetoric, and are seeking to build nuclear weapons. Iran is pivotal to regional peace and world stability...
Lettres - Letters
By readers on February 26, 2009
Thérapie pour les traumatisés de 1759
By Pierre K. Malouf on February 26, 2009
Sarkozy a traité de sectaires certains nationalistes québécois. Le mot était peut-être exagéré. « Bornés » aurait suffi. Ou peut-être « obscurantistes ». Falardeau, par exemple, est un obscurantiste. L’énergumène écrivait récemment que l’historien Marcel Trudel aurait « vanté les mérites de la défaite », chanté « les louanges du conquérant ».
La Mer et ses sirènes
By Phillipe Allard on February 26, 2009
La raison la plus fréquemment invoquée par les nationalistes de toute tendance pour justifier leur nationalisme est le voisinage entre la majorité francophone du Québec et ce qu’ils appellent, dans un élan si poétique, « une mer d’anglophones ». D’un air entendu, nos patriarches, intellectuels et autres bien-pensants nationalistes ont l’habitude d’inaugurer quasi unanimement leurs discours de cette subtile métaphore. Tout juste si la « mer » ne fait pas partie des « attendus que » de la Loi 101...
A 3.5 million dollar miracle on Hickmore St.
By P.A. Sévigny on February 26, 2009
All of the pallets measure four by four by four feet high full of shrink-wrapped cases of macaroni and cheese, soup, pickles and jam. Rented cube vans wait patiently for their turn at the loading docks while lift trucks race around the warehouse piled high with crates full of broccoli, potatoes, onions and apples. In the back under the lights, at least two dozen volunteers are sorting through thousands of oranges as the bad ones are tossed into a loader at the end of the table...
A neighbourhood or a casino? The future of the Hippodrome
By Dan Delmar on February 26, 2009
Montreal housing groups scored a major victory last week when the provincial government announced that it has reversed its decision to fund a video lottery terminal and off-track betting centre on land around the Hippodrome de Montréal...
On Quebec and identity
By Julius Grey on February 26, 2009
Voices have been heard again in Montreal’s English Community calling for action if the Quebec government tries to overturn a successful Bill 104 challenge through use of the “notwithstanding clause”. At the same time, criticism has been leveled against Quebec Ministers Kathleen Weil and Yolande James for not insisting more on the protection of English identity. A new round of English complaints is unjustified, whatever happens to Bill 104, and the two ministers are clearly right in rejecting an exclusive English identity...
Who controls the Internet in Canada?
By Jessica Murphy on February 26, 2009
Net neutrality hasn't yet made an imprint in Canada’s national dialogue, but the controvery addresses nothing less than who acts as the gatekeeper to the most powerful communication tool we have. Net throttling – also called traffic shaping – can be defined as the control of computer network traffic in order to optimize performance, or the alteration of traffic on a particular connection to increase efficiency throughout the network...
Stimulate this!
By Beryl Wajsman on February 5, 2009
The current frenzy of economic stimulus packages sweeping around us like so many forest fires will not — and more importantly, should not — work. The reasons are threefold. First, they are stimulating the perpetuation of a false economy that has caused nightmares for tens of millions. Second, the packages are based on outdated Depression-era models without taking into consideration today’s much different realities. And third, they provide insufficient protection to get people through the tough three to seven years that are to come...
VOICES OF A GENERATION in The Métropolitain
By Alain-Michel Ayache on February 5, 2009
Being a student is not often an easy task. Between part-time work to be able to pay the tuition, and often five courses each semester, to deal with, a student can barely see the end...
Voices of a generation: Media, ethics and bailouts
By Alana Vineberg on February 5, 2009
As a young woman edging my way closer to graduation and onto the job scene, I cannot help but feel pessimistic about the future...
Voices of a generation: What of Quebec’s Future?
By Kaoutar Belaaziz on February 5, 2009
The drums sounded in December calling on Quebecers to decide who was best suited govern. As amusing as the rivalries were to many political junkies, the recent Quebec election did not spark much interest in the general public as he U.S. presidential election did. What Quebec needs are leaders willing to forget petty politics, abandon narrow rivalries and commit o end excluding people. What Quebec needs is an Obama Effect...
