Aislin, poignant as ever – May 19th 2012
Hi
It’s been a while.
What can I say, you know the drill, I’ve been busy. But I haven’t forgotten about you.
A few things I’ve been thinking about;
Regarding the murder, what can I say – it’s so vile, so depraved. What I find particularly distressing is that this contemptuous lunatic is getting, from what I gather, to be precisely what he always wanted – infamy. I can imagine no greater justice than to secure him, heavily sedated, in a small padded room, wherein he would placed under constant observation, reminded daily that though every element of the remainder of his life would be recorded, studied, he’d never be able to relish in it. Justice in this case is complete and total isolation and anonymity for the accused. To be cut off absolutely from the world he wished to sensationalize with his excess. If only I could think of another level of Kafkaesque punishment to induce a world of exceptional existential angst and self-loathing.
I fear the notoriety he has already managed to obtain for himself pales in comparison to what awaits once his extradition is completed and his trial begins. If our society is worth a damn we’ll collectively abstain from any sort of media circus, and we’ll deride those who move to utilize this horrific crime as a tool to achieving strict socially-conservative and authoritarian political goals. It didn’t take long for the latter to occur, we have to decide whether or not we allow the former.
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The single greatest threat to Canadian unity is not the Québec independence movement. It is Stephen Harper, and everything he has done and has come to represent which presents a clear and present danger to the very sanctity of Canadian society and culture. His political career must end well before 2015, as his amply-chinned predecessor’s career similarly ended. Let the scandals mount, let the cracks grow, let Quiet Revolution 2.0 spread across the nation. All we have is time and time is all we need – there’s simply no way he can irreversibly damage Canada, even if he were to complete his term, but what’s been done so far is damage enough. I think it’s time the silent majority of Canadian progressives pronounce themselves and utilize all political and civil disobedience tools we have at our disposal to remove Stephen Harper from 24 Sussex Drive. We don’t have to do much more than make it known we will no longer support any government which aims to so viscously undermine our nation’s great accomplishments. And so, whether you’re issue is free post-secondary education, a move back towards a manufacturing economy, a commitment to solve climate change, pro-active diplomatic involvement in geo-politics or the funds necessary for a Canadian cultural renaissance – whatever your cause, there’s never been a better time to organize against an individual who will likely go down in history as the most reviled prime minister we ever had the misfortune of electing.
And by the way – Charest has to go as well. He has failed to clean up the construction industry, he has failed to find a solution with the protesters and his cavalier attitude belies what can only be described as a thoroughly incompetent misunderstanding of public sentiment in Québec. Moreover, he’s pursuing natural-gas fracking which is reason enough to ask him to split.
The people must take their country back, and uphold democracy and the rule of law. If the people of Québec succeed, they may very well push an already rising tide of change throughout the land. I find it curious that Québec may, right now, have the most relative strength of any demographic political group in Canada, as its dissent has spread past the borders.
***
Well no shit. The status of the French language in Montréal – safe, secure, on the rise in business, universal in services, signs etc etc. The commonly held perception that it is threatened and/or in decline is completely wrong, Montréal is unequivocally, unabashedly French. And of course it would be, given that it’s also, still, the second largest French city on the face of the planet. That said, the OQLF is still going to get a larger budget for more inspectors to look for problems which don’t exist.
Another fantastic example of Jean Charest’s brilliant political mind in action.
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The flash-flooding last week was a freak act of nature. 80mm of rain in one hour. As I exited Tour de la Cathedrale at 17h01 it had just begun to drizzle a little bit, then bigger, heavier, pulsating rain came in. By the time I made it to Place Ville-Marie five minutes later, to take shelter under the massive concrete pods, it was coming down in sheets and you couldn’t see down Boul. René-Lévesque. I have never seen anything like it before in my life, but apparently it has happened once before in my lifetime. In 1987 something similar happened, which winded up killing some guy caught in a flooded Decarie Expressway. Long story short – it’s a rarity, and the flooding was not as a result of poor infrastructure. Sometimes shit just happens. At least it was spectacular to watch, and gave us something to talk about other than what had happened the day before.
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Finally – the never ending Train de l’Ouest saga. Aeroports de Montréal has come out with a new proposal which may or may not involve elevated trains that could also use tunnels, possibly, and apparently would be separate from the CN/CP lines while mirroring them (by being built beside and/or above the existing lines) and would have a downtown hub located on the site of a new condo project or at an existing train station. Maybe.
I’ll have a lot more to say about this last one in a forthcoming article.
