We Need to Talk About Quebec

February 07, 2017

Montreal, Canada

Source: Bigstock

Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!, Mordechai Richler’s 1992 lampoon of the province’s berserk anti-English language laws, was seriously compared to Mein Kampf, and its author”one of Montreal’s most famous sons”sniffily dismissed as not “a real Quebecker” (cough JEW! cough…).

More recently, McCullough notes:

Globe and Mail columnist Jan Wong posited a theory that Quebec’s various lone nuts, many of whom were not of pure French-Canadian stock, were predictably alienated from a province that places such a high premium on cultural conformity. She was denounced by a unanimous vote in the Canadian Parliament and sank into a career-ruining depression….

Maclean’s ran a cover story in 2010 arguing that Quebec, where old-fashioned mafia collusion between government contractors, unions and politicians is still common, was easily “the most corrupt province in Canada.” That, too, was denounced by a unanimous vote of Parliament.

And, having read this far, you”ll have no trouble believing this:

As of my deadline, the Bloc QuÃ©bÃ©cois”that is, the party that supposedly wants to separate from Canada but never actually leaves“has tabled a motion to…

…denounce J.J. McCullough in Parliament.

McCullough might be in minor, novel, and frankly hilarious shit for talking smack about Quebec, but the Great Shutting Up is only getting started.

I don”t just mean that Facebook “friend” I hadn”t heard from in years”a Red Tory senior fellow at one of Canada’s (hell, the world’s) leading think tanks”who demanded that I delete my link to McCullough’s “vile” column, bellowing at me in my comments and in “chat” until I unfriended him.

No, I mean: Quebec talk-radio hosts”who, against all odds, are Canada’s only equivalent to Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh”have hurried to apologize for all those mean things they”ve said about Islam. So have Quebec politicians who”ve championed burka bans and the like. (“[Parti QuÃ©bÃ©cois] Leader Jean-FranÃ§ois LisÃ©e, said it was a mistake last year to say Muslims could use garments like the burkini to conceal automatic weapons.”)

But if bitching about Islam was merely unofficially forbidden in what we (quite seriously) call “TROC””that is, “The Rest of Canada””already, it will soon be literally illegal.

Montreal cops just arrested a pro-Islam leftist over a (clearly sarcastic) “anti-Muslim” tweet he posted during a post-mosque-attack flame war.

As well, “the force is hiring 55 people whose jobs will include monitoring social media sites for hate speech.”

And”just as the Montreal Massacre was used to push through our draconian gun-control laws”the Quebec mosque attack will help Trudeau’s bill formally outlawing “Islamophobia” (without defining it) pass unobstructed.

So while I”m still allowed to write stuff (outside of a prison cell), allow me to conclude with one more comment from my prime minister:

We have to look at the root causes….

But there is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded. Completely at war with innocents. At war with a society. And our approach has to be, where do those tensions come from?

Oh, wait. That’s what he said right after the Boston Marathon bombing, not the Quebec City slaughter by a “right-winger.”

Never mind.