:: Hypocrisy, Quebec-style ::

I'm a relatively new Quebecer, new enough that the thought of being called such still startles me slightly. As a result, I have an outsider view of life in this province, and am still interested in noticing its peculiarities and peccadilloes.

Here's a few recent examples that I've noticed or observed in the last week...

From today's Montreal Gazette, the only large English daily newspaper in the province, there is this story about the provincial lottery corporation's expansion into other areas of gambling on the Internet and CD-Rom and their attempts to find new clients outside the province. I find this a bit rich considering that the provincial legislation around gambling in this province is so byzantine that most other areas of Canada don't even bother to learn them and just exclude Quebecers from joining in their prize-winning games...such as this one or this one or this one too.

Overheard while listening to French language radio station Kool FM, one of the few rock-format radio stations in Quebec....the morning hosts were discussing the proposed hiking of provincial income tax in this province, (despite the fact that we already pay the highest provincial tax in the country). One of their listeners calls in to complain that his taxes are too high already and that they shouldn't be raised because they are already all going to pay for the flashy cars of Albertans, the fancy restaurants for Ontarians, the lazy farmers of the Prairies and the stupid fisherman in the Maritimes etc while he and other hardworking Quebecers work their fingers to the bone for nothing. Said listener was obviously a separatist raised on the illogical and harmful arguments of the PQ, or else he would have noticed that provincial tax does, in fact, stay in the province, and in Quebec's case, goes to pay for unnecessary duplicate "Ministere de this" and "Bureau de la...that", effectively completely duplicating bureacratic work that in every other province is handled happily only at the federal level. 'Course Quebec is in a perpetual power battle with the federal government and the duplication is tantamount to the one-upmanship we all did in Kindergarten and grade school when some kid in our class got a a new toy that we wanted...we had to get the same toy only better and throw it in their face.

And then there are the recent antics of the province's premier, warning Montrealers that the city is becoming "too bilingual" and that we have to be careful or he and his government will "take action" against us to preserve the French heritage. This article sums this stupidity up best. Why is it stupid? The results of the recent Canadian census shows that French use is up on the island of Montreal.

Ahhh...life in la belle province....