Tag: Quebec

Bill 78: We are all red squares now

It doesn’t matter what you think about the protest against tuition fee hikes, this isn’t about accessible education anymore. Now, everyone in Quebec’s right to protest, organize and express themselves freely is at risk. As of last night, people’s right to just go out and have a good time is at risk, too. Friday, after a last-minute 48 hour session of the Assemble Nationale, the Charest government passed Bill 78…

The Spring of Student Discontent

The student strike and protest is now entering its fourth month, they have spawned more than 160 protests in 72 days in Montreal alone. The protests have now garnered international attention including coverage on CNN and Al Jazeera. In my (new found) opinion, the actions of the students are completely justified. This whole state of affairs revolves around the Quebec government’s rising debt…

Oasis juice gets slammed by the court of public opinion!

Though a simple copyright infringement case might not seem like the stuff of civil rights, a closer examination of the circumstances in Ms Deborah Kudzman’s legal struggle against the Lassonde Corporation (makers of Oasis fruit juice products) illustrates perfectly how access to justice in our system is definitely rigged in favour of the rich. The facts of this lawsuit may strike you as banal at first blush. Ms. Kudzman was served, back in 2005…

Big Tobacco’s Big Mistake

Few corporate so called legal “persons” are as heartless a big tobacco. When it comes to crushing their opponents, there is no low they won’t stoop to in their legal tactics, or, for that matter, their threats of violence towards whistle blowers (see The Insider, a movie about former tobacco company executive Jeffrey Wigand) and others who dare cross them. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprising when they dispatch a army of high priced lawyers to a small claims court in Rimouski Québec with the intention of scaring the shit out of the plaintiff…

Institutionalized Graft Part I

Let me get this straight. Tories do not favour so-called socialist state-economic planning??? That said, we’re in the midst of a global economic depression and Canada must find ways to stimulate its own economy in order to survive. Ergo, the federal government must set an economic policy in place that allows core industries to continue operations while further providing stimulus to at-risk industries. As it so happens, the Tories have decided…

Missing the boat: The Nouveau Mouvement pour Québec and changing political tides

As a political junkie I suppose I should be stoked about the potential founding of a new political party in Québec, but I’m really not. The first mistake this group of mutineers in the Nouveau Mouvement pour Québec (NMQ) from various other political outfits is making, is timing. There has never been a time in my life when there has been a more fragmented provincial political scene, especially on the sovereigntist side of the equation. With Québec Solidaire, and, of course, the old war horse that seems bound for the glue factory, Partie Québecois, all competing for the same stagnate segment of hardcore/soft separatists. Blind to this undeniable political reality, NMQ vows to press on with their unpopular agenda…

Wasteful Thinking (online doc premiere)

With the world’s population projected to hit seven billion later this year, a stable supply of food has never been more important.

Recent spikes in food prices have set off riots around the world and have been linked to revolutions in the Middle East and the famine devastating the horn of Africa. Even here at home, rising food prices are making people think more about what they eat and where it comes from…

Quebec Politics for Dummies: L’Affaire Turmel and the Media

No surprise that the Conservatives would pick up smearing the leader of the Official Opposition where they left off with Iggy. What appalls me, if it does not surprise me, is that the national media, with nary an exception, would gleefully follow them down the rabbit hole. They did so for two reasons: complete ignorance of Quebec and how our politics work, and a desperate flailing to cut down the NDP and their new leader for the egregious crime of being Socially Progressive while Popular (SPP)…