Libman: No vacation from language law excesses in Quebec
This week we learned about a barbershop owner in St-Léonard who — six months after opening his local business — started being hounded by Quebec's French-language watchdog (OQLF) regarding everything from his store signage to his online presence — informed, as the owner put it, that he was being 'too loud on Instagram with my English.'
Earlier this month, we discovered that LaSalle College, a bilingual institution, is being fined $30 million by the CAQ government for enrolling too many students in its English-language programs, exceeding a cap established by Bill 96 aimed at public CEGEPs and subsidized private colleges like LaSalle. The school says international students, who make up about 70 per cent of those enrolled in English-language Attestation of College Studies, where the government claims it exceeded its cap, are entirely self-funded through tuition fees, with no subsidies from the government.
This excessive aspect of Bill 96 is another counterproductive and short-sighted example of Quebec shooting itself in the foot. LaSalle College offers pre-university and technical programs, teaching various trades, skills and vocational training — essentially feeding our labour force, which is in desperate need of nourishment.
Last month, the onerous new rules and regulations in Bill 96 regarding signage and packaging came into effect. The bill, adopted in 2022, allowed a three-year implementation window — but the regulations were published only last summer — forcing merchants to wait, then scramble to comply. Stores with trademark names, such as Canadian Tire, Footlocker and Best Buy, or any business with another language in its name, must change their signage to include a translation or a generic description in French on storefronts, occupying at least two-thirds of the area devoted to text.
Municipalities have provisions in their zoning bylaws that often limit the size and scope of signage. The costs and inconveniences caused by these overzealous rules represent an infuriating impediment, among others, for many businesses.
These new signage regulations also conjure up satirical images of language inspectors in trench coats showing up with tape measures, analyzing proportions and dimensions of a sign. With Bill 96, it takes only one complaint, even anonymous, to launch an investigation that could lead to hefty fines.
The new rules on packaging could severely impact trademarked collectibles or specialty items made only in other countries, such as guitar strings or other music supplies, that can no longer be sold here if not labelled in French. Merchants will either go through hoops to do their own labelling — likely passing the price on to consumers — or be unable to provide certain items and take a hit, as customers turn to Amazon. We can expect the OQLF will send out secret shoppers to sniff out scofflaws.
In France, the 1994 Toubon Law made French the official language, imposing its use in various contexts, including official communications, commercial contracts and advertising. However, that law is more accommodating, with exceptions for trademarks and in recognizing the importance of regional languages and linguistic diversity.
Quebec's excesses make for embarrassing headlines abroad as with Pastagate, Bonjour-Hi and the Go Habs Go fiasco. There was a 60 Minutes report in 1998 that sardonically followed a language inspector on the job.
Incidents that shine light on Quebec as an object of ridicule are inevitable when laws contain elements of intolerance, with regulations that go too far. They not only harm our province's image, economy and attractiveness, but they also caricature — and thereby undermine — the importance of protecting French itself.
It's time to rethink language excesses, including the OQLF itself, unless we want one notable trademark sign to exemplify our province — Banana Republic.
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Winnipeg Free Press
6 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
What to expect, and what not to, at the UN meeting on an Israel-Palestinian two-state solution
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly is bringing high-level officials together this week to promote a two-state solution to the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict that would place their peoples side by side, living in peace in independent nations. Israel and its close ally the United States are boycotting the two-day meeting, which starts Monday and will be co-chaired by the foreign ministers of France and Saudi Arabia. Israel's right-wing government opposes a two-state solution, and the United States has called the meeting 'counterproductive' to its efforts to end the war in Gaza. France and Saudi Arabia want the meeting to put a spotlight on the two-state solution, which they view as the only viable road map to peace, and to start addressing the steps to get there. The meeting was postponed from late June and downgraded from a four-day meeting of world leaders amid surging tensions in the Middle East, including Israel's 12-day war against Iran and the war in Gaza. 'It was absolutely necessary to restart a political process, the two-state solution process, that is today threatened, more threatened than it has ever been,' French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Sunday on CBS News' 'Face the Nation.' Here's what's useful to know about the upcoming gathering. Why a two-state solution? The idea of dividing the Holy Land goes back decades. When the British mandate over Palestine ended, the U.N. partition plan in 1947 envisioned dividing the territory into Jewish and Arab states. Israel accepted the plan, but upon Israel's declaration of independence the following year, its Arab neighbors declared war and the plan was never implemented. Under a 1949 armistice, Jordan held control over the West Bank and east Jerusalem and Egypt over Gaza. Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those lands for a future independent state alongside Israel, and this idea of a two-state solution based on Israel's pre-1967 boundaries has been the basis of peace talks dating back to the 1990s. The two-state solution has wide international support. The logic behind it is that the population of Israel — along with east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — is divided equally between Jews and Palestinians. The establishment of an independent Palestine would leave Israel as a democratic country with a solid Jewish majority and grant the Palestinians their dream of self-determination. Why hold a conference now? France and Saudi Arabia have said they want to put a spotlight on the two-state solution as the only viable path to peace in the Middle East — and they want to see a road map with specific steps, first ending the war in Gaza. The co-chairs said in a document sent to U.N. members in May that the primary goal of the meeting is to identify actions by 'all relevant actors' to implement the two-state solution — and 'to urgently mobilize the necessary efforts and resources to achieve this aim, through concrete and time-bound commitments.' Saudi diplomat Manal Radwan, who led the country's delegation to the preparatory conference, said the meeting must 'chart a course for action, not reflection.' It must be 'anchored in a credible and irreversible political plan that addresses the root cause of the conflict and offers a real path to peace, dignity and mutual security,' she said. French President Emmanuel Macron has pushed for a broader movement toward a two-state solution in parallel with a recognition of Israel's right to defend itself. He announced late Thursday that France will recognize the state of Palestine officially at the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in late September. About 145 countries have recognized the state of Palestine. But Macron's announcement, ahead of Monday's meeting and amid increasing global anger over desperately hungry people in Gaza starting to die from starvation, makes France the most important Western power to do so. What is Israel's view? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the two-state solution on both nationalistic and security grounds. Netanyahu's religious and nationalist base views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people, while Israeli Jews overwhelmingly consider Jerusalem their eternal capital. The city's eastern side is home to Judaism's holiest site, along with major Christian and Muslim holy places. Hard-line Israelis like Netanyahu believe the Palestinians don't want peace, citing the second Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, and more recently the Hamas takeover of Gaza two years after Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005. The Hamas takeover led to five wars, including the current and ongoing 21-month conflict. At the same time, Israel also opposes a one-state solution in which Jews could lose their majority. Netanyahu's preference seems to be the status quo, where Israel maintains overall control and Israelis have fuller rights than Palestinians, Israel deepens its control by expanding settlements, and the Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in pockets of the West Bank. Netanyahu condemned Macron's announcement of Palestinian recognition, saying it 'rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy, just as Gaza became.' What is the Palestinian view? The Palestinians, who label the current arrangement 'apartheid,' accuse Israel of undermining repeated peace initiatives by deepening settlement construction in the West Bank and threatening annexation. That would harm the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state and their prospects for independence. Ahmed Majdalani, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and close associate of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the meeting will serve as preparation for a presidential summit expected in September. It will take place either in France or at the U.N. on the sidelines of the high-level meeting, U.N. diplomats said. Majdalani said the Palestinians have several goals, first a 'serious international political process leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.' The Palestinians also want additional international recognition of their state by major countries including Britain. But expect that to happen in September, not at Monday's meeting, Majdalani said. And he said they want economic and financial support for the Palestinian Authority and international support for the reconstruction and recovery of the Gaza Strip. What will happen — and won't happen — at the meeting? All 193 U.N. member nations have been invited to attend the meeting and a French diplomat said about 40 ministers are expected. The United States and Israel are the only countries who are boycotting. The co-chairs have circulated an outcome document which could be adopted, and there could be some announcements of intentions to recognize a Palestinian state. But with Israel and the United States boycotting, there is no prospect of a breakthrough and the resumption of long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on an end to their conflict. Secretary-General António Guterres urged participants after the meeting was announced 'to keep the two-state solution alive.' And he said the international community must not only support a solution where independent states of Palestine and Israel live side-by-side in peace but 'materialize the conditions to make it happen.' ___ Federman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trump once decried the idea of presidential vacations. His Scotland trip is built around golf
EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — During sweaty summer months, Abraham Lincoln often decamped about 3 miles (5 kilometers) north of the White House to the Soldiers' Home, a presidential retreat of cottages and parkland in what today is the Petworth section of northwest Washington. Ulysses S. Grant sometimes summered at his family's cottage in Long Branch, New Jersey, even occasionally driving teams of horses on the beach. Ronald Reagan once said he did 'some of my best thinking' at his Rancho Del Cielo retreat outside Santa Barbara, California. Donald Trump's getaway is taking him considerably farther from the nation's capital, to the coast of Scotland. The White House isn't calling Trump's five-day, midsummer jaunt a vacation, but rather a working trip where the Republican president might hold a news conference and sit for interviews with U.S. and British media outlets. Trump was also talking trade in separate meetings with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Trump is staying at his properties near Turnberry and Aberdeen, where his family owns two golf courses and is opening a third on Aug. 13. Trump played golf over the weekend at Turnberry and is helping cut the ribbon on the new course on Tuesday. He's not the first president to play in Scotland: Dwight D. Eisenhower played at Turnberry in 1959, more than a half century before Trump bought it, after meeting with French President Charles de Gaulle in Paris. But none of Trump's predecessors has constructed a foreign itinerary around promoting vacation sites his family owns and is actively expanding. It lays bare how Trump has leveraged his second term to pad his family's profits in a variety of ways, including overseas development deals and promoting cryptocurrencies, despite growing questions about ethics concerns. 'You have to look at this as yet another attempt by Donald Trump to monetize his presidency,' said Leonard Steinhorn, who teaches political communication and courses on American culture and the modern presidency at American University. 'In this case, using the trip as a PR opportunity to promote his golf courses.' Presidents typically vacation in the US Franklin D. Roosevelt went to the Bahamas, often for the excellent fishing, five times between 1933 and 1940. He visited Canada's Campobello Island in New Brunswick, where he had vacationed as a child, in 1933, 1936 and 1939. Reagan spent Easter 1982 on vacation in Barbados after meeting with Caribbean leaders and warning of a Marxist threat that could spread throughout the region from nearby Grenada. Presidents also never fully go on vacation. They travel with a large entourage of aides, receive intelligence briefings, take calls and otherwise work away from Washington. Kicking back in the United States, though, has long been the norm. Harry S. Truman helped make Key West, Florida, a tourist hot spot with his 'Little White House' cottage there. Several presidents, including James Buchanan and Benjamin Harrison, visited the Victorian architecture in Cape May, New Jersey. More recently, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama boosted tourism on Massachusetts' Martha's Vineyard, while Trump has buoyed Palm Beach, Florida, with frequent trips to his Mar-a-Lago estate. But any tourist lift Trump gets from his Scottish visit is likely to most benefit his family. 'Every president is forced to weigh politics versus fun on vacation,' said Jeffrey Engel, David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who added that Trump is 'demonstrating his priorities.' 'When he thinks about how he wants to spend his free time, A., playing golf, B., visiting places where he has investments and C., enhancing those investments, that was not the priority for previous presidents, but it is his vacation time,' Engel said. It's even a departure from Trump's first term, when he found ways to squeeze in visits to his properties while on trips more focused on work. Trump stopped at his resort in Hawaii to thank staff members after visiting the memorial site at Pearl Harbor and before embarking on an Asia trip in November 2017. He played golf at Turnberry in 2018 before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland. Trump once decried the idea of taking vacations as president. 'Don't take vacations. What's the point? If you're not enjoying your work, you're in the wrong job,' Trump wrote in his 2004 book, 'Think Like a Billionaire.' During his presidential campaign in 2015, he pledged to 'rarely leave the White House.' Even as recently as a speech at a summit on artificial intelligence in Washington on Wednesday, Trump derided his predecessor for flying long distances for golf — something he's now doing. 'They talked about the carbon footprint and then Obama hops onto a 747, Air Force One, and flies to Hawaii to play a round of golf and comes back,' he said. Presidential vacations and any overseas trips were once taboo Trump isn't the first president not wanting to publicize taking time off. George Washington was criticized for embarking on a New England tour to promote the presidency. Some took issue with his successor, John Adams, for leaving the then-capital of Philadelphia in 1797 for a long visit to his family's farm in Quincy, Massachusetts. James Madison left Washington for months after the War of 1812. Teddy Roosevelt helped pioneer the modern presidential vacation in 1902 by chartering a special train and directing key staffers to rent houses near Sagamore Hill, his home in Oyster Bay, New York, according to the White House Historical Association. Four years later, Roosevelt upended tradition again, this time by becoming the first president to leave the country while in office. The New York Times noted that Roosevelt's 30-day trip by yacht and battleship to tour construction of the Panama Canal 'will violate the traditions of the United States for 117 years by taking its President outside the jurisdiction of the Government at Washington.' In the decades since, where presidents opted to vacation, even outside the U.S., has become part of their political personas. In addition to New Jersey, Grant relaxed on Martha's Vineyard. Calvin Coolidge spent the 1928 Christmas holidays at Sapelo Island, Georgia. Lyndon B. Johnson had his 'Texas White House,' a Hill Country ranch. Eisenhower vacationed in Newport, Rhode Island. John F. Kennedy went to Palm Springs, California, and his family's compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, among other places. Richard Nixon had the 'Southern White House' on Key Biscayne, Florida, while Joe Biden traveled frequently to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, while also visiting Nantucket, Massachusetts, and St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. George H.W. Bush was a frequent visitor to his family's property in Kennebunkport, Maine, and didn't let the start of the Gulf War in 1991 detour him from a monthlong vacation there. His son, George W. Bush, opted for his ranch in Crawford, Texas, rather than a more posh destination. Presidential visits help tourism in some places more than others, but Engel said that for some Americans, 'if the president of the Untied States goes some place, you want to go to the same place.' He noted that visitors emulating presidential vacations are out 'to show that you're either as cool as he or she, that you understand the same values as he or she or, heck, maybe you'll bump into he or she.'
Montreal Gazette
a day ago
- Montreal Gazette
Inside the CFL: Bianca Maciocia following in her dad's footsteps with Alouettes
By They live under the same roof, but there will be no ride-share program on this day to the Alouettes' practice at Stade Hébert. Indeed, Als general manager Danny Maciocia and his daughter Bianca, a football operations assistant intern with the team, only travel together when the team has a home game at Molson Stadium. 'When she's at work she's an employee, she's not my daughter,' he explained. An unpaid employee at that, given her intern status. But at least Maciocia and his wife, Sandra Vaz, allow the eldest of their three daughters to continue living rent-free at home. Bianca has been working under the shadow of her father since February, when she first approached him with the idea. She spent three weeks at the Alouettes' 2023 training camp and spent six summers at the Université de Montréal when her father was the Carabins' head coach. Fluent in four languages (English, French, Italian and Portuguese), Bianca hardly required this abrupt change in career paths. She graduated from Concordia University in 2023 with a degree in human relations and organizational development. She had been accepted into the University of Ottawa to pursue a bachelor's degree in sports management, and was in the early stages of working for Air Canada in its flight operation department out of the airline's St-Laurent headquarters. 'I think I've always looked up to my dad,' she said. 'I've always been in awe of what he does, the industry and the type of job. I want to try to work in the industry and do something in the same field. I see it as an industry where there's a lot of opportunity, and there isn't enough representation among women.' It's difficult to determine when the seeds were first planted, although there's a famous 2005 photo of Maciocia holding his daughter on his shoulder, their arms raised and fists clenched, after Edmonton's head coach at the time led the team to a Grey Cup victory against Montreal. Maciocia has spent three decades in football and got his start in the CFL with the Alouettes in 1996 as a volunteer offensive quality-control coach, where he would break down game film and write reports. So, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And while it's possible Bianca wouldn't be with Montreal except for the direct connection, such hirings aren't unusual in professional football. When Wally Buono was B.C.'s head coach and GM, he hired his daughter, Christie, to work in the front office. Tom Gamble, a senior personnel executive with the Jacksonville Jaguars last season, once hired his son to work for him. Calgary head coach Dave Dickenson has his brother, Craig, on his staff as special teams co-ordinator. 'At the end of the day, if you can't take care of your own children, who will?' Maciocia asked rhetorically while admitting he spoke with Buono and Gamble before moving forward. 'If I'm not going to help out my own flesh and blood, who will?' The Alouettes have a history of providing women with significant front-office positions. Catherine Hickman (née Raiche) is the Cleveland Browns' assistant GM. But the former lawyer got her start in Montreal as the team's co-ordinator of football administration before becoming assistant GM under Jim Popp. And, this season, Allyson Sobol was promoted to director of football operations. Bianca reports directly to Sobol and said: 'Maybe I'm just here because I'm his daughter, but I want people to see me as my own person. See what I can bring to the table.' She wears many hats for the Alouettes and has numerous responsibilities. Her tenure began with attending last winter's CFL draft combine in Regina. She was tasked with gathering the players' social insurance numbers and made sure each one has health insurance coverage under the provincial RAMQ program. No task is too big or small. And, to broaden her knowledge, she began taking an online pro scouting course last month. 'I love working with Bianca,' Sobol said. 'She pays a lot of attention to detail. Anything I ask is done without fault. She has been an awesome addition. I'm starting to give her more responsibility.' While both of Bianca's parents supported her decision, Danny also understands he's one of nine CFL GMs and works in a cutthroat business where almost everyone, eventually, will be fired. It's the nature of the industry. 'We had a discussion around the kitchen table (concerning) how she's going to be treated, viewed and looked at,' Danny said. 'She has been nothing short of outstanding. She gets it. She has a feel. She can read the room, read people. I don't think there's going to be too many situations where she's going to get caught off guard. 'But I also told her 'you can do better than this.'' Bianca admitted she walks the fine line between team employee and daughter of the GM, careful never to overstep. While their bond remains strong, there are things that are discussed at Olympic Stadium, while other matters are broached around the dinner table. She inherited her drive, passion — and stubbornness — from her father. While it's far too early in this journey to determine where her career path will lead, Bianca's immediate mandate, provided she returns to the organization next season, is to get on the non-player salary cap. 'I don't know if I tell the general manager,' she said. 'I probably tell my dad. That's one of those conversations you have at home, not the office.'
