4 ~ Wednesday, December 28, 1988 - North Shore News ms AS A piece of legislation, Quebec’s Bill 101 stank to high heaven. it made a mockery of equality in Canada. It was anti-democratic. It amounted to linguistic fascism. It was regressive, repressive, reac- tionary and anal-retentive. The bill that is being substituted in its place is even worse. Tt was one thing when Rene Levesque legislated the bill in 1977. His goal, after all, was the honest, if seditious, one of a separate French-speaking state. One didn’t have to agree with Levesque or like him. But at least what you saw and heard was what you got. Under Robert Bourassa, we get hypocrisy, convoluted logic, smoke and mirrors, a forked tongue that ties itself in knots. For him to use the ‘‘not- withstanding” clause to override the Constitution to maintain Fren- ch-only signs in Quebec after Ot- tawa has spent $4 billion trying to make the rest of the country bilin- gual is the sort of thing that re- Council approves highrise ANOTHER HIGHRISE will grace West Vancouver’s skyline following district council approval of the planned development’s Nearby residents were not happy with the prospect of another tower on the waterfront, but Ald. Rod Day pointed out that the proposal for the 2200-block of Bellevue Avenue called for a 14-storey building in an area that could have permitted 20 floors. The design has also incorporated some of the stepped features used in lower buildings that allow for terraced gardens. A more residential character was aimed for with window variation. The lobby will be as open and transparent as possible. On the basis of the design and information provided, Ald. Andy Danyliu recommended proceeding as expeditiously as possible, rather than ‘‘drag things out with postur- ing.’’ “If we had our ‘druthers’ this property would not be zoned for residential ... But I believe that this architect has done a terrific job in bringing forth a creative, imagina- tive and attractive design,’’ said Ald. Mark Sager. Ald. Rod Day expressed a desire to investigate the possibility of reducing the size of the buildings allowed in the apartment zone on the waterfront. “This, however, is a good ex- ample of a building that is just about right for the site,’* said Day. Not all focal residents agreed, and predicted the new, 12- condominium building would in- crease traffic on Bellevue Avenue and decried the addition of another building to the ‘wall of apartments” that lower over parts of the seawalk. West Van minds you the word ‘‘gall’’ must stem from ‘‘Gallic.’’ The ‘‘inside-outside’’ com- promise promised by Bourassa, meaning that some English can be used on signs inside businesses, but not outside, is nothing more than tokenism. It's an insult. At its worst, Bill 101 amounted to racism It was properly struck down by the Supreme Court, as well as Quebec’s own Court of Appeal. The legislation introduced to replace it does every bit as much damage to our so-called Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And it does it ina more deviou-. dishonest way. What rights? What freedoms? If you can’t even put up a signina public place in English, you are be- ing oppressed, brother. There are no two ways about it. As for the rule of law, forget it. Arbitrary and prejudicial political wilfulness is the rule. Legality, in this situation, is a side-effect of Iy Health Club-Wishing Bos HUNTER © strictly personal ® bias. I or what it is worth, looking through -ny files, | found this headline on a clipping, dated Feb- ruary 2, 1987: ‘Quebec to allow bilingual signs, Bourassa says.”" it quotes the premier as promising to take ‘‘the best stand, the most responsible stand’’ to ensure that minority rights are respected. So much for responsibility! So much for fairness! U, nder Robert Bourassa, we get hypocrisy, convoluted people in this country live in Quebec. Slowly but steadily, they have been infiltrating and taking over the civil service. As anyone visiting Ottawa quickly notices, French is the first, not the second language at the switchboards of the capital's multitude of bureaucracies. Unilingual Canadians can still thrive in the professions in many parts of the country — although not in Quebec. Increasingly, how- ever, we are faced with the fact that to gain the top jobs in politics, government and foreign service, the judiciary, and several profes- sional areas like public relations and economics, we have to be pro- ficient in both ‘‘founding"’ lan- guages. I put ‘‘founding”’ in quotes because the true founding lan- guages are Cree, Ojibwa, In- uktitut, Haida, Kutenaian, Salishan, Tlingit, Wakashan, etc. logic, smoke and mirrors, a forked tongue that ties itself in knots.” In his farewell speech, after relinquishing the authority he had abused so thoroughly, Pierre Trudeau promised Quebecers that French power was entrenched in Ottawa ‘‘forever.’’ Certainly, his efforts to create a bilingual civil service across Canada was a master-stroke. The fact is that most bilingual With typical ethnocentric histor- ical bias, by ‘‘founding'’ we mean the language of the conquest and the language of the conquest of the conquerors. Bilingual Canadians already en- joy all the perks of a privileged class. They come from middle or upper-income families. They have a better education. They already earn appreciably more than their poor unilingual cousins. Of these elite bilingual Cana- dians, 60 per ceni are from Quebec, despite the fact that bare- ly more than one-quarter of the population hails from there. There’s the ‘‘balance’’ of bilin- gualism for you. Jt has even got to the point where serious political analysis of the results of the last few elections indicates that nobody except a francophone can get elected prime minister in this country any longer. The reason is simply that the Quebecers vote in a bloc for the native son, while the rest of the country scatters its votes to the winds. Without that solid bloc of French votes, nobody can gain a majority. I don’t mind that our national leaders should be bilingual. That’s fair enough, since the job calls for somebody who can communicate with the six million people in Quebec as well as the other 19 mil- lion of us. But that the leader must in- evitably come from Quebec is something else entirely. That’s despotic. It is, in fact, a form of reverse neo-colonialism. The Revenge of the Cradle is complete, n'est ce pas? If the price of Quebec remaining in Confederation is that we have to be ruled by a Quebecer, I say screw ite OF PROCEEDS DONATED TO. ‘CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL” RON ZALKO HEALTH CLUB INTERNATIONAL PLAZA COMPLEX NORTH SHORE 986-3487 RON ZALKO FITNESS CONNECTION 2660 W. 4th Avenue Kitsilano 736-0341 RON ZALKO MUSCLE CONNECTION 2625 W. 4th Avenue Kitsilano 736-0341