The Face of Fascism

The offending instagram post in question

The relationship between the police and society in Canada is an interesting one.  In many ways, we are seen as a progressive country in terms of liberty and the law.  In reality, there is a constant threat of minor fascism here in Canada.  I say "minor" because fascism gets thrown around a lot and often ends up either undermining an argument (by the overzealous progressive) or being used to undermine an argument (by the tactical conservative).  We inherit some of our laws around national security from Britain, most infamously the Official Secrets Act and in theory that makes us in some ways a less free country than the U.S.

There is also a long history of police services behaving far beyond the bounds or their legal role.  At the federal level, the RCMP is often up to privacy-invading shenanigans.  At the local level, there are many incidents of police abuse and murder (the victims often being First Nations people).  I won't go into them all here, but these incidents demonstrate how easily it is for authority in a society to abuse its power.

The recent change in strategy by the SPVM, the Montreal police force, against the student protests here in Montreal is a good example of this.  It's complicated, because there is also an annual anti-police brutality march here that always turns violent and the two groups, while distinct, are also intermingled.  During the height of the protests last year, Jean Charest's liberals (never a friend to freedom) passed Bill 78, which was a major attack on the right of freedom of expression and gave the cops all kinds of license to shut down any protest.  The PQ repealed it (think about that freaked out anglophone liberals), but within that bill was a municipal by-law (P-6) that gives the executive committee of Montreal (basically a gang of fucking criminals who should be pilloried for a month and then exiled to Labrador, and I'm really not exaggerating here) the power to refuse any protest or demonstration.  There is a bunch of other sneaky shit in there as well, that basically lets the police say yes or no to a protest. 

So P-6 is still in effect. Meanwhile, the PQ reversed the tuition hikes and then brought them back, though at a much more reasonable level.  This deflated a lot of the energy of the protests and the cops have clearly taken this as an excuse to amp up their repression.  They have been using "kettling", which was declared unconstitutional to round up protestors and then to take pictures of them and get all their info for future intelligence work.

All that is already pretty disturbing, but where their intel work "paid off" is even more disturbing.  Earlier this week, they arrested a 20-year old protest hipster chick for harrassment.  What had she done?  She had taken a picture of a piece of graffitti art (seen here) that showed the SPVM spokesperson with a bullet through his head and then disemminated it to the internet via instagram.  The law they used to arrest her with is the one that was designed to prevent stalking and to catch potentially violent criminals when they make threats.

The tactic of making the oppressor the victim has been around for decades.

There are three things here that push this move into the realm of fascism.  The first is, as mentioned above, the perversion of the law that was designed to protect an individual to use it to go after an individual who was critiquing a political body.  The second is that it's pretty obvious that they have got someone going through their database and then tracking down individuals online and looking for reasons to go after them.  Finally, the real nasty technique here is the co-opting of the victim status.  This is a classic neo-con and corporate bullying technique.  It serves many purposes. One of the bigger ones is to elicit sympathy from centrist citizens.  In this case, I suspect, it will blow up in their faces.  As we've seen time and time again, if there is one thing that the people are generally united on it is their right to use the internet freely.  There is already a backlash online against this move and I suspect we will see the SPVM back off.  Though you never know.  Organizations like these do tend to "double-down on stupid" so they may amp up this strategy.  We will be watching.

Awaken from winter slumber, blog!

Arise gentle mountain.

I've been neglecting Briques du Neige the last year or so.  I have many excuses and explanations.  The big concrete one is that my wife gave birth in October and the child's fierce intelligence and cutting wit suggest that I am indeed the father.  So that's been keeping me busy.  The vaguer explanation for the lack of prooduction here is perhaps more interesting.  It's taken me a while to wrestle with it.  It's not really laziness or lack of motivation. It's just that nothing seems special enough any more to merit a blog post (meta aside: is anything ever?  Probably not, so point taken and let's just move on).  I think what is happening is that after nine years, I have integrated into my life here in Montreal to the point where I have lost that outsider, observer perspective.  I am living my life and everything just seems normal.  When people from outside Montreal ask me about the corruption scandal going on, I am a bit surprised that they don't already know everything about it.  I mean isn't everybody following Monique Muise's awesome twitter feed?  The snow is melting and Clark street was not a total garbage fest for once, but that's just spring time and I might as well be talking about the weather. I still don't feel like I am truly from here, but I have never felt like I am truly from anywhere in my life.  I think for me this is about as "home" as it gets, when I don't feel like blogging about my city anymore.

That being said, there still is a lot going on here.  The gradual evolution of Mile End towards true, awful gentrification marches on relentlessly.  The cops in Montreal are demonstrating a culture of fascism and oppression that is rivalling the RCMP.  The Charbonneau commission is on fucking fire.  And finally, finally, wonderful springtime is here (or was for a couple days, then got skittish and backed off, but now appears to be well and truly here).

So with the buds and the dogshit and the birds living in the power line housing outside our apartment, this blog will also finally poke its head out from the cold and the snow.

Briques du Neige has been pretty focused on Montreal life, culture and politics, with a few diversions here and there.  I am going to widen the scope going forward, for the reasons stated above, and hope to share a broader range of my spazzy ramblings and inane observations.  There is a much greater potential for angry rants, so be warned.

Re-organize your bookmarks, put me back in your blogroll, release the paparazzi.  Briques du Neige is back motherfuckers!

How to be a successful journalist in Canada today

Lie and make shit up.  Well to be precise, lie and make shit up that fits in with the existing conventional wisdom that you've already lied about and made up.

So here is the phrase that is ringing in my ears right now and making me want to drive down to the CBC building and mash my cat's droppings into the keyboard of everyone who had any editorial influence on it being written:

"Language tensions are as common in Montreal as warm bagels."

Excuse me for a moment while I go attend my primal scream therapy class.

YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, aside from the super-lame and cliched reference to bagels, this statement is just flat out wrong. Language tensions are extremely rare in Montreal.  We pride ourselves on being a mixed-up bunch of polyglots.  There is tension about traffic on the bridges.  There is tension between cars and bikes.  There is tension about parking and snow removal.  When I think about it, Montreal is just not a very tense city.  That's one of the reasons I like it here.  Sure there are little conflicts here and there over language and culture, but no more than in any other Canadian city.  I've seen way more acts of overt racism in Vancouver than I've seen here.

So first of all, this statement is wrong.  It's just made up because it's what the CBC wants the rest of Canada to believe.  But that's not even what makes it so bad.  What makes it so bad is that some nutcase killed a person last night and yelled out "Les anglos se reveillent" (in a québécois accent by the way).  His statement than ties his horrible, insane act to the issue of relations between anglophones and francophones in Quebec.

We still don't know what was going on in this guy's brain, but it is conceivable that he wants to exacerbate these relations.

We don't want this.  We want to get along and exist peacefully with all the different cultures and languages around us.

Don't we?

Well judging by the conversations I have had with my workmates, my basketball buddies and a bunch of people on Twitter, the answer is yes.  The hundreds of people, anglophones, francophones and allophones marching in a candlelight vigil in front of the Metropolis tonight seem to further confirm the desire for us all to live in a peaceful society.

The media doesn't seem to have this same desire.  No, they seem quite excited to take the words of this nutcase and amplify them by making up a version of Montreal where language tensions are a common part of the daily existence.  A teacher friend of mine that I play basketball told me that many students of his 4th grade class asked him if Quebec was going to separate now.  This is what you are doing, Canadian media.  You are freaking out little children by making shit up, sending that message to their parents and then freaking them out.

That is one phrase that I heard while making the mistake of listening to the CBC for 5 minutes.  I can only imagine the bullshit I could have heard on the even more stupid anglo news stations here and god only knows what the rest of the country's shit media is saying.  I already saw an editorial in the Globe and Mail that suggested that it was now Harper's move to counteract the PQ in order to get ahead of them in this big new conflict that was for sure going to happen (at least in this case the majority of commenters called bullshit on that).

So if anyone is reading this out there, please, please, please stop listening to the mainstream media.  CBC, Global, CTV.  All purveyors of lies.

We're doing just fine here.

The Language of Fear is the language of losers

Again, a lot of my impressions may be because much of my information on the candidates' positions is coming through the english media (and even that is basically about 45 minutes a day of CBC radio one), but I am noticing a real trend with the sovereignist and francophone stances coming from the the candidates and especially the PQ.  They are coming from a place of fear.  They talk about the french language being in jeopardy on the island.  All their proposals are negative ones.  Don't let people do this, fine people for doing that.

This kind of thinking is the thinking of losers.  A loser is someone who has already lost, has a tendency to lose and spends most of his energy worrying about the repercussions of losing and how to avoid them.  The winner is thinking about the next victory, enjoying life and planning for future challenges.  We all walk between those two extremes to some degree.

It's very odd that these politicians have such a loser mentality.  They are the ones who have already won.  They succeeded in throwing off the oppressive yoke of the old english and catholic establishment and turning Quebec into a unique society, dynamic and independent and deeply culturally different from everyone else around it.  They have created an entire generation of francophones who are deeply connected to their cultural roots, history and language.

Instead of pride and confidence, they react with contempt and insecurity.  They ignore their idealistic students and they put laws in place to suppress the minorities who come here to participate in their rich society.  They treat immigrants who want to come and be a part of this rich society with suspicion and disdain.  And then they wonder why they all want to move to Ontario.

How about some positive laws?  How about expanded french language programs?  How about government assistance for immigrants who want to work in the civil service to help them learn french?  How about a corp of translators to help immigrants navigate the provincial and municipal bureaucracies (which makes for great jobs for fully bilingual members of those ethnic communities, thus further embedding them in Quebec society)?  How about scholarships for francophones to go to english CEGEPs and universities so they can then increase the opportunities for english-speaking service companies to install themselves in Quebec (like the thriving videogame industry here)?

This province has so much potential.  We have an incredibly motivated and integrated youth who are more deeply connected to their polity than any other province in the country.  We are a creative powerhouse (Cirque de Soleil is the tip of the iceberg of cultural exports we could be selling).  We have skills in agriculture, industrial development and resource extraction.  We breed great soldiers.  We have the urban jewel of North America in Montreal (probably the second-most fun city to visit in North America after New Orleans).

Bref, Quebec is a kick-ass place that should be kicking more ass and stop cowering in a corner worrying about who is or isn't speaking french.

Voting in Quebec, a pleasant experience (unlike the election itself)

Though the Quebec election has been pretty frustrating for the most part, with the major parties deliberately avoiding the crucial topics like corruption, student tuitions, the economy and the environment and instead focusing on emotional and divisive calls to nationalism, the actual act of voting here in Quebec is quite pleasant.

My wife and I decided to take advantage of the advanced polling option and so we went out after dinner to our polling station, a few blocks away.  It was held in the common room of an old folks home.  There was a very short line-up.  Unfortunately, my wife forgot her wallet at home.  We debated about what to do and then asked the woman at the door if we had any options.  It turned out that I could attest (assermenter) to her identity, which involved a little bit of paperwork.  I had to prove that I knew her name, her address and her birthday and then I had to sign a document.  She then voted.

We left and had walked about two blocks when we heard somebody yelling. I turned around and there was the préposé (the official in charge).  He had come running after us.  At first, I thought that I had left my ID there, but it turned out that my wife was also supposed to sign a paper.  It was the first time any of the people working there had encountered this situation, so they hadn't realized it until after we had left (my wife had found it a bit funny that she didn't have to sign anything).

So we went back and finished the paperwork.  Everybody was exceptionally friendly and polite during the entire process.  The whole experience was very pleasant, with a sense of civic responsibility that one can sometimes forget about.  The two people working there were francophones but spoke good english and were apologetic about speaking french when they learned my wife is more comfortable in english. 

It's easy to forget what a warm and open society Québec is when your exposure to it is through the news media.  I am grateful to live in a democracy where I can both make a choice as to who will lead us and interact with the other people in my community in a way that reminds me the pleasure of living in a gentle and civic society.

Hey Quebec Anglos, stop voting (or not voting) from a place of fear

I know the CBC and other anglophone media love to emphasize this stuff for the sake of controversy or whatever is driving their agenda these days, so I may simply be reacting to media hype.  On CBC Radio 1 they are now having this inane series called "None of the Above" which purports to examine why anglos in Quebec aren't voting.  Then they go and inteview people who complain that nobody represents them. 

It drives me bonkers when I hear this argument.  It's actually code for "these people are all francophones and therefore they don't represent my interests."  It's true that none of the leaders are addressing the concerns of the anglophone majority and many of them are actively supporting policies that are antithetical to anglophone concerns in Quebec (growing the hated OQLF, planning for a referendum, restricting growth of english schools, etc.).   The biggie is separation.  Again, I don't know if this is actually real or just the media creating, but it has become kind of a deal-breaker issue.  This plays big time outside of Quebec to the idiots in Ontario or the even bigger retards in the west who love to get angry about Quebec even though they do not have a fucking clue about anything having to do with anything here.

[Aside: I have to rant about this, because it makes me so crazy, but here is a prime example of the kind of stupidity I am talking about:  Unfriending Marois on Facebook because she is "a politician whose only goal in public life is to break up the country that I live in."  Okay, what the fuck?  Really?  Let's review the logic one more time.  You hate separatists and all that they stand for.  They stand for an independent Quebec nation based on their cultural values.  So therefore you hate their cultural values.  So why do you want them in the country that you live in?  How do you propose to keep them in Canada if you hate everything they stand for?  Should Quebec be like a giant amusement park controlled by the Federal government where anglos can come and look at the quaint Quebeckers with their emphasis on the arts and education instead of the hard realities of pure commerce?  It's like you are a big family and everybody hates one aunt who married into the family, but if she tries to get a divorce everyone is outraged because that will "destroy" the family.  Is this just a geographic argument then?  Should we just round up all the French-Canadians and ship them out somewhere so Canada can keep the land and resources and the Québécois can keep their culture elsewhere out of our hair?  Talk of "destroying Canada" is just a bullshit argument and anybody who brings it up needs to get slapped.  If, as you read this, you are thinking right now that Quebec separating is "destroying Canada", please feel the virtual stinging slap of either my open hand or my back hand, depending on how I feel at the moment.  Then when you have stopped reeling, come to your senses.  Okay, I feel much better now and so should you.]

I got distracted from my main point here, which is that as an anglo voter in Quebec you should just ignore all the talk about separation and a referendum.  Look at your candidates from a practical perspective and choose the one that fits your economic and political positions the best.  The main thing is that WE HAVE TO GET RID OF CHAREST.  The corruption that he has allowed to flourish must be stopped. It's far and away the biggest problem in this province, it's why our roads are so bad, why our publics works projects are so shoddy and slow, it's tangentially responsible for all kinds of other inefficiencies and high prices that we suffer here.  If you are a leftie environmentalist like me, vote Quebec Solidaire.  If you are more of a rightie business-type (who might have voted for Charest in the past), then vote for the CAQ.  I can't really support Marois--her stance on immigration and other cultures reflects a profound and problematic racism of ignorance in Quebec and I don't really see the PQ doing much about the corruption since they were deep in it not so long ago themselves--but she is still a better choice than Charest if you are more of a centrist.

Quebec is stagnating and it has been allowed to stagnate because voters playing it safe have allowed Charest and his cronies to remain in power.  They have done nothing for anybody, except their mafia developer friends.  It's time for him to go and the anglos in the West Island can help by knocking out a few bricks in the wall this election. 

Do not worry about a referendum.  It's not going to happen.  The PQ will not get a majority and if they do, they will see the moment they start talking about actually doing a referendum what a mess it will create for them politically.  Marois is just parrotting to the powerbrokers in her party to appease the old guard who actually fought for sovereignty back in the day and can't accept that they have lost that war (despite having won many great battles).

Go vote.

Young Québécois need to work more?

So this week's cultural/political meme is the reaction to François Legault, the leader of the CAQ (does caquiste sound as bad in french as it does in english?) said that young Quebeckers need to work harder and be more like their Asian or Jewish counterparts.

As a middle-aged curmudgeon, my first instinct was "damn straight!"  I deal with a lot of these young Quebecers in my job, idealistic college-age men and women, on a daily basis.  They are pretty fun, lively people but very entitled and painfully uneducated in basic life skills.  There is also that sense of entitlement that is some mix of their age (generation Z?), their culture (despite the Révolution Tranquille, Québec mamas still do everything for their kids, it seems) and their sphere of interest (educated environmentalists often do not get their hands dirty).  As the administrator, I am often the bad guy when I tell them basic realities.  At times, I think a good year at a work camp would be of great benefit to all of them.

However, when I started to think about it, despite their soft bourgeois sensibilities, I realize that they actually work quite hard.  Many of them are full-time students who are also working 20-30 hours a week at the same time.  They also volunteer for many non-paying activities and participate in trainings and workshops that can take up an entire weekend.  They haven't chosen money-making career paths, but they are certainly putting in the hours and the sweat to put themselves in a position to fulfill their ideals and help improve the future of Québec.

Perhaps m. Legault was referring obliquely to the student protests and this was his way of courting the votes of the frustrated suburbanite voter who couldn't undersand or sympathize with their movement.  You may have many criticisms of the student protest movement, but I don't think you can say they were lazy.  For the students that I spoke to, their anxiety was all centered around feeling very strongly about the cause but also feeling really stressed out that they couldn't finish their studies.  There was nobody who was "yay! no school!" (which would have been my reaction).  In terms of political engagement and activity, the Quebec student movement is arguably the least lazy population in all of North America since Bush invaded Iraq.

I know that droput rates are really high here, and I know that I am talking about a very small statistical slice of people (and quite possibly outliers).  However, when I look around at Quebec society, it's not the young people who are not working hard.  To me, it looks like the middle-aged people who are the ones not working hard.  The dozens of pot-bellied dudes standing around a street being repaved, all sharing their expert opinion while two of them actually spread the tar.  The STM workers who refuse to get up out of their chairs at the Metro kiosks to come to the interior side to talk to a customer.  The guys at the plumbing supply store who can't even be bothered to say "what can I do for you?" before they steer you to the wrong overpriced, cheaply-made product.  And finally the fleshy, pink-faced politicians who all look way too much like they have been overfeeding from the public trough.

So m. Legault, I think maybe you were pointing to the wrong age group.

Working hard to take down another plate of poutine à l'italienne (okay, cheap shot, I know, but come on...)