After three years of trying to learn French, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon can’t manage much more than “Bonjour, comment allez-vous”?
Throughout her adult life, Simon had every opportunity to learn French if she had truly wanted to. Enough with the excuses.
There are many of our fellow citizens from Indigenous communities who could have better served as governor general.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blundered by nominating Simon and Julie Payette before her. Simon should in good faith follow in her predecessor’s footsteps and resign.
Iris Shestowsky, Montreal
Replace monuments to Queen Isabella
B’nai Brith can make an important contribution against antisemitism in Montreal by opposing the city’s two monuments in MacDonald and Laurier parks honouring Queen Isabella of Spain.
On March 31, 1492, Queen Isabella, initiating the Spanish Inquisition, signed the Edict of Expulsion with her husband, Ferdinand, stating that all Spanish Jews who refused to convert must leave Spain by July 31 of that year or face execution.
Furthermore, in the city of Montreal, Isabella Ave. could simply be disassociated from Queen Isabella, as Côte-St-Luc has done with the western edge of Isabella Ave. In Hampstead, the street’s name simply becomes Ellerdale.
The two monuments in MacDonald and Laurier parks celebrating Isabella for the “discovery” of the Americas can be replaced by something far better and moved to museums. This would be the moral thing to do.
Shloime Perel, Côte-St-Luc
Let’s learn from directive fiasco
While the new directive on the use of languages other than French in the health-care system is good news and a positive step, the lesson to be learned from this fiasco is that the English-speaking community must always be vigilant.
The bureaucrats in Quebec City seem to have no realistic understanding, or may not even care, about anglophones. Nor do they seem to understand the community’s constitutional rights.
Gerry Raven, Hampstead
Legault plays with double standard
The hypocrisy displayed by Premier François Legault seems to know no bounds.
On the one hand, he has waded into federal politics, requesting that the Bloc Québécois support the Conservatives in a no-confidence vote against the Liberal government.
But on the other hand, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested last year that his government might ask the Supreme Court to issue guidance on the use of the notwithstanding clause, Legault considered it to be a “frontal attack against the capacity of (the Quebec) nation to protect our collective rights.”
Why is it that while Legault feels free to advocate his positions, it was Quebec bashing when Trudeau advocated his?
Sadly, this double standard seems to have become a cornerstone of the Coalition Avenir Québec’s strategies. It looks like a transparent and hypocritical attempt to play to the CAQ’s base in the regions.
Allen Rubin, Westmount
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