Some belated presents I’m sending off to François Legault, Justin Trudeau, Valérie Plante, Joe Biden and others.
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I’ve always been a late bird who leaves for movies, weddings and airports when he should be arriving, so I’m still behind on my holiday shopping.
But here at last are some belated presents I’m sending off to people you know, to help us all have a better next year.
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To Premier François Legault: a two-day free package tour of English-speaking Montreal, so you can see it’s changed enormously since you grew up in the West Island.
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You’ll visit anglo schools which teach superb Quebec French — unlike my own childhood in English Protestant school. Back then my anglo French teacher Mrs. Schwartz spoke with an accent that was one part Paris and two parts Cavendish Mall.
But today you’ll see entire generations of anglo kids coming out parfaitement bilingue. That’s more important to Quebec anglos than to you M. Legault, because as parents we want our kids to find good jobs and stay here.
Next, take in Schwartz’s deli and yak with the counter guys, like Lucien Bouchard often did when he was premier. You might discover English Montrealers now make about $5,000 less annually than francophones.
We’re hardly the ruling class anymore, we’re often the people serving you.
Also included: a 24-hour free course in conflict resolution at McGill, where almost half of all students speak fluent French.
The tour should help you realize we anglos are friends of the French language, not enemies. But if that doesn’t work, next year I’ll send you a ticket to 1955 Duplessis’s Quebec.
You’ll find many things you’re proposing would be more at home, before the Quiet Revolution.
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To President Joe Biden: a goodbye bouquet and big thank-you party.
You did a great job saving America from a second four-year season of the madcap Donald Trump Unreality Show. You helped get the U.S. economy back on its feet after COVID-19.
But now it’s time to leave while there’s still (barely) time for someone younger to replace you.
Leaders often outstay their welcome, caught up in the hubris of being treated like top dog, though they usually give other reasons for staying on, like:
a) You need me — only I can win!
b) I haven’t completed my policy agenda yet.
c) No one else can fly the presidential jet.
But if you lose to Trump, as polls now suggest, you’ll be remembered more for what you didn’t do than what you did. It’s time to go, Joe.
To Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: a joint place at Biden’s goodbye party. Like him you seem overly attached to your post, although polls indicate you’ll lose ignobly to Pierre Poilievre.
I don’t share the anger many Canadians have for you, but after two terms, you’ve passed your best-before date, and we crave new PM product choices.
Take a bow, say “au revoir” and follow politics in Le Devoir.
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To Valérie Plante: I wish you good health after your recent collapse. In some ways you’re a class act, from your opposition to the university tuition hike to your stand against Bill 21’s anti-hijab laws.
But I’m sending you a small car, electric of course, so you can drive in Montreal traffic and see what the rest of us live though in our daily Game of Cones.
It’s great you often bike to work. I’m an avid cyclist, even in winter. But like two million Montrealers I also drive a car, in a city with more cars than people.
This is among the coldest, snowiest big cities in the world and it’s time to see it like most Montrealers do in winter: through their car windows in a traffic jam.
That includes the “mobility squads” you promised us to improve construction traffic, which are stuck in construction traffic and immobile.
To Quebec Liberals: a charismatic young leader.
Our premier has become unpopular with everyone from 550,000 mostly francophone, recently striking public sector workers to every last English-speaking person in Quebec.
Many people have temporarily parked their votes with affable PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, but he’s a hard-core sovereignist while two-thirds of Quebecers aren’t.
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You Liberals need a bilingual francophone chief who’s a Quebec nationalist and a proud Canadian. Someone to unite Quebecers around the many things we share, not divide us over the few we don’t.
Someone who reflects how Quebecers treat each other on the streets, not in the tabloid media.
To Montreal Jews and Muslims: Peace in the Middle East.
The nightmares there have exported their problems across the globe, causing acts of vandalism and threats against both communities, even here.
To Montreal Muslims: a gift certificate to our best Jewish delis (try the pickled herring), and a peaceful, humane chat with the owner and staff.
To Montreal Jews: the same experience in a good local Arabic restaurant.
Much of the world is at war, but here in Montreal we have to preserve our long-standing, precious peace.
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To all you readers: A mild January, an ice storm-free February and a summer that begins in March.
Happy New Year, Peace on Earth and try the pickled herring.
joshfreed49@gmail.com
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