ONE MINUTE MOORE RANDALL MOORE Butt out! We get along just fine Sometimes I don’t know whether to
laugh or cry. The world as we know it is
crumbling. Riots in the U-K. Dictators on the run. Europe almost broke. The United States already there. Then there’s Norway and Pakistan and famine in Somalia and on and on we could go. And here? The big jaw-dropping
story in Ottawa this past summer? French. As in: “secret shoppers”
checking to see what kind of French service is out there. Or, put another away…public servants being paid to go shopping. Pretty sad, isn’t it? Snooping around on honest business owners! Graham Fraser is Commissioner of
Official Languages. I used to enjoy his work as a journalist. Now he’s like the newly-retired neighbor with too much time on his hands. (What to do? I know! Let’s complain about the lack of French services in Ottawa!) Mr. Fraser says it’s easier to get an
English menu in Barcelona than a French one in the capital. What about Gatineau? Are these
“secret shoppers” checking for English menus on the Quebec side? It’s one thing for tourist attractions,
such as museums, to operate in both official languages. We get that. But Joe Blow selling peanuts on the Sparks Street mall?! It’s b.s. is what it is. I mean, do these bureaucrats have any idea how difficult it is to run a business? Has Mr. Fraser ever had to meet a payroll? Why create an artificial divide? Really. Talk to any francophone
visiting this city and I can assure you they were happy with their stay here. So who is complaining and why waste
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40 grand on something so silly and unnecessary? Why? Because it’s a make-work project, that’s why. These faceless bureaucrats have to justify their existence so they spend OUR money spying on US! Leave us alone is what I say, leave
us alone and discover that − hey, we get along fine, s’il vous plait. As for Spain, I have no idea. That’s a luxury most of us can’t
afford. Speaking of b.s., how about Air
Canada paying an Orleans man $12,000 because he didn’t receive service in French? The man complained that when he asked a unilingual flight attendant in French for a 7-Up, he got a Sprite instead. Imagine. The horror of horrors. A Sprite! Yes, it’s true, Air Canada breached the Official Languages Act. So what? Stuff happens. As the
airline pointed out, sometimes it’s not always possible to provide all services in French. You know, like it’s not always possible to get service in English in Quebec hospitals. This man, a professional whiner, I
like to call him, says it was never about the money. Why then did he file suit in Federal court for more than half a million dollars if it wasn’t about the money? Just think how stupid we must look to the rest of the world. It’s embarrassing, it really is − yet indicative of how out of whack things have become. French, English, Sprite, 7-Up. Have we nothing better to worry
about?
You can hear Randall every morning on CHEZ 106
www.bounder.ca
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