How do you say ‘blah blah blah’ in French?

The ideas emanating from the weekend’s Parti Québécois national council meeting would be utterly laughable if not for one thing — some of these people were actually serious.

We shouldn’t be surprised because every time the PQ holds one of its policy conferences, conventions or navel-gazing wankfests, members usually tie their knickers in a knot trying to justify their attempts at social engineering as a logical extension of their desire to protect the French language.

The latest bright ideas: Forcing small businesses to adopt French as the language of the workplace; bullying high school graduates into French CEGEPs, imposing French on daycare centres, and making French the official language of Quebec’s maternity wards.
Okay! So I made that last one up, but just you wait.
PQ leader Pauline Marois told the motley gathering that there is a need to stop the erosion of French on the island of Montreal — the latest rallying cry.

A recent Léger Marketing poll revealed that close to 90 percent of Quebecers believe French is threatened on the island. And a growing myth exists that francophones have an increasingly hard time being served in their own language — a belief helped along by the musings of radio demagogues like Gilles Proulx and Benoît Dutrizac, who always found a reason to invite language zealots like Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste president Mario Beaulieu and Mouvement souverainiste windbag Gilles Rhéaume on air.

As a result, PQ president Jonathan Valois produced a well-calculated line on the weekend, whining about how annoyed he was to not be able to buy a bagel in French in Montreal.

Right!

But the numbers, worrisome to the “purs et durs”, don’t really back the hysterics.

It’s true that on the island, the number of people who speak mostly French at home fell to 54.2 percent in 2006 from 55.6 percent in 1996. And true, in the same time period the people who speak mostly English fell to 25.2 percent from 25.6. But the people who spoke other languages rose to 20.6 from 18.8 percent.

So of course, blame the English.

This “erosion” can easily be explained by the exodus of francophones from the island who are buggering off in droves to more tax-friendly, off-island sanctuaries.

But why let the facts get in the way of a fresh new batch of coercive measures.

Since people from minority ethnic groups, including English, insist on speaking their own language amongst themselves, sometimes in plain earshot of an impressionable francophone child who may be dragged over to the dark side of bilingualism, there oughta be a law.

The gathering of the PQ clan had little to do with garnering the support of a larger population that is not so allergic to bilingualism. It was all about playing to the base. An increasingly radicalized base that sees nothing wrong with lobbing threats and hurling invectives at any person, group or institution that does not see the world through its PQ blue-and-green-coloured glasses.

All insecure political parties do it. Left-wing parties genuflect whenever its bleeding-heart, tree-hugging base stamps its feet. And conservatives, on both sides of the border, spring to action whenever its “family values” fanatics pick up a bible.

Here, the PQ simply dusts off the old language issue, keeping its hard-line base of intolerant xenophobes in some sort of order.

When not in power, and not in a position to distribute taxpayer-funded largess, the PQ has but one tiresome rallying call — protect the French language. And when emitted, every sanctimonious hot-head with a grievance gets to belly up to a microphone and gripe.

No wonder the weekend confab also produced some Hérouxville-like blather, putting PQ leaders in a tight spot. When Marois, language critic Pierre Curzi and former language czar Louise Beaudoin met the press, they did so with the knowledge that half the population thinks their party is crazy.

On radio, you can practically hear in the inflections and tone of their voice the strain to walk the fine line between quasi-believable illogic and outright ridicule.

It’s worse on TV when you notice the constantly shrugging shoulders and raised eyebrows that seem to say, “well, isn’t it obvious?”

So really, there is not that much to get worked up about. The PQ does what it does because they can’t help themselves.

The rest of us should simply get on with our lives — in the language of our choice.

anthony@thesuburban.com