Originally Posted by
TravellingSalesman
Very little in this story makes sense to me.
You live in Montreal for 14 years and don't understand how thin-skinned Quebecers are about language issues? The Quebecor papers publish a story a week how you can't speak French in Montreal any more.
A CEO who deliberately or by gross neglect spits in the face of a major customer base? Sure, customer service is not his are, but some basic PR skills are surely part of the package for a CEO?
Just doesn't add up. Almost wondering if this is a dead cat, but what would he want to distract from?
I did not want to wade in to this mess but you summarized it much better than I could. As a French Canadian, I could care less if he is perfectly bilingual, or how much of his speech was in French, blah blah.
It is the complete tone deafness (almost Rhodesian) and lack of political knowledge (at best) to say that Montréal was wonderful because you don't need to speak French. I am annoyed at how stupid he is, not at what languages he may or may not speak.
Add to that an irrelevant mayoral candidate (election is next weekend) that wants a referendum on making Montreal a bilingual city state (shades of the long forgotten Richard Libman and the Equality Party) that is fanning the flames and I feel right back in the 70s when my father was Bourassa's Chief of Staff and half my family hated the other half. Fun times.
Happily, this will all blow over and we can go back to the vast majority of Montrealers that have been getting along for at least the last two decades swimmingly.
But boy is he stupid.