Great post Rod.

---

>I agree completely. I don't disagree with the spirit of the language laws so far as they go toward promoting and encouraging the use of French in Quebec. Compromise in these matters is desirable, and I think comes from mutual respect and understanding. As someone who lives comfortably in both languages in Quebec, my problem comes not so much with the laws, but with the way they are applied by the Parti Quebecois. If the intention of the laws, as they are now, is to promote and encourage the vitality of French in Quebec, I support them with few reservations. In practice, though, the Office makes it its daily business to target individuals and small merchants as its way of enforcing the law. The practices of the Office are petty, vindictive, arbitrary, and to me pretty much constitute a concerted campaign of harrassment against specific sectors of Quebec society. I don't think we help ourselves by focusing on the laws, which by and large are a serious, in some areas flawed, attempt
>at a necessary compromise. We do help ourselves by paying attention to how our individual rights, for both francophones and anglophones, are being eroded in so many areas in Quebec today.