Jeff Heinrich, The Gazette - Italians in Montreal have a message for crusaders for the French language in the metropolis: Grow up.
"I have something to say to our friends at the Mouvement Montreal francais," a spokesman for an Italian business organization told the Bouchard-Taylor commission this morning, referring to a citizens' group that campaigns against the use of English in the city.
"We like them a lot," said Giuliano d'Andrea, vice-president (communications) for the Canadian-Italian Business and Professional Association, who is also a former member of Alliance Quebec and the Equality Party.

"But sometimes we'd like to tell them two little words in English: Grow up."
Montreal is a bilingual city where even anglophones respect the primacy of French, d'Andrea said, addressing commissioners Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor in French.
"It's true there are problems, it's true there are little conflicts, but we're losing the vision of the beauty that is Montreal," he said.
"So it's a cry from the heart, our message," he added.
"There's nothing wrong with talking in English," he told reporters in French after his presentation.
"We wrote our brief in English, not because we couldn't do it in French, but simply to take back a bit of the public space that we have a right to. The English language has a right to be here."
Italian-speakers are Montreal's largest minority language group - and also one of its most bilingual, often trilingual. About 225,000 Montrealers are of Italian descent - about 7 per cent of the population of the metropolis.
Also this morning, the reasonable-accommodation commission heard that day-care centres in Montreal are willing to "compromise" on expressions of religion by their staff, parents and children - "but only up to a point."
Some CEGEPs, too, draw the line at demands by religious staff and students who want special arrangements made for them, the commission heard as it wound up its first of two weeks of hearings in Montreal.
In day-care centres, Muslim educators can wear the hijab but not the niqab or burqa, said Gina Gasparrini, who runs the day-care at St. Mary's Hospital and is president of the Regroupement des Centres de la Petite Enfance de l'Île de Montréal.
Muslim staffers also can't stay outside the pool when kids are taking swimming, and they can't object to boys and girls doing recreation activities together, said Gasparrini, whose organization represents 172 day-care centres, including many in-home centres.
At Collège Bois-de-Boulogne, a north-end CEGEP that has over 350 employees and 2,600 students, Muslims women studying nursing have asked to be exempted from exams during Ramadan, the month of fasting.
But that request, like others, have been refused, because the administration considers them unreasonable, a delegation of three administrators told the commission.
For example, an Orthodox Jewish teacher who asked not to be give a course scheduled after sundown on the Sabbath was told he had to; Jewish students who didn't want to take exams in Friday were told they'd have to; a dozen Muslims students who asked for a prayer room were turned down; and a group who wanted to put up a kiosk about their religion at a student fair were denied.
jheinrich@thegazette.canwest.com
- source
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Note de Vigile
Fait à noter, M. D'Andrea est un ancien président d'Alliance-Québec section Est de l'île de Montréal et a déjà milité au Parti Egalité, deux groupes qui ont combattu la Charte de la langue française.