By PAUL SCHNEIDEREIT - Parti Quebecois MNA Pierre Curzi apparently knows a lot about imbeciles. He even knows how to sound like one.
In case you missed it, the PQ’s critic for language issues last week accused the brain trust running the Montreal Canadiens of shunning francophone players as part of a federalist plot to ensure the storied hockey club cannot be a symbol for the nationalist movement.
"The people who are federalists and the people who don’t wish Quebec to become a country, who don’t wish French to flourish, they know very well that you must take over a certain number of symbols of identity," Curzi told a television interviewer on Télé-Québec. "And me, I believe there’s been a taking possession by the federal power over the Canadiens club.
"They’re not imbeciles, the people who buy hockey teams. They’re not imbeciles, the people who finance them. They’re not people who don’t have political opinions."
Well, there you have it. Ottawa’s secret weapon in la belle province has been outed. Either that, or Monsieur Curzi’s Don Quixote-like obsession with battling imaginary threats to his beloved pure laine language has erased his ability to reason.
Even Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois sees menace in those hockey stick-wielding windmills, urging a "correction" in the number of Quebecers playing for the federalism-boosting Habs. Strange, then, that Marois didn’t seem too concerned about the Flying Federalists, as some have dryly dubbed the team, during Montreal’s surprising playoff run to the conference finals last spring.
These plucky Canadiens are like sovereigntists, she told a cheering PQ conference in May, underdogs who keep fighting because they believe in their goal and themselves.
Ah, but that was then and this is now. Or maybe Marois dropped the analogy when they didn’t win the Stanley Cup.
Curzi’s accusations are nonsense, of course.
But, as Habs team president Pierre Boivin — a francophone, mon Dieu! — recently noted, tongue firmly planted in cheek, "when the team’s name is Canadiens, we start perhaps with one strike against us."
Montreal’s clearly conscious of the need to have a francophone flavour on their team. Yes, there’s the club’s famed historical moniker, the Flying Frenchmen, but a much more immediate reality is that they play in the biggest French-speaking market in North America. Most of their fans’ first language is French.
So it’s just good business to have francophones associated with the team, both on and off the ice. Along with Boivin, the Habs’ club president and head coach are also francophones.
Not, however, at the expense of the team’s success. That would be bad business.
There are three francophones on the Canadiens’ likely opening day roster. The 20 other spots are evenly divided between anglophone Canadians and players from Europe and the U.S.
Habs’ fans, regardless of which language they speak, would be up in arms if the team decided roster spots based on a linguistic quota system. They want a winner, not some politically correct — according to Curzi — symbol of Quebec nationalism.
And what if there were more Quebecers on the team, but they were federalists, not sovereigntists? Would Monsieur Curzi demand further litmus tests beyond sending pucks flying into the net — or stopping them?
Besides, Montreal has certainly tried to add some big francophone hockey stars. Former Habs’ player and coach Mario Tremblay was recently quoted, in regard to the Curzi controversy, pointing out the team desperately tried to land Vincent Lecavalier in a trade, and went hard after free agents Daniel Briere and Martin Lapointe. All opted to play elsewhere.
Now we know the reason. The PMO got to them.
Montreal also apparently drafts more francophone players than any other team. That doesn’t mean they’ll make the NHL, however.
Politicians have long tried, when it suited their own interests, to link sports and politics. In Curzi’s case, he’s also argued that the federalist tilt, in his mind, of the Canadiens underlines the importance of bringing the Nordiques back to Quebec City.
I assume Curzi will also let us know, if that happens, how many francophones should suit up for the Nordiques, as well as whether employing the neutral zone trap has linguistic implications.
( pauls g3L herald.ca)