Quebec strike: Je désobéis
By Montreal Simon It’s just after 8pm in Montreal, and the reporter from CUTV is talking to a young mother who is taking her two kids to the 28th nightly demonstration in a row. Even though she knows she could be arrested, for defying the Charest government’s totalitarian Bill 78, like so many were the [...]
Arcade Fire wear red square on SNL
A BoB short: Quebec’s striking students received some high-profile musical support last night when Montreal’s Arcade Fire appeared on “Saturday Night Live” wearing the symbol of the student movement, a red square. The Grammy-winners, along with Nick Fraiture of The Strokes, accompanied host Mick Jagger on a version of the Rolling Stones’ 1965 single, “The [...]
Quebec students: If you can’t beat them, cane them
By Montreal Simon Well I suppose it was inevitable eh? Ever since the Quebec students began marching, the Con media has been attacking them like a pack of rabid hyenas. The Con liberal Andrew Coyne called them a violent mob. The windy little teabagger Rex Murphy called their protest a self-indulgent parody. The petty-bourgeois hack [...]
The student strike and the savage state
By Montreal Simon Uh oh. It looks like my Quebec student’s victory celebration party, from which I’m still recovering, was a little premature. Students in a half dozen colleges and 10 university faculties and departments voted to reject the agreement on Monday after the Charest government boasted of having won the battle. Students at other [...]
Jan Wong’s Globe and Mail blues
OUT OF THE BLUE By Jan Wong Self-published by Jan Wong, distributed by Dundurn 264 pages, $21.99, paperback Reviewed by Brian Brennan Jan Wong was a star of The Globe and Mail newsroom, a driven, gutsy, award-winning reporter who observed the Tiananmen Square massacre at first hand, and tested the limits of Canada’s airport security [...]
Montreal: Not just about tuition fees
By Montreal Simon It’s reached a point where I almost can’t bear to read or watch any MSM coverage of the Quebec student strike. Because all I usually see is a bunch of kooky old right-wing pundits flapping their gums, or hissing like kettles. Like the grotesque Con dwarf Rex Murphy. Who should have been locked [...]
The Inside Read: “Crossing the Continent” by Michel Tremblay
We’re pleased to unveil backofthebook.ca’s Inside Read, in which we’ll introduce you to new Canadian books with an excerpt that we think will whet your appetite for more. In this passage from Michel Tremblay’s new novel Crossing the Continent, translated by Sheila Fischman, 10-year old Rhéauna (based on Tremblay’s mother as a child) must leave [...]
Granny Turmel and the red separatist scare
By Montreal Simon As the Liberals continue their fevered pathetic assault on Nycole Turmel. No doubt hoping that out of her ashes, their shrunken party will rise again, like some fleshless phoenix. Or some charred scarecrow. Even as they help fuel comments like this and this and this in the pages of the MSM. It [...]
Election 2011: The Liberals elect the Conservatives
By Alison@Creekside Just a 2% increase in the popular vote took the Cons from 143 seats in 2008 to a 167 seat majority tonight, thanks to our fucked up first-past-the-post system and because of what happened in key ridings in Ontario where presumably the Lib voters moved over to the Cons: ie., in Toronto the [...]
Doing the Orange Wave
By Montreal Simon As you know I have always tried to be as non-partisan as possible. All I want is ANYONE but Harper. But these days, like most people in my neighbourhood, I’m also hoping for an orange wave. I’m hoping for that because I honestly believe that what Jack Layton has managed to achieve [...]
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