NJN Network

ÉDITORIAL

Par Jacinthe Laforest, La Voix Acadienne

De plus en plus, le dossier de Rustico se précise. En plus de prendre une ampleur politique, il prend maintenant une tangente juridique. Au cours de la dernière semaine, l’idée de retourner se battre devant les tribunaux s’est imposée comme une possibilité.

Si la communauté, les parents et la Commission scolaire de langue française sont o bligés de considérer cette option, ce n’est pas de gaieté de coeur. Ils y sont forcés par les actions de la province et en particulier de la ministre responsable des Affaires acadiennes et francophones, Carolyn Bertram, députée du district électoral qui inclut Rustico.
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C’est avec beaucoup de déception que la Société Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin a pris connaissance de la lettre du ministre Greenan au président de la Commission scolaire de langue française, Robert Maddix, en ce qui concerne le projet du centre scolaire communautaire de Rustico. Cette lettre, datée du 15 janvier dernier, annonce les travaux de planification de la construction d’une nouvelle école élémentaire pouvant accommoder 65 élèves (de la maternelle à la 6e année) pour l’école Saint Augustin sur un nouveau terrain. La SSTA a appris que la lettre du ministre faisait suite à une décision du Conseil des ministres de ne pas aller de l’avant avec le projet d’un centre scolaire communautaire à Rustico, lequel étant nécessaire et réclamé par le Conseil acadien de Rustico depuis plusieurs années.
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Refusing French school-community centre for Rustico

RUSTICO – Feb. 17, 2009 – The Société Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin (SSTA) was deeply disappointed to learn about the content of a letter from Education Minister Gerard Greenan addressed to Robert Maddix, chair of the French Language School Board, in regards to a project for establishment of a French school-community centre in Rustico.

This letter, dated Jan. 15, announced that planning work for the construction of a new elementary school to house 65 students, from kindergarten to Grade 6, for Saint Augustine, on a new lot. The SSTA learned that the letter from the minister had been sent following a decision by the provincial cabinet to refuse the proposal for a school-community centre in Rustico, which had been deemed necessary and lobbied for by the Conseil acadien de Rustico for several years.
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by Heritage Guy, special to NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 19, 2009

Mayor of Brighton Robert Ghiz and Minister of Most Things Carolyn Bertram today announced the future home of the new provincial museum and artefactory.

“We have come to an arrangement with the Cymbria Lions Club in Rustico” announced Ms Bertram. “This is highly appropriate as the Cymbria Lions are very public-spirited and made me, er I mean The Province an offer we couldn’t refuse. Some ungrateful little people in the francophone community may object, as it seems the new inlet we are dredging for mooring access to the museum may drown their new French school, but I always thought Acadians were experts in building dikes, which I believe is aboutox in French. Visitors will be especially impressed by the period feel of the building – toilets from an earlier century and the tasteful worn linoleum of a different era.”
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By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 19, 2009

The recent decision of Premier Robert Ghiz to refuse Federal funding for the French cultural centre is another brick in the wall of PEI’s officially sanctioned bigotry and discrimination. Ghiz is the leader of the Liberal Party which implies some sort of liberal values like tolerance and respect for human rights. It was Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau who gave us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Of course, the Charter was based on Conservative Prime Minister Diefenbaker 1960 Bill of Rights. However, Ghiz finds it politically expedient to cancel those linguistic rights in the face of opposition from the Cymbria Lions Club. I can’t think of another occasion when minority rights have been thrown out the window for such a frivolous and slight reason.

Leaders are supposed to lead, to lead people to a higher plane. President Kennedy exhorted young people to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” President Obama encourages us to put the old ways behind us, to believe in a better fairer world. Yes we can says Obama. Premier Ghiz campaigned on respect for minorities and change to a better way on PEI. He has slipped into some of the worst regressive policies in PEI history. Can he pull out of it or will he go down in history as scandal ridden and bigoted?
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By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 18th, 2009

There’s a tangled web between Cymbria Lions Club and Minister Carolyn Bertram. Why else would she risk offending the Francophone community and their English supporters. Yes there are plenty of Canadians who support Acadians in renewing their language and culture. Some are Charter supporters. Some have French in their heritage although they don’t speak French. Some are looking at their careers and their children in the Federal civil service where functional bilingualism is required at almost every level.

Lions thought they had enough clout to torpedo the whole thing, school and all. There is a rumor they have more on Bertram than just the vote threat, but heaven knows what it could be. Apparently Bertram was poisonous at the meeting and Gizmo not much better. Way unprofessional. The brain trust thought they’d be able to double cross both sides but keep them quiet with “the Solomon fix”. At this stage the Lions strategy has focused on torpedoing the cultural centre. Maybe they think the Conseil and other groups will still use them. I think hell will freeze over first. Could this nonsense happen anywhere but PEI?
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Turns down Federal money for cultural centre

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 17, 2009
with story from CBC

Ghiz never turned down free Federal money before. Why is he playing games with the French school board?

The Lions Club have lost. A school will be built and they are still sore losers. It’s like your landlord getting mad when you buy a new home and move out of the apartment.

The rest of the story.

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada February 17, 2009

PEI’s Premier Robert Ghiz had a proforma meeting with the French school board yesterday to tell them the bad news. The Board may have thought the meeting was a consultation. That would be generous since Ghiz has his mind made up on every issue well in advance. He wants to close the 11 schools in rural PEI. The English parents will use the French school in Rustico as red flag in their case. How can Ghiz spend $2 million on French students and close their schools some. Since the Federal government is providing funds for the cultural centre in the Rustico school the argument is illogical but plays well politically. Ghiz and Chris LeClair, his brain trust, see themselves as Machiavellian political manipulators. All decisions can be made in advance and you merely have to manipulate public sentiment. If the French school board sues, Ghiz wins since the decision is delayed beyond his mandate. The School Board would have to get a special intervention from the Supreme Court which is not likely.
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Ghiz overheard humming, Now and then there’s a fool such as I.

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 16th, 2009

PEI’s Premier Robert Ghiz showed his inexperience and ineptitude by dividing Rustico along linguistic lines and not closing the file quickly. Today he turned down the request of the Commission scolaire de langue française de l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard for the a cultural centre to go with their new French school in Rustico. While the money was apparently coming from Heritage Canada, it mattered not to Premier Ghiz. He tried to play Solomon and divided Rustico along language lines, a deft act. The conflict was between the Cymbria Lions Club who were renting an old school building to the French School Board. The Lions fought to retain their $90K per year income from rentals. While the Lions Club could not stop the school from moving to the new building, they could act like a monkey in the works by interfering in the negotiations between the Federal Government, the Province and the Commission scolaire de langue française.
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Bigotry against Acadians now squelching freedom of speech

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 15, 2009

Well well our friends at Cymbria Lions Club don’t believe in freedom of speech, expression, opinion and of the press. They closed their Facebook site today and booted me off. Probably because they know they’ve lost the battle to stop the French school. I wrote that up this morning Cymbria Lions Club on a losing streak and these Lions are not like Lions in the rest of the world – they get sore.
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Premier Ghiz schemes with Sandy MacDonald. Eastern School District superintendent, to close down rural schools and rural PEI. We got the facts and uncover these two. Big cast of characters in this plot.

Fighting the Acadian parents isn’t going to work

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 15th, 2009

This is for the Cymbia Lions Club. You lost. You cannot win.

I’m sure that if the Lions put their minds to it, they will come up with lots of great ways to serve the community that don’t block the rights of the Acadian minority.

It should be a win-win for them.

From my read of the comments and players, this is a male versus female battle. Women are arguing for soft issues – culture, language, education, children – and men are arguing about money.
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File under, changing deck chairs that evening on the Titanic

By by Interior Design Hag, special to NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 13, 2009

Hard times in the Maritimes. Word reaches us that Mme la Ministre Bertram is redecorating the Throne Room, er, her office. No expense is being spared as artisans and other horny-handed sons of toil labour under the eagle eye and unforgiving artistic genius of the Michelangelo of Hunter River.

Brocades are brought in in sample lots and Canalettos are assessed for how they show off her eyes. The finest ebonies and other rare woods, ripped from the dying jungles of east Asia. Fourteen painted panels will represent her accepting the grateful thanks of the tributary groups of her wide-ranging ministry, created in the style of Norman Rockwell.
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What in the hell are Bertram and Cymbria Lions Club thinking?

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 13, 2009

Fury is being unleashed on Minister Carolyn Bertram and the Cymbria Lions Club over their interference in the French school debate. This morning 4 more pointed and heated comments were on this story. Bertram trips over Lions in the wardrobe, Lions Club is missing too much, and Lions stop thinking about our money

Minister Carolyn Bertram is taking major heat on this issue by trying to play the middle. No other single issue dominates reader interest on NJN Network. The top 5 stories for the past two weeks have been about the French school, Carolyn Bertram and the Lions’ opposition. I dream that Islanders would galvanize so strongly around the disabled seniors issue.
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In the Attic” at the Acadian Museum

By Georges Arsenault, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 12th, 2009

The public is invited to the opening of the exhibition “ In the Attic: Hidden Treasures from the Acadian Museum of P.E.I.”, at the Acadian Museum of Prince Edward Island, in Miscouche, on Sunday, February 15, at 2:00 p.m.

For this exhibition, the Acadian Museum took out of its storage about one hundred artifacts rarely seen by the public until now.
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By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, February 12, 2009
with story from the CBC

Having watched and heard the case for both sides in the French school debate, it’s easy to see why Minister Carolyn Bertram chickened out and did nothing. The new French school has to be built so her approval on that is proforma. Blocking the school from having the community centre flies in the face of the Supreme Court ruling but appears to appease the Lions Club.
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Baddder than ever

Find out why Robert Ghiz is in real trouble over his latest decision to oppose the francophone parents.

Is Bertram afraid to wander where the Lions are?

By The Fiery Independent, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 12, 2009

Part 2 – yesterday Lions stop thinking about our money

Dear Lions,

You are great neighbours and many of you friends; however you don’t seem to understand that your pecuniary interests are going against the good of the children of this community.

The kids don’t have the privilege of enjoying the gymnasium five days a week in the Lions centre because “it costs too much to heat up in the winter”. The kids cannot eat in the cafeteria on days that there is a funeral lunch so they have to eat in the classroom. The kids cannot enjoy a freshly cooked meal a few times a week, nor can they have cooking oriented learning activities. It is not permitted to make use of the Lions Centre’s kitchen because “it would cost too much in insurance”.
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By The Fiery Independent, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, February 11, 2009

Editor: the series of local articles on Lions and the French school community centre are not only popular in PEI. We received a thank you note from the Lions International noting their interest.

Dear Lions.

You are great neighbours and many of you friends; however you don’t seem to understand that your pecuniary interests are going against the good of the children of this community. Having a French school with a community component is not going to harm whatever activities you do. The activities and groups that would come to the French school would not be the same as the ones you entertain in your building. We need our kids to live and learn to feel accepted and welcomed in their own community. They should be proud of who they are, that is Acadians. This means being of French descent and culture.
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Bertram cuckoo to get caught in this one

By, l’Acadienne, special correspondent, NJN Network, PEI, Canada, February 9, 2009

Mme la Ministre Carolyn Bertram is said to have become obsessed with the comments being made about her attempts to block the building of a French language centre scolaire-communautaire in her own constituency in various blogs appearing on the internet. Minions have been instructed to track down the villains lurking behind the aliases and a Black List is being prepared for circulation to other departments. The brains trust on the fifth floor is said to be especially perplexed as to who lurks behind the nom de plume Stephen Pate. Some wonder if it might be Alan Buchanan.

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By Plumette de Rustico, special to NJN Network, Rustico, PEI, Canada, February 7. 2009

École Saint Augustin has been located at the Cymbria Lions Club for eight long years. It was established as a pilot project of the Commission scolaire de langue française that received a moral boost and a step in its gait following the Supreme Court decision in favour of Noëlla Arsenault and Madeleine Costa’s long-fought cause against the province for Section 23 rights in Summerside. The current rental arrangement was only ever meant to be a temporary situation. This was known by all parties at the time. Still the students and parents have been waiting patiently for this to be rectified as has been the cultural council that is also housed in the same structure.
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Minister Carolyn Bertram draws the ire of Acadians

Special correspondent: par l’Acadienne, NJN Network, PEI,February 5, 2009

The magnificent new Bertram Manor constructed in solitary stately splendour on a hill outside Hunter River allows Mme la Ministre to look down on her constituents, an attitude which has become increasingly pronounced since she took on the office she so richly deserved.

Fortunate indeed that her carefully enunciated schoolgirl French is so much better than that of the Acadians whom she represents as Minister: it ensures that she understands the needs of the Francophone community so much better than they do. Advertised this week is the now vacant position of Director of Acadian and Francophone Affairs. Given La Ministre’s attitude to officials (who of course know far less than their minister), she would probably be better advertising for a butler who could at least ensure that her tastes for fine food and wine are appropriately met and accounted for beyond the prying eyes of the unsympathetic taxpayer.
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By The Fiery Independent, special to NJN Network, January 28, 2009, PEI, Canada

In spite of the 2000 Supreme Court ruling in Arsenault et al. versus the PEI Government, I can’t believe still how little folks understand the needs of the official language minority. The necessity to establish minority-language schools in distinct physical locations stems from the true purpose of section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that is, redressing past injustices and providing the official language minority with equal access to quality education in its own language, in circumstances where community development will be enhanced.
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Assurer que la minorité linguistique officielle ait un accès égal à un enseignement de qualité dans sa propre langue

Par L’ardent indépendant, spécial à NJN Network, le 28 janvier, 2009, L’Isle Saint Jean(Canada)

The English version follows…

Malgré le jugement de la Cour suprême de 2000 dans le cas Arsenaut et al c. le gouvernement de l’Î.-P.-É., je ne peux croire à quel point l’incompréhension des besoins de la communauté de langue officielle minoritaire persiste encore. La nécessité pour les établissements scolaires des communautés de langue officielle minoritaires d’évoluer dans des lieux physiques distincts, repose sur le véritable objectif de l’article 23 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés, soit de remédier à des injustices passées et de s’assurer que la minorité linguistique officielle ait un accès égal à un enseignement de qualité dans sa propre langue, dans des circonstances qui favoriseront le développement de la communauté.
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Our correspondent dishes more on Minister Carolyn Bertram. Read on…

Mme la Ministre won’t listen

Par l’Acadienne, special to NJN Network, January 27th, 2009

The list of people Minister Carolyn Bertram refuses to meet or to return calls from grows daily. It has become a badge of honour and people exchange information about being on it. The No-Call list is almost as exciting as comparing notes on the cost of wining and dining the minister in order for her expenses to look modest. The No-Call List is composed of anyone who disagrees with her or might. That includes most members of the francophone community, a large part of the heritage lobby and a big chunk of the sports community. She has a reputation for blowing off meetings – due to sudden onset illnesses – with those on the No-Call list.
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Noted in passing: Jean-Guy Arbique, otherwise known as Guy the Painter from cable TV fame. Everyone in the Maritimes will remember his TV show that taught you how to paint in Guy’s folk style. He made use of some unique tools like ‘P de toilet.’

We were amazed at his technique and conversational style. I’d venture quite a few people tried painting due to his encouragement. Even for non-artists, his entertaining patter kept one glued to the set. Guy was part of the simpler, non-500 channel universe. Guy was a Maritime hero.

It was my unexpected pleasure to spend an evening with him in Rustico a few years back. Chuck and Albert were polishing their act at the local hall. I had a supper invitation from a friend in West Prince. To my delight, I was seated with Maria Bernard, the charming sister of Leonce Bernard our last Lieutenant Governor, and Jean Guy Arbique.

Guy had been off the air for quite some time but I knew the face and voice. I tenuously asked him if he was ‘Guy the Painter’. His congenial ‘yes’ started one of the most pleasant evenings in memory. Guy was still a charmer, a man of wit and a great raconteur. Talking with Jean Guy prepared me to enjoy myself. They must have thought me the silliest man in Rustico that night since I laughed uproariously at Chuck and Albert’s jokes.

There aren’t many Maritimers who don’t remember Guy the Painter with fondness.

Funeral arrangements are at East Prince Funeral Coop