Here is the link to lagatta's post about holiday store closings. It's a press release from Quebec Solidaire. Reading it this way is much more legible.
As they say about show business, criticism is the only reliable source of information. All else is advertising.
We get paid for statutory holidays but instead of arguing for an additional statutory holiday he's arguing that I shouldn't be allowed to work because that encourages consumerism... what?
I need to work to pay my bills. Please argue for raising my wages. Please fight for increasing the number of statutory holidays or vacation days so that I can take holidays when I want to. Don't argue that workers shouldn't be allowed to work on arbitrary days of the year based on someone else's religious calendar. Some of us actually *like* our jobs and want to do them.
I support Amir Khadir far more than any other leader in Quebec politics right now but like every one of them sometimes he says things that make me go... "Huh?"
The point is that January 2 is equivalent to a statutory holiday - and it's not linked to any religious Holy Day. When the government allows corporations to force workers to come in on that day, it doesn't take into account most workers' wish to stay home and enjoy a well-deserved break after the selling season.
Doesn't a stat holiday mean the workers get paid? Kinetix, the argument here is to PRESERVE an existing stat holiday.
New Year's is an incredibly important holiday in Québec, whatever people's religion or lack thereof. It means a big meal with familiy and/or friends. Historically, New Year's was more important as a "celebration" than Christmas was; the latter was above all religious. By the way, that is true among Scots as well as Franco-Québécois.
I assure you that Amir is concerned about the problems of precarious workers - there is a lot on our website on the issue, and it is a priority for QS action.
And, er, somehow I doubt Amir Khadir can be accused of Catholic religious prejudice. The family are "secular Muslims" - that is not religious but quite possibly celebrating Muslim holidays for social reasons, just as secular Christians and Jews (and others) might. Or not.
That makes good sense. Sounds like Amir is off to a good start!
In other news, in what way is this a thread about the Quebec election?
Because it will never end! I do think we should change the title.
I wanted to post something about Amir at the shoe protest, but the election is over.
Apropos of Part II of this thread, here's another use of that notoriously slippery French word "pays":
http://www.ledevoir.com/2008/12/24/224726.html
"Dans mon pays de Bellechasse, nous disions, il n'y a pas si longtemps,
que le printemps avait été créé pour la sucrerie, l'été pour la
fenaison, l'automne pour la récolte, et l'hiver pour la fête."
Can we assume Quebec Solidaire uses "le pays du Quebec" to mean they want the Quebec City region to be sovereign?
A lump of coal for their clouds of rhetorical flurries.
No, you are making an elementary grammatical mistake there. "Du Québec" = of Québec - le tout.
"De Québec" = of what anglos call "Quebec City". I thought you knew the difference; that is very, very basic.
"Pays" and its cognates are used in all Latin languages in both of those senses, by the way. In France, a common slogan "vivre et travailler au pays" doesn't mean in the French republic, but in one's home region, often a very small sub-region, as in "vin de pays". It isn't slippery because you don't grasp it.
Latin-speakers learning Germanic languages find the latter overly literal and pedestrian.
Back to school.
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Yecch - worse, the person you are quoting is one of those masochistic "winterlovers" and one of those bigoted shits who inflicts "Joyeux Noëls" on the rest of us.
Winter is disgusting. Christmas will be over soon, thank the cat-goddess.
Vivement l'été!
So I made a grammatical error. So sue me. Or sue the Ontario Ministry of Education for certifying me in French, a hundred years ago.
Strike, that. I take full responsibility for what I say, but not what I quote.
Anyway, the content of what was quoted was not as relevant as the choice of words. That's pretty basic argumentation also. At least my poor diction is naive, not nefast.
