Last week a Montreal cabbie was fined $1,400 for decorating the interior of his taxi with personal objects. Apparently this is against the law in Quebec, for some obscure reason. In Montreal you can partake in just about any form of perversion known to humanity, and buy booze anywhere short of a daycare, but don't put your wife's photo on the dashboard pal.
This taxi driver is also Jewish so he has mezuzah's mounted above the doors of his vehicle. These are small cylinders containing a scripture verse, the Shema. The scroll itself is not visible and in all the years of this guy driving a taxi no one has ever complained. But the dangerous object police, or whatever they're called have told him to cease and desist. He hasn't, and he says he won't despite the fines.
Does anyone else find this disheartening? How can a couple of photos of loved ones and small religious objects be a hazard to anyone's health and wellbeing? apparently none of his passengers think so.
I have said before that I'm waiting for the legislation restricting churches from displaying those offensive crosses on their buildings, or perhaps a nativity scene. The baby Jesus is now in exile from any public places. Why should poor, unsuspecting souls (wait, I'm sorry about the soul thing) have to witness religious symbolism anywhere?
3 comments:
Hadn't heard the story; seems extraordinarily daft; carry on.
What else can you do but shrug, really?
I understood from reading some of the articles about this man, that his windows and dashboard were so cluttered he and anybody else had trouble seeing out. His back window was filled and he had blocked his side mirrors. If this is the case I can understand him being asked to clean up his car.
Those of you that have not lived in Quebec probably find this unusual?
They have been doing things like this for so long that they don't see anything wrong.
This is the province that has Language Police. You can have any language you want on a sign as long as french is most prominent, and it's not english.
They have taken cases to court agruing that a lable on a product in a grocerie store is a sign, and all products in the province should have french only labels.
This is a place where immigrants have to go to french school. If you immigrate from England your children are not allowed to attend english school.When they created this law in the 80's all the kids that were not born in Canada were immediately, mid year, removed from the english schools and put into french. 2 friends from kindergarden to grade 8 all of a sudden wern't at school any more.
What's in the picture is what really tipped it off. The Canadian flag. One of these law enforcement officers who votes PQ, and Bloc took offence, and pulled out these petty little laws. He probably got fined for not tying up his horse, and spitting on the sidewalk too.
IT HAPPENS!
Remember the 50/50 refferendum? There was an issue with spoiled ballots during the recount. There was a riding that the only good balloty were Yes to seperate, and a spoiled ballot was No.
Growing up there I developed a thick skin, and a sense of humor about it. I actually applied for a job as a visible minority through a provincial program. I filled in Anglophone as my minority.
I thought it was funny, but I got the tree planting job anyway.
Post a Comment