This is the guy who tried to gun down Québec’s new premier, Pauline Marois, last night. He has been identified as Richard Henry Bain, 62, a businessman from Mont-Tremblant. He didn’t hit her, but he did manage to shoot two other people; one died of his injuries. This is not merely tragic, it’s highly ironic when you consider the following:
“It is clear the current PQ will not lead us to sovereignty. Another PQ, perhaps, but not the one we have now. It is not unifying or inspiring enough,” former PQ cabinet minister and Marois ally Joseph Facal wrote in the Journal de Montreal on Monday. And in 2011, after the PQ legislators quit even though Marois had a 93 percent vote of confidence at a party congress that April, rebel legislator Jean-Martin Aussant said “I do not think Mrs Marois is the woman people want to follow when it comes to creating a country.”
Maybe it’s because creating a new country doesn’t seem like her top priority. During her victory speech, Marois said in English — a significant decision — that the rights of all Quebec residents would be respected. “We share the same history, and I want us to shape together our future,” she said.
That came right before the lunatic shown above opened fire like Marc Fucking Lépine at the Ecole Polytechnique. As he was being hustled out by police, he shouted “The English are waking up!” (In what’s sure to be another delectable irony, he shouted it bilingually.)
One wonders just what exactly the “English” in Québec are waking up to now. One hopes it is to the fact that yes, they too produce fanatics, terrorists and deranged fools. There is a veritable anti-francophone derangement syndrome; I call it la folie anglaise, the English madness. It’s a minority thing, but it’s real, and there’s just enough of it going around to do serious damage. Here’s a small sample of la folie anglaise gleaned from Facebook last night:
Charming, eh?
Time for anglophone Canada to face up to this cancer in our midst. And time to drop the animosity before more people get hurt (or worse). Had things gone according to Bain’s plan, hundreds of people could have perished in the hotel; he set fire to the outside of it. It’s hard not to call this terrorism, so let’s do it and face up to the fact that yes, this shit stinks. And we’ve got Augean Stables full of it, everywhere we look.
In the meantime, to the francophones, I’d just like to say: Je suis désolée, nous ne sommes pas tous comme ce fou. Il est l’exception, et il est d’une très petite minorité. Nous sommes très embarrassé(e)s de lui. La reste du Canada n’a pas une folie anglaise comme ça. Nous voulons travailler en paix avec vous. J’espère que notre pays reste entier.
Le Partíe de Thé?