WHACKY QUEBECOIS GOVERNMENT
August 21, 1997
To:editor@netsurf.com
From: jpc@Cyberie.Qc.Ca (Jean-Pierre Cloutier)
Re: Netsurfer Digest, Volume 03, Issue 26
To whom this may concern,
I have enjoyed reading Netsurfer Digest for a long time, have recommended it in my columns, have a link to it on my personal Web page. In the latest edition of NSD, however, I was really disappointed to see an item titled "The Wacky Quebecois Government", even more disappointed after reading it.
Equating business regulations and censorship, you are threading a very fine line. The surest assertion is that as average Americans, which I no doubt you are yourselves, you "have but dim knowledge of the language debate in Canada's province of Quebec".
Your comments, rather the tone in which they are formulated, reflect a miscomprehension of the situation and a total lack of information on the context.
Last May, there was also a barrage of half truths about Quebec in the American press which prompted me to write to our "American Friends".
http://www.Cyberie.QC.CA/jpc/uspress.html
I don't make a habit of engaging into polemics like the ones some so-called newspersons are trying to foster, I have much better use for my precious time. But I felt then the situation had gone far enough.
Lately, a new barrage of anti-Quebec rhetoric is fuelling the press by way of commenting on a private Web site (Ministry of Truth) associating Quebec leaders with prominent Nazi figures.
http://www.freakland.net/quebec/
You contend that "May the Net recognize all censorship as damage and route around it". Since I started publishing my E-zine in 1994, I have always championed freedom of speech on the Internet (and elsewhere). I do, however, have a big problem with inaccurate and biased coverage of events.
I believe that the "Wacky Quebecois Government" title in Netsurfer Digest casts a serious doubt on the reliability of information one can read elsewhere in your publication and discredits your "More Signal, Less Noise" motto.
Regards,
Home Page
URL : http://www.cyberie.qc.ca/jpc/nsd.html
Mise en ligne : 20 août 1997