Monday news round-up: popes and angryphones

Quebecers are feeling more religious, anglos are feeling marginalized and the guy we sent into space is doing his job by reading Reddit. It’s the Monday news round-up.


The Catholic church looms large in Quebec once again, photo via Flickr

We can’t say we’re feeling more pious this morning, but the prospect of a Quebec-born pope apparently may have people in our province embracing the Catholic church again, or at least feeling less disdain for it. According to a survey, 34 per cent of us, up from 26 per cent in 2010, now feel some sort of attachment to religion. The canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha may have encouraged that rise, and the possibility that Cardinal Marc Ouellet will be named pope will usher in a new era of — well, probably nothing. But there’d definitely be some celebrating.

In other poll-related news, anglos are apparently not that keen on a Parti Québécois government. Forty-two per cent, in fact, have considered leaving the province post-PQ victory (crybabies), and 84 per cent say they fear the draconian limits the party would impose on the English language were it to win a majority government. Jean-François Lisée, the minister “responsible for building bridges” with anglos, gave some sound bites about trust and the building thereof. With supposedly only one per cent of anglophones voting PQ, though, it sounds like an uphill battle that we don’t quite understand.

Speaking of anglos, the big angryphone protest happened yesterday, drawing “hundreds” to Pauline Marois’s office, where they denounced Bill 14 and listened to Beryl Wajsman, the apparent voice of English-speaking Quebec, talk about this and that.

Martha Hall Findlay apologized to fellow Liberal leadership hopeful Justin Trudeau for calling him a fat cat out of touch with Canada’s middle class. She later said that, somehow, some way, those comments were not meant as a personal attack. Indeed.

Anyway, whatever. We sent a guy to space so he could tweet and answer Reddit questions from orbit. Hey, Canada: Can we spend some time on the space station, too?

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