[fvc-wat-disc] New insert (sample)

[Brian Tanguay]

Not to hijack the discussion, or bore everyone, but there IS
considerable anti-French sentiment in specific regions of the province.
It bubbles up to the surface over certain issues, like keeping the
Montfort Hospital in Ottawa as a francophone teaching hospital (a few
years back). And yeah, as Trudeau himself discovered, French on the
Cheerios boxes constitutes an affront to a distressingly high number of
people.

Having said all that, Kevin's got the right approach here: let everyone
get used to the French that will appear on the ballot, but highlight the
important phrases we want voters to remember (Mixed Member
Proportional).
Brian

>>> kevedsmith at gmail.com 7/6/2007 11:22 AM >>>
Hi folks:

That's interesting ... are there people that look at their cereal
boxes in the morning, see the French, and they go ballistic?  Does it
ruin their whole day?

I will try keeping all the text, but experiment with styles to add or
reduce emphasis, and see how that works.  Might as well get them used
to the French now -- it's going to be on the ballot.

Kevin.

On 7/5/07, Brian Tanguay <btanguay at wlu.ca> wrote:
> Well put. I'd say the first three objectives you've listed are
pretty
> important, and for that very reason I would suggest including the
French
> and bolding the phrases we want to emphasize.
>
> Urquhart probably dropped the French because his editor didn't want
> that language "polluting" the Star ... and I guess that is an issue
I
> have overlooked - the many, many Ontarians for whom the mere sight
of
> French throws them into a frenzy. So there are definitely pros and
cons
> to including it ... I can live with either, like I said.
>
> Nice use of orthogonal Paul. I see a promising career in academe
> opening up for you!
> Brian
>
> >>> pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org 7/5/2007 9:48 PM >>>
> On Thu, 5 Jul 2007, Brian Tanguay wrote:
>
> > I'm not so sure removing the French at this stage will achieve the
> > results we want. Won't it make the question look even weirder when
> the
> > voters finally do get a look at the ballot?
>         I guess this debate boils down to: why are we showing them
the
> question in the first place?
>         - To help familiarize them with what they will see?
>         - To help them navigate the ballot they see in October?
>         - To point out the confusing bits so they can avoid them?
>         - To bash the government?
>         - To scare them into learning something about the
referendum?
>
>         We definitely want to familiarize them with the options.
Maybe
> training them to look for the phrases "first-past-the-post" and
> "mixed-member proportional" are the way to go. If so, we could
> emphasize
> those by bolding the terms. That is a distinct issue (I almost said
> "orthogonal", but I'm not an academic) to dropping the French.
>
> > This is just a thought; I'm not really wedded to the idea of
keeping
> > the French in the information booklet. But it might serve our
> ultimate
> > purpose better than dropping it.
>
>         Our pal Ian Urquhart dropped the French in describing the
> question:
>
> http://www.thestar.com/News/article/231595 
>
> - Paul
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