Story Archive

Unpardonable French

After Quebec Superior Court Justice Danielle Grenier ordered a union representing Montreal municipal workers to pay about 30 percent of its annual budget in punitive damages over an illegal strike that left ice on the city sidewalks, union president Chantal Racette said the judge was a “crisse de folle.” The phrase is similar to “f---ing idiot,” and Bruce Johnston, the lawyer for a class of plaintiffs who’d been injured during the strike, included it in an appellate brief. Whether or not that remark had anything to do with it, the Quebec Court of Appeal has now told the union to pay promptly, even while it tries to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Appellate Justice Marie-France Bich said that the union had shown “a great indifference toward respect for the law and the rights of citizens,” which had helped justify Grenier’s decision. (AC/National Post) ...The Supreme Court may not be happy to hear what Racette calls Bich.