MONTREAL--Call it the "Big Squeeze."

That's exactly what the opposition Coalition Avenir Quebec is doing to the Pequistes over Bill 14. At least the CAQ listened at the committee hearings. That's more than can be said of that Anglo baiting language minister Diane de Courcy

Yes, it listened to the Human Rights Commission which warned that language is not a human right and should not be legislated as such. It listened to the Quebec Bar which warned the bill would strip English-speaking Quebecers of rights. It listened to the CEGEPs who warned of discrimination in admission policies.

The PQ is governed by old reflexes where the only way to promote French is to denigrate English.

The CAQ is fencing the PQ in and setting the bar very high, so high it will be out of range of the myopic Parti Quebecois.

It's a shame the CAQ will not just say the entire bill is wrong. Let's hope the CAQ has the resolve now to stick to its guns. It's a bad bill. Minority rights are not negotiable.

Paying for the Quebec model with Old Harry?

I think I was more surprised than Jed Clampett this week when he struck oil.

Pauline Marois thinks Quebec's future road to glory will be paved with oil wealth. Here she is this week promoting separation and musing about Quebec being self-sufficient in oil. A separate Quebec she says would not have to share oil revenues with anyone.

What the PQ always seems to forget is that Quebec receives $7.8 billion a year in transfers from the rest of Canada.

Point one to the oil baroness of the PQ: Quebec does not produce oil.

Point two: Quebec may never produce any sizeable amount of oil

Intellectual dishonesty at best, or perhaps just a crude joke

Terror landed at our front door this week

Too many Canadians naively believe that we are the Boy Scouts of the world.

Why would anyone want to harm us? We are polite, play hockey and hang out at Tim's. Jihad here? Surely, not. Surely, yes

Canada has not sat on the sidelines. We were in Afghanistan for years and that didn't make us any friends in that part of the world.

That is why we need to be vigilant.

Stronger anti -terror legislation is needed despite the bleating of the civil libertarians who think we can make nice with those who would do us harm. The Via rail bombing plot suspect from Montreal proclaimed the Criminal Code is not a Holy Book. But it's a book we happen by live by in this country of laws and freedom.

And it just goes to show you what we are up against.

Montreal, for example, has been cited in security reports as a prime recruiting ground for Al Qaeda.

We need more cameras in public places. It's not privacy issue because trust me the authorities really aren't interested in what you are wearing or where you go for breakfast. Boston was solved so quickly because of security cameras. So was the London subway bombings years ago.

We dodged a bullet thanks to very good police work, but there will be more to come.

We must do what we must do to keep our children safe and our in home in the true north, strong and free