A whiff that's unnecessarily become a stench…

Mario Dumont, sensing a whiff of intolerance in the air, decided it was time to pounce and gain some quick political points by allowing people's fears and prejudices to overpower common sense.

Then, Pauline Marois, desperate to justify her flailing party's "raison d'etre", decided it was time to spread some panic of her own.

While most weary Quebecers were hoping that someone from the political scene would put a stop to this inanity and appeal for tolerance, Jean Charest decided to employ the time-honoured Canadian tradition of appearing to take action, while doing absolutely nothing at all, by ordering a commission on the reasonable accommodation of immigrants in Quebec.

The debate (if one can call it that, when all it's really become is a state-sanctioned rant by old stock Quebecers, reminiscing about the gold ol' days) has managed to revive old tensions and has now spilled over into the tired old French-English debate, with extremists on both ends exchanging ugly insults and retorts. I'm personally sick and tired of it!

It boggles my mind that politicians, with their clearly defined self-serving agendas, have been allowed to sully something that, for the most part, works really well. We can analyze, question, complain, project and vilify all we want, but the simple truth is this: while politicians are busy devising ways to manufacture dissent and dissatisfaction, while they are trying to scare us in order to rally us to their respective causes, the overwhelming majority of Quebecers are coexisting in peace with one another.

My best friends are of every race, colour and religion you could imagine and in all the years that we've come together to talk, debate, and laugh, celebrate birthdays, mourn our losses and love one another, our individual cultures and religions have never been an issue.

This past weekend, my friends and I ate at La Banquise before heading out to a concert. There we were, four women of Scottish, Jamaican, Greek and Chinese descent noshing on the most Quebecois of concoctions. The waitress addressed us in English; we replied in French. We headed out to La Sala Rosa, an indie joint in Montreal's Mile End, a neighborhood of Italian, Spanish and Jewish immigrants where Lhasa de Sela gave a sold out performance.

Born in the States, and raised in Mexico, Lhasa seamlessly switched from French, to English, to Spanish and the crowd clapped with enthusiasm. As we spilled into the street after the show, you heard a multitude of languages being spoken. What made this evening so extraordinary is how ordinary a night like this is in Montreal.

Somewhere lost in the daily reporting of the Bouchard-Taylor commission, we've forgotten the average Quebecer who goes about their business with no need to provoke, alienate, vilify. But average is boring and doesn't sell papers.

Gazette journalist, Don Macpherson, defending the criticism that his paper and other media outlets have received in continuously reporting the negative comments at the Bouchard-Taylor commission, demanded: "What did they expect? Hadn't they noticed that we cover the plane crashes and not routine landings?" Perhaps… but the media has a huge responsibility here, because if we only chose to report the crashes, no one would ever fly.