The Yellow Menace

Quebecers finally get their yellow margarine


MONTREAL -- Quebec is about to become a little less distinct. Le Soleil reports that the provincial cabinet has quietly killed a longstanding regulation that prohibited margarine manufacturers from colouring their product a buttery yellow.
The province had been the last front in Canada's margarine wars, which pitted a protectionist dairy industry against canola farmers and multi-national margarine manufacturers. For margarine consumers here, it has meant starting their mornings with an unappealing white spread -- think lard on toast.
Ontario repealed similar restrictions in 1995, but Quebec had stubbornly resisted. In 2005, margarine manufacturer Unilever Canada Inc. lost a Supreme Court challenge of Quebec's ban. Unilever had argued in part that prohibiting yellow margarine infringed on its "commercial freedom of expression." etc.etc.

With the stroke of a pen the 100 year old, sometimes acrimonious, always ridiculous battle between the Quebec Dairy lobby and the rest of the world has come to an end....or has it??
For ages we've heard the arguments: Consumers will be confused by yellow margarine and buy it when they in fact meant to buy butter, thereby reducing dairy sales which would have a devastating socio-economic ripple effect throughout the province.


Today, finally, some of our elected representatives are trusting that we, the fat buying population of Quebec, aren't total cretins and will be able to tell the difference. I feel like I did on that wonderful day when my parents first gave me the car keys and let me go (minutes before I scraped against the illogically placed mailbox).

I've already zipped off my idea for a new ad campaign, a twist on the famous "butter scene" from Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (watch it here if you must)http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=yNjF8otfUQs
and I'm hoping to hear from my pals in the margarine biz real soon.

Unfortunately this is Quebec and while I remember having to grow up in a world where, for a time, my dingy white spread came with a little packet of yellow food dye that we were supposed to mix in (I still recall my Mom sitting me down to explain the dye after I asked her about it and the sting when she told me the truth about how we were different) there are many other people with even better memories. For these people who want Quebec to be a seperate country, allowing our margarine to look like the margarine in the rest of Canada is yet another step towards cultural annihilation, greasing the skids and making a slippery slope that much more slippery.
Tomorrow, in the national assembly, some opportunistic, podium pounding, politician will rise and make an impassioned plea for a return to grey oleo. Don't ask where today's patriots are...they're right here in Quebec making sure we don't mistakenly put margarine on our "beignes Juif" (Literally "Jewish donuts" * the official translation, courtesy of the Office de la Langue Francaise, of bagels)

*Ed. Note - The O.L.F. suggested that translation during a more radical phase of it's existence. It has since softened it's stand and now accepts the more reasonable but still quite silly "baguel".