General

Montreal’s Haitians: so polite!

Lysiane Gagnon gets warm and fuzzy over Montreal’s Haitian community in today’s Globe:

The less educated [Haitian] immigrants are concentrated in the taxi business, where they thrive. They know the city by heart. They buy their own taxi licences as soon as they can, and they keep their cars meticulously clean. And they’re nice, smiling and polite. The mother of a friend used to ask for a Haitian driver whenever she needed a taxi; she was old and frail, and the Haitians, with their traditional respect for the elderly, would always help her in and out of the car.

And, by way of dictionary.com, a helpful definition:

pa•tron•niz•ing –adjective

displaying or indicative of an offensively condescending manner: a patronizing greeting, accompanied by a gentle pat on the pack.

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