La ville de Québec est dans le trou\Quebec City in the hole

This is an instance when knowing English idiomatic expressions helps you to understand a Québecois expression. I chanced upon this item in the Canoe news and was struck by the formulation which was not familiar to me.

Indeed, one of the English meanings of “to be in the hole” is to be in debt and that is exactly the situation the city of Québec is in, its deficit has increased instead of being reduced.

The author of the piece (notre journaliste mobile??), has a very French sounding name, so how do we explain this apparent Anglicism? Reading further, one finds the expression

“le conseil municipal .. a soulevé plusieurs préoccupations relativement à la gestion des fonds publics….

Let’s see: “ City Council voiced many concerns relative to the management of the public funds…

Is this just a bad translation which contains not only French words in an English meaning but also uses English syntax (i.e. word order)? The expression “soulever des préoccupations” is not idiomatically French. One could have said:

“Le conseil a exprimé un grand nombre de préoccupations sur la gestion des fonds publics.”

Let us look at another example:

“La ville a fait 82 millions de dollars de revenus et en a dépensé 94 millions.

Does it sound like an English echo: “The city made $82 millions in revenue and spent 94 millions.”

A more idiomatic phrasing would have been: “Les revenus de la ville ont atteint 82 millions alors que ses dépenses - 94 millions.”

It would be interesting to find out whether the readers of Canoe Infos have noticed this piece and how they reacted to the way it is written.

I did a Google search for “faire le trou” and found a completely different meaning in the jargon of the Paris transportation network :

Etre "dans le trou" : Se dit lorsqu'un machiniste a pris beaucoup de retard par rapport au bus qui le précède. Cette situation aura pour conséquence une charge plus importante (donc une prise de retard qui ne cessera d'augmenter). Au métro on parle de tassée (prendre la tassée). A la sncf un train en retard est qualifié de "coulé".