Chess tips for English-speaking Quebecers
Yes, call out Liberals when we fall short, but also shine a light on our opponents, David Birnbaum says.
Chess anyone? Robert Libman (“Anglos should seize opportunity to be heard,” Opinion, Feb. 27) suggests that English-speaking Quebecers “play the strategic chess game and be a factor in the run-up to the election.” I could not agree more.
I have spent most of my professional life advocating on behalf of those one million Quebecers who are English-speaking, and I continue to do so in my current roles. I’ve known and worked with Robert Libman over the years, and absolutely subscribe to the importance he places on community mobilization.
However, I do not share his often-expressed view that English-speaking Quebecers have been too apathetic and passive. Nor do I buy into his description of us as “anglophones,” a somewhat pejorative term that leaves out thousands of English-speaking Quebecers from cultural communities who view that tired term as exclusive of them. As Premier Philippe Couillard has insisted and demonstrated, we are all Quebecers, point final.
That said, I join the premier, Minister Kathleen Weil and all of my caucus colleagues in hoping that English-speaking Quebecers will engage fully in the upcoming campaign, with questions, suggestions and criticism of all of the parties that wish to form the next government. They should properly call for results from our groundbreaking creation of a designated bureaucracy and cabinet post for relations with the English-speaking community across Quebec. They should be expecting renewed access plans for the delivery of health and social services in English, progress on French second-language instruction, job support for young English-speaking entrepreneurs and better access to the civil service and government appointments. On those questions and others, they will want to shine a light not only on us, but on all of our opponents as well.
Are they comfortable with Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault’s summary dismissal of our new Secretariat responsible to the English-speaking community? His plan to limit immigration and to institute obligatory language tests for newcomers? His plan to scrap linguistic and universally elected school boards? His vague and fuzzy conversion to the Canadian federation? His distaste, expressed and on the record in the National Assembly, at the thought of a judge wearing a kippa?
Are English-speaking Quebecers actually ready to consider the Parti Québécois and Leader Jean-François Lisée, whose short stint as a minister included nominal responsibility for us “anglophones?” His single evident accomplishment in that role was to free up 20 grand for a song called Our Home. Are they prepared to support a party that promises to talk separation only on every second Tuesday?
Québec solidaire unabashedly promotes separation. Has anybody ever seen the slightest credible budget plan to support their utopian list of promises?
Or, will English-speaking Quebecers carefully examine our government’s record and its vision for a modern, prosperous Quebec? Will they look at a recent Liberal Party resolution to offer free French second-language instruction to the English-speaking adult population? Action plans on seniors, culture and infrastructure that will include specific measures aimed at our community? An approach on immigration, diversity and French-language promotion that is inclusive and forward-looking ? A long-standing conviction and record predicated on English-speaking Quebecers as allies rather than adversaries? And, are an impending fifth balanced budget, 250,000 new jobs, a level of economic growth that is the envy of the rest of Canada not English-speaking issues as well?
Yes, we can do better, and we count on the English-speaking community to call us out when we don’t. We invite the community to exercise that same vigilance in evaluating our opponents. That should make for a fair game of chess, and may our community come out the winner.