Finance minister discusses anglophone concerns
Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitão caught an earful last week when he met with representatives of anglophone community groups to hear their concerns. Leitão, the Liberal MNA for Robert-Baldwin riding, said he wasn’t surprised by most of what he heard from 20 groups at closeddoor meeting at McGill University. “I think, for the community in the Montreal area, I think we know the main issues of access to services, health care and education, significant issues of young people with access to the labour market. There are issues to address but that wasn’t a surprise to me. “What surprised me the most was the extent of the challenge outside Montreal, whether its in the Eastern Townships, the Gatineau area, Pontiac or the North Shore,” Leitão said. “The plights of small English communities that have a hard time having access to service in English, and they’re getting older.” But keeping young Englishspeaking Montrealers from leaving the province is also a concern, Leitão added. “In the metropolitan area of Montreal and its surroundings, one of the big issues, and we need to address that as well, is that there is a potential social problem in the sense that those folks with the education and with the talent, and with the drive, they can go somewhere else and they do. It’s unfortunate. We’d like to keep them all here, but young anglos do go elsewhere.” While the Quebec economy is doing better, Leitão said less educated anglos are often left behind in the modern job market. “The economy is doing better but the issue that we have is with those younger folks that don’t have education skills. We still have a number of young anglos that don’t finish high school ... high school dropouts. It’s always difficult for a high school dropout of any language group, but it’s particularly difficult for dropouts in the English language. They don’t have language skills.” While recent polls show Philippe Couillard’s Liberals trailing the Coalition Avenir Québec, the finance minister didn’t mince words when asked why disgruntled young anglos should think twice before abandoning the Liberal party to vote for the CAQ in the next election. “Because, very bluntly, the CAQ is a political party that is adopting a very nationalist party. And the kind of nationalism the CAQ proposes is, in my opinion, an ethnicbased nationalism. I’m not afraid of the words. This is what it is. They view the French majority as being under attack from all those foreigners out there.” “So when folks are considering other political alternatives, I tell them, fine, but in the coming weeks and months, pay attention to what they say. Pay attention to what the CAQ is saying; pay attention to the words they use in the National Assembly, because they have a very inward looking approach.” Leitão said there is not much difference between the CAQ and Parti- Québécois, who are trailing third in the polls. “If you’re an anglo, the CAQ doesn’t want to hold a referendum, they promise. They promised. That’s about it.”