LEGAULT EXTENDS A HAND, BUT WILL ANGLOS TAKE IT?
My, how times have changed in Quebec.
Monday evening ’s Quebec leaders’ debate — the first ever broadcast on TV in English — was itself a sign of how quickly Quebec has evolved in a short span. That Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée eagerly proclaimed himself the first to have accepted the invitation to participate is another indicator.
There was barely a mention of sovereignty or federalism. The leaders focused on the bread-and-butter topics that affect voters’ everyday lives, like health care and education, the economy and the fight against climate change. There was hardly a whisper of the ugly identity issues that so divided Quebecers during the last campaign.
Even language issues were discussed with an eye to improving French instruction for young anglophones so they can get good jobs here and not flee down Highway 401 to Ontario.
But in terms of demonstrating an understanding of what makes Quebec anglophones tick, what appeals to them or scares them in this rapidly shifting Quebec, it’s not clear much has changed.
Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault, who is trying to appeal to Quebec anglophones to abandon their traditional support of the Liberals, came ready to extend a hand.
It was Legault’s opportunity to show English-speaking Quebecers they can be as comfortable with him as they are with Liberal leader Philippe Couillard.
A former Péquiste, he reiterated his promise that the CAQ wants to defend Quebec’s interests within Canada. He claimed that his plans to abolish school boards won’t run afoul of Charter protections for minority-language education because he will replace them with “nine anglophone service centres.”
For the first time, Legault committed to keeping the new Anglophone Secretariat the Couillard government set up within the Quebec government — something he had previously been ambivalent about.
Legault even said that when it comes to the ubiquitous Bonjour/Hi greeting in downtown Montreal retail shops — an irritant the National Assembly unanimously voted to discourage last year — he would prefer if employees used French, but conceded: “Everybody is free to choose.”
These overtures to the Englishspeaking community may win over voters who will make their decision at the ballot box on very narrow and specific issues. But it’s Legault’s stance on what has emerged as the biggest fault line in the campaign that could leave many anglophones with reservations: Immigration.
Legault has laid down the gauntlet with his plan to reduce by 20 per cent the number of immigrants Quebec accepts annually — to 40,000 from upwards of 50,000. He also wants to administer a French exam and a values test. Those who fail would be asked to leave Quebec — since only Ottawa has the powers of expulsion. Maybe he can’t expel them, but they’d certainly be persona non grata.
Legault’s reasons for this reduction have varied, from defence of the French language in Quebec, to what he sees as the need to devote more language and job-training services to “each” of the fewer immigrants the CAQ would accept. But his fumbling of basic facts about immigration on the campaign trail in recent days suggests there is an emotional component behind the policy as well.
During the debate, Legault argued that it’s also needed because of the Liberal government’s inability to retain all the newcomers. “Twenty-six per cent leaving is a failure,” he said. “How come we lost 26 per cent of immigrants?”
Couillard, who is counting on portraying himself as the most inclusive leader to keep his job as premier, offered one hypothesis.
“The first thing we must change is the way we talk about immigrants. Unfortunately, it’s not always positive,” said Couillard. “It’s not helping. They have to feel welcome.”
Even Lisée, who was one of the chief spokesmen for his party’s controversial Charter of Values in the last campaign, and who ran for the PQ leadership by stoking fear of women in burkas concealing machine guns, jumped on Legault for a lack of compassion.
“We’re not going to ask them to learn Berlitz if they’re under bombs or fleeing an earthquake,” Lisée said.
Anglophones are more than a linguistic minority living within Quebec who can be reassured with promises of English-language public services.
They are also cultural and religious minorities, as well as immigrants and refugees in some cases, who happen to share a common tongue.
And for those reasons, the debate over immigration — and the reasons for the CAQ’s focus on it — remains unsettling to many. Maybe this time around anglo votes are important enough to warrant the first-ever English-language TV debate. But English-speaking Quebecers also know the prevailing winds can change. And quickly.