No plan after meeting on helping francophones
OTTAWA • Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his counterparts from the four other main federal parties left a supposedly non-partisan meeting on how to help Canadian francophones divided and without a plan to save a French-language university in Ontario.
Trudeau met with Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, the NDP’S Jagmeet Singh, Green Leader Elizabeth May and interim Bloc Québécois Leader Mario Beaulieu — a rare crossparty leaders’ confab Scheer requested Monday after reductions to francophone services announced two weeks ago by Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government.
The mood after the Parliament Hill meeting was that it was largely symbolic — a show of support for francophones outside Quebec.
But did anything new come out of it?
“No,” May said.
The Liberals say they’re open to financing the construction of the university, but Official Languages Minister Melanie Joly, who is from Montreal, said the Ford government has to make a request to unlock federal funding. She also turned on Scheer, saying he has to speak up more about the francophone community in Ontario.
“Whether Mr. Scheer will go and say as clearly as we would like him to do, is up to him,” she said.
Singh — who doesn’t have a federal seat but formerly represented a suburban-toronto riding in the Ontario legislature — expressed disappointment the Liberals didn’t agree to table their own financing proposal for the university project: “We actually need to propose something concrete to put more pressure on the provincial government,” he said.
May said there is only so much the federal government can do without the province’s support because education is an area of provincial jurisdiction.
Scheer didn’t speak to reporters after the meeting.
Conservatives had accused the Liberals of politicizing an issue that has nothing to do with Scheer, aiming to link Scheer to Ford and sour francophone voters on the Conservatives in next year’s federal election. Conservative MPS on Wednesday morning said Ford’s policies in Ontario are not those of their federal party.