Gov’t gives pre-election love to Anglo groups

The Quebec Government is providing $6.9 million in funding to support organizations that provide services to English-speaking communities in the fulfillment of their mission to expand the territories they serve and diversify their activities.

This announcement for the funding was made Tuesday in Montreal by the Minister for Access to Information and the Reform of Democratic Institutions and Minister responsible for Relations with English-speaking Quebecers,. Kathleen Weil, accompanied by Minister of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and the Environment and Verdun MNA Isabelle Melançon.

The new program, announced in the last budget, is now in effect and aims to support organizations in their ability to fully participate in the prosperity of Québec society, in many spheres of activity. Eligible organizations are NPOS, social economy enterprises, including co-operatives, and public institutions that provide services to English-speaking communities.

The first initiative supported is the Community Health and Social Services Network, which will receive $5.7 million over the next three years. The Network will redistribute a large portion of this amount (93 per cent) to the 25 local and regional organizations it coordinates.

The remaining $1.2 million will go to three organizations for separate projects. The English Language Art Network (ELAN), Seniors Action Québec (SAQ) and Literacy Quebec (LQ) will receive $400,000 each over the next three years to ensure that their respective sectors of activity maintain their services. to expand their operations in the regions, to strengthen links with various levels of government and to support the development of action plans.

In addition to the amounts announced today, a call for projects has been launched in connection with the appropriations available within the budget of the program to support organizations offering services to English-speaking communities worth $9 million over the next three years.

"The CHSSN (Community Health and Social Services Network) is pleased to work with the Secretariat to strengthen the capacity of regional Anglophone community organizations to better represent the needs, priorities and interests of their constituents," said Executive Director Jennifer Johnson.

The main objectives of the new program include supporting targeted organizations, institutions and partnership networks by enabling them to sustain their resources dedicated to the implementation of their mission. It also aims to support community organizations, increase the accessibility of public services for English-speaking Quebeckers, contribute to the retention of young English-speaking Quebeckers through enhancing employability.

In a historic gesture, the government created the Secretariat for Relations with English-speaking Quebecers in November 2017 for the first time in the history of Quebec. This was an effort to respond to a long-standing demand from the Quebec English-speaking community for a formal structure within the government with a mandate to ensure that the concerns of English-speaking Quebeckers are taken into account in government policies and decisions, in consultation with the departments and agencies concerned.

Over the last few months, the government has conducted numerous consultations in the various regions of Quebec to gather the concerns and issues of the various English-speaking communities that culminated with an exchange workshop attended by many actors and leaders of the English-speaking community last February.