What could possibly go wrong?
It was nice to get some cheery news from Premier François Legault earlier this week. In a press conference on Tuesday Legault released the latest stats on COVID cases across the province, noting with some pleasure that the trend was in the right direction: down!
The Premier also pointed out that with an increasing number of Quebecers vaccinated, at least once, the province will be able to ease many of the restrictions that helped reduce the rate of infection in the first place.
Now, I don’t want to be a ‘doubting Thomas,’ or in this case a ‘doubting Timothy,’ and I most certainly don’t want to rain on the Premier’s parade but really? How many false starts do we need to experience before we realize it’s too early to break out the Champagne? I’m all for optimism but there were still 549 new cases reported the day of Legault’s pep talk.
Yes, the government’s vaccination program is working well and numbers are actually ahead of what was expected. The goal of having 75% of adults receive at least their first shot has been moved up to June 15. This will allow earlier second shots and youngsters 12 to 17 will be able to get both shots before they head back to school.
The Premier also announced a new time-line for getting ‘back to normal.’ I’ve taken the liberty of including an ‘annotated’ version for your edification and enlightenment:
May 28: the curfew ends, restaurant terraces can open, outdoor meetings with up to eight people from different residences allowed with social distancing, and inter-regional travel allowed. (The curfew was touted as a solution, eight people will turn into fifty after the second beer, the people who caused a lot of the problems never ‘social distanced’ in the first place, and will you really want to travel after this is over?)
May 31: majority of regions move to orange, secondary three and four students back full time and restaurants fully reopen. (Nobody ever knew the difference between orange, red or green in the first place, students will be back but will the teachers all have their two shots? What difference will three days make for a restaurant with a terrace and one without?)
June 11: bars will open terraces, out door sporting activities with up to 25 people permitted. (Why are bar terraces opening two weeks after restaurants? How did they come up with 25 people playing sports? Does that mean football is okay with no substitutions? Will it be against the rules to have 2 golfers teeoff from 18 different holes?)
June 14: majority of regions move to yellow zone. (What will that decision be based on?)
June 25: people who have had both shots can meet inside homes without masks or distancing. (Who’s going to check? Remember all the people who were meeting in secret in the middle of the pandemic? )
June 28: majority of regions move to green and up to ten people from three residences can meet. (What do you want to bet that up to ten people from ten different residences have already been meeting?)
Finally, by the end of August, Mr. Legault says 75 per cent of Quebecers from the age of 12 and over will be fully vaccinated and we’ll be able to dump the masks for good. All we need is for Quebecers to be vigilant, cautious, vaccinated and to obey the guidelines.
What could possibly go wrong?
At least 15 of 18 “bilingual” municipalities in the Eastern Townships will lose their status to communicate in English with citizens due to Bill 96. I use bilingual in brackets because it is not true English-french bilingualism for small municipalities in Quebec. There are only limited rights under Bill 101’s s.29.1 to use another language than French if the population of a municipality is over 50 percent mother tongue English-speaking. A town could actually decide to use Chinese or Italian if they wanted.
Of note, no French-speaker would have less rights to French services in a bilingual town, nor an Anglophone or Allophone, to French or English language services.
The mother tongue aspect of 29.1 makes it nearly impossible to maintain the status, with outmigration, decline and diversity of the English-speaking community.
The Town of Brome Lake, Lennoxville, Bury, Bolton-east, Hatley, Newport, Stanbridge East, Ogden, Township of Hatley, Potton, Stanstead Township, Ulverton, Ayer’s Cliff, North Hatley, Sutton will lose its status under Bill 96, but can use its council to indicate it wants to keep it until the next census. If it’s not done in 120 days, you lose your status forever.
For boroughs like Lennoxville, they will will have to rely on the city council to pass their resolution.
Bill 96 confines “bilingual” municipalities on a straight line to oblivion.