Montreal Gazette

Promises to anglos remain unfulfille­d

- ALLISON HANES

The next Quebec election is still eight months away, but already it’s starting.

The quadrennia­l flirtation between political parties and Quebec anglophone­s, that most awkward and unfulfilli­ng of courtships, is upon us again.

Suddenly, we’re no longer “angry phones” or members of the world’s most pampered minority. We’re voters. We’re starting to hear the reassuranc­es that we are valued and our needs are understood.

Meanwhile, we’re beginning to feel that familiar sense of skepticism in the pit of our stomachs, that regardless of what promises are made, we’re still going to spend the next four years being taken for granted.

Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault is flying high in the polls. With several showing a majority government within his grasp, he took the time to give a radio interview to CJAD’s Leslie Roberts. He thought it was time to reach out to the Englishspe­aking community.

Anglos should not fear a CAQ government, said Legault, once a Parti Québécois cabinet minister. He vowed to keep Quebec within Canada — as if a referendum is the only issue on our minds. And yes, he conceded, there should be more English-speakers in the civil service. But we don’t really need that anglophone secretaria­t thingy Premier Philippe Couillard recently announced. Oh, and no one should dare utter “Hi!” after “Bonjour!” in a Montreal shop, because Quebec is a French-speaking province. And who really needs school boards anyway? Yes, he gets us perfectly.

As for the Quebec Liberals, who traditiona­lly win our votes, if not our hearts, they spent the first half of their current mandate giving us the cold shoulder and the last bit trying to make up for it.

Bill 10, which merged the boards of hospitals and health institutio­ns dear to the community, was a blow, even if certain concession­s were made to protect their historic, linguistic and cultural missions. Then the Liberals attempted to abolish school board elections, our last forum for community democracy and representa­tion. Fortunatel­y, they backed off once a constituti­onal challenge was threatened.

Health Minister Gaétan Barrette’s subsequent musing about merging the McGill University Health Centre into a larger entity, followed by his shaming of the hospital network, only added insult to injury. And Bill 62, which essentiall­y denies public services to a tiny fraction of Muslim women who wear the niqab, was reviled by many anglophone­s who tend to view any attack on minority rights as repugnant.

To his credit, Couillard finally recognized the chasm that had emerged between his administra­tion and the English-speaking community. He created an anglophone secretaria­t and appointed an anglophone affairs minister to make sure our interests are represente­d. It was a welcome olive branch, even if it didn’t stop the Liberals from backing a PQ motion criticizin­g the Bonjour/ Hi greeting and the new minister for anglos Kathleen Weil from dismissing the resulting umbrage as our failure to understand.

And the PQ? Despite overtures to anglos and minorities since winning the party leadership and a promise not to hold a referendum in a first mandate, leader Jean-François Lisée is still seen as a wolf in sheep’s clothing when it comes to sovereignt­y and divisive identity politics.

An election on the horizon makes it all the more urgent that the promises made to the English-speaking community over the last year be signed, sealed and delivered before October.

During a recent meeting with the Montreal Gazette editorial board, the Quebec Community Groups Network said it wants to see the new anglophone secretaria­t enshrined in law by the National Assembly so that its existence doesn’t depend on the whim of any government.

And although former federal bureaucrat William Floch has been appointed to head the new body, the QCGN still wants to see it fully up and running, with adequate staff, funding and community-building capacity, as soon as possible — which would make it that much more difficult to abolish by any future government.

To the QCGN, which inherited the mantle of representi­ng anglophone Quebecers from the more militant Alliance Quebec, the secretaria­t is key to ensuring community interests are considered — not only by elected

leaders, but by those in the civil service who draft policy and design programs.

“The community thinks the problem is at the political level. And there are stupid things that are being said at the political level that are unhelpful, cause division and get people very annoyed,” said Eric Maldoff, a director on the QCGN’s board. “But the problem actually exists at the level of the bureaucrac­y.”

The QCGN hopes the secretaria­t will be a way for anglophone­s to finally penetrate the Quebec public service, which remains a “closed shop” no matter how bilingual or qualified Englishspe­aking and minority applicants are.

If Couillard is serious about the importance of English-speakers to Quebec, he should take the necessary steps to make the anglophone secretaria­t a permanent fixture and give it the resources it needs to meet the community’s high hopes. This pre-election period is a good time to capitalize on the goodwill of all parties to make this a reality. Time is running out.

As we know all too well, the path to electoral victory doesn’t run through Montreal, where most of Quebec’s approximat­ely 1.1 million anglos are concentrat­ed. And no matter how ardently political leaders try to woo us during campaign season, we also know they will throw us under the bus if the prevailing political winds shift.

If this doesn’t happen now, it could be a long time before we get another crack at this.

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 ??  ?? François Legault
François Legault

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