Opinion: For Quebec anglos, vigilance is on the agenda

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Whereas pundits have centered on the blow the Oct. 2 byelection within the Quebec Metropolis using of Jean-Talon represents to the Coalition Avenir du Québec authorities of Premier François Legault, the lack of one seat to the Parti Québécois on no account threatens the federal government’s overwhelming majority.

However the end result reveals the PQ might have one thing different events within the Nationwide Meeting lack proper now: momentum. With momentum comes a possible risk to a authorities that owes its success to having supplanted the PQ within the first place.

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Unhealthy information, then, for the CAQ; worse information for Quebec’s English-speaking neighborhood.

The PQ is much more hawkish on language than the CAQ and stays dedicated to a extra nationalist — learn sovereigntist — path. One doesn’t want a crystal ball to know that, along with shoring up his celebration’s assist within the Quebec Metropolis space by revisiting the controversial “third hyperlink” between the provincial capital and Lévis — a damaged promise that value the CAQ dearly — the premier will likely attempt to defend towards any weak point on his language and identification flanks. This may put Quebec’s English-speaking neighborhood in a well-known place: below the bus.

The affect of the byelection outcomes is one among many points on which the Quebec Group Teams Community is targeted and dealing to deal with as the brand new political season unfolds.

Delighted as we have been by the Superior Court docket ruling that Invoice 40 violates the constitutional proper of linguistic minorities to handle their very own colleges, we have been dismayed when the Legault authorities appealed this well-founded ruling. Our board lately resolved to hunt go away to intervene earlier than the Quebec Court docket of Enchantment. We are going to develop our place in session with the Quebec English Faculty Boards Affiliation and have sought funding from the federal Court docket Challenges Program.

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In the meantime, we’re watching different education-reform laws, Invoice 23, and are glad provincial Liberals persuaded Schooling Minister Bernard Drainville to shelve governance parts of the proposed laws whereas the difficulty of our faculty boards stays earlier than the courts.

The QCGN may also take part in a examine by the Senate committee on official languages on well being and social companies, a matter of significant significance to the English-speaking neighborhood. Latest federal laws (Invoice C-13) — towards which the inclusion of references to Quebec’s Invoice 96 we argued vigorously — have difficult health-care points.

Then, after all, there’s the approaching passage by the Nationwide Meeting of the CAQ’s Invoice 15 restructuring well being and social companies — with out huge public session — which is able to additional erode our affect over the well being and social establishments we created and maintained for generations.

Within the meantime, we await with justifiable trepidation the “action plan” on the French language to be offered by Jean-François Roberge, Quebec’s minister of the French language. As a primary salvo, Roberge introduced Thursday he shall be elevating tuition for international and Canadian college students finding out in English universities, amongst different measures. In an interview with La Presse, he promised an all-out battle to “regain floor” on the language entrance and vowed to “go so far as Quebec’s jurisdiction, legal guidelines and taxation” enable.

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Lastly, latest media stories concerning the methods Invoice 96 constrains Quebec’s financial system — by making it tougher for firms to function right here — are elevating alarms within the enterprise neighborhood. We’re taking be aware. Latest incidents demonstrating how Invoice 96’s implementation harms people not solely generate concern amongst English-speaking Quebecers, however those that may wish to relocate right here. It additionally illustrates the rising hole between authorities rhetoric and actuality on the bottom.

Someway, Finance Minister Eric Girard, who can also be the minister liable for relations with English-speaking Quebecers, managed lately to place the blame on Montreal — the place the affect of Invoice 96 is most fiercely felt — for Quebec’s lagging behind Ontario economically. He appears to not have understood the function his personal authorities’s attitudes and laws have performed.

Clearly, it is a time for the QCGN to be particularly vigilant on behalf of the English-speaking neighborhood.

Eva Ludvig is president of the Quebec Group Teams Community.

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