Date of publication: June 12, 2022 • 1 minute ago • 5 minutes reading • 154 comments The leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, Dominique Anglade, in the center, holds up the party platform as she speaks at their general meeting in Montreal, Saturday, June 11, 2022. Photo by Graham Hughes / The Canadian Press
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Liberal leader Dominque Anglade has spoken out against her main rival, François Lego, describing the prime minister as arrogant, divisive and skeptical of immigration.
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But on the language issue, Anglade said it would change, but not repeal, Bill 96 if the Liberals form a government on October 3. And the controversial new rules that require more CEGEP French lessons are there to stay. “For François Lego, only the villains are Quebec,” Anglade said in a fiery final speech to the 400 Liberals gathered for the party’s general council in Montreal on Saturday. “CAQ reduces the nation to us who exclude, to us who see new arrivals as a problem, to us who make diversity a weakness and not a strength. “Do you know how we say that? “The old policy, the old policy of finding scapegoats, the old policy that is closed to itself, the old policy of division.” Later, in a press conference, Anglade went further when asked if she believes Legault is deliberately cultivating mistrust in the population.
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“Yes, he cultivates it,” Anglade said. “When he is in the process of saying that there is a threat to the nation, he cultivates it knowingly. It deliberately divides the Quebec. “ Her remarks came in the wake of a speech by Legault on May 28 in Drummondville to conclude a Coalition Avenir Québec political convention. In his speech, Legault said he needed a strong mandate in the fall elections to persuade Ottawa to relinquish its immigration powers. “It’s a matter of survival for our nation,” Legault said. The Liberals have since seen the issue, as well as Legault’s recent reference to immigrants successfully integrating into French Quebec society as “jokes” rather than the rule. The Liberals opened their council, held at a hotel in the city center, adopting an urgent proposal to condemn these remarks with members of the minority community going to the microphone saying they found the term offensive.
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“François Legault is not the future of Quebec,” Anglade added in her speech. “We believe in a better future. We will have confidence in disbelief, we will listen compared to being arrogant, we will act with generosity as opposed to being closed. “I do not want to be the prime minister of the people who voted for me. “I want to be the prime minister of all the Quebecers.” Speaking in English, Anglade said: “What François Legault is doing is really ensuring that the Quebecers remain divided. We do not want to separate. We want to be together. Are you ready to work together until October 3? The meeting takes place as the Liberals are in a less favorable position in the run-up to the autumn elections, while their opponents in the CAQ are leading to a wave of popularity.
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With half of Anglade’s 27-member parliamentary group not seeking re-election, the party at 18% in opinion polls and the English-speaking Quebec feeling distressed by the Liberals’ handling of the 96 bill, the focus of the weekend was on prepares to engage the enemy. The Liberals took the unusual step of publicizing their campaign platform three months before the vote. It includes some attractive trinkets, including lowering the middle-class tax that would put an extra $ 1,000 into the pockets of some Quebec residents, freezing Hydro-Québec rates, and abolishing the sales tax on some essential items. Students and people over the age of 65 will have free public transport. “The issue of cost of living is on everyone’s mind,” Anglade told reporters, noting that CAQ inflation controls do not address the issue in the long run. “We recognize that there is a crisis now and that this crisis will continue.”
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The Liberals promise every Quebec a family doctor and 4,000 extra hospital beds. While CAQ wants to keep a lid on immigration, the Liberals will open the door and accept 70,000 a year on a permanent basis, encouraging regions to get the share they want to fill thousands of job vacancies. The Liberals will amend Bill 21 on state secularism to allow teachers to wear religious symbols in their work and to abandon the CAQ government’s use of the extension of the clause to protect the law from litigation. However, the clause will be repealed in bill 96, which revises the Charter of the French Language. A liberal government would make changes to Bill 96, but clauses requiring more French lessons or more CEGEP French second language courses will not be repealed, Anglade told reporters.
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“They live,” Anglade said when asked about the Liberals’ own amendments to the bill. “But we will work with all the people involved to make sure everything is done the right way.” The Liberals’ initial amendment to Bill 96 would require CEGEP English students to take three of their regular classes in French. This would be more than the two basic French second language courses they are required to attend. Faced with a furious reaction from the English-speaking community at the last minute, the Liberals managed to persuade French Foreign Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette to amend the bill to say that English-speakers at CEGEP would have a choice: either three French lessons or three additional second language French lessons.
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The Liberals did offer mea culpa for their performance with the bill, but some members of the English-speaking community and the CEGEP community are still angry. Minority support for the Liberals has fallen and the party has been trying to improve relations ever since. “Many calls,” Robert-Baldwin MNA spokesman Carlos Leitão said Saturday when asked about the reaction. “We recognize that this was not necessarily our best time. We recognize it and we have taken steps to correct it and mitigate the blow to this measure. “ The controversy has sparked two new parties focusing on minority rights, which will compete for the Liberals’ vote on October 3rd. One of these parties, the Bloc Montréal, which is run by former Montreal mayoral candidate Balarama Holness, received official recognition from ctionslections Quebec last week. The second party, the Canadian Party of Quebec, organized by Eastern Townships’s linguistic ombudsman Colin Standish, is set to receive the same green light.
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Éric Duhaime, the leader of the Quebec Conservative Party, who voted against Bill 96, is also trying to attract Montreal-speaking English speakers. The Conservatives are second in the polls, at 19%, among non-French speakers. The Liberals are at 48 percent in the category. The platform of the Liberals makes adherence to the minorities. They would restore the right of all students to attend the CEGEP of their choice, which would mean that the English network access ceilings contained in Bill 96 would be abolished. They would also abolish the six-month deadline for immigrants to contact the state language different from French. The Liberals have also found a candidate to replace retired David Byrnebaum, the MNA for D’Arcy McGee’s cavalry, in the fall general election. Izabel Czuzoj-Shulman, currently director of operations in the office of the leader of the Liberal House, Pablo Rodriguez, will be a candidate. [email protected] twitter.com/philipauthier
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