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Anglophones keep adapting and Quebec keeps moving the goalposts

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MONTREAL Retired Senator and former journalist Joan Fraser has for decades been one of the most insightful observers of Quebec politics. So, when Fraser says that Quebecs English-speaking population is angry like never before, one must take the situation seriously. We feel abandoned, she told me this week. For 50 years, we have been told that we have to adapt to the changes in Quebec society. But we get the feeling that its never enough, that each time we adapt, the goal posts are moved. This perception is correct.

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Quebec Anglos have several reasons to be angry: the attempt by the Coalition Avenir Qubec (CAQ) government to abolish English school boards; bill 21 banning the wearing of religious signs; bill 96 which, amongst other things, freezes the growth of English colleges; and the withdrawal of a promised subsidy for a new Dawson College pavilion. Directly or indirectly, each one of those measures is an attack against their fundamental rights. Yet, Anglo representatives were not consulted and since then, have been screaming in the desert. No one is listening. In fact, no one seems to care.

Even the provincial Liberal Party, once the stalwart defender of minority rights in Quebec, appears indifferent. When bill 96 was tabled in May 2021, the Liberals expressed a constructive, positive attitude even though the bill included the wide-ranging use of the notwithstanding clause, meaning that Quebecers intent on challenging the law could not do so based on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or Quebecs Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

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For close to a year, the Liberal leader, Dominique Anglade, refused to say whether her party would vote for or against the bill at third reading. Last February, she finally said that the Liberals would vote against unless changes were made. Their No is a quiet one, as if they dont want the nationalists to notice, deplores Marlene Jennings, chair of the Quebec Community Groups Network and former federal MP. They should be proud of saying No, theyre supposed to be the party that defends minority rights.

Since becoming leader two years ago, Anglade and her team have been obsessed with increasing her partys among the French-speaking majority, of which only 11 per cent tell pollsters they would vote for the Liberal if an election were held today. Under Anglades leadership, the party has taken a nationalist turn, which has failed to attract more French votes while upsetting their traditional clientele of Anglophones and visible minorities.

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This nationalist turn reached new heights when a Liberal member of the provincial parliament proposed an amendment to bill 96 that would require students in English colleges to take three of their regular courses in French, an amendment that the CAQ immediately endorsed. The Liberals have made the bill worse, deplores Colin Standish, an Eastern Township articling student.

Standish heads a group called the Task Force on Linguistic Policy. The group is planning to form a new provincial party that would stand up not only for Anglo rights, but for the fundamental rights of all Quebecers, says Standish. We would not be the party of the West Island of Montreal.

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Not all Anglophones welcome this strategy. Joan Fraser, for one, recalls that Weve been down that road before. In 1989, following then Liberal premier Robert Bourassas use of the notwithstanding clause to adopt a new language law, a group of angry Anglo-Quebecers launched the Equality Party. The new party succeeded in electing four members of the National Assembly in the 1989 elections, but that did not prevent Bourassas government from being re-elected, and the Equality Party quickly sank into internal bickering and insignificance.

Even if the formation of a new party might not be advantageous, the discussion about a new party might be profitable, Fraser concedes. Who knows, maybe the provincial Liberals will begin to notice that anglophone voters should not be taken for granted?

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However, for Anglade, it is probably too late: the trust is broken. Anglo voters may still vote Liberal in the end (the next election will be held Oct. 3), but a significant number will probably vote for this new party, if it sees the light of day. The rest will simply stay at home.

The Anglo anger could have deeper consequences than its impact on partisan politics in the province. At worse, Fraser warns, it could lead to another exodus, especially of young Anglophones. From 1970 to 1980, tens of thousands of English-speaking Quebecers left the province in the wake of the October Crisis and the election of the separatist Parti Qubcois in 1976. That brain drain had enormous economic consequences for Qubec.

Then, it was mostly unilingual Anglos who were leaving because they could not or would not adapt to the provinces new French reality. Today, most of the young Anglos who are thinking of leaving are bilingual. Their departure would be another economic and cultural blow to Quebec. But maybe thats exactly what the nationalists want: that Quebec become a totally French, uniform society. How sad

Andr Pratte is a Principal at Navigator ltd. He is also involved in Jean Charests leadership campaign for the federal Conservative party.

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Andr Pratte: In Quebec, Anglo anger boils, as even the Liberals take a nationalist turn - National Post