QUEBEC — An hour-long meeting with the premier has allowed the Quebec Community Groups Network to dream big again.
The private audience — a first since the group met with former premier Bernard Landry nearly 15 years ago — was the chance the QCGN was waiting for to spell out its idea for a liaison office.
“The premier indicated a willingness to consider creating some sort of office, appointment, something, at a more bureaucratic level, that would enable us to get where it’s happening,” said lawyer Eric Maldoff, chair of QCGN’s health and social services committee, “because by the time it’s introduced as legislation, the trouble’s there.”
Last year, anglophones were taken aback when the Couillard government passed Bill 10, which abolished the boards of individual health institutions and merged them into 28 regional boards, to save about $200 million a year.
And they fought tooth and nail against Bill 86, the government’s proposed school board reform, which would have eliminated province-wide school board elections.
In both cases, the QCGN argued anglophones no longer had any real power over the institutions they helped build.
“We don’t feel the English-speaking community is consulted early enough or in enough depth in regard to public policy,” said QCGN vice-president Geoffrey Chambers.
“Access to services in English are not well organized throughout the province and some English-speaking institutions are not performing in a way that is as well funded as they need to be … If we get into the habit of talking about these things before they occur, we’re hoping to be able to avoid these sorts of problems in the future,” he said.
Premier Philippe Couillard told reporters he intends to keep the conversation flowing: “I hope it will be the first of a succession of meetings so that we can talk about their concerns,” he said. “Affirming Quebec’s identity, including its language, should never be done at the expense of our English-speaking community in Quebec, which played a very important, historic role in the development of modern Quebec.”
Parti Québécois Leader Jean-François Lisée said it is “scandalous” the premier waited two and a half years into his mandate to meet with QCGN.
He vowed to name a minister responsible for the English-speaking community if elected premier.
“This Liberal government has done more than anyone before to weaken the institutions that are the fabric of the anglophone community,” he said.
