Is Stephen Harper on the fast track to become the most pro-Quebec PM
since Brian Mulroney?!.
Stephen Harper is also supporting immigration levels which would make
the Liberal blush!. Stephen Harper's Conservative appear to have
totally discarded any and all anti-Quebec, anti-bilingual, anti-
immigrant, and anti-multicultural sentiments!.

I am glad to see you have finally matured, Mr Harper!. The road to a
majority government is through socially liberal, economically
progressive, environmentally aware Ontario and Quebec. The sooner you
totally break rank with the old Reform/Alliance Western Canadian
Conservative populist bullshit, the better!.

-Robert James (Auld Bob) Peffers

Hébert: Language law to face foe from within
By Chantal Hébert
National Columnist

Published On Mon Nov 2 2009

MONTREAL

A decade ago, former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion startled many of his
colleagues when he described Quebec's Bill 101 as a "great Canadian
law." At the time, Dion's celebration of Quebec's language regime
clearly went against the federal tide. Since then, he has apparently
won the argument.

Last week, the House of Commons unanimously passed a motion stating
that: "...Quebec has the right to ensure that immigrants to Quebec
must learn French first and foremost."

It was moved not by the Bloc Québécois but by the NDP's Thomas
Mulcair, an MP who, like his leader, has his roots in Quebec's
minority English-speaking community. Part of the motion was lifted
word for word from Justin Trudeau's reported comments on a recent
Supreme Court ruling that struck down a section of Quebec's language
law.

From Premier Jean Charest on down, Quebec's federalist establishment
has been virtually unanimous in criticizing the ruling. The NDP motion
was timed to echo that collective frustration.

Under Quebec's language regime, children can attend English-speaking
elementary and secondary schools only if they or one of their parents
or siblings have had most of their schooling in English in Canada.

To get around that, a small but growing number of parents had been
registering their children in private English-speaking schools for a
few weeks or months before switching them to the English public
system.

Bill 104 was designed to plug that loophole. The Supreme Court agreed
there was a loophole to address but felt the means chosen to do so
were disproportionate. It gave Quebec one year to come up with an
alternative.

The unanimous Commons motion does not change the substance of the
debate.

But it does narrow a historical divide between Parliament and the
National Assembly on the sensitive issue of language.

In the past, Supreme Court rulings that chipped away at Bill 101 were
more likely to be praised in the Commons than to trigger a
parliamentary show of solidarity for Quebec's linguistic activism.

Over time though, support for Bill 101 has stretched beyond the ranks
of the francophone majority in Quebec and the breadth of that support
is increasingly reflected within the Quebec caucuses of the three main
federalist parties on Parliament Hill.

Indeed, a future sequel to the Quebec language debate is actually more
likely to pit francophones against francophones than to split along
language lines.

A vocal section of the sovereignty movement is hoping to use the
debate over the latest contentious Supreme Court ruling as a
springboard to extend the restrictions of the language law to the
CEGEPs, Quebec's network of junior colleges.

But, under that scheme, it is not only newcomers to Quebec who would
lose the right to study in the language of their choice after high
school. Thousands of francophone students currently use their CEGEP
years to immerse themselves in an English environment.

It is hardly a given that a generation that sees English as an
opportunity rather than an imposition would willingly have its choices
on that front curtailed by a more restrictive language law.

While the Bill 104 debate has focused on immigrant parents, the
reality is that some francophone parents had also been using the
private school loophole to get their children into the English school
system.

Their numbers may be small but they are part of a larger trend that
increasingly sees French-speaking parents aspire to more effective
English-language training for their children.

In the future, the competing aspirations of Quebec francophones are
more likely to erode the consensus that underlies Bill 101 than the
House of Commons or even the Supreme Court.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.