Nationalist Language Rights Reborn

In a fit of pique and disgust at the Liberal government in Quebec the voters thought that if they voted the Parti Quebecois back into office the problems of corruption and mismanagement would be solved, if only temporarily. It hasn't taken all that long for Quebecers to become disgusted with the ineptitude and disquieting mis-focus of the PQ on both the economy and the French language laws. As a result, the current PQ government, not long in office, enjoys a 30% approval rate.

The Province's huge debt burden has not been made any lighter nor the seemingly intractable problem surrounding the militancy of unions and latterly of university student unions by the province short-changing universities by withholding vital funding, and concomitantly informing the students, after having cancelled the Liberal-government's modest tuition rate increase immediately after taking office, that their tuition fees will rise to reflect the cost of living.

Premier Marois and her cabinet have stood in defiant solidarity behind the public service unions, as bloated and resistant-to-reason a bureaucracy as the government, in upholding the dignity and the right of public servants not to have to feel demeaned by responding to queries by English-speaking citizens in English. It is French, or it is no response whatever.

And that little dictum has now been extended to government ministers and their deputies. Under new instructions from their government they are to studiously avoid speaking English in any official meetings with their provincial counterparts outside Quebec, or representing the federal government. If simultaneous translation services are unavailable, well, too bad.

This is the province, it is well to remember, that screeches bloody murder if the federal government has the audacity to promote for public office any individual whose professional qualifications and experience make them highly eligible for that office, but who lack French-language proficiency; that applies to judges or any government agencies. If they lack the ability to communicate directly with French-speaking citizens they should be disqualified.

It makes sense to the Quebec government that those of lesser qualifications for any position be accelerated to that position based solely on their ability to communicate in French as well as English. Not trivial to them. But take care to see that their own bureaucrats and those who come in contact with the public are in command of both official languages? Completely unnecessary.

And now the tight-budget economy is spending more taxpayer funding on another new "national commission"; odd how everything in Quebec is misnomered by "national" rather than "provincial" as is done in every other province but this one. Quebec holds itself to be a "national", not a provincial entity, leaving in question just what the federal government represents; one of Quebec's endearing little anomalies.

The new "national commission" is tasked with closely examining the issues of the day that are of moment to the PQ; essentially the manner in which, how often, when and where, the federal government fails to give Quebec its just dues. They will likely start with the changes to the Employment Insurance act, which impacts on Quebec whose seasonal workers represent a stunning 40% of the nation's total dependent on that version of federal welfare support.

And who will head the commission? Why none other than the affably stone-faced Gilles Duceppe, he of the pretty defunct Bloc Quebecois, the supposedly federal presence of the Parti Quebecois, whose party and platform the Quebec voters shunned in favour of the NDP in the last federal election.   This is a man who saw nothing amiss in a party intent on breaking up confederation paid to do so by tax dollars.

"The Parti Quebecois has hired itself a pyromaniac in Gilles Duceppe, and it is going to pay him with public funds to light fires across Quebec and be sure to pass the buck to Ottawa", stated Laurent Lessard dryly, chief whip for the Official Opposition Liberals, adding that the federal Conservatives will "die laughing" when they hear Mr. Duceppe's conclusions on the federal EI reforms.

"They must be saying, 'It's not possible. It's Groundhog Day, and I've just woken up'. Quebecers kicked him out, and Ms. Marois has just handed him back the steering wheel", said Mr. Lessard.