"Schools will have to close, jobs will be abolished and past successes will be nothing but memories. If I could leave you with a single thought, it would be this: Can we put aside our political ideologies and simply think about the welfare of a child who leaves Quebec for another province or another country with a military parent, a parent who could later be sent abroad on a mission for several months?"
Stephen Burke, chairman, Central Quebec School Board

Mr. Burke's Board encompasses schools serving Valcartier and CFB Bagotville in the Saguenay region of the province. If the PQ's amendment to Quebec's Language Law Bill 101 proceeds as written, his school board will be in danger of losing fully 16% of its students, if the exemption excusing military-family children is lifted.

Quebec, after years of majority Liberal governments is now back again to being governed by the separatist Parti Quebecois, albeit in a minority government status. That status obviously hasn't given the PQ pause to consider that they are politically vulnerable. With minority status, the opposition could and might upset their applecart and bring down the government.

Under Pauline Marois, the PQ, in acknowledgement of their minority status, has pulled in their separatist horns for the time being - hoping to secure a majority government in the next election, empowering them to move on the all-important sovereignty file - now they have focused instead on the hot-button issue of language.

The primacy of the French language, its heritage, the most clear and obvious signature of French presence within Canada.

So Bill 14 was introduced to "reinforce the status of French in Quebec", even while statistics indicate that French language is secure, that more people are using it than ever before, and it is no longer vulnerable to being overtaken by that dreaded other language, Canada's major language of communication, English. A language which also just happens to be increasingly used on a universal basis.

But no, the language is sacred, and the merest hint of a public servant in the province having to cope with the unmitigated gall of a unilingual or insufficiently bilingual Quebec resident timidly asking if casual on-the-spot translation of confusing questionnaires or applications could be accommodated is enough to send Quebecois, their unions and the PQ into a tailspin of raging resentment and denial.

Now, another tempest is brewing in the proverbial teapot, and this time the focus is on the transient nature of members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and their families. Families that have children, children in need of a formal education.  Before Bill 14 under Quebec's Language Law Bill 101, children of the military who moved into the province were exempted from having to attend French schools.

That is changing. A petition with over 11,000 signatures from the riding including Valcartier military base, denounces the proposed change. That petition was tabled in the National Assembly by MNA Eric Caire at the National Assembly on behalf of his constituents. Coincidentally, the Quebec English School Boards Association submitted their own brief to a legislative committee indicating the impact of the new rules would have "devastating consequences" on schools near Valcartier.

Where previously children of soldiers subject to transfer elsewhere within Canada or abroad were permitted to study in English, to enable a fluid adjustment elsewhere, the situation rankled with the PQ. In 1997 Pauline Marois was education minister and recommended its extension. Now that she is premier the time is ripe to have the children of Canadian military join those of francophones and immigrants, attending school in French.