When Prime Minister Legault removed responsibility for the language file from Simon Jolin-Barrette and entrusted it to Jean-François Roberge, many saw it as a signal that he preferred to see someone more conciliatory in this position.
It was said that Mr. Jolin-Barrette would have liked Bill 96 to provide for the extension to the college level of the provisions governing access to English schools, but that Mr. Legault was categorically opposed to it. When he was Minister of Education, Mr. Roberge saw no more need for it.
This week, Mr. Roberge found nothing wrong with the initiative of Cégep Garneau, in Quebec, which scheduled an “English Week” during which teachers were invited to use English in their courses, while that the students would exchange with each other in the language of Shakespeare.
In the eyes of the minister, this event was no different from other thematic weeks organized by the college to stimulate interest in philosophy or even in… French. It did not seem to have occurred to him that, even in Quebec, English does not need anyone’s help to ensure its promotion and that the challenge consists rather in stopping its progress to the detriment of French. .
Being the good soldier that he is, Mr. Roberge perhaps thought he was going ahead of the Prime Minister’s wishes by wanting to demonstrate that Quebec had an open mind, whatever people say in the rest of the country. After all, he is also the minister responsible for Canadian Relations, and a week of promoting English in a college is not the end of the world.
Instead, he succeeded in attracting the blame of the opposition and his own government. Having known Mr. Legault for years, he should have known that when it comes to language, he has always preferred cooricos or cries of alarm to daring actions. He was not going to miss such a great opportunity to trumpet his concern for the protection of French. ” It’s not a good idea. There is already enough English among young people and in general in Quebec,” thundered Legault.
Mr. Roberge instantly changed his mind, saying he “completely agreed with the Prime Minister.” If we want to live a long time in politics, and even more so in the Council of Ministers, we do not publicly contest the position of the leader, whether he is right or wrong, but both his initial position and his humiliating about-face. made him look like a coward and reinforced the doubts of those who were already wondering if he was really the man for the job.
In his defense, it was not his role to give directives to educational establishments. Neither Mr. Legault nor the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, who has also been critical of the Cégep Garneau initiative, have gone so far as to formally ask him to renounce it.
To the surprise of many, it was the Liberal MP for Pontiac, André Fortin, who took charge. “For us, it’s ill-advised,” he said. It is true that the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) sometimes has unexpected and fleeting bursts of linguistic awareness in the hope of getting closer to the French-speaking electorate.
The brief reign of Dominique Anglade was marked by a series of reversals which had the effect of dissatisfying both French and English speakers. In the state the PLQ currently finds itself in, which no one seems to want to lead, nothing its spokespersons say can be considered a consensual and even less definitive position. Nevertheless, for once someone had a good reflex, Mr. Roberge could have refrained from denouncing the “liberal rantings”.
Last January, when he announced the development, in collaboration with five of his colleagues, of a major action plan which must be presented this fall, Mr. Roberge explained that raising public awareness of the precariousness of the situation of French and the urgency of recovery was at the heart of his ministerial responsibilities.
No one wants to fuel linguistic tensions, but unfortunately ensuring the predominance of French cannot be done in perfect harmony. No offense to the apostles of bilingualism, the dynamics of languages in Quebec is indeed a zero-sum game.
The figures don’t lie: progress in one necessarily leads to setbacks in the other, and English benefits from an enormous advantage at the start, which is further reinforced by our membership in the Canadian federation. We expect the minister officially responsible for defending the French language to recognize this reality and take it into account at all times.