Far from having digested that the Franco-Ontarian Liberal MP Francis Drouin qualified two witnesses who campaign for the protection of French in Quebec as “full of crap” and “extremists”, the Bloc Québécois is now distributing letters to push the elected to resign from his position as president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie (APF).
“Mr. Drouin has disqualified himself from his mandate to contribute to the influence of the French language internationally by refusing to calmly debate the influence of French here, in Quebec, the main home of the French language in America” , mentions Bloc MP René Villemure in his missives sent Tuesday evening.
The MP for Trois-Rivières, who is also one of the two vice-presidents of the Canadian section of the APF, sent similar letters to the other vice-president — Liberal MP from Nova Scotia Darrell Samson —, to the members of the executive committee and a copy to the members of the Canadian section of the interparliamentary organization.
He regrets that Mr. Drouin “grossly insulted” researcher Frédéric Lacroix and professor member of the Regroupement pour le cégep français Nicolas Bourdon when they commented on Statistics Canada data before the Standing Committee on Official Languages and that the elected official demonstrates “willful blindness” in a conversation that concerns the decline of French and the responsibility of the federal government.
This conduct and the refusal to apologize for it is “unacceptable and unworthy of the function of defender of the Francophonie,” writes Mr. Villemure, who not only requests his resignation from the presidency of the Canadian section, but also that he leave his functions on the international scene, which implies that he is no longer at the head of the organization. “I invite you to think about it,” he concludes.
Monday’s spat began when Messrs. Lacroix and Bourdon explained that attending an English-speaking university or CEGEP significantly increases the probability of leading one’s life in English. They had been invited to comment on a study on the financing of English-speaking post-secondary institutions in Quebec and French-speaking ones elsewhere in the country.
According to Mr. Drouin, their explanation is misleading and the witnesses took him “for an idiot” by giving him “an argument that does not hold water”.
“Anglicization, we must be honest, it is not [à cause de] McGill then Dawson, the fault of the big bad English-speaking Montrealers, let it happen. It’s an international phenomenon, it’s happening in France too,” he summarized in an interview on Tuesday.
Mr. Drouin, who withdrew his remarks immediately after making them and who explains that he lost his temper, refuses to apologize, but would nevertheless agree to do so “if the person feels hurt.”
When the subject came up again during question period on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and three of his ministers came to the defense of their colleague, saying that the Bloc is only looking for “quibbles” and that the Liberal government will always defend the French language.