What of Quebec’s Anglophones?
Henry Srebrnik, [
The big story in the Quebec election of 2007 was, of course, the amazing showing by Mario Dumont’s Action Démocratique du Québec and the dismal performance of the incumbent Liberals, whose leader, premier Jean Charest, barely held on to his own seat. The Parti Québécois also fared badly, suffering its worse defeat since the early 1970s.
The Liberals won 48 seats in the National Assembly, mostly in and around
The ADQ’s platform in many ways mirrors that of the federal Conservative Party, and already many observers predict that Stephen Harper may strike while the iron is hot in
Overlooked by most observers, though, will be the continued marginalization of
Here’s an indicator of how far apart the anglophones of
In most of
Two decades ago, many of these same voters elected members of the anglo-rights Equality Party, led by Robert Libman, to the National Assembly.
It was formed after Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa in 1988 used the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian constitution to override a Supreme Court of Canada decision that upheld a challenge to Bill 101, the law that had made French the sole official language of Quebec and imposed restrictions on the use of English on public signs.
Bourassa’s Liberals quickly passed Bill 178, which continued to ban English from all outdoor signs in
But that four-member caucus fell apart due to internal bickering and its inability to do much on behalf of its constituents. As well, Bourassa in 1993 introduced Bill 86, which allowed English on outdoor commercial signs, if the French lettering was at least twice as large as the English.
So all of the Equality Party’s candidates were defeated in the 1994 election, as voters returned, reluctantly, to the Liberals.
Pity the poor anglophones – in the 2007 election, those voters who found the Liberal Party unpalatable, for whatever reason, could only deliver a protest by voting for a group that barely registered on the electoral radar elsewhere in the province.
No comments:
Post a Comment