{"id":174509,"date":"2018-08-01T22:29:23","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T02:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=174509"},"modified":"2018-08-01T22:29:23","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T02:29:23","slug":"will-take-anglo-quebecers-ditch-provincial-liberals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/01\/will-take-anglo-quebecers-ditch-provincial-liberals\/","title":{"rendered":"What will it take for Anglo Quebecers to ditch the provincial Liberals?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
File Photo: \u201cA horse doesn’t change its colour.\u201d (Photo<\/a> By Jimmy Hamelin\/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MONTREAL \u2014 One word that often surfaces during discussions with Montreal’s English-speaking community regarding Francois Legault, head of the party leading Quebec’s election polls, is \u201ctrust\u201d \u2014 or the lack of it.<\/p>\n

Legault’s message of having a strong, nationalist Quebec inside\u00a0Canada, working for families and making all citizens richer has gained support across most of the province \u2014 but less so on Montreal’s \u201cWest Island.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ridings in the sprawling middle-class suburbs west of downtown delivered Liberal majorities topping 80 per cent in the 2014 election, in large part because residents there are fiercely federalist.<\/p>\n

People there bring up Legault’s past as a staunchly sovereigntist Parti Quebecois cabinet minister. They remember how in 2005, in his role as PQ finance critic, Legault proudly produced a report indicating Quebec would record a budgetary surplus its first year as an independent country.<\/p>\n

As leader of Coalition avenir Quebec, the party he founded in 2011, Legault now says his government will \u201cnever, never hold a referendum on Quebec sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n

His party has led the polls for months and is considered the front-runner ahead of the Oct. 1 election.<\/p>\n

Referendums aside, what his party would mean for Quebec’s Anglos is largely unclear because the Coalition has never held power.<\/p>\n

\u201cA horse doesn’t change its colour,\u201d Liberal voter Mohan Patel, 66, said at the Fairview Pointe-Claire shopping centre, located virtually in the geographical middle of the West Island. \u201cI don’t trust (Legault).\u201d<\/p>\n

Legault must know he needs more than words to persuade a significant number of Anglophones to switch to his party, but whether he cares is another matter.<\/p>\n

Pollsters say the Coalition can win a majority of the province’s 125 seats without taking any of the 27 ridings on the island of Montreal, where the province’s English-speaking community is heavily concentrated.<\/p>\n

Legault openly muses he has absolutely \u201cnothing\u201d specific to offer Quebec’s Anglos.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing more, nothing less than the Liberals,\u201d he said recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the Liberals have proposed Anglophones is that they wouldn’t hold a referendum \u2014 that’s not much of a policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

If elected, Legault pledges to improve the economy and education and increase access to doctors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ll protect (Anglo) rights like the Liberals have, but we’ll be richer … that’s as good for Anglos as it is for Francos,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Prominent lawyer Casper Bloom, who has worked for English-language rights in Quebec and is a Liberal party member, said he knows Anglophones who will switch to the Coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe English-speaking community is asking (the Liberals): ‘What have you done for us?’ \u201c Bloom said in an interview. \u201cNot what have you done for us lately, but what have you done for us?\u201d<\/p>\n

Quebec elections used to be easy for English-speakers, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the good guys versus the bad guys,\u201d Bloom said, referring to the pro-independence PQ as the bad guys.<\/p>\n

But with PQ Leader Jean-Francois Lisee promising to not hold a referendum until at least 2022 and his party trailing in third place in polls, Anglophones are voting for the first time in decades in a provincial election in which the prospect of vicious, political fighting about\u00a0Canada’s future is not an issue.<\/p>\n

Additionally, they have a federalist alternative to the Liberals: Legault’s Coalition.<\/p>\n

The last time Quebec Anglophones revolted against the Liberals was in the late 1980s, when then-Liberal premier Robert Bourassa maintained the province’s strict language laws.<\/p>\n

In 1989, voters in heavy English-speaking ridings elected four members of the Equality party, a newly formed, Anglo-rights political formation. The party never won another seat in subsequent elections.<\/p>\n

This time around, Anglos aren’t nearly as upset with pro-Canada\u00a0Premier Philippe Couillard as they were with Bourassa in 1989, but many still feel taken for granted, Bloom said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expect we are going to find more (Anglophones) staying home and not voting at all,\u201d Bloom said. \u201cWill it make a difference in the outcome? In strong Liberal ridings, no.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back at Fairview, Sallie Mackenzie, 53, said she isn’t too happy with all the accusations of corruption that have dogged the Liberals for years.<\/p>\n

But she doesn’t know if she’ll make the jump to the Coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely won’t vote PQ,\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cI’m not sure I can (trust the Coalition) \u2014 that’s the thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larry, 64, who didn’t want to give his family name, said he won’t choose Legault.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if (Legault) says he won’t have a referendum, the guy is a former separatist and so is half his party,\u201d he said. \u201cSo whether I like what the Liberals are doing or not, at least they (won’t) separate.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while Legault says he will protect the rights of Quebec’s Anglophones, he doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in seeing the community’s numbers increase.<\/p>\n

The 2016 census indicated Quebec had slightly more than 964,000 people who claimed English as their first official language spoken.<\/p>\n

When asked earlier this week at an event on Montreal’s south shore if he wanted to see the community grow in Quebec, Legault wavered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be careful,\u201d Legault said, standing next to his new candidate for the area, Martyne Prevost, who twice ran unsuccessfully for the PQ.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to protect French,\u201d he said. \u201cEnglish will always be protected because of the size of the anglophone community in North America.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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