Quebec 2024-

15-19 April
If Quebec can separate, can Montreal be partitioned? Not so fast, experts say
Some anglophones want to split Montreal (or part of it) from Quebec. But constitutional lawyers say that’s easier said than done.
(Montreal Gazette) The soaring Parti Québécois vows to hold a referendum to take Quebec out of Canada, leading some anglophones to talk up partition — splitting federalist Montreal (or part of it) from Quebec.
Some dismiss partition as a fringe idea promoted by a segment of the anglophone population.
But the prospect of partition has been raised by prominent politicians, including former prime minister Jean Chrétien (Ottawa Endorses Québec Partition) and former Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard.
In a prelude to what would be an acrimonious referendum campaign, St-Pierre Plamondon this week described Canada as a “bleak” country that wants to “erase” Quebec.
In response, the Canadian Party of Quebec has set up a committee to prepare for “the creation of an 11th province.”
“It’s a reaction to the constant call for breaking up Canada,” party member Keith Henderson told the Gazette. “We’re getting tired of it.”
PQ referendum promise prompts renewed calls to partition Quebec
Former Canadian Party of Quebec candidate Marc Perez says he has founded a think tank that will host a discussion this Thursday on partitioning Montreal from Quebec.
The Canadian Party of Quebec announced Monday it’s studying the feasibility of creating an 11th province out of a partitioned Quebec, and a former member of the party has launched a separate group that plans to hold an online public meeting on the issue of partition this week.
Perez, who says he was kicked out of the Canadian Party last year after challenging the leadership of Colin Standish, said he launched Let’s Talk About Quebec/Parlons du Québec in January as a Montreal-based think tank.
PQ leader promises another independence referendum
Plamondon calls Ottawa ‘existential threat’
Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is reiterating his pledge for a third referendum on Quebec independence should his party take power in the next election.
At the PQ’s national council on Sunday in Drummondville, Que., St-Pierre Plamondon told some 500 party members that Quebecers have one “ultimate” chance to secure their language and culture amid what he called an “existential threat” from Ottawa and the province’s declining weight within the federation.
Barely a year and a half after the PQ was seen as moribund, St-Pierre Plamondon’s surging popularity also comes despite flat support for independence, which recent polls show was backed by only about a third of respondents.

12-15 April
Quand nos politiciens font peur au monde
« Je veux gouverner pour que le Québec reste le Québec. » — François Legault
Philippe Mercure
(La Presse) À entendre certains politiciens québécois ces jours-ci, on pourrait croire que la nation québécoise se trouve à un cheveu de l’annihilation.
« J’ai entendu le président [Emmanuel] Macron, en début d’année, dire qu’il voulait gouverner, et je le cite, “pour que la France reste la France”. Je peux vous dire que je me suis retrouvé dans cette déclaration. Et moi aussi, je veux gouverner pour que le Québec reste le Québec », a lancé le premier ministre François Legault jeudi dernier, lors de la visite de son homologue français Gabriel Attal.
Ce faisant, M. Legault reprenait une formule extrêmement chargée en France. Les mots « pour que la France reste la France » ont d’abord été prononcés par Jean-Marie Le Pen, puis repris comme slogan de campagne par le candidat d’extrême droite Éric Zemmour en 2022. J’y reviendrai.
Un « soutien » au Québec, mais pas de l’ingérence, dit Attal
(La Presse) « Vous n’êtes pas seuls », lance aux Québécois le premier ministre français Gabriel Attal. Il apporte son « soutien » au Québec dans son combat pour la laïcité de l’État afin de lui donner de la « force pour défendre » cette valeur. Il se défend de s’ingérer dans un débat qui divise le Canada, alors que Justin Trudeau s’oppose à la « loi 21 ».
French PM shows support for Quebec’s controversial secularism law during Canada visit
Face coverings banned for some Quebec workers. In France, they’re illegal in public
(CBC) French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal used his visit to Quebec this week to express strong support for the province’s model of state secularism even as he claimed to abstain from weighing in on debates over the controversial policy.
And despite his vocal backing of Quebec’s secular values, Attal said he did not discuss the matter in meetings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa this week, insisting his endorsement did not constitute meddling in Canadian politics.
“I believe that my responsibility when I’m abroad and when I speak to politicians, democratically elected, that have chosen this model, my responsibility is to tell them that they are not alone with this model,” Attal said alongside Premier François Legault in Quebec City. “Is this interfering in political debates in Canada? I don’t think so.”

26 March
Robert Libman: As Legault’s slide continues, what’s his next move?
The premier might be tempted to rip a page out of the Parti Québécois referendum playbook. That could prove to be a mistake.

12 March
Quebec’s stagnating economy boosts deficit to $11 billion
Girard called this budget “demanding,” saying it was “set against a tight economic climate that is also the source of many challenges.”
Kevin Dougherty
(iPolitics) Quebec Finance Minister Eric Girard presented his 2024-2025 budget Tuesday carrying a $11-billion deficit, and announced that the previous year’s deficit, projected at $4 billion, was in fact $6.3 billion.
Girard called this budget “demanding,” saying it was “set against a tight economic climate that is also the source of many challenges.”
Quebec Liberal finance critic Frédéric Beauchemin labelled the $11-billion deficit “macabre,” adding, “The CAQ (Coalition Avenir Québec government) has lost control of its finances.
“There is no plan for a return to a balanced budget,” Beauchemin said, adding that Quebec’s year-over-year productivity increase is zero.
Premier François Legault signalled before the budget was tabled that Quebec was heading for a “significant” deficit after wage settlements with about 570,000 public-sector employees in health care, education and government services added about $3 billion a year to provincial spending.

29 February – 1 March
Minority groups in Quebec should be concerned after Bill 21 ruling, says anglo group
(CTV) While some celebrated after Bill 21 was upheld on Thursday, the Quebec Court of Appeal decision sparked concern for minority groups in the province.
“I think all minorities should be worried about the ruling yesterday,” said Sylvia Martin-Laforge, the director general of the Quebec Community Groups Network, in an interview Friday.
Martin-Laforge says the ruling sets a dangerous precedent.
“It means that the government can pass any bill, like Bill 96, that ignores our fundamental human rights without fear that the courts can overturn them.”
… Benoit Pelletier, a distinguished law professor at the University of Ottawa, says rights and liberties should be respected and hopes the ruling doesn’t lead to an increase in the use of the notwithstanding clause.
“There is a price to pay, politically speaking, for using the notwithstanding clause. The price is not very evident in Quebec, I must admit, because governments who use it are more popular,” Pelletier said.
While some say Thursday’s decision could have an impact on other court challenges over the preemptive use of the clause, like Bill 96, Pelletier says there are two provisions that are not subjected to the application of the notwithstanding clause
“Interpretation of the Court of Appeal yesterday in the case of Bill 21 with regards to the notwithstanding clause might not be applicable in the case of the court challenges of Bill 96,” he said.
The English Montreal School Board says it will take the time to review the decision before deciding on an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Other groups have vowed to keep fighting but Pelletier says he has no doubt the case will end up in front of Canada’s highest court.

Women’s group to contest Bill 21 appeal court ruling
Two groups representing women say it fails to recognize the law’s discriminatory nature against women.
The South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC), based in Montreal, has until now not been involved in the court challenges to Quebec’s secularism law. However, the group said it is disappointed that the ruling of the appeal court on Thursday — which upheld the law — runs contrary to the guarantee to equal rights for all women enshrined in both the Quebec and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The group said Bill 21 — which bars public servants in positions of authority, including teachers, police officers and clerks, from wearing religious clothing on the job — has fed Islamophobia in Quebec. It went further to say the ruling goes against women’s equality rights, since it disproportionately affects Muslim women, because many wear hijabs.

Allison Hanes: Bill 21 appeal court decision will embolden bullies
The court’s hands may be tied by the same constitution that is being circumvented, but it’s nevertheless a sad day for minority rights.
Premier François Legault must be regretting the crass disrespect he showed last week for the Quebec Court for Appeal — those “judges named by the federal government,” as he called them disdainfully, who dared unanimously overturn a ban on asylum seekers accessing subsidized daycare centres.
Legault’s comments in the National Assembly rightfully raised eyebrows — and drew a rebuke from the Quebec Bar — for undermining confidence in the judiciary, not to mention being particularly petty.
But on Thursday, another three-judge appeal panel handed Legault and his divisive brand of politics a huge victory by validating most of Quebec’s controversial secularism law, and even reversing an earlier exception granted to the English Montreal School Board (an added bonus for the premier). He surely wouldn’t want the court’s credibility to be called into question now.
Bill 21, adopted in 2019, prevents public servants in positions of authority, including teachers, police officers and clerks, from wearing religious symbols on the job. It was the Legault government’s lodestar piece of identity legislation aimed at bulldozing minority rights to placate the majority. It is the very essence of state-sanctioned discrimination.
But in a win for Legault’s steamroller style of politics, the appeals court said that’s all perfectly legal due to the government’s pre-emptive deployment of the notwithstanding clause.
English school boards lose as Quebec Court of Appeal upholds Bill 21
Overall, the appellate court supported the secularism law and determined Bill 21 “does not affect Canada’s constitutional architecture.”
Legault hails Bill 21 ruling as ‘beautiful victory for Quebec nation’
The English Montreal School Board says it is not sure yet whether it will appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Other critics of Bill 21 – including groups representing Muslims, anglophones and civil and human rights advocates – said they were dismayed by the ruling.
And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government said it will oppose Bill 21 if the issue reaches the Supreme Court of Canada, a move that would set the stage for a federal-provincial battle.

18 February
Quebec can ill afford to isolate itself from the real world
More than ever, investment has a choice — and the choices beyond this province are as welcoming as they are numerous.
Clifford Lincoln
Premier François Legault has confided that, stepping outside his Montreal office, “he suffers a visual malaise in seeing so much Englishness unfolding before him around McGill and its campus — which, by the way, have occupied the historic site for only 175 years,” writes Clifford Lincoln.
The CAQ government is steadily creating a cocoon of autocratic insularity around itself. Edicts and decisions are too often issued peremptorily and absent of prior consultation and justification. Contrary opinions and advice are summarily dismissed and panned, and if our fundamental rights become a hurdle in the way, the notwithstanding clause is casually applied and renewed to ward off court challenges.
The university fiasco and its sequel are a clear case in point. Out of the blue landed the unprovoked and arbitrary imposition of an excessive tuition fee increase for non-Quebec students attending our three English-language universities. The immediate reaction led to the broadest consensus of disapproval from a wide range of public opinion leaders and experts.

7-8 February
Bill 21: Quebec set to renew notwithstanding clause for another five years
The Legault government will table a bill on Thursday to protect its secularism law for another five years.
The minister responsible for secularism, Jean-François Roberge, will propose renewing the use of the notwithstanding clause that was first invoked in June 2019 when the law was adopted, his office confirmed to The Canadian Press.
Bill 21 prohibits government employees in positions of authority, including teachers, from wearing religious symbols such as the Muslim headscarf, the Jewish yarmulke, the Sikh turban and Christian crosses.

‘Plante doesn’t care about French in Montreal,’ CAQ government fires back in tuition debate
The tuition increase for out-of-province students at English universities is among the “courageous measures” to protect French, Jean-François Roberge said Thursday.
The Quebec government is accusing Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante of not doing enough to protect French in the metropolis.
In the wake of Plante’s statement that the Coalition Avenir Québec’s university tuition increases amount to an attack on the city, Premier François Legault and French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge accused Plante on Thursday of talking the talk about protecting French but not walking the walk.
Tuition hike at McGill and Concordia ‘directly attacks Montreal,’ Plante says
The mayor’s comments come as the two universities grapple with a steep drop in applications from the rest of Canada.
Andy Riga
The Legault government’s decision to target Concordia and McGill universities with a 33 per cent tuition hike for out-of-province students is a direct attack on Montreal, Mayor Valérie Plante said Wednesday.
“We certainly see it as a measure that directly attacks Montreal, and that is not fair,” Valérie Plante told reporters, in her strongest criticism yet. “If Bishop’s no longer has this rule, why does Montreal have it?”

30 January-8 February
Grieving parents said they were told to pay $200 to meet Quebec minister
(CTV) The Coalition Avenir Québec is again being forced to defend its fundraising methods, after the parents of a woman killed in a 2017 car crash said the party offered access to the provincial transport minister for $100 per person.
During a legislature hearing on Thursday, Antoine Bittar said he had been advocating for tougher drinking and driving legislation when the CAQ offered an opportunity for him and his partner, Élizabeth Rivera, to meet minister Geneviève Guilbault at an October 2023 fundraising cocktail.
Accusations fly after opposition parties reject CAQ plan to scrap political contributions
The Liberals, Québec solidaire and Parti Québécois dug in their heels in opposing a CAQ proposal to discuss political financing rules, saying it is nothing more than a smokescreen to avoid the real issue.
Fundraising scandal: Quebec governing party to stop collecting political donations
Premier François Legault found himself on the defensive on Thursday, after several members of his party were accused of soliciting $100 donations from mayors hoping to meet with ministers. Responding to questions from reporters, he says his party will no longer accept citizen donations, and is asking the other parties to do the same.
CAQ on the defensive over fundraising as third ethics allegation is made
Opening day of the new National Assembly session was marked by tense exchanges between the Legault government and the opposition parties.
The Parti Québécois is calling on the government to tighten up Quebec’s political financing rules, making it illegal for cabinet ministers to attend fundraising events, following allegations that several Coalition Avenir Québec MNAs tried to sell access to ministers for a $100 donation to the party’s electoral fund.

19 January
A voice for anglos: School boards prepare for more battles with Legault
“Boards are the last instance of government that belongs to the English-speaking community,” yet the CAQ government has “demonstrated a complete disregard for our rights,” Joe Ortona says.
Toula Drimonis: Montreal a culture apart? Duh!
There is nothing new or alarming about the urban versus rural divide, despite Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet’s protestations.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet this week lamented what he finds to be an “unfortunate” new reality. There are now “two Quebecs,” he said in an interview with Canadian Press. A “bilingual, possibly multilingual” Montreal forms one Quebec, and the other Quebec is essentially the rest of the province “that looks at Montreal as if Montreal is becoming a foreign place.”
Quebec has never been one monolithic culture, despite some constantly pining for those imaginary “good old days.” Not even when the colony was first founded by the French. Unless, of course, one chooses to ignore the presence of Indigenous communities on these lands. And Quebec’s regions are not nearly the monolith Blanchet claims they are. Otherwise, my Laotian friends who grew up in Shawinigan or my English friend whose family’s presence in Kamouraska goes back 140 years are erased from the Quebec I love.

15 January
Paule Robitaille: Face aux migrations, surfer sur la vague au lieu de la contrer
(Blogue CORIM) Mon souhait (illusoire peut-être) pour 2024 est que nos gouvernements se responsabilisent et se coordonnent intelligemment pour absorber ces étrangers déjà sur notre territoire. Rêve pieux, direz-vous, de voir Québec et Ottawa s’entendre sur ce sujet explosif. C’est pourtant notre avenir qui se joue.
Le Canada et le Québec sont dans une position privilégiée.
Nous n’avons pas la vulnérabilité géographique ou historique des pays européens ni leur densité de population. De notre côté de l’Atlantique, ce sont les États-Unis qui prennent le plus fort de la vague.
Certes, nous sommes imbriqués dans ce vaste mouvement migratoire. Toutefois, entre deux océans, le Grand Nord et les États-Unis, le Canada peut mieux voir venir. Le pays a l’espace. Notre population vieillit. Le Québec ne fait pas exception à la règle.
Si l’on veut construire de nouvelles centrales électriques, demeurer un joueur économique sérieux, s’occuper de nos personnes âgées, enseigner à nos enfants, il faudra beaucoup plus de bras, de cœurs et de cerveaux.
Bien sûr, les enfants d’immigrants augmenteront le nombre d’élèves dans nos écoles. Les parents s’ajouteront aux listes d’attente des médecins. Mais quand tous les boomers ne seront plus, les rejetons de ces immigrants devenus Canadiens et Québécois assureront la relève.

9 January
Tom Mulcair: Amid declining rights, next generation offers hope
Since leaving politics, I’ve had the good fortune to teach at the Université de Montréal, a world-class institution. The next generation of Quebec leaders I’ve had the chance to meet there gives me the greatest hope. While the likes of Legault, French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge and Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry appear to be in a race to the bottom against the Parti Québécois, young Quebecers are overwhelmingly open, tolerant and respectful of differences. They are the greatest hope for our future together.
The decline of rights in Quebec is alarming and concerns us all.
With Bill 21, the Coalition Avenir Québec government brazenly attacked religious minorities.
… Elsewhere, Premier François Legault has attacked the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the English-speaking minority to control and manage its school boards.
Legault also unilaterally changed the founding 1867 Constitution, the BNA Act, and removed the equality of English and French before the courts. Shamefully, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did nothing to challenge him.
Bill 96 contains outrageous provisions allowing for warrantless search and seizure of computers and cellphones by the vocabulary constabulary.
Like Bill 21, it has an ostensibly virtuous purpose: it’s about protecting and preserving the French language in Quebec. Except the numbers show the French language is doing just fine, thank you. But it’s become an undebatable truth that French is in such desperate need of discriminatory legislation that we’ll become another Louisiana without it.
Like Bill 21 before it, Bill 96 has, for now, been peremptorily shielded by using the notwithstanding clause to remove charter rights. … Trudeau actually made things worse with Bill C-13 that reduced the rights of the English linguistic minority, leading to Marc Garneau’s resignation as Liberal MP.