Frustrated, they are thinking of moving away from the LIBERALS to the CAQ

News 18 February, 2018
  • Dominique Scali

    Sunday, 18 February 2018 01:00

    UPDATE
    Sunday, 18 February 2018 01:00

    Look at this article

    In a turnaround, which could be historic, of the English-speaking frustrated think moving away from the liberal Party of Quebec in the next provincial election. They feel taken for granted.

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    “I’m really frustrated against the PLQ. It is due for a change. In the constituencies that are native English speakers, a rabbit could run as a candidate for the PLQ and take it, ” quipped the lawyer Harold Staviss.

    The topic is the subject of discussions in the cottages, have told many anglophones met in Rawdon, in Lanaudière, where the English-speaking community is particularly active. “I would say it is 50-50,” says Robert Ranger, 80 years of age.

    “The liberals have been null and void. They have taken our votes, our money and did nothing, ” says the Montreal-Gary Shapiro, 62 years old, one of those who believe that the LIBERALS will lose votes English.

    “It would be historic,” echoed Robert Libman, a 57-year-old Party Equality, which elects four deputies to the national Assembly in 1989 to defend the interests of anglophones.

    Since the emergence of debates language, the vote of English speakers is consistently gone to the QLP. But for the first time in 40 years, another party federalist has chances of forming a government : the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), which is way in the lead in recent polls.

    New secretariat

    Robert Libman believes that it is by the fear of the vote speaking to erode that the PLQ has created a Secretariat for relations with English-speaking Quebecers last fall.

    “This is not a concern,” said minister Kathleen Weil. Our motivation, it is the urgency to act. In particular, to address the problems of poverty and vulnerability in several English-speaking communities, she says.

    A relaxation of the law 101, as would a majority of English speakers, is not in the plans of the LIBERALS, ” says Ms. Weil.

    “Still, nothing is won in advance for the CAQ, nuance Sylvia Martin-Laforge of the QCGN, an organization that brings together community groups of the English language.

    That will depend on what parties have to offer, ” she said.

    In addition, the past pq’s leader François Legault could harm him. “Which tells us that [the caquistes] are not going to change your mind and also to talk of a separation ? “asked Mike Séguin, met him in a club of veterans in Stanstead, where more than half of the population is English-speaking.