Young and diverse anglophones will not be bullied out of Quebec
The Globe and Mail
February 17th, 2023
Print and digital
(Excerpt from theglobeandmail.com)
It was the summer of 2012, and I was walking a pal’s golden retriever to the dépanneur near Lionel-Groulx metro station when I was intercepted by a young woman with a clipboard. Perhaps she could sense I was an anglophone and that I was a bit hungover – the ideal victim to be lured in by the pitch she was delivering in rapid-fire French – and obliviously, I nodded along and let her guide me to a stall selling plants a few feet away.
Little did I know I had just been initiated into Quebec’s most sacred tradition: becoming a mark on Just for Laughs Gags.
This was perhaps my most seminal experience in Montreal, and it reflects my life in the city over the past 10 years: magical, frustrating, hilarious. But lately, I’d add another word to that list: siloed. For anglos in their 30s, like me – particularly those of us who are visible minorities – life in Quebec has become more and more onerous. Increasingly, it feels like the government is trying to push us further toward the perimeter of the public sphere.
The message from the top is clear: Quebec wants my tax dollars, my investments and the cultural benefits of my creative output, but it does not want me.
Since taking office in 2018, Premier François Legault and his Coalition Avenir Québec party have effectively mainstreamed anti-immigrant rhetoric across the province while creating deep social divisions. Bill 96, which claims to protect the French language by, among other things, requiring that immigrants and refugees learn French within six months of arriving in the province to communicate with the government, and Bill 21, which prohibits certain Quebec public servants from wearing religious symbols on the job and primarily targets Muslims, Sikhs and Jews, are as authoritarian as they are ludicrous.
