What’s stimulating Quebec’s social misfits?

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Premier Legault’s apparent long-term historical project – to rid Quebec of the influence her native Anglo population (especially in Montreal and in regions, like our own, with sizable English-speaking populations) – could easily become a monster that eats its own parents.

Several populations and regions, besides our own, have a clear and positive presence in Quebec’s creation and history. Hard-working Scots and Irish who felled the wilderness, creating our first economy. They’re not the Scots and Brits who sat in boardrooms and directed the lives of others – Legault’s targets. The targets of most separatists are these old kingpins, not really the Irish guys with shovels who dug the Lachine canal by hand, for example. Or it’s the sound of English, I suppose, that drives frano-fanatics berserk, just its sound. So now Anglos have to learn to mumble, apparently, if we wish to preserve our language here where we live (along with the separatists).

Today’s mainstream issues are not about that old struggle, which was more a class struggle than a classic culture war. However Quebec’s exclusion of Anglos and things Anglo is creating a real sense of grievance among that minority population, and this is always a fertile soil for a Rightist reaction and all that comes with that. Any long-term frustration is what feeds such reaction. That means trouble for all groups – since radical Right-wingers can be near-criminals, in action, attacking anyone in their way, anyone. Legault’s project is, thus, creating, not softening, social problems.

Rightist reaction comes from those without respect for “peace & good governance”; their targets can speak any language, and this threat won’t move many to learn or improve their French. Economic and social benefits do this. Legault is actually putting more obstacles in the path of Quebec’s societal maturity.

Squeezing the Anglos today – in healthcare, and especially in education – from daycare to university- will slowly back-fire and create a monster. That monster may be overcome at its start by Quebec’s own police, but why create the confrontation in the first place? Any confrontation easily gets out of control.

Yes, it’s likely that claiming the Anglos are the source of every problem in Quebec may distract from genuine political problems and may mobilize support of the majority population for the CAQ (instead of our other three or four political parties, also separatist.)
But social unrest easily stimulates an aggressive and negative response to all that Legault’s government does (and could be doing) and adds one more serious problem we don’t need.

Premier Legault’s office is stirring up problems even if Mr. Legault himself is too intelligent to deliberately do such a stupid thing. There are groups (& gangs) determined to stir up passions and prejudices, groups which attack immigrants and minimize education’s values, who want to roll-back women’s rights – things like that. If they’re fed, these social forces will cripple all of Quebec.