Not long after assuming the helm as premier of the province of Quebec, following Francois Legault in one of his many press conferences made a point of reaching out to the English-speaking community if only to set our collective minds at ease, reassuring the community that our “historical language rights” will be respected by his government, and that the issue of separation would not be high on his government’s agenda.
That was then, mere political talk. As most of it is wont to be during this period of heightened po-litical-electoral interest when politicians are wont to be all things to all people especially in this charged political period and instance
So the community need not become preoccupied with the usual issues of separation, which are al-ways “front and center” of just about every incoming provincial party that is gifted by the electorate an opportunity to form the next provincial government.
Understandably, given the political electorate and dynamics, Quebec elections have become synon-ymous with talk of referenda and, by extension, Independence.
But the premier had always made a point of reassuring the populace, especial-ly restive the restive English-speaking community that talk of referendum is not or never on his party’s or government’s agenda. Which is all well and good. So to that end, as his CAQ (Coalition Avenir Québec) political party is called, and continues to float in the political stratosphere of political opinion, publicity and voter recognition and acceptance of his party’s job and voter satisfaction as he heads into an election on October 3, hopefully to secure a second ma-jority mandate to take his party into what he hopes will be a second majority government mandate.
So he, and by extension, his CAQists have been doing a good job of sti-fling/muting any talk that might be deemed as arrogant or misinterpreted as stoking any issue that might be deemed as separatism…
Not to mention recent media criticism of the CAQ website, which media hawks complained was completely in English? Much to the chagrin of the party leader, no doubt. I didn’t take the time to view that linguistic faux pas, but I’m certain the CAQists were on their game to correct the English language problem, and all was back to linguistic normality tout de suite.
Meanwhile, whatever happened to that gentleman, Christopher Skeete, who was named Par-liamentary Assistant to the Premier for Relations with English-Speaking Quebecers… you figure he’d be visible in the community, as far as that goes, or for whatever that’s worth.
Meanwhile, the CAQ is doling out all kinds of money to secure another majority mandate this October 3.
Or maybe we’re simply disconnected from those that matter, among those people and businesses that matter.
Guess the currency of political language is only spoken and understood by those who are connected…
THE CURRENCY OF POLITICAL LANGUAGE
