LETTER TO ANGLO-QUEBECERS FROM PQ LEADER

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon: Anglo-Quebecers deserve better government

The PQ will solve Quebec's problems, for the benefit of English- and French-speakers

The following is an open letter written by Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon to Quebec’s English-speaking population.

Foto de la Universitat McGill, anglòfona, de Montreal

To all English-speaking Quebecers,

I am writing to you today with a sense of hope and an open mind at the dawn of a pivotal election campaign.

While we may not always agree on Quebec’s constitutional future, we share something fundamental: a deep attachment to this nation, its democratic institutions and the quality of life we want to preserve and strengthen for future generations. That is why I believe the election ahead is of critical importance for our shared future.

Because Quebec certainly deserves better than what we’ve seen in the last eight years.

We must state it plainly and without hesitation: we’ve gone through one of the worst regressions in quality of life in Quebec’s recent history. Quebecers know it, and they see it in their daily lives. Their purchasing power has vanished, home ownership has become an increasingly distant dream for too many young people. Our health-care and education systems are struggling to provide the quality of services that our citizens have every right to expect. Security and tidiness have suddenly become major issues in our cities and the number of homeless people has exploded. Meanwhile, our infrastructure projects make headlines only because of soaring costs and endless delays. While the government neglected road maintenance, schools and hospitals, it has normalized the waste of public funds through scandals like SAAQclic and financial debacles such as Northvolt. A part of that decline is connected to the ideological beliefs at the federal level that brought uncontrolled and unlimited immigration during those eight years, yet the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) chose to stand by as a resigned spectator, leading to the consequences we see today.

Quebecers were promised a wind of “change” by the CAQ. Instead, what we have witnessed is not even the status quo — it is decline. We cannot blame citizens for losing faith in the state when, year after year, they pay more and receive less.

I am convinced that we all share this assessment. Over the past months, many Anglo-Quebecers have told me they would vote for the Parti Québécois (PQ) for the first time in their lives, simply because they agree with our stances on a vast majority issues. Underneath that pledge is also the fact the Anglos don’t fear the PQ anymore, since Anglos and Francos share the same realities and concerns. Public discourse has too often encouraged the mistaken belief that the concerns of French-speaking and English-speaking Quebecers are fundamentally at odds. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are all in the same boat. We live under the same institutions. We pay the same taxes. We deserve the same high-quality public services and individual financial well-being.

Together, we have a shared responsibility to reject decline. We would be wrong to accept a Quebec that has grown accustomed to doubting itself, to distrusting its institutions or to settling for less. We would be wrong to allow our ambitions to shrink. Above all, we would be wrong to believe that our interests somehow diverge simply because of the language we speak at home.

The Parti Québécois is the party of all Quebecers. It believes Quebecers should govern themselves. But that project has never and will never be a project that excludes the English-speaking minority. On the contrary, its purpose is to build a new model founded on social harmony and the idea that we are all Quebecers. It seeks to give all Quebecers the ability to make their own decisions, to shape their own future and to build a government that is more effective, and more accountable.

As we clearly stated in our blue book, the country of Quebec that we are building is one where the rights of the historic English-speaking minority will be fully protected. Its institutions will continue to exist and be called on to play their essential role. The Parti Québécois will even ensure that the rights currently enjoyed by the English-speaking community are entrenched in the constitution.

In the years ahead, if Quebecers so choose, we will collectively resume our reflection on the place Quebec wishes to occupy within Canada and within the world, and we will decide that question democratically. But that conversation should not put aside the numerous urgent issues before us in this upcoming election

Who can Quebecers trust to get our nation back on track? Who can embody the change in the way we govern that we so desperately need?

Can we trust the CAQ to restore our public services after they have deteriorated under its leadership? Can we trust the party to make us wealthier when life has never been more expensive? Can we seriously believe that a government that promised so much and delivered so little will suddenly solve the very problems it allowed to flourish?

The real ballot question this upcoming October is who can form a good government for Quebec: a competent government, an honest government, a government prepared to tell the truth about the challenges we face and then hit the ground running to solve them.

It is in that spirit that I extend my hand to you. Let us take an honest look at what we have in common. And when others once again seek to pit French-speaking and English-speaking Quebecers against one another, let us remember the simple, enduring truth that former premier Lucien Bouchard once expressed: “It’s good to know there is one unalterable truth we can cling onto: the knowledge that in the end we are all Quebecers. Nous sommes tous Québécois. We all love Québec --because Quebec is our home.”

NOTA DE J.S.:Cal tenir en compte que, a diferència de Catalunya, la comunitat anglòfona, existeix des la conquesta britànica, el 1763, establerta al Quebec. Els anglòfons del Quebec, fins al 1960s, van ocupar llocs preeminents a dins del Quebec, sobretot els procedents d'Anglaterra i Escòcia, i més modestos, els procedents d'Irlanda. Els irlandesos, en concret, en una part important, es van integrar més en la societat quebequesa, sobretot per la influència de l'Església catòlica, seguida també majoritàriament dels quebequesos francòfons. A partir de la dècada dels 60 del segle XX, però, la situació privilegiada dels anglòfons al Quebec va començar a decaure, a mesuria que el nou independentisme quebequès, i sobretot, la fundació del Partit Quebequès, el 1968, va començar a créixer i fins i tot va arribar al govern l'any 1976. En definitiva, els angloquebequesos fa 263 anys, moltes generacions, doncs que són presents al Quebec. Per contra, a Catalunya la presència d'espanyols, no va començar fins a les obres de l'exposició universal del 1929 i sobretot amb el règim franquista, en els anys cinquanta a setanta, en un intent de minorització demogràfica, molt més recent, inspirada clarament en les polítiques feixistes de la Itàlia mussoliniana dels anys 20, i que en les darreres dècades s'han vista reforçades per l'enginyeria demogràfica dels governs del PP i del PSOE, amb el foment de la regularització administrativa, sobretot de contingents de població llatinoamericana, arribada via aèria (on l'aerport de Barajas ha jugat un paper fonamental) i, de forma més minoritària, de població d'Àfrica i Àsia per via marítima. Es tracta doncs, de dues situacions totalment divergents.