Watch: Bilingualism in Quebec revisited?
MONTREAL – With all the excitement over Pierre Karl Péladeau throwing his hat in the ring with the Parti Quebecois, Liberal leader Phillipe Couillard was trying to stay on message.
On Monday, Couillard promised to focus on making more Quebec students bilingual.
“There’s not a single parent in Quebec that doesn’t hope their child will be bilingual. Not a single one,” he told reporters in Quebec City on Monday.
“It’s a tremendous advantage in life and it’s been portrayed as a threat. I cannot accept that.”
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The Liberal Party is proposing to reinstate the grade six immersion program, which was scrapped when the current PQ government came to power in 2012.
Couillard said that he doesn’t buy arguments that learning English would take away from the legitimate concern of protecting the French language.
The Liberal candidate for D’Arcy Mcgee, David Birnbaum, was also on hand to discuss the issue.
Until recently, Birnbaum was the head of the Quebec English School boards Association.
READ MORE: Quebec English School Boards Association exec David Birnbaum joins the Liberals
He said that he believes that there are many ways of making bilingualism work that would respect Bill 101, not cost too much and make use of the resources already available.
“Perhaps exchanges of a half a term, perhaps exchanges of teachers going from one school to the other,” he suggested.
“All of this has to be worked out with parents and with the Conseils d’établissement and with school boards and the government. which will be Liberal we hope. It is doable.”
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