West Island MNA’s are doing damage control after voting for a motion against the common Montreal greeting, “bonjour, hi.”
“I got several calls when I got back to my riding. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what happened,” said Relations with English-speaking Quebecers Minister, Kathleen Weil.
The minister alluded to the fact that MNA’s Greg Kelley and David Birnbaum also received numerous complaints.
“I think the overall reaction is, ‘Why is the National Assembly spending its time on a motion like this? I had to explain that we did not bring the motion,” Weil said referring to the Parti Québécois (PQ).
READ MORE: PQ calls for tougher Quebec language laws
Last week, PQ leader Jean-François Lisée brought forth a motion that referred to “bonjour,hi” as an “irritant.”
WATCH: Bye bye ‘bonjour, hi’
Weil said the government did not support the original wording in the motion, but she stopped short of saying that voting for the revised motion was a mistake.
READ MORE: Quebec’s ‘Bonjour, hi’ debate is cheap — and dangerous — politics
“It’s very difficult to turn the clock back. At the end of the day, the motion was positive in its spirit. The fact that it was brought by the PQ, with originally a different intention, these are things you don’t control when you’re in the National Assembly,” Weil said.
She added that the motion does not prohibit anyone from saying, “bonjour, hi.”