Now that the Quebec election campaign has officially begun, the fight begins in earnest for the Anglophone and Allophone vote in Montreal.
In addition to older parties three new ones, The Canadian Party of Quebec, Bloc Montreal and the Conservative Party of Quebec, are wooing those voters. They habitually vote for the Quebec Liberal Party.
“Right now the Liberals want more power for the regions,” claimed Bloc Montreal leader Balarama Holness. “We want more power for Montreal.”
“We want to preserve the rights of business owners to conduct business as they see fit in the language of their choice,” explained the Conservative Party of Quebec’s Mont-Royal-Outremont candidate, Sabrina Ait Akil.
According to Canadian Party of Quebec’s Nelligan candidate, Jean Marier, “in Quebec, nowadays, I think there are no federalist parties except for the Canadian Party of Quebec.”
Some experts believe there are this many parties vying for Anglophone and Allophone votes this time around because there are people who feel left out.
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“One of the main things is that (Anglophones) are not hearing their voices represented strongly enough in the Quebec parliament,” reasoned Frank Baylis, a former federal member of parliament who lives in Montreal’s West Island.
According to him some see a vacuum of representation on three issues mainly: Bill 21, the province’s secularism law; Bill 40 to abolish school boards; and, Bill 96, which further restricts the use of English. All passed during the Coalition Avenir Québec’s (CAQ) first mandate.
Baylis says some people are angry the Quebec Liberals were not seen to be standing up against these laws forcefully enough, and that people are tired of the old linguistic and identity divisions.
“I think across the board in Quebec, not just in the West Island, but everybody is looking toward the future for Quebec,” he said.
He believes, however, that with this many parties vying for attention from anglophones and allophones, there’s a risk of vote-splitting.
“It’s a big risk,” he stressed, “and personally I would love to see them all under the umbrella of the Liberal Party.”
But Robert Libman, who formed the now defunct Equality Party in the late 1980s as an alternative to the Quebec Liberals, isn’t so sure about the risk, or that it even matters.
“It looks certain that the CAQ is going to form a majority anyway,” he pointed out, “so does the Anglophone community want to have some independent voices to speak up specifically and directly about their concerns, or stay with the Liberal Party?”
However you slice it, the consensus is that Anglophones and Allophones have a big decision, come October 3rd.
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