QUEBEC РThe Parti Qu̩b̩cois proposal to extend rules allowing only anglophones to attend even private unsubsidized schools in Quebec, is "radical," Premier Jean Charest said Monday morning.
Charest has summoned the Quebec National Assembly to an "extraordinary" sitting Monday and will use closure, to limit debate on Bill 103.
"Bill 103 is a pragmatic, balanced law that puts an end to bridging schools," Charest said.
Private bridging schools allowed children whose parents were not educated in English in Canada to enter Quebec’s public English schools after as little as one year in a private English school.
"Even a very close adviser to René Lévesque describes the PQ position as being radical and that’s why they are going to continue to systematically obstruct this piece of legislation," he said.
The premier was referring to Louis Bernard, an adviser to Lévesque, the first PQ premier.
In the assembly, Pierre Curzi, the PQ language critic, described the use of closure to adopt Bill 103 as equivalent to "the War Measures Act," imposed 40 years ago during Quebec’s October Crisis, when Front de Libération du Québec terrorists kidnapped a British diplomat and murdered a Quebec cabinet minister.
"The independent country of Quebec will remember, and will reverse their decision," Curzi said, said of Bill 103.
Later Monday, a rally is planned in front of Premier Jean Charest’ Montreal offices to protest the bill.
The rally is organized by the Société Saint-Jean Baptiste de Montréal and is scheduled to take place on McGill College in front of the premier’s offices. The headliner at the protest is actor Julien Poulin, who played Elvis Gratton, a stereotypical blundering Quebec federalist, in a series of films by the late director Pierre Falardeau, an ardent Quebec nationalist.
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