The Quebec Community Groups Network is seriously concerned about the impact of Bill 96 on Quebec’s English-speaking community and minorities in general. “We need to ask over and over and over: Why does protecting the French language require the blanket suspension of human rights? asks QCGN President Marlene Jennings.
The Quebec Community Groups Network is sickened by the heinous murder of five Muslims Sunday in London, Ontario. The fear and hatred that fueled this senseless act of Islamophobia has no place in Canadian society. Every Canadian has a sacred and inherent freedom of conscience and religion. No person, no group, and no government can take this freedom away. Some will try; none will succeed. As a nation, Canada has sacrificed dearly in the fight to preserve this freedom. And the fight continues.
A feature in Le Devoir suggests that English-speaking Quebecers are becoming increasingly comfortable in their home province. However QCGN Director-General Sylvia Martin-Laforge says the minority community has concerns including recent health care reforms and the government’s decision to eliminate school board elections. Read more…
The Language Rights Support Program (LRSP) recently worked with the Quebec Community Groups Network and other educational partners including the Quebec Federation of Home and School Associations (QFHSA) and the Quebec English School Board Association (QESBA) the right to produce a newsletter on the right to education in English in Quebec. The mandate of the LRSP is the clarification and advancement of constitutional language rights in Canada and as such it has a significant role in educating the public about their rights.
Click here to read the Newsletter.
By Sue Montgomery, The Gazette
Francophones in the rest of the country are angry that Quebec failed to back them in their bid before the Supreme Court of Canada to win greater control over who can attend their schools.
The province, normally an obvious supporter both morally and financially for francophones outside its borders, disagreed with giving school boards greater leeway to admit students to French schools other than those allowed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
CBC Radio The Fan 180
Quebec’s anglophones need to be treated like “a proper minority community,” with a section of government designed to look after their needs. That’s what Sylvia Martin-Laforge tells The 180’s Jim Brown this week. She’s reacting to news that Canada’s Official Languages Commissioner suggested to the provincial governmentthat it open an Office of Anglophone Affairs, but the province declined.
Martin-Laforge says government often forgets her community when crafting and consulting on policy, and as head of an organization that speaks for English-speakers, she has no one in government she can turn to. She says other “minority” groups, like women and First Nations, have sections of bureaucracy that look after them, as do francophones in other provinces where they are the linguistic minority. She would like the same consideration.
The QCGN is funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.
