Time to accept the French fact
Not long ago maverick bookstore owner Henri Tranquille died in Montreal. He’ll go down in the history of Quebec as the man who defied the religious orientation of the province by selling books on the Vatican index, a blacklist of publications ranging absurdly from the Three Musketeers to Les Miserables.
Tranquille and others like him paved the way for Quebec’s Quiet Revolution which in turn encouraged the growth of the sovereignty movement which ebbed and flowed along with the fortunes of the Parti Quebecois.
It seems now that with the Conservative Party’s improbable capture of 10 seats in Quebec on January 23rd the volatile province may be in for the beginning of another change of direction.
Quebecers need to recognize that the value of being part of Canada matters more than ever in these days when national and international security is threatened.
That’s why our new Prime Minister must look far beyond those 10 seats to drum into the minds of his Western members the necessity to recognize that Quebec and the French language have as much right to distinction within federation as Alberta claims for itself.