So... by and large things have been "calm" in the asylum. They tend to be when liberals get in. Not a lot will change, as they don't dare make any real progress in fear of losing the french voter base.
But, they went and did this.
http://nationalpost....e-cabinet-today
Now: understand. We currently have a fixed election cycle. Which means that they are campaigning, and quite blatantly pandering to anglophones. Just like them dumping the budget surplus back into provincial services after the 3 years of austerity they imposed. Surprise: the numbers still add up to a net loss on services, as they will not get back what they would have had if they kept the funding stable year to year. But back to the point at hand.
There is finally a minister in the government whose sole job will be to... I have no hugging clue. But supposedly, she will do it in english. Yeah, sure, right. I believe you.
So, here's my estimated time line for the secretariat of anglophones:
-Created for the end of 2017.
-Start work january 2018
-Couillard and his liberals voted out of office in 2018
-Current controlling seperation based party (Cause that's literally the only option in quebec provincial politics. 3 parties whose eventual mandate call for the seperation of quebec from canada, and the liberals.) kill their funding for the new fiscal year.
-Department lasts for just over 1 fiscal year, and seperation party looks better to francophone voters by both ending english services, AND claiming they are capable of reducing government waste and bloat.
Let's just skip the fact that this is obvious election pandering. Even IF couillard actually means all that shyte he spouts about wanting anglophones to come back to quebec (Hint: they won't.) adding another layer of government to an already over regulated and under supervised public service isn't the way to go about it. Of course, they won't touch the language laws, or the OQLF, or even make a good show of solidarity by making all government output in both actual languages. It's pretty much doomed to failure, as the second the liberals are no longer in power (which is my prediction for the coming election: CAQ this time.) the department will be shuttered. And even if it has some longevity in it: it still won't be able to get anything done as there are far too many peoples and departments in the government who absolutely do not care if the english do not have access to basic mandated rights and services. The last 40 years have been an exercise in driving people out in quebec, and since neither the laws (which actually allow the french to be biased against the english.) nor the culture have changed: this won't be any different.
I felt a need to start a new thread as watching the news of late has been driving me CRAZY! The liberals are outright pandering to the population after years of bad ideas, budget cuts and that fat bastard gaetan barret. More: anyone with any memory at all will see that all they've done is literally back track on statements and positions they've made since they were elected in an effort to simply make themselves look more electable. Not like we have to look very far, they've only had the one term so far.