Where are you from? What’s your name?
If you’ve lived in this area for any amount of time, it’s something that you’re going to be asked. Around here, there’s not much . . .
subtext to the question. The person making the query usually just wants to ensure they’re not second cousins with someone they’re trying to sweet talk at the bar (no judgment if they were, in a place like Pontiac these mistakes can happen).
However, the brain trust in charge at the National Assembly has taken it upon themselves to make the question one of concern for all government workers.
As it turns out, the grinning imbeciles that got elected on a platform of arbitrarily cutting immigration in the midst of a labour shortage don’t actually know what they’re doing. What they found was that it’s one thing to promise these things in the midst of an election, it’s another to look a person in the eyes and tell them that they have to leave.
Premier Legault and the Patrick Bateman stand-in he’s put in charge of the immigration file, Simon Jolin-Barrette, were forced to backtrack earlier this month after they tried to scrap the applications of thousands of skilled workers who hoped to find employment in la belle province. After hearing from real people who would be affected by the changes, the CAQ decided to change course and grandfather in those with outstanding applications.
You have to wonder how much thought those jokers put into their changes, if they fold up this easily under any sort of scrutiny.
Another brainwave they announced was that government services would only be available in English to the province’s ‘historic Anglophones’, whatever that means. According to the premier, only people that went to English school in Quebec deserve to receive government services in English.
If you’re scratching your head trying to figure out how they would implement such a plan in the real world, you’re not alone. Will the people of this region be given identity cards that denote their historic English status? Will there be a registry of the province’s Anglophones? What if someone moves and comes back?
Or the most obvious question, why discriminate in the first place? What benefit does this bring to Quebecers of any linguistic origin?
Why do we continue to be dragged through this xenophobic fever dream that’s being sold as coherent policy?
The CAQ, as the saying goes, would catch a whole lot more flies by using honey instead of vinegar.
Caleb Nickerson
