{"id":692168,"date":"2026-05-25T07:18:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T07:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/692168\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T07:18:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T07:18:25","slug":"is-quebecs-new-premier-avoiding-anglos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/692168\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Quebec’s new premier avoiding anglos?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On last week\u2019s episode<\/a> of The Corner Booth, Tom Mulcair said Quebec\u2019s new premier, Christine Fr\u00e9chette, was \u201csteadfastly refusing\u201d to speak English and steering clear of anglophone media.<\/p>\n

After a week where the CAQ leader had her first official meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron<\/a> and the latest poll showed a bump in support for her party<\/a>, Fr\u00e9chette\u2019s multi-hyphenate minister Christopher Skeete joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand to shed some light on where the new premier stands with anglos on a linguistically charged episode of the podcast.<\/p>\n

\"AaronAaron Rand and Bill Brownstein chat with CAQ MNA Christopher Skeete on The Corner Booth at the Snowdon Deli in Montreal on Friday, May 22, 2026. Dave Sidaway \/ Montreal Gazette Dave Sidaway \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n

\u200a\u201dI wouldn\u2019t say she\u2019s ignoring you,\u201d the minister responsible for international relations, francophonie, English-speaking Quebecers and the fight against racism said.<\/p>\n

\u200a\u201dI\u2019ve spoken with Madame Fr\u00e9chette, and the intention is to reach out to the English community via the media in short order.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the latest poll may have put some wind in the CAQ\u2019s sails ahead of a provincial election later this year, the party will have to contend with the fact a number of holdovers from Fran\u00e7ois Legault\u2019s cabinet remain, and linguistic issues stand front and centre.<\/p>\n

One example is a proposal to extend Bill 101 to move 27,000 adult and vocational students to the French system<\/a>, which Skeete supports.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aWe think that it\u2019s important that people who want to live and work in Quebec know French,\u201d Skeete said, brushing back at the notion students already want to learn French without the need for legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aAn immigrant who chooses to go to an English vocational school is losing an opportunity to be immersed in a francophone environment, which will then assist them in finding a job later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skeete also reinforced the CAQ\u2019s position the \u201cconcentration of English in the downtown core\u201d of Montreal puts pressure on French.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI\u2019m a student from the U.S., and I come to study in Montreal. I think it\u2019s a great opportunity for me because I get to be immersed in a new culture, and I probably get to pick up a little bit of French,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a student visa, which allows me to go work at my local Second Cup or a Caf\u00e9 Depot. \u200aThat person is serving other people like them, and so in the job application, it\u2019s going to say: \u2018Must be bilingual.\u2019 So the person who\u2019s going to have that job must be bilingual, and so what it does is it creates an incentive for people to be English more than French.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aThe reality is they often don\u2019t speak French because of that concentration.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Corner Booth is also available on The Gazette\u2019s\u00a0YouTube channel<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>\u00a0and on\u00a0Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On last week\u2019s episode of The Corner Booth, Tom Mulcair said Quebec\u2019s new premier, Christine Fr\u00e9chette, was \u201csteadfastly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[219266,49,48,295,222207,66],"class_list":["post-692168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-anglophones","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-quebec-language-policy","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}