Concerns about anglophone rights after election defeat of three Greenfield Park councillors

Montreal -

There's been a change in the political ranks of Greenfield Park.

The three incumbent English-speaking councillors were all defeated in Sunday's municipal election and that has led to some concerns about anglophone rights in the municipality.

After 19 years in public office, Greenfield Park councillor Robert Myles is packing up.

“We would have loved to have served our community another four years, but the people spoke and now we have to live with reality,” he told CTV News Friday.

Myles and the two other anglophone councillors here were defeated on election night.

A big part of their mandates, as they see it, was defending the rights of anglophones to services in their language.

Wade Wilson admits he has some concerns for the community moving forward.

“We fought for the English rights here in Greenfield Park. It's been a David and Goliath story pretty much throughout our eight years. It's been a heck of a battle,” Wilson said.

Myles fought for years to make sure English continued to be used at Longueuil City Council and succeeded. He said those are important fights.

“With all our veterans and all our seniors that we have here in our community, a lot of them didn’t really have a chance to learn French,” he said.

But, Greenfield Park resident Kevin Erskine-Henry doesn’t believe the election will have any effect on language and people were simply voting for change.

“Both teams campaigned on issues of preserving the bilingual status of Greenfield Park which is very important,” said Erskine-Henry, chair of the South Shore Community Partners Network.

“The population is probably less than 20 to 25 per cent English-speaking but it’s also becoming very multicultural and that becomes a new challenge as we integrate new citizens into the community.”

Now, it’s up to Greenfield Park to decide if the bilingual status will continue.

Greenfield Park councillor-elect Sylvain Joly said it played a critical role in his party’s platform.

“It was our first engagement. This is the main thing of our option Greenfield Park, this is our first engagement to keep the bilingual status,” he said.

“It’s important for us, it’s important for the people of Greenfield Park.”

Along with the other two newly-elected councillors, he’s hoping Greenfield Park will focus on other things than language that matter to everyone in the community.