Liberals fire back at Quebec government with parody ad after cancelled Dawson expansion

In the wake of Quebec’s decision to cancel a Dawson College expansion in favour of French-language CEGEPs, the Liberals (QLP) fired back at the government through a new ad.

The QLP released a video Sunday parodying a controversial November ad from the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) government, which was accused of excluding Anglophones.

The original ad was part of a campaign denouncing racism and promoting inclusion. The English version featured five people congregating around a park bench, narrated with the words, “A group of young Black people gathered in a park at night are called: Friends.”

The French version used the same clip, only the word “friends” was replaced with “des amies québécois.”

To some, this discrepancy implied that Anglophones aren’t Quebecers, and the ad was met with immediate criticism and taken off the air to be re-worked.

Months later, the QLP ad follows a similar format, only in this case, a nurse is shown handing a mother her newborn infant.

“Here in Quebec, we call a young woman studying at Dawson College or CGEP de Ste-Foy to become a nurse: a future Quebec nurse,” the narrator -- Liberal MNA Jennifer Maccarone -- reads.

The video is nodding to the CAQ government’s recent shelving of a plan to expand the province’s largest English-speaking CEGEP, Dawson College.

The $100 million-project included the creation of a student-run medical clinic.

“If we have to choose priority, it is better to add to French colleges than added capacity to Dawson,” Premier François Legault said when asked about the decision.

“For schools, for hospitals, for roads […] it’s important to put top priorities in the right place,” he explained.

The QLP has been openly critical of this news, with opposition critic David Birnbaum calling it a “thoughtless, poorly conceived and politically motivated decision by the CAQ government.”