MONTREAL - Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, the sharks are showing their pearly whites.
My friends the Pequistes, the ones who just cannot take "non" for an answer, passed some pretty troubling resolutions at their convention.
Anglophobia hysteria, it seems to me.
Let's see, Bill 101 in Cegeps.
Good move PQ. Take more education rights away from Francophones. After all, you know what's best for the students, right?
Even the province's French-language advisory council says that would be a bad idea.
The party did manage to reverse itself after voting to ban all English from signs like it was some form of bacteria
But come on, you know how they really feel. Just scratch the surface.
They want to make small businesses require French certificates. Your local dep will need a francization certificate.
More inspectors, more bureaucracy, fewer rights.
They want to take us back to the good old days where a louer was the most popular sign in Quebec
When the joke was, "how do you start a small business in Quebec?"
"Buy a big one and wait."
The glory days of the PQ. We have come too far for that.
And of course, more talk about the perfect storm of separation, of a PQ government in power and the Bloc continuing to snipe away at the federal government with its perpetual agenda of humiliation.
Jean Charest is right when he says the PQ is becoming radicalized
There is some good news here.
First of all, keeping Marois as leader is not a bad thing
Despite all the follies of the Liberals, Quebecers have not embraced Madame Marois.
So having her around in the next election may be the best hope for sanity.
Layton nips at Duceppe's heels
Is it possible that the Quebecers are beginning to get tired of the Bloc?
I'm not sure if Quebecers will really embrace Jack Layton and the NDP.
The party has no history here. No ground game to get the votes out.
He has made an impact in the campaign, no doubt.
Way ahead of the other leaders on likeability.
He looks like a fighter and Quebecers like that.
Plus he is the only one saying he would welcome a coalition, an idea Quebecers like.
For now he is the flavor of the week. But polls often are misleading. Back in 1987, in one poll Ed Broadbent and the NDP were leading the country but the support was fleeting. NDP got 43 seats in the next election.
Not sure if Jack Layton's support is sustainable but he has hit a nerve and the Bloc is clearly worried.
In this season of rebirth and renewal, there is hope that Quebecers might be turning a page.
And for the first time in a generation, realizing that the politics of grievance is nothing but a dead end.
Happy Easter.
