Everyone, it seems, got along fine. Everyone played together, as most people from different language groups and backgrounds in this province do.

But all it took was a bully or two and playtime is over. Someone had to kick sand in somebody’s face.

Caroline St-Hilaire is the mayor of Longueuil.

She’s a former Bloc Quebecois MP so we know which way she leans in certain matters, but the people of Quebec’s fifth largest city seem to like her.

Maybe not so much after her amateurish handling of the water crisis earlier this year, but that’s another matter.

She has taken a dive into the murky waters of language. 

La Mairesse doesn’t like English being spoken at council meetings.

Councillor Bob Myles, good for him, speaks in both official languages, since he represents many English-speaking residents in his borough of Greenfield Park. He always starts in French as a matter of courtesy.

“I’m not taking anything away from the citizens of Longueuil. I’m not hurting their French language. I’m always speaking French to them and I speak to them in English. I don’t know where she is coming from, I really don’t,” said Myles.

Mayor St-Hilaire obviously has become so offended with the sound of English that she wants Bill 101 amended to prohibit English in all council meetings.

St-Hilaire even had the audacity to say hearing Bob Myles speak it in her star chamber was irritating.

The Speaker of the council weighed in and said English was fine, but that wasn’t good enough for the fire-breathing separatist-first magistrate. 

Maybe someone should point out that English is a legal and acceptable language in the Quebec National Assembly.

In fact, all legislation in Quebec is drawn up in both languages.

It is the law.

I wonder if something else is at play here.

Perhaps the former Bloquiste wants to stir up a language storm on the eve of the federal election.

English at council has never been a problem before. Timing is everything and really I don’t believe in coincidence.

It’s unacceptable that this mayor would play the language card over something as innocuous as a few minutes of English in a public forum but for some, in this farm, some animals are more equal than others.

It is also unacceptable that she has been getting online threats over her stance, as misguided and divisive as it is, because one idiotic gesture does not deserve an idiotic response.

Did you attend Fete St. Jean celebrations this week? 

A new poll finds that 65 percent of anglos and 72 percent of allophones have better things to do. 

It’s not really surprising. Let’s face it, the Fete Nationale is very much a political event. 

The main organizer is the Mouvement National de Quebecois: a separatist organization of the first order.

Some optimistic souls say it’s time to depoliticize the holiday but let’s be honest, that’s not likely to happen.

It will never be just a celebration for people of all languages and ethnicity.

Starting back in the '70s the secessionists successfully managed to co-opt the Quebec flag and make it their own.

Today most of those nationalist-fueled celebrations with seas of fleurs-de-lis are not about inclusivity.

It’s something else, something the mayor of Longueuil no doubt, understands quite well.