Federal Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has waded into the Quebec election campaign, saying it's time for Coalition Avenir Quebec Leader Francois Legault to stop dividing Quebecers into "us and them."
Rodriguez was responding to comments made by Legault at a campaign rally Sunday that non-French-speaking immigration to the province is a threat to "national cohesion."
The minister told reporters outside a federal Liberal caucus meeting in St. Andrews, N.B., today that he wonders whether Legault would have considered him and his parents threats because they spoke no French when they immigrated to Quebec from Argentina.
Rodriguez, who is the prime minister's Quebec lieutenant, noted that his family learned French and his parents became professors at the French-language Universite de Sherbrooke.
Quebec Liberal Leader Dominique Anglade, whose parents were Haitian immigrants, told reporters in Laval, Que., that Legault's comments were "pathetic" and accused him of deliberately trying to turn people against each other.
Speaking in St-Lazare, Que., this morning, Legault said immigration benefits Quebec but the province's capacity to accept immigrants is limited if it wants to protect the French language.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Sept. 12, 2022.
