No sooner back in cabinet as minister responsible for official languages, Marc Miller put his foot in it by saying he doesn’t think French is in decline in Quebec. Legault thinks Miller won’t dare show his face at any cultural event in Quebec again.
Updates from December, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
Hydro-Quebec bills may soon outstrip inflation if the Régie de l’énergie accepts the plan. Another François Legault promise broken, but who’s counting?
-
Kate
Marwah Rizqy, MNA for Saint-Laurent, has been punted out of the Liberal caucus by Pablo Rodriguez over the Geneviève Hinse mess.
Rodriguez is also fighting back against a Quebecor allegation that his party took a donation from a businessman who expected favours in return. Plenty of Journal readers are ready to believe that the PLQ is as corrupt as you like, and they’re happy to play to that audience.
Tim S.
There should also be a story here about centralized control in a party. I’m not sure why it’s the party leader’s – or anyone’s – business if an MNA wants to fire their own chief of staff. The case sure makes it looks like Rodriquez values staffers loyal to him over elected representatives.
DeWolf
I think the issue for Rodriguez is that Hines was effectively *his* chief of staff. Rizqy was acting as his proxy until he could get elected as an MNA.
Tim S.
That makes sense of the story, but it’s still not a good look. Without knowing the full details, I hope that Rodriguez learned a lesson about individual agency, but more likely the takeaway will be to impose even stricter control.
bob
Tim S. – According to the National Post Hinse was “appointed by [Rodriguez] to manage the relationship between Rizqy and the leader”, which makes sense. Technically she worked for Rizqy, but she was there as Rodriguez’ proxy. So if Hinse is getting canned, there should have been a consultation.
I think Rizqy is thinking ahead. If she knew what was coming, and I’m sure she did, she has severed ties with a scandalous lot in a move perceived as principled, and then suffered for it. Good political narrative, that.
As to centralization, the way parties work is that the leader is king. You come at the king, you best not miss.
-
Kate
Some Outremont residents formed a human chain on Tuesday morning to protest the removal of a bike path along Lajoie. The borough’s Ensemble mayor says it will reopen for bikes on March 31 next year.
Ian
I don’t really understand how it is being considered a “protected” bike path… the Lajoie bike path is just painted. For that matter how do you “remove” a painted bike path?
Worth noting, Lajoie has a 20km speed limit, stop signs at every corner, and crossing guards at every crosswalk from McEachran to Outremont… it’s still pretty darn safe.
Chris
>For that matter how do you “remove” a painted bike path?
Usually mechanical abrasion. See section 7.3 here.
Ian
They’re not doing that, though.
-
Kate
The start date of the overtime strike planned by the STM’s maintenance workers has been changed by the labour tribunal and it will now run from December 11 to January 11, unless there’s a settlement.
-
Kate
The Journal has a list of medical clinics that are probably going to close in response to the passing of Bill 2.
Same day, I read that Bill 7 is going to merge two major public health agencies and cut jobs in a flailing attempt to save money, a move that isn’t welcomed by actual health practitioners, some of whom fear political interference in research.
mare
I score 2 out of 2 (I have a GP at one of those clinics and another GMF is providing hormones).
My GP’s clinic has more than 20 doctors, both GPs and specialists. They must have 10s of thousands of patients.
I’m floored.
Paul
Bravo CAQ. Take a bow.
Kevin
Quebec’s governments don’t actually want to make public healthcare better, they want to break it.
-In the 1990s, Lucien Bouchard offered early retirement to doctors
-In 2003, health minister Francois Legault created the PREM system to penalize doctors who work in Montreal
-Gaetan Barrette’s successive reforms to centralize healthcare decision-making. This means doctors in clinics lose control over choosing their support staff.
-AMP requirements get increased, meaning family doctors are only allowed to see their own patients for 3.5 days a week.
-Christian Dube implements another reform to allow nurses and receptionists to switch jobs while retaining seniority, so support staff begin playing musical chairs in search of less-demanding jobs
-Don’t forget the GAMF, the famous waiting list of people who need family doctors, which is full of errors and which is impossible for anyone to correct.
-Christian Dube rams through Bill 2 either without being aware of what it says, or pretending to be unaware of what it says, so doctors will see drastic pay cuts if the government decides not to hire enough janitors to clean operating rooms.“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
Meezly
@Kevin, can I share and credit you for what you wrote there?
Meezly
Has everyone signed and shared the assnat petition? I’m surprised there aren’t more signatures:
https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/exprimez-votre-opinion/petition/Petition-11807/index.htmlKate
Signed, thank you, Meezly.
Kevin
Meezly
Go ahead and share without crediting me. Thx.Ian
I forgot it was Legault that brought in PREM. Thanks for that reminder!
dwgs
Our family doctor retired almost ten years ago. We spent about 5 years on the wait list until we were contacted by a Nurse Practitioner and told we could get on board with her or we would be sent to the bottom of the wait list again. She turned out to be excellent and as our kids graduated from their pediatrician she took them on too. Everything was great until some time a year and a half ago or so. Her patient list was increased dramatically and that decision was beyond her control. She has been noticeably stressed the last couple of times I saw her. Yesterday I got a call from the clinic cancelling my appointment scheduled for the 12th. She’s on leave and they don’t know if or when she will come back so now all four of us are in limbo. I pointed out that I have a prescription which is overdue for renewal I was advised to get in touch with the urgent care clinic…
Uatu
Priorities! Health Care is not important. What is: listening to France D’amour at home like a real Quebecois. /S
azrhey
When I graduated High School in 94 I had 3 or 4 friends who wanted to be nurses and the counsellor highly discouraged them to go that path because “Quebec has too many nurses” and the classes were very hard to get to because they wanted to cut on the number of admissions into nursing school a lot because…too many nurses. None of them ended up in Nursing school.
Cut to 30 years later….
Ian
Same thing happened with primary and high school teachers.
CE
The same thing also happened with the trades. My middle school and high school both turned their shop classes into computer labs (despite almost all of already knowing how to use computers but most of us not knowing how to cut a piece of wood).
Tim S.
CE: at the last meet the teacher night I went to, ALL the parents were super thrilled that there was a shop class. Alas, it turns out they’re not learning to cut wood because some of the equipment is broken.
Kevin 17:27 on 2025-12-02 Permalink
I know Legoon is appearing to be upset, but that’s not actually what Miller said.
Miller said that French is fragile and that what he deplores is the neverending politicization of the topic, all while he hates that certain groups refuse to recognize that it’s a complex discussion and instead use it for identity politics.
Legault then, once again, said that the decrease in the number of ethnic mother-tongue francophones living in Montreal is a sign that French in Montreal is in danger — exactly the kind of identity politics that Miller denounces.
Ian 17:38 on 2025-12-02 Permalink
Historically, there is no final purity test.
Legault thinks French is in decline if it’s not the majority language, increasingly, in all facets of life – including at home. If that is ever satisfied, ethnonationalists will demand an increase in mother tongue francophones. After that, French ancestry. After that, founding families. It’s all Blut und Boden bullshit.
Kate 18:43 on 2025-12-02 Permalink
“What I refuse to accept is the dogma that certain political parties want to promote, which is that French is in total decline,” he said.
Okay, it’s meta, but it’s a kind of denial.
Kevin 08:49 on 2025-12-03 Permalink
95% of Montrealers speak French outside the home.
So if your concern is about the language in the city, it’s safe.
But if your concern is that people aren’t speaking French at home, you are an identitarian who is upset that non-Franco-Quebecers exist.
jeather 10:49 on 2025-12-03 Permalink
I believe that even if they speak French at home, it doesn’t count if they also speak another language at home.
Paul 11:17 on 2025-12-03 Permalink
A greater proportion of people speak French in Montreal then at anytime since the 1830’s. The only thing in decline is French origin Quebecers (or unilingual francophones). The argument that French is in decline is based purely on ethnonationalism.
Some statistics:
-According to Statistics Canada, 75 per cent of Quebecers say French is their first language,
while 94 per cent can converse/function in French.
-Yes, the % of people who ONLY speak French at home is in decline, but there is an increase if you look at the % of people who speak French at home, including those who mix it with another language:
Quebec (2006–>2021): 83% –> 86%
Montreal (2006–>2021): 56% –> 65%
So French is only in decline if you believe in complete linguistic purity. Which is an absurd concept in the 21st century.
https://www.lapresse.ca/contexte/2023-12-03/ecrits/le-francais-quel-declin.php
-Considering French in decline because people speak a different language at home is disingenuous. Look at the statistics related to knowledge of French and levels of bilingualism and the picture becomes clearer
1991–>2021 Connaissance des langues dans QC
Seulement EN: 5.5% –>5.3%
Seulement FR: 58.1%–>47.3%
EN&FR: 35.4%–>46.4%
Total FR: 93.6%–>93.7%
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&SearchText=Quebec&DGUIDlist=2021A000224&GENDERlist=1,2,3&STATISTIClist=1&HEADERlist=0
azrhey 11:26 on 2025-12-03 Permalink
I speak about 85% French at home ( 15% Portuguese in case you’re wondering ) .
I always ALWAYS answer OTHER in the census, because the first time I was ever able to vote as an adult was on the 95 referendum and I am still salty about the Vote Ethnique comment. I am a francophone, I have a nice honours degree in Linguistique de La Langue Française and a good part of my job is translating English documents into French. But I will always answer OTHER. When I used to live with my partner and my French at home was about 99% it was still OTHER. Because I am a effin’ Vote Ethnique.
Grump
jeather 11:50 on 2025-12-03 Permalink
Yes, I’m not saying they are correct to define “French in decline” as “exclusive use of French at home in decline”, but they are doing that.
bob 14:19 on 2025-12-03 Permalink
In these times where people are so concerned with privacy issues, how is it any of Legault’s f*cking business what I speak at home?
These totalitarians are just so insipid and lifeless. They want to protect a “culture” which is actually just the bleached bones of a living body they want to murder. Let’s compare what the CAQ has done to actually promote French, rather than just shit on the impur laine – Muslims, specifically.
And how many of their discussions with their kids at home are designed to practice the English they learn at private school?
Uatu 16:36 on 2025-12-03 Permalink
Caq should outlaw subversive content like anime. So many francophone kids watching One Piece or K Pop Demon Hunters instead of ti-Jean. The horror…