CAQ leader returns to alma mater

By Kevin Woodhouse
www.thesuburban.com

CAQ leader and former Ste. Anne de Bellevue resident Francois Legault made a stop this past Friday to his alma mater, École Secondaire St. Georges, where he spoke about entrepreneurship to a class of students before speaking to the media in the school’s foyer following the discourse.

“I am proud of this school and it was moving for me to do a tour and talk to the students as I went here for my primary and secondary education before it was just a high school,” Legault said. “This school has only an 11 percent dropout rate which is better than the average for schools in Quebec.”

When asked about whether the CAQ will support the PQ’s Bill 14, Legault said that “our position on this bill has been clear since the beginning. We have three aspects of the bill we do not agree with: military families should have the right to the educational language of their choice, towns; even those that have dropped below 50 per cent of anglophones should keep their bilingual status.

“Those who helped build their towns should not be deprived of any services because of language,” said the CAQ leader. The other portion of the bill the CAQ do not agree with is forcing small businesses to become unilingual in their business dealings that would simply add unnecessary bureaucracy. “It is for these reasons that we cannot accept Bill 14.”

The Suburban asked Legault if he had spoken to Nathalie Roy, CAQ member for Montarville and member of the Bill 14 hearings committee about recent briefs and statements made by participants at the hearings. “There seem to be two extremes at the hearings, those who are against Bill 101 and those who feel that Bill 14 does not go far enough. We need a balanced approach that will bring all Quebecers together,” said Legault.

“And while I believe in Bill 101, we need to put the focus on other matters as the province has been displaying poor economic results as Quebec has recently lost 30,000 jobs,” said the CAQ leader.

On the subject of Ste. Anne de Bellevue’s Exit 41 on Highway 40, that has been closed for the last two years and with a projected price tag of $6 million, Legault believes that “this small town should not have to pay for the repairs and should share the cost with the provincial and federal governments but there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.

“The Quebec Liberal Party made promises to fix infrastructure projects without enough money,” said Legault.

Legault concluded that while the “PQ have only one priority for the province which is sovereignty while we want to work on stimulating the economy.”