GMCDI In the News

This article appeared in the West End Chronicle, The Chomedey News and the Westmount Examiner...

Anglophones should express their needs: QCGN

April 19, 2007

By Martin C. Barry TCN

Despite comparisons being made to work done by Alliance Quebec — the former anglo rights group which disintegrated following a long period of internal strife — supporters of a new project organized to boost the interests of Montreal's English-speaking community say they have no intention of losing track of their purpose or of getting mired in a debate that becomes too political.

Most anglos in Montreal

Anglophone residents of the Greater Montreal area met downtown last week to voice their opinions on the future of the English-speaking minority communities in Laval, the West Island, the South Shore, Montreal East and the city's centre. "Eighty per cent of the province's English-speaking community lives in the Greater Montreal area and many have expressed a need to voice their concerns about the development of their community and society at large," said Don Taylor chairman of the Greater Montreal Community Development Initiative steering committee.
He said the GMCDI was undertaken in response to this need. Through a series of consultations culminating in last week's public forum, the group wants to collect the opinions and concerns of the community and then present the findings in a report to the public and all levels of government. "Not in a long time has it been so important for English-speakers to play an active role in public life," said Sylvia Martin-Laforge, director-general of the Quebec Community Groups Network, an umbrella group which oversees the GMCDI.
Shared insights, experiences

"Every community member who participates in the GMCDI public forum or e-mails their comments to us strengthens the mandate of this project to determine the future of the English-speaking communities in the Greater Montreal area," she added. "This is first and foremost an initiative by the people, for the people." During last week's meeting, members of the anglophone community were asked to share their experiences, insights and suggestions for enhancing the vitality of their communities with regards to demographics, education, health and social services, economic development and employment, arts, culture and heritage, and social participation. Information and strategies gathered at five community forums, six sector panels and last week's meeting will be analyzed by panels of volunteer experts. Their findings will form the content of a final report to be released this summer. It will be distributed to QCGN members, Heritage Canada, which funds QCGN and used to fund Alliance Quebec, as well as other levels of government and the community at large.

Pluses and minuses

Steve Bletas, chairman of the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board which serves Laval's English-speaking community and who is one of a dozen members of the GMCDI steering committee, described the purpose of their work. "We're inviting all English minorities to come out and express their needs," he told TCN. "We're basically consulting them." While acknowledging that some of the participants at last week's forum — including former members of Alliance Quebec — caused some turbulence, Bletas said it was to be expected.
"You've got to expect that when you bring 200 to 250 people there," he said. "There are pluses and minuses to everything. Or maybe they just didn't understand it. We're just reaching out to the communities and saying 'okay, what are the concerns.' And if you notice, a lot of others brought forward other concerns and we noted them down. Because, you know, through Heritage Canada, we can bring forward and express our concerns as a minority language — English — here living in Quebec and possibly, I guess, either lobby or advocate for all these groups."
QCGN called 'parallel' group
Martin Berman, a longtime member of the Laval chapter of Alliance Quebec who was among those participating in last week's forum, remains bitter over the way the federal government slowly cut off the politically-outspoken group's funding, at the same time as the less controversial QCGN was coming into existence. "They had to get rid of Alliance Quebec," Berman suggested. "So basically the only way they could kill us was to cut off our funding, because they were our principal funder. They couldn't just shut down Alliance Quebec, so they started a parallel group called QCGN and basically they became the old Alliance Quebec — the bridge builders, the pacifiers. Follow QCGN. They're going to hell, but at least they're going happily."