Did Quebec's Language Obsession Cost Habs the Stanley Cup?

I've been itching to write a blog post such as this for many years, ever since Francophone journalists and sports commentators started exorcising the Montreal Canadiens for having so few Quebec francophones on the team.

Diving into the realm of 'what if' is a risky endeavour at best and foolish at worst, but it might serve to counter the hysterical rhetoric of language fanatics who demand that the Canadiens operate under a handicap that no other NHL team would entertain.

I'm referring to the impossible and ridiculous "Savard Doctrine" which dictates that the Montreal Canadiens should always opt for the francophone when a choice is to be made between players of equal value.

It was nonsense when Serge Savard, the general manager of the time, first enunciated the policy and it is nonsense today because, in the real world, those choices don't ever present.
In fact, Savard never gave us an example of a choice that he made based on the policy.

The Savard Doctrine, in and of itself, is harmless enough because even in the most implausible of circumstances where the team could choose a francophone instead of another player of equal talent, there would be no discernible harm.
But it did establish language as a hiring criterion, opening the door for fanatics to push even harder for the team to consider French as an important element in the hiring process, even when the choice of a francophone player isn't the best hockey decision.

You might well remember the sacking of interim coach Randy Cunneyworth a few years back, over his lack of French. The furor was ugly and nasty, including a demonstration by language fanatics in front of the arena. I'm pretty sure it frightened the bejesus out of its lightweight managing owner Geoff Molson who caved into the pressure throwing the lame-duck coach under the bus. 
It was a powerful portent of things to come and established firmly that language would indeed become an enduring handicap.
Nationalists will defend to the death the notion that making French an important criterion in player selection won't impact quality but it cannot help but do so.
If the team was saddled with the rule that left-handed players be hired in preference to right-handed players, who would argue that quality would not suffer?

The gran-daddy of Habs French/first lobby is the nasty Anglophobic doyon of Quebec's sports commentator Rejean Tremblay who is a legend for his sarcastic and sour missives targeting anglophones and ethnics. His racist bent is not a phenomenon of a bygone era, he continues to spout his nasty and racist screeds, published in the mainstream media by the likewise racially insensitive Journal du Montreal.

"Everything is going well because we are winning ..
The Habs could field 20 Chinese players and it would be okay.
If the KHL convinced the Chinese to embrace hockey,
we'd find ourselves with 20 Fang Wongs in 20 years. 

Incidentally, that article insulted the Canadiens organizations as well as its fans for putting hockey before language, an unpardonable sin.

And the argument for the Habs to make language a part of the hiring process is repeated ad nauseam, including the mayor of Montreal and Premier Legault advocating for more "Quebecois" (read: 'francophone' ) who are able to communicate with fans in French be given preference.  The Premier opined that perhaps the return of the Nordiques would spur a competition with the Habs to hire more "Quebecois." Truthfully, the return of the Nordiques is a goal for like-minded nationalists who dream of a team that better represents their ideal of Quebec.

At any rate, I come to the gist of this article, the fact that the Canadiens may just have lost the Stanley Cup because of the disastrous player trade that brought the now sidelined Jonathan Drouin to the Habs for first-round draft choice Mikhail Sergachev. Tampa Bay general manager Steve Yzerman must have rubbed his hand in glee when he dumped problem-child Drouin on the Habs for a coveted first-round draft pick. It will go down as one of the worst trades in Canadiens history, perhaps on a par with the Scott Gomez acquisition for Ryan McDonough.

Drouin was already a big problem in Tampa Bay, at loggerheads with the team, going on a mini strike and demanding a trade.
As damaged goods, you'd think Drouin would be a bargain, but not for the desperate Habs eager to sign a francophone.
And so Tampa Bay Lightning got a young defenceman with a bright and long future and the Habs got sad sack Drouin. The Habs media was giddy with joy, with nobody willing to say the truth out loud or in print... that is,  that the desperate Habs were hoodwinked.
By the way, don't blame Montreal GM Marc Bergevinfor the trade, language pressure was the key element for making the trade thanks to pressure from the public and from team ownership desperate for more francophone players.

And so we come to the recent and surprising meeting of the Habs and Lightning in the Stanley Cup final, which like any playoff series can turn of the smallest of edges.

Drouin was gone, absent, on leave from the team for what we can only assume is a serious mental condition, while Sergachev played significant minutes, contributing big-time to the Lightening defence.

Imagine Sergachev playing for the Habs and Drouin not playing for the Lightning during the series.
It might have been the difference between being a runner-up and winning the Stanley Cup.

While we'll never know, it remains that nobody in the French media will dare speculate on the issue because they all supported the idiotic trade.

And so the chickens have come home to roost.
The broken Savard Doctrine is a fantasy that the entire Quebec hockey scene continues to embrace and so admitting that it might just have cost the city a Stanley Cup is an idea too frightening and horrific to entertain, one that cannot be mentioned out loud by the media on pain of excommunication.

Governor-General Choice a Tragic Mistake and Horrific Precedent

I cannot say that I'm stunned by Trudeau's woke appointment of Mary Simon as the next Governor-General. We've come to expect form over content and a Prime Minister who makes decisions not on what is best for the country, but is best for his image.

I am however stunned at the muted opposition and the unacceptable silence by the cowering media and political class who remain too afraid to say out loud what they really think.

That is that the choice of a Governor-General who doesn't speak one of the two official languages is unacceptable on any level.

It a sickening pandering to wokeness that clearly proves that diversity hires are almost always less competent than the alternatives, more competent candidates that are downgraded because they don't have the right skin colour, religion or ancestry.
It is sickening.

Choosing a candidate who doesn't speak French breaks the essence of what Canada has evolved into, or more to the truth, the ideal that Canada has set for itself, a country dedicated and respectful to the founding nations, the French and the English.

I have no problem recognizing that Canada's founding mosaic was flawed in that it excluded Canada's aboriginals and steps being taken to right this historical wrong are to be applauded..
But for Trudeau and the Liberals promoting the aboriginal's right to be included as respected partners seems to be a zero-sum game, where in order to accommodate them, someone has to give up their place.

And make no mistake, the position as a founding nation for French Canada is being downgraded and disrespected in order to fulfill the rush to be 'inclusive.'

The position of Governor-General may constitutionally important but let us be honest, the job is largely ceremonial and meant to foster unity and pride. The GG gives out awards and prizes, cuts ribbons and visits hospitals, she is a poor colony's stand-in for the Queen who towers by comparison.

You would think that the number one occupational requirement for the job is excellent communication skills followed by personability, both skills that will be absent when communicating with 25% of Canada's population who speak French.

A great deal is made that she is indeed bilingual, but not with French, rather English and her native Inuktitut, a language that is so exotic here in Canada that less than 35,000 people speak it, which places just above Swahili (30,000) in importance of languages spoken in Canada

In Canada bilingual means French and English, not Punjabi, Italian, Spanish or Cantonese. 

98% of Canadians speak English or French and so a job that entails communicating with these citizens would make bilingualism an iron-clad requirement.

And the notion that she will become proficient in French in her seventies is a laughable lie. 

I live in an affluent majority-English town in Quebec which boasts a unilingual English mayor who also promised to learn French when first he knocked on my door seeking my vote 15 years ago
We are still waiting.

I shudder in morbid anticipation of a throne speech given partly in pigeon French, written out for her phonetically and delivered without a clue to its content.

I can only imagine a medal presentation or a meet and greet.....
BONE-JEWR, KOH MAH SAW VAH, MOAN SEWER MAR TEEN OH
PHILLY-SET-ASS -IONES

Argghhhhhh!!!!!!

 There are those who are already clamouring that being bilingual be dropped for important political, bureaucratic and diplomatic positions in Canada. Any relaxation in the requirement reduces the impetus for those seeking public life to learn French.
Can you imagine a choice for governor-general who only spoke French?

For those of us in Quebec preaching for more bilingualism, it is incumbent on us to defend it in our federal institutions.

I am utterly disappointed in all of us. We are so afraid of defending what is right out of fear of seeming insensitive and un-inclusive.

The appointment of the utterly unqualified Mary Simon is poisonous and destructive because, in Canada, inclusiveness doesn't mean downgrading one to boost another. 

Shame on Trudeau, the Liberal party and everyone who supports this hire.

Shame on Canadians who are too afraid to stand up for what is right out of fear.

Protesting Bill 96 Peacefully is a Humiliating Waste of Time

A lot of good people in the English community are organizing what they believe to be a spirited campaign to counter the  effects of the proposed Bill 96, a law presented by the Quebec government as a needed defence of the French language but in reality just another mean-spirited device to inflict more pain on the anglo and Ethnic community.

While I laud the good intentions to oppose the law, these efforts are pathetic and doomed to failure.
What's worse, this type of effort is actually counter-productive because it is not only a fight we will lose but one in which we will be humiliated.

"The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) held a two-day virtual conference titled Our Place in Quebec and Canada. The QCGN is strongly research-based. Its leadership is steeped in experience and knowledge of the issues; there are also young up-and-coming leaders. It has done considerable consultation within the community and opened dialogues with politicians and other community organizations. The QCGN is gearing up for the public hearings through coalition-building and highlighting the impact of Bill 96 on individual freedoms. It will be working on outreach, legal strategies and letter-writing campaigns to educate not only anglophones, but francophones, with a view to sparking a debate on the type of Quebec we want to build together. The QCGN has valuable information on its website, including its analysis of the bill." Robert Libman

Letter-writing campaign?

With apologies to my friend Robert Libman who penned the above in a Montreal Gazette article, the protest route is a solution destined to fail miserably which will result in our collective humiliation at the hands of separatists and nationalists who will delight in our painful and pointless begging, an exercise that will serve only to edify and entertain our opponents who view us with scorn and disdain.

Think of a Spanish bullfight where the bull is forced into the ring and mercilessly poked and speared, pre-ordained to perish ignominiously by way of a thousand cuts.
For the cutthroat arena fans, the longer the pain and suffering of the beast, the greater the enjoyment.
If I could communicate with the bull, I'd tell him not to enter the ring or at least not to fight, saving its dignity, if not its life, thus depriving the rabid mob of its morbid quest for blood.

So too, our potential letter-writers and peaceful Bill 96 protesters are the doomed bull. 
They are that same confused, bewildered beast, destined to ignominious defeat.

So welcome to the real Quebec language debate where inflicting pain upon our community is the goal, an endeavour our Premier and his nationalist ilk of anglophones and ethnophobes actually enjoy.

Our pathetic and painful protest movement will be seen by our tormentors as but a delicious appetizer to the main course, where they gleefully drop the hammer on the English and Ethnic community, the proverbial coup de grace that once and for all declares Quebec French and French alone.

And so respectfully I submit that peaceful debate and protest is the absolute wrong strategy to adopt because there is no reasonable compromise to be had and no hope of even the tiniest scrap of compromise.
 
Please don't do it.

You only have to read the French press which universally paints us as entitled exploiters and colonialists who deserve to be taken down a peg or two.  Day after day, rants liken us to the British poobahs of India, living the good life of entitlement, paid for by the blood, sweat and tears of the downtrodden francophone masses. 

Such is the coordinated narrative being woven by the CAQ government and supported by a grovelling French press eager to dump on 'les Autres.'

And so there are only three avenues left to us that have any chance of success and all don't involve peaceful protest and useless letter-writing campaigns.

The first is a violent revolt, which none of us has the stomach, the nerve or inclination to undertake.

The second is civil disobedience, effective but again not an avenue we are inclined to pursue, having put our faith in the democratic process all our lives, it's hard to become scofflaws.
But before outright rejection of civil disobedience, remember how the students brought the province to its knees over tuition increases. The students were actually protesting for sport and eventually lost interest, but had they continued to put on pressure on the public through disruptions, who knows what blackmail they could have squeezed out of the government. Most importantly,  the lesson learned was that the public had no stomach for a fight and zero taste for a protracted and uncomfortable state of siege.
In the end, the public was screaming for capitulation whatever the cost.

But the third option is the more interesting path and one guaranteed to make our opponents sit up and take notice....

PARTITION.
A BREXIT MOVEMENT FOR MONTREAL IS THE ANSWER

Now before you shake your head and mutter about the plan's futility, a partition movement for the Island of Montreal makes more sense than you can imagine and isn't half as unrealistic as your first estimate would conclude.
Remember that when the Brexit movement in Great Britain started it was laughed off as a futile effort by a tiny minority of cranks.

THE ELEVENTH PROVINCE.

The island of Montreal represents everything that separatists and nationalists hate and everything that we federalists value.
Immigrants, diversity, religious freedom and bilingualism are the ideas that the proponents of Bill 96 abhor and values that the very large majority of those living on the island of Montreal adhere to.

The partition of Montreal makes political sense because of its natural boundaries and its federalist majority.
I know that some will argue for a larger basin but adding other areas isn't feasible.

On the if-come Montreal holds a winning referendum and seceded from Quebec, those Quebecers who want to remain federalist are welcome to move to the island as are those who are not may choose to leave.

There isn't any doubt that presented with an opportunity to create a bilingual, diverse and religiously tolerant province, a YES vote is not only feasible but likely for Montreal. 

WE ARE THE MAJORITY.

And most importantly we can count on the rest of Canada to support this new province unreservedly since Montreal is the only thing Canadians like about Quebec.
Should Quebec choose independence after Montreal becomes a province, you won't see any love-in rallies by Canadians begging them to stay. The prevailing attitude would more likely be good riddance.

Would the Quebec government allow such a referendum?

Absolutely not, it would fight the idea tooth and nail, but that is what independence movements are all about, the fight for recognition for the right of self-determination.

More importantly, once a credible secession threat is made the debate will change dramatically. We will no longer be begging for favours and the more stringent the limitations placed upon our community, the faster support for partition will grow.

Separatists and nationalists are a paranoid lot and suffer from recurring delusional conspiracy theories.

Let us give them the granddaddy of it all.
A partition movement will be frightening and just a few posters and meetings will send them into a frenzied fit of apoplexy.

The French news channels will exaggerate the movement because that is what they do, thus giving legitimacy to the movement.

Faced with real and frightening push-back, the francophone majority will no doubt reconsider its harsh treatment of our communities. Faced with the dilemma of something to lose (and losing Montreal is a pretty big deal) I've no doubt that the majority will seek rapprochement rather than a bloody war, one which they very well may lose.

1. Ambit claim

   In negotiation, an ambit claim is an extravagant initial demand made in expectation of an eventual counter-offer and compromise. In labour union negotiations, this is called a Blue Sky demand.

Pushing for partition is a strategy that will be infinitely more successful in protecting our rights than will be peaceful protests. 

Whether partition is achieved or not, the effort will be rewarded.
Save your letters for grandma....

Myths & Lies of Quebec's French Language Debate Part One- Mother Tongue Nonsense

 It's no secret that statistics are easily manipulated and often misused to promote an opinion or political position when a fair evaluation of the data would show otherwise.

I'll start with a blatant example of this type of misuse of statistics in a Journal du Montreal article penned by blowhard Normand Lester whose disdain for anglophones, Canada, the USA and particularly Israel is legendary.
As for background, Mr. Lester was fired from Radio-Canada for his extreme anti-Canadian opinions which he shared while employed by Canadian taxpayers. He was at the center of a contrived controversy in 1996 when he accused the Jewish General Hospital of language heresy when a  nurse supposedly refused to address him in French, even though he had previously been speaking with her in English.
The incident sparked a heated demonstration by amped-up nationalists in front of the institution that was later cleared of any language wrongdoing. I only refer to this incident in light of the ironic fact that Mr. Lester's life was saved in the very same hospital's emergency room seventeen years later after suffering a heart attack.
I always laugh when sovereigntists and language militants attack English hospitals for being English entities and then whine that French service is not up to snuff, THUS recognizing by their complaint that these hospitals are indeed bilingual. 
It is the hallmark of these language whingers to argue the opposite points of view when convenient as we shall see below.

At any rate, Mr. Lester is not one to mince words or keep his dishonest and racist views to himself. 

"Normand Lester was somehow allowed to publish a column comparing the Mohawk Warriors to terrorists and the Proud Boys, both factually untrue and dangerous, not to mention (again) racist. After public outcry, the Journal de Montréal quietly removed the column from their website, without even the courtesy of an apology or explanation." Link 

This is who the Journal du Montreal publishes as some sort of expert.
I was surprised by his recent sadly amusing article in the Journal du Montreal claiming that the decidedly anglo town of Côte-Saint-Luc didn't deserve bilingual status because only 40% of its citizens are anglophones. Bill 101 requires rather convolutedly that a majority of townsfolk must be English to maintain official recognition as a minority.
In other words, in Quebec, a minority must be a majority to be recognized as a minority,,, yup.

 So Côte-Saint-Luc is not English? I looked up the numbers to understand how Mr. Lester arrived at his cockamamie conclusion that only 40% of CSL townsfolk are anglophones..

It appears that Mr. Lester dishonestly conflates mother tongue with the primary language spoken in the home as the defining criterion of what is an anglophone. 
As far as I can follow Mr. Lester's logic, despite acting like an anglophone, talking like an anglophone, and living like an anglophone, you are still not an anglophone unless born to parents who are anglophones. This is the utter baloney contrived by language militants who have coined the thoroughly racist term "historical anglophones" (those born to anglophone parents) to deny that many choose to join the English community by choice.
Statscan, reports that in CSL, more than twice as many families speak English at home as do those families that speak French (20,000 versus 8,000.)
In other words, 60% of the town's population speak English at home.

Mr. Lester's basis of argument must be that because only 40% of residents were born into an English-speaking home, they cannot be considered anglophones. In other words, you cannot become an Anglophone by choice. Now, this argument is the opposite one made by language militants who claim that francophones going to English Cegep are in too many cases turned into raging anglophones.
In fact, Mr. Lester makes that exact CEGEP  claim in that very same article. 
His dishonest use of this statistic fails to mention that even when the original mother tongue is compared, twice as many have English compared to French as a mother tongue in CSL.
In fact, only 20% of Cote Saint Luc residents have French as a mother tongue, yet on this basis, he demands that French be the only recognized language in the town.
Mr. Lester is another language fraudster, typically spouting the nonsense of those who know better but deliberately attempt to confuse with sleight of hand, outright lies and selectively deceptive statistics.
Shame on him, because he's very bright and he knows he is deceiving.

Now let us examine the stupidest and lamest misuse of statistics, the cornerstone argument of the "French is in danger" mantra, one that puts Chicken Little to shame.

"Montreal, is where the vast majority of new Quebecers settle and so Montrealers whose mother tongue is French, which accounted for 48% of the population in 2011, will approach the critical threshold of 40% in 2036" Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, leader of the PQ Link{fr}

And so immigration is to blame for the so-called decline in French because these immigrants don't speak French at home, even though their children are sent to French schools and almost all work in French.
So in this case, it is convenient to talk about the first language spoken in the home as a defining language criterion, unlike Mr. Lester who argues that it isn't.

This is the defining statistic of the "French is declining" argument, the fact that French spoken as the first language in the home is on the decline.
It is a deception repeated ad nauseam, an argument that is specious at best and racist at worst.

Whining about French declining as the language spoken at home makes as much sense as the person who goes to the depanneur each week and loads up on bags of potato chips, only to complain to everybody who will listen that the potato chips are at fault for making him fat.
It is patently absurd.

As long as Quebec brings in immigrants, the percentage of those with another language spoken at home will rise and French, as well as English, will decline as the first language spoken at home.
It's that simple.

So if you don't want more immigrants that speak another language at home, don't bring them in. Complaining about it as if it's someone else's fault is as dishonest as stupid. 

But reducing immigration as language militants suggest presents another problem. A declining birthrate means the population of Quebec will decline without new blood via these dastardly immigrants  

While not exactly a "Sophie's Choice," for language militants, the immigration dilemma is real.
But that dear reader, we will leave for a future post.

In the meantime, language militants should understand that if they don't want French as the first language spoken at home to decline, they need to stop buying so many potato chips. 

Next up... Part Two- Forced Store Descriptors are petty and racist.

Cowardly Premier Legault invokes "Jim Crow" English CEGEP rule

For those who take offence to the harshness of the title of this blog piece and the reference to the infamous Jim Crow laws prevalent in the southern United States in the last century, let us consider that these laws were put in place to limit rights, and to segregate blacks from whites through regulation, despite emancipation and equality being the law of the land.

Limiting admission to English CEGEPS through regulation while purportedly allowing full legal access is no different than voter suppression in America where minorities, particularly blacks are subject to regulations that hinder them from participation.

In the simplest of terms, it is like begrudgingly allowing Blacks to attend historically all-white schools, but limiting enrolment size and giving priority to white students.

Premier Legault proposes the exact same thing, which is allowing francophones to legally attend English CEGEP but limiting enrolment and giving priority to English students. It's called (or should be) 'Educational choice suppression'

That gentle reader is the very definition of a "Jim Crow" law.

Most francophones reluctantly agree that their children entering primary school should be streamed into the French side. While not all agree, educating primary and secondary students in French in the formative years is largely accepted as a way to protect the French language and culture on the majority.
But that support collapses when the children grow up and are ready for CEGEP (Quebec's version of grade 12 and 13 or junior college, so to speak,)
Here parents and voters harshly disagree and view it as a freedom of choice issue that discriminates against young francophone adults, rendering them second-class citizens because Anglos are the only citizens with full language options.

I haven't seen the polling results because none is made available, but believe me when I say that every government has polled on the issue and has been frightened by a result that indicates that imposing Bill 101 language rules on CEGEP would be wildly unpopular and cost them dearly in electorial support.

It's a situation, that the public won't abide by and despite good intentions (saving the French language), discrimination is discrimination.
And so because imposing Bill 101 to CEGEP is a no-go, as separatist government after government has confirmed (despite calls to action by militant nationalist and language fanatics,) regulation is the workaround answer in the hope that the public will be hoodwinked into believing that choice has been maintained when it decidedly has not.
As Alabama Blacks in the last century found out, while they had the official right to vote, precious few actually could. 

Jim Crow is alive and well in Quebec.

I cannot underscore the pure hate, jealousy and opportunism that drove this gutless and nefariously cruel decision because its real effect will also be devastating on anglophone students applying to English language CEGEPS.
It's hard to believe the Premier when he says that he will give priority to English students for enrolment in  English CEGEPS. Will schools actually enforce an entrance quota system? It's already notoriously difficult to score a place even with stellar grades. I can't imagine things could improve unless the government puts down a quota system that guarantees English students priority.

Jim Crow sounding more like the case now?

And limiting the availability of enrolment to English CEGEP will drive demand among francophones because there is nothing so desired as the forbidden fruit.

Will it be that an excellent English student with a 75% grade average will be accepted before a phenomenal francophone candidate with a 95% average?

Now the government has crowed that its cap of English places in CEGEP is 17% of all admissions, a generous percentage given that native anglos make up about 8% of the population.
But Anglos have historically a much higher rate of attendance in college and university compared to francophones, up to 50% more.
If Anglos are given priority as the Premier promised then it leaves precious few places that francophones have available in English CEGEP.

And by the way, the 33,000 students enrolled in the five English public CEGEPS make up about 20% of the Quebec CEGEP population. The 17% cap means that the government is planning to cut that number by 15% or about 2,500 students.

Right now, of the 33,000 students in English CEGEP, about 8,000 are French-speaking, not an astronomical number compared to the 130,000 francophone students attending French CEGEP.
But 8,000 is too much for a government concerned with appearances and cutting that number seems a priority that makes a mountain out of a molehill.

For francophones, getting into an English CEGEP will simply be a case of la creme de la creme. 
It reminds me of an old saying among francophone Quebecers;

"He was so sick he had to go to a Jewish doctor!"

The new saying may well be;

"She was such a brilliant student, she got into an English CEGEP,"

I mostly supported Legault and the CAQ believing that it was a better alternative to the PQ, seeing that the Liberals had corrupted their way out of public favour, but while the PQ was and is honest of its intentions, making the public wary, the CAQ is stealthily doing what the PQ could not.

But Legault's tone has been decidedly confrontational with the Premier going out of his way to remind us that he is the Premier of francophones first and foremost. He isn't even shy about it.

He did well to hide his animosity towards Anglos and Canada in his run-up to the election but perhaps there were not so subtle hints that I should have picked up on.

In the election campaign event, his wife made some disparaging comments about Anglophone culture and perpetrated the nonsense of the superiority of Quebec culture.

"On the tape, Brais also praised Quebec as a jewel in North America, with a European-style culture distinct from the rest of Canada.

We are different, we are not coming from Saskatchewan .... Have you been to Saskatchewan? It's almost the United States,'' Brais said.

She also denounced Ontarians as people who only watch American TV."

I excused Legault for defending his wife's independence and right to an opinion out of marital fidelity but now conclude that it's a family position. Madame Legault apologized for her insult but not for her beliefs.

At any rate, the entire language issue is rooted on the language militant side as being a problem caused by the English, while conveniently ignoring the fact that the majority of francophones only care about protecting their language if someone else is to be shamed, blamed.
For me, I'm actually astonished that so few francophones opt for English CEGEP with only about 6% of francophone students choosing an English CEGEP.
While the rest of the world tries desperately to learn English, not to abandon their native language, but to enhance their professional prospects and personal fulfillment, Quebec pedals the fiction that having a second language is dangerous.
It is incredible that North Korea does a better job of teaching English to students than Quebec, with most North Korean high schoolers able to carry on a decent conversation in English. Not so in Quebec, where teaching English is seen as taking a bite out of the forbidden fruit. 
How sad.  

As for the argument that attending an English CEGEP leads to assimilation because it is a time where young adults choose a mate, it is a fact that in two out of three English/French marriages or partnerships, the resulting children are sent to French schools.

Legault continues to pedal a false language narrative that has the effect of casting blame on the English community for the lack of effort in Quebec's francophone community to safeguard its own language.
Taking a page out of the propagandist playbook, repeating this big lie over and over again has given it a legitimacy that it does not deserve.