The record, 8 février 1980, Supplément 2

These pages are sponsored by the Secretary of State in its Editorial Board: William Assad Montreal Regional Office and co-ordinated by the Judith Taylor Association of Quebec Regional English Newspapers.Paul Dumont-Frenette THERE’S A FUTURE FOR YOU IN QUEBEC .IF YOU'RE BILINGUAL.Yeah, but how bilingual?Bilingual enough to get an ATTESTATION from the Office de la langue française that you have a knowledge of French appropriate to working at your profession.What profession?There are 38 professions in Quebec that are affected by Bill 101.But I’m not even training for a profession! Crunch?!##?\ Yes, but you may decide to do so after the crunch, after 1980.Yes, right now you can try to get your ATTESTATION in your last 2 years of professional training.If you don’t get it by graduation, you can keep on trying while you’re working on a 1-year temporary permit, renewable for 2 further 1-year periods.You still haven’t crunched me.After Dec.31, 1980, you’ll have to get your ATTESTATION before graduating or you won’t be able to work at your chosen occupation.No more temporary permits?No, and no extensions for anyone trained in Quebec.Too bad, but anyway, it won’t affect me.I’m not going into any of those professions.Maybe not, but perhaps your best friend, or your brother or sister will.Maybe they’re halfway through such a program now.Okay, okay, what do you want me to do?Sign this petition.What’s it say?We’re demanding that the Quebec government amend Bill 101 ’s Article 39 so that after 1980 we’ll still have Temporary Permits to work in our chosen occupations while continuing to try for our ATTESTATIONS.(Petition available on your campus or in your institution as of October 4, 1979.) The Council of Quebec Minorities and your student council ^ ’sVa\ £ ' ?,-v\ / ?Y 459 THE COUNCIL OF QUEBEC MINORITIES In early October of 1979, Joan Halsall was feeling more than a little dispirited.The Sherbrooke Hospital nurse had failed in four attempts to pass the French language test requisite for licencing in Quebec, and her temporary permit was soon to expire.A hospital supervisor had told her that she would simply have to reconcile herself to being out of work until she passed the test.Fortunately, Halsall found her way to the Minorities Employment and Professionals Assistance Service (MEPAS) of the Council of Quebec Minorities, where she received help in applying for renewal of her temporary permit.By late December, moreover, she had reason to celebrate: she finally passed the French examination.Halsall is just one of more than one hundred and fifty Quebecers — nurses, doctors, engineers, social workers, and other professionals — who have sought counselling and other forms of assistance from MEPAS since the Council of Quebec Minorities opened its doors in downtown Montreal last May.Explains MEPAS program director Graham Weeks: "We re prepared to help anybody who's having problems getting through the Office de la Langue Française tests, whether a member of an ethnic minority or a plain anglophone.We've also campaigned to get the Office to schedule more testing dates and to stay open the whole of July." HAPPY WORKERS AT THE COM—From left to right—Neil Saxe, a volunteer, from Participation Quebec Youth Committee; Linda Jane D'Ganigian, Outreach Programme Director; Anita Simand, Secretary; Susan Schachter, Research.Graham Weeks, M.E.P.A.S., not appearing.Although MEPAS is the most prominent of its services, the council has also been active in several other areas, including research, community animation, and communications, in its efforts to serve Quebec's minority population.In a matter of months it has begun to make its presence felt in government circles and the public at large.Less than two and a half years ago, the council was merely a hazy concept when some thirty people gathered in the McGill Faculty Club for a meeting hosted by the Positive Action Committee.It was an unlikely assembly, drawing together representatives from organizations as diverse as Montreal's Ville Marie Social Service Centre and the Gaspé's Committee for Anglophone Social Action.But all shared one concern: the future role of minorities in a rapidly evolving Quebec.In the ensuing months, an increasing number of representatives met on several occasions to explore common problems and aspirations."We saw a great gap in terms of the organizations that already existed around minority concerns," recalls Anne Usher, one of the most active participants."We groped to develop a mechanism that would bring people from these disparate groups together and formalize the network.We looked at how the francophones outside Quebec had organized, but their situation is not really parallel." On May 12, 1978, a one-day symposium was held at Concordia University.Upwards of one hundred delegates from seventy organizations discussed minority issues and the proposed coalition in a series of workshops.An ad hoc committee was appointed to draft guidelines, and six months later a follow-up meeting was convened at the Windsor Hotel.While the evening began with debate and dissension, it ended with optimism and the establishment of the Council of Quebec Minorities.A board of directors was duly elected, and a constitution adopted.Because of the diversity of its membership, the council necessarily embraced a broad set of goals.Among the most important: fostering the development of Quebec's ethnocultural minorities "in order that they be viable, contributing, and flourishing components of Quebec society," promoting the learning of French among Quebec's minorities; and en couraging the rapproachement of all peoples residing in the province."We are concerned with the life of the minorities within the Quebec context," emphasizes Usher, who serves as vice president of the council."We are not involved in the debate on the future political status of the province." After its provincial incorporation, the council received a grant from the federal Secretary of State through its official language minority groups directorate.It hired Graham Weeks as MEPAS program director and Anita Simand as an assistant, and settled into offices at 3437 Peel Street.Three more employees have since joined the council — secretary-receptionist Marjolaine Jolicoeur; Outreach program director Linda D'Ganigian; and researcher Susan Schachter.Lawyer Jim Leavy, moreover, has been contracted to assist MEPAS.In collaboration with Participation Quebec (one of the prime catalysts in the council's formation), Schachter prepared The Consumer's Guide to French Language Courses in Quebec.The booklet, which was based on a five-week survey of public and private institutions, was issued last fall and is available from the council free of charge.At the moment, Schachter is conducting a comprehensive research study on the minorities and their institutions, due for publication this spring.Once she has collected current demographic data, she hopes to trace the changes that have occurred among the minorities over the last two decades.D'Ganigian, meanwhile, is expanding the council's Outreach program, encouraging associations to join the new organization, Interaction, to keep council members informed of each other's activities and the council's.The council as a whole also keeps close tabs on issues affecting the minorities."We're trying to play an advocacy role," explains D'Ganigian, "taking on discriminatory issues over language and defending and promoting the rights of minorities.For instance, an ad hoc committee is lobbying for extension of temporary permit renewals beyond the current cut-off date in 1980." Adds Usher: "We have a much better understanding now of where the application of Law 101 is creating confusion and problems." To oversee the council's activities, an executive committee meets twice a month, and the board of directors, four times a year.In late January, moreover, the entire membership — thirty-one organizations to date — will be invited to attend the first annual general meeting.The council will evaluate what it has already done and lay plans for the future.Staff and executive alike appear confident that the organization will continue to make progress in its decidedly difficult endeavour.As one woman puts it, "The council has had to establish its credibility and show people that it is a useful organism.Our track record has begun to speak for itself." SPEAKING OUT: By LOUIS ABOTT There are in Quebec, some associations formed by the representatives of the various minorities that live in the Province.These minorities count thousands of citizens who take a very active part in the life of Quebec.You will find them in every field of activities: business, medicine, law, industry, art, skilled workmanship.They bring to the development of la Belle Province, a valuable contribution, most important in many cases.Through lack of means or lithe desire to put themselves in the limelight, the associations and institutions serving these minorities are not known to the English speaking community living in the various regions of our Province.Thanks to the help of the Secretary of State, the Association of Quebec Regional English Media, finds the opportunity to provide the regional English readers with information on some of these worthy associations.The stories you will find in this edition, covering the Council of Quebec Minorities, the Quebec Women's Institute, and the Town-shippers Association, are the first of a series which the Association of Quebec Regional English Media intends to publish in the weeks to come. THE QUEBEC WOMEN'S INSTITUTS Members of the QWI Executive and Provincial Conveners, seated, left to (Miss E.L.Smith, Past President, was unable to attend.) Standing, left to right: Mrs.S.Washer, Secretary, Mrs.W.Kilgour, President, Mrs.S.right, Mrs.B.Comba, Welfare and Health, Mrs.R.von Brentani, Parker, 1st Vice-President, Mrs.L.Henderson, 2nd Vice-President, Mrs.Publicity, Miss V.Moranville, Home Economics, Mrs.J.Gilchrist, L.French, 3rd Vice-President, and Mrs.G.E.Cascadden, Treasurer.Education, Mrs.N.Rabb, Citizenship, and Mrs.C.Slangen, Agriculture.By LOUIS ABOTT In 1897 an Ontarian by the name of Adelaide Hoodless spoke to a group of rural women about the need for improved homemaking skills and domestic science education.Hoodless's first child had died from drinking impure milk, and she was anxious to ensure Mrs.Lucy French, third Vice-President of the QWI, is shown gathering Pennies for Friendship, at an Annual Convention of the Institute.These pennies support the Association of Country Women of the World, a group of 8,000,000 women in 68 countries.i that such tragedies - borne of ignorance - not be repeated.Hoodless's lecture that night and on several later occasions inspired the birth of the Women's Institute.That, in turn, became progenitor for the largest international women's organization, the Associated Country Women of the World.By 1911 women in Missisquoi County had formed the first branch of the Quebec Women's Institute.They travelled by sleigh, buggy, and horse-drawn cutter to attend meetings in Best's Hall in Dunham, sixty miles outside Montreal in the Eastern Townships.They, too, adopted the motto, "For Home and Country," and set about promoting the well-being, education, and development of rural women in particular and the rural community as a whole.Other Institute branches soon sprung up in neighbouring counties and eventually throughout the province.Today there are eighty-five branches in twenty counties as far afield as the Gaspé Peninsula and Matagami.The Eastern Townships, however, remains the heartland of the Quebec Women's Institute, with more branches than any other region.Macdonald College historically played a crucial role in the Quebec Women's Institute activities.It provided buildings, equipment, and teaching staff for short courses and conventions.Indeed, it was not until the late 1930s that the college transferred financial responsibility for the Institute to the provincial Department of Agriculture.Although the wide-spread availability of adult education has put an end to its short courses, the Institute still maintains ties with Macdonald.Its headquarters—manned by Wm>.Wm, Past President of QWI, Miss Edna Smith is admiring handicrafts and other articles for the sales table at the Federated Women's Institutes of Canada convention held in Charlottetown.part-time secretary Sheila Washer is housed on the Ste.Anne de Bellevue campus; annual conventions are held there; and reports on the Institute appear regularly in the monthly Macdonald Journal magazine.The goals of the Quebec Women's Institute in areas such as education, health, and welfare remain essentially the same.But the nature of the membership has changed: today many of the two thousand, primarily anglophone members are drawn from towns rather than farms.Thus the Institute no longer emphasizes agricultural concerns and traditional homemaking skills the way it once did Some branches, though, continue to bring in speakers on farm related topics or offer demonstrations of macramé and the like, and home economics competitions are never short of entries.Although it runs study groups on timely issues like Bill 101 and keeps actively involved in community affairs, the Institute has had trouble attracting new members in recent years."We're not getting the younger women in,"explains president Ina Kilgour."So many of them work and feel that they just don't have the time.A lot of our members are getting older.We're quite concerned about it." The Institute hopes to boost its membership, encouraging every current member to enlist a new one.In the meantime, women who are involved are throwing their energies into numerous projects, many of them designed to raise funds for international programs under the auspices of the Associated Country Women of the World.Last year, for instance, the Quebec Women's Institute contributed towards the purchase of a Land Rover for a group of homemakers in Lesotho, Africa.Plans for the coming year are equally am bitious.* 1 i'i ' Learning new handicrafts and keeping old ones alive, is one of the aims of the QWI, who have local and provincial competitions each year.In this photo, the art of weaving a ceinture fléchée is demonstrated. TOWNSHIPPERS INC.by CHARLES BURY The election of the Parti Québécois government on Nov, 15, 1976 left Québec's English speaking communities asking themselves some serious questions.Although the concerns were in most cases being raised for the first time in public, they had been in the backs of people's minds for some time."What is happening to our community?Why are our churches and schools closing?Why are our children moving away?Why are our media inadequate and largely controlled by outsiders?Do we belong in Québec at all?" The Eastern Townships is one of the many areas of Québec with a sizeable English speaking com munity.Stretched out between the Richelieu River south of Montreal and the Chaudière south of Québec City, "The Townships" is a lightly populated region, where the main activities are farming (dairy and beef), lumbering (mixed soft and hardwoods for pulp and sawmills), and manufacturing (textiles, clothing, footwear and furniture) as well as the giant asbestos mining operations around Asbestos and Thetford Mines Although originally founded and settled by English speaking people, mainly from Scotland, Ireland, England and the United States, the population of the Townships is now largely French speaking.Recent estimates show the size of the English speaking minority at about 50,000 or roughly 20 % of the total.After November 15 and Law 101, Townshippers were not only bewildered and insecure about their future, they were starting to get angry.But their / & 1 k u !¦ **Y I t) ! •#> W isf ¦ Abandoned Hotel, St.Jacques de Leeds anger was unchanneled and disorganized, and it turned to frustration.As media and political at tention turned to other subjects, the resentment of the English speaking receded, both in the eyes of French-speaking Québecers and the minds of the English-speaking themselves.But the questions raised remain unanswered, and the answers are needed more urgently than ever.More schools and churches are closing, more of ourchildren and neighbours are moving to the brighter economic and simpler cultural environments of Ontario and Alberta.The recent formation of the English-speaking Townshippers Association may be a new start for those interested in these questions and their illusive answers.As part of a series of "consultations" held around the province, last June Dr.Camille Laurin, Minister of State for Cultural Development, author Organizers Wendell Sparkes and Peter Turner explain voting procedure to packed house at Alexander Galt H.S., Lennoxville, at Townshippers Inc.founding meeting, October View towards Montreal from Singer Mountain, Sutton Range of Law 101 and object of much of the anger and frustration, invited about 200 English speaking Townshippers to "dialogue" with him and other government representatives.In a hectic, exhausting 15 hour day, at Alexander Galt Regional High School in Lennoxville, over 800 "English speaking and other ethnic" citizens listened to speeches, met in workshops, and had a chance to ask a few questions of the Ministers and their bureaucrats.Many recommendations were made, but few were answered.The government people repeated instead their promises to look into the matter, to study it, to consult their departments.One recommendation was made not to the government, but to the community itself.This was the suggestion, repeated in almost all the workshop, that our community needed a voice, a The Henry House, Birchton, Quebec body to act in its interest, to speak up for it, to help find the answers to its questions.About 25 members of the community had been involved in the preparation of the meeting.They had decided to meet again afterwards to evaluate the conference and examine any possible follow-up.I n the wake of the community's recommendation to itself, the advisory committee spent the next few months formulating the goals their group would pursue, examining such nuts and bolts as its name, type of membership, and legal structure, and blocking out some suggestions for potential activities.On October 27, another public meeting was held in Lennoxville, this time without government assistance.Attendance was once again several hundred.Again, the people listened to speeches, met in workshops, and listened to more speeches.But this time there was a difference.After the speeches, they elected a Board of Directors, fully endorsing the proposed goals and activities, and voicing the desire that their Association be more active than passive, even "activist” when needed.The goals of the English speaking Townshippers Association are.1) To promote the interests of the English speaking community of the Townships; 2) To strengthen the cultural identity of the English speaking community of the Townships; 3) To encourage the full participation of the English speaking community in the community at large; and 4) To collect monies by way of donations, dues or otherwise, and to hold and expend the same in furtherance of these objectives.The Association has not wasted any time getting into action.Finance, publicity, membership and recommendations committees have been set up by the Board.A system of "regional tables" was established, each holding its own meetings and setting its own priorities.The regional approach is intended to assure that the Board doesn't lose touch with its roots, given the large area it covers.By the end of 1979, the Association had grown to over 1000 members, and was looking at different ways of financing its operations.Although it has accepted a small donation from the Montreal-based Positive Action Committee, and charges $2.00 for membership, possible assistance is being explored with both federal and provincial governments.During the next few months, the Association will be developing the higher profile needed by such a group in the Electronic Age, and starting some specific activities.Among the areas of interest are the survival and quality of the rural school system, the special concerns of the elderly in a minority society, and employment in the civil service for English speaking Townshippers.Asbestos Mine Tailings near Thetford Mines