QUEBEC — The new point man for the English-speaking community says he understands anglophones are irritated by some Coalition Avenir Québec government policies but says it should be judged on its ability to correct things that it gets wrong.
“Government is a big bubble,” Christopher Skeete said. “And legislation is a broad sword, not a scalpel. We can say health care is completely off limits when it comes to a person getting service in their language and then, in the application, someone does not get the memo.
“Sometimes things are going to happen. I get it that this irritates the community. I think we should be judged on our ability to fix the issues that are irritants and then move on so common sense prevails. In the case of health care, in every situation which been brought up, common sense has prevailed.”
Skeete made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with The Gazette, his first since Premier François Legault named him the minister responsible for relations with English-speaking Quebecers in the Sept. 10 cabinet shuffle that is part of Legault’s strategy to reboot his sagging government.
The MNA for the Laval riding of Sainte-Rose was also made minister of international relations and the francophonie. He kept the job of minister responsible for the fight against racism and the minister responsible for Laval, which means he now wears many hats.
Dealing with the English-speaking community and its issues is a job Skeete knows well. When the CAQ was elected in 2018, Legault kept the responsibility for the English community for himself, but he named Skeete his parliamentary secretary in the file.
That means Skeete — who has French as his mother tongue and studied in the English school system, which has made him perfectly bilingual — did most of the heavy lifting for a premier busy with other matters.
After the 2022 election, Legault gave responsibility for the community to Eric Girard, the finance minister. It was Girard who took much of the heat at the time over a series of controversial decisions, including the 2024 directive over the use of English in hospitals that sparked a panic in the community before it was corrected.
Girard would later concede during the annual examination of his ministry’s spending plans that the feud was not “our finest moment.”
Today, the job of speaking up for the anglophones in government has bounced back into Skeete’s lap. He arrives in the post as the community is feeling alienated and ostracized from the halls of power in Quebec City.
Skeete knows the list of grievances is long and includes the October 2023 drastic increase in tuition fees for out-of-province students, which McGill, Concordia and Bishop’s universities said scared off many students, with devastating effects on their finances. A coalition of groups said in October 2023 that the increases amounted to an assault on the province’s English-speaking institutions.
On some issues, Skeete says Quebec can do better, but the tuition increases is not one of them. In the interview, Skeete made no apology for the decision.
“I want to have a relationship with our English institutions, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to undo certain things,” Skeete said. “We have the lowest tuition in Canada and we’re charging outside people, who are not citizens of Quebec, a price that was not sustainable.
“The other issue is the influx of all these international students, who speak English, creates a critical mass in the downtown core, where English is already prevalent.
“People choose to interpret that as an attack on English. It is not an attack on English.”
Other decisions, however, have left Skeete perplexed, willing to take a few lumps.
A case in point was the brief uproar last August when Quebec’s language watchdog, the Office Québécois de la langue française (OQLF), told the Burgundy Lion pub in Montreal to alter its sign. The OQLF rapidly backed down after the decision was widely ridiculed.
A candid Skeete described that decision as “ridiculous.”
“Those are not mistakes by the government,” he said. “They are people who are interpreting legislation and doing the best they can.
“There isn’t a civil servant in the OQLF who wakes up in the morning and tries to bother everybody. They’re waking up trying to do their part to protect the French language in Quebec and sometimes … that interpretation creates irritations in the English community.
“My takeaway is we always get it right in the end. But I get it. It bothers some people sometimes and makes for fantastic news clips. It leaves a taste,” he said, adding he can’t guarantee more mistakes won’t happen.
He puts the April 2025 Go Habs Go controversy in the same boat, adding the government in the end did step in and overrule the original OQLF order saying the STM could not use the word Go on its buses despite the word’s long tradition in Quebec.
Skeete, however, downplays the impact such decisions have on minority communities’ perception of the CAQ government, which at the outset in 2018 did try to woo anglophone voters.
“I don’t agree that we’re hostile to minorities,” Skeete said while sitting in his office in the Hector-Fabre international affairs building near the Quebec legislature. “Quite the contrary. We’re the first government in the history of Quebec to create a ministry for the fight against racism.”
As another example, he said many believed the new CAQ government would eliminate the Liberal-created Secretariat for relations with English-speaking Quebecers when it took power in 2018. That did not happen.
The secretariat’s budget, in fact, has gone from $2 million a year in 2018 to $14.6 million in 2025-2026. Its staff has grown to 12 employees. It provides funding for minority organizations across Quebec (from museums to employment projects) and is now headed by former Vanier College director-general John McMahon.
Skeete said he came away from his first briefing of the secretariat deciding one of his priorities has to be working to reduce the large gap in the unemployment rates between anglophones and francophones, particularly in the regions.
“The best way to make English-speaking Quebecers feel like full-fledged Quebecers is to make sure they’re able to take care of their families and have quality jobs,” Skeete said.
Asked about the angst in the community, Skeete said there will always be people who are unhappy with the CAQ or annoyed Quebec has language laws.
“If a reset means denying that we think that French is in danger in North America and Quebec has a particular responsibility to protect it, no,” he said. “That’s not going to happen. I truly believe that there is one minority language on this continent that is in danger, and it’s not English.
“That doesn’t mean, however, that we don’t respect our historic English community.”
But a reset is exactly what some groups such as the TALQ anglophone advocacy group (formerly known as the Quebec Community Groups Network) want to see.
“We’re hoping he’s going to take a more active role to deal with the many issues we’ve had with the CAQ government over the past few years,” TALQ president Eva Ludvig said in an interview, agreeing relations with the government have been chilly.
“We’re trying hard. Our community has suffered on access to services in English and feeling comfortable speaking English. We do hope he will be our champion with the CAQ government.”
Ludvig said they have already asked for a meeting with Skeete to discuss issues, including many of the new restrictions stemming from Bill 96 overhauling the Charter of the French Language.
She said a key request is that the community be consulted on issues affecting it.
One person giving Skeete a vote of confidence is the former assistant deputy minister of the English language secretariat, William Floch.
Now working as a private consultant, Floch said: “I can say with confidence that Christopher does care (about the community).
“He was often caught between a rock and a hard place but worked hard to convince his colleagues and government officials that the needs of the English-speaking communities across Quebec needed greater consideration,” Floch said.
This time he should find the job easier since he is a full minister, Floch said.
Skeete said he’s ready to step up.
“Are people going to love the CAQ? Maybe. Maybe not. But I would like them to respect what we’re trying to do,” he said. “I’ve always said my objective was not to be liked by the English community. My objective was to be seen as the imperfect ally, to help them get seen (by the government), to help them get heard.”
