'Quebec bashing': Why an English federal debate question continues to draw criticism

A question at the English-language federal leaders' debate last week has become a major issue in Quebec, boosting the Bloc Quebecois in the polls and drawing criticism from Quebec politicians, federal party leaders and the province's media.

For people who follow Quebec politics, the widespread negative response to the question, which described two Quebec laws as discriminatory, wasn't a surprise.

They say it comes at a time when many Quebecers are particularly sensitive to the idea that English-Canadian journalists, politicians and public intellectuals talk down to Quebec -- widely referred to as "Quebec bashing" -- and when the province's popular Premier Francois Legault has successfully portrayed himself as the defender of Quebec's language and culture.

"Personally, when I heard that question, I cringed," Martin Papillon, a professor of political science at the Universite de Montreal, said in an interview Wednesday. "Not because I thought the question was completely outrageous, but because I thought it was out of bounds for the anchor of a debate to ask such a loaded question."

In the preamble to a question last Thursday to Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, debate moderator Shachi Kurl said: "You deny that Quebec has problems with racism, yet you defend legislation, such as bills 96 and 21, which marginalize religious minorities, anglophones and allophones."