And so here I sit the day after Pauline Marois' PQ was elected a minority government in Quebec. I sit here wondering what will happen to the few things I still love about Montreal, my home. Sure with a minority it makes things much harder to accomplish, and separation will be hard to achieve, but that doesn't mean the PQ won't try to make this miserable for Anglophones in their province.Anyone who promises to bring back a new version of bill 101 within the first 100 days in power isn't someone English speaking Quebecers can trust. Being a minority now has surely fired up their fuel and fight to eventually become a majority government. If it is possible for them to win a minority, it wouldn't take much else to gain the few seats needed to have free control over the province. For now Quebec sits in an awkward position. The most drastic promises made by Mrs. Marois in her campaign can't go forward yet and her strange change of heart after she won, "We want a country, and we will have it," was completely against her whole campaign where she never focused on referendum. She clearly directed the comment at the PQ's hard-core sovereignists, many of whom walked out on her and the party before the election because she was not pushy enough about breaking up the country.I keep reminding myself that it could have been much worse, and that perhaps she will do something good for my home province, as she once put in place the public daycare system that currently runs in Quebec.Either way things just got pretty interesting. Marois is never going to make anything easy for the Canadian Harper government during her time as the leader of Quebec. She will most likely put several demands in front of Harper, knowing that he will say no, and continue to push matters on him, even if only as an annoyance. And just the same, everything the Harper government does will have to be reviewed by a PQ Quebec government.Now Harper isn't even who I feel bad for in this. My sympathy doesn't lie with the Liberal party either. It stays with the NDP as they are stuck in an extremely messy situation. No matter which way they go, they will lose supporters after this. The sticky matter comes from the fact that the majority of the NDP seats, over half to be exact, in Parliament comes from MPs in Quebec. If Thomas Mulclair decides to side with the rest of Canada and fight against the PQ, he will risk angering all of his party's Quebec support. On the other hand, if he sides with the PQ and the separatists he will be angering the majority of the country. His party is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. No matter what, the NDP will suffer consequences. Reading comments from readers on the many articles posted after the election has made me angrier than the actual situation. The fact people from the rest of Canada are giving up on Quebec and saying they wish they would just leave already makes me sad. The majority of my friends and acquaintances in Quebec want nothing to do with separating. This includes several francophones in my life. Sure I am from Montreal, which is a lot more Anglophone than the rest of Quebec, but the whole idea of my home is multiculturalism. That is one of the few things I still love about home. You walk down the streets, hearing the beautiful French language, a few seconds later you hear some Spanish, and English and many others. It still amazes me, even if the sometimes mixed up Franglais appears and sounds pretty ugly to outsiders. And just for your information Pauline Marois, just because we Anglophones are against separating, does not mean we don't appreciate Quebec culture, or the French language. I, for one, love French and am proud to be bilingual. After last night's shooting at the PQ celebrations, I feel for the families of the deceased and the injured. It makes no sense to me and is especially not fair considering those shot worked for a stage set up crew and not for the PQ. No one I know is happy these men were shot. No one is happy an innocent man's life was taken. And frankly, I don't think people would be happy if Marois herself got killed either. Because as Canadians, even Quebec Anglophones, don't stand for murder. So I am wishing my home province, where my whole family still resides, and good luck! You voted for change. You wanted to get away from a corrupt Charest government; I hope Marois can see that while standing up for the province. I truly hope she sees people didn't vote for separation, but merely for anything other than Liberal. As I finish writing this article, Charest has stepped down from his liberal leader spot, so I guess Quebec got their way in some aspects.
