Affiliation Quebec targets rival QCGN Anglo rights lobby group

The irony didn't escape Brent Tyler, a lawyer who has mounted a string of cases against provincial language law Bill 101, and who was one of the featured speakers at Sunday's meeting of Affiliation Quebec, which recently achieved official political party status. "When we talk about rights, I understand that there's another conference addressing the issues of English-speaking people going on this weekend," Tyler said, referring to the QCGN's three-day conference at Université de Montréal, a few miles east of the AQ meeting at Hotel Ruby Foos on Decarie Boulevard. "Something tells me that they will not be talking about rights at that particular meeting."

Tyler's comments about the QCGN were mild in comparison to those of AQ leader Allen Nutik, another Westmounter. "I presume that you know that your tax dollar-financed Quebec Community Groups Network — read that lamb lobby — is sponsoring a gala weekend meeting on the future of Quebec's Anglos, not open to the public, just up the road at the Université de Montréal, with paid travel and meals for delegates of their 25-member group, some of which we suspect are essentially phantom organizations," he said.

Nutik went on to issue a challenge to the QCGN. "If you truly stand for Anglo rights and interests in Quebec, then advise all of your members of the existence of Affiliation Quebec so they can weigh the option of joining a real political party to additionally fight for their interests," he said, adding, "I will not hold my breath waiting."

Following the demise of Alliance Quebec in 2005, with the discontinuation of its grant from the federal government, much of that funding ended up being redirected to the QCGN, whose base of support had previously been largely in English-speaking rural areas of the province. The QCGN says it believes in the use of "an effective coordinated approach."

Despite being the target of attacks by Anglo-rights hardliners who accuse the QCGN of collaboration and complacency, the organization claims a membership of 29 English-language community organizations, although critics say some of those have only a few members.

At the close of the QCGN's conference on Sunday, they issued a statement declaring it a success. "The presentations and exchanges throughout the conference provided valuable insight for the English-speaking communities of Quebec," said Robert Donnelly, the group's president.

In his comments at the AQ meeting, Tyler gave some advice to AQ members. "Do not be deterred from your course of action," he said. "The Anglo elites, the Gazette, the Quebec and federal Liberal parties, the QCGN, will continue to label you as angryphones and extremists and radicals. I say wear the mantle proudly."

Sunday's event at Hotel Ruby Foos, which brought Nutik and Tyler together with activist Howard Galganov, was briefly disrupted by a small group of demonstrators said to be with Les Jeune Patriotes du Quebec.

Calling Galganov a racist, the group chanted slogans outside, and at one point entered the reception hall. A brief scuffle ensued, but police were able to break things up without further incident.

The rest of the AQ's 'rights rally' was carried out under the watchful eye of police.