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Prove it!

Prove that you are part of the “historic English community.”

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It may come as welcome news to some Quebec anglos that they will still have English-language access to provincial government services like electricity bills and automated telephone menu options. Just as long as they are part of the “historic English community.”

Wait a sec. Does this mean that one had to have ancestors who fought alongside English Major General James Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham in the Seven Years’ War — which began in 1756 — to qualify as part of the “historic English community?”

Where does the government draw the line here? I have family who immigrated here from Eastern Europe 130 years ago. Does that count? Alas, I have no official papers to prove that. All I’ve got is some family lore that a great-great-grandfather was booted from his post as court jester to the king of Romania and, perhaps appropriately, ended up in Quebec. Swell, but his mother tongue was Romanian. Uh-oh.