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By Philip Authier

SHERBROOKE — Premier Philippe Couillard has launched an appeal to English-speakers who left Quebec to come home, saying “we need you” to build a better future.

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And to anglophones still here, Couillard said they should stick around, hop on Quebec’s surging economic bandwagon and never feel like second-class citizens.

But his message, made in a speech wrapping up a two day Liberal youth wing policy convention, came on the heels of an acrimonious party debate on a possible softening of the Charter of the French Language.

It’s not going to happen.

Despite an emotional appeal by anglophone delegates who said the measure is needed to help save the declining English school system, delegates rejected a resolution calling for pilot project in which normally inadmissible francophones would be allowed into the English elementary school system.

The language debate at the convention, held this weekend at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, lasted about 30 minutes with 400 delegates listening politely as Montreal delegates made their pitch.