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Reader advisory: If you happen to live outside of Quebec it’s entirely possible you’ll think the following story is too surreal to be true.

But it isn’t, and the reality is this: At about the same time Russia, a world class military power possessing a nuclear arsenal, was making threatening noises toward NATO ally Turkey for having shot down one of its aircraft; at about the same the British House of Commons was debating whether to join in the bombing campaign against ISIS and at about the same time Canada’s efforts to re-settle 25,000 Syrian refugees here in the middle of winter was slowly cranking into gear, one of the hottest stories out Quebec’s National Assembly examined whether the 7,300 refugees coming to this province would be obliged to send their kids to French schools.

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The question of whether these children — who represent about a third of refugees coming to Quebec — would be subject to the education provisions of Bill 101, the French language charter, came up afterthe Lester B. Pearson School Board suggested the province allow those children to enroll in the board’s English-language schools, since student enrollment at her board was dwindling while that of its French language counterparts was booming. Board chair Suanne Stein-Day contended that an article of Bill 101 allowing immigrant children to receive English-language instruction on humanitarian grounds could be invoked by the Liberal government, her rationale being that it would be tough to argue the biggest refugee crisis since World War Two didn’t qualify as a humanitarian issue.