Well, we have been vilified again this week in PKP’s Journal de Montreal.

A certain columnist thought it proper to rail against the spoiled Anglos over the Syrian refugee crisis not once, but twice.

So here I go again. Like Charlie Brown and Lucy, I never learn that some arguments are not winnable.

So here is another run at the football.

It has always been my belief and understanding that Bill 101 was the dealmaker.

It was the price that needed to be extracted to keep Quebec in the federation.

But of course it has come at a heavy cost for English-speaking Quebecers and other minorities.

Although the rate of bilingualism for non-Francophones has exceeded that of French Quebecers, we have always been considered by many to be les autres.

We have all heard the chorus of the majority and it was pointed out again this week.

We are the best treated minority in the world. We have our schools, our hospitals, our media. What else could we want?

English is not threatened, they cry, but for French the wolf is always at the door.

However, our local community of anglophones in Quebec has been decimated.

Montreal high school reunions take place in Toronto or Calgary.

Too often, advancement goes not only to the bilingual ones, but to the ones with the right names.

Anglophones have practically no representation in public service, neither at the municipal nor provincial level

It’s not about signs and whose is bigger. Does that really matter?

Today poverty hits English Montrealers much harder than French.

We have become the marginalized ones. Our incomes are lower and our unemployment is higher.

Our public school system is starved for oxygen.

We are denied new blood and there will come a day when English schools are no longer viable.

Bill 101 is considered sacrosanct.

Like the tablets of Moses, the charter from Rene Levesque is considered untouchable: a direct order from a higher authority.

Even the smallest gain for the English minority here is considered a loss for the majority.

We are chased down and humiliated for something as banal as signs for cupcakes written in English.

What so many do not realize is that we are as much Quebecers as anyone else.

English families have been here for centuries building this province, but we are still seen by too many, particularly by aging boomers and diehard separatists, as the threat.

Strangers in our own land.

We stay because despite all the language crap, we still love it here.

We may not know who is on top of the Quebec star system these days, or the latest gossip about the vedettes, but we do love the bi-cultural identity.

Our city is unique.

Younger French Quebecers, the new generation, embrace English and the world it brings with it.

Et oui on parle francais, et nous voulons rester ici. Nous sommes chez nous.

Which brings us back to the Syrian refugees.

Once again we are being officially tossed to the sidelines.

It would be heresy to integrate the new Canadians into anything that smacks of English, although Bill 101 does have a humanitarian clause that would allow for it.

Because we would not want to infect the newcomers with English, although my guess is that most will learn it anyway.

Integrating a few dozen or a hundred Syrian refugees into the English community would show that we matter too, that we are a part of the fabric of Quebec.

Our community, our institutions, our schools all want to help out, but in Quebec, it’s too often about the optics of language and fear.

I wonder if they will ever learn that we are not the enemy.