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While many anglophones were playing backgammon, watching The Big Bang Theory, sleeping or otherwise abstaining from Quebec culture shortly after 10 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 7, newly minted Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée extended an olive branch, speaking to them in their language, on prime-time television.

PQ leaders rarely speak English in public at length, and Lisée’s two-and-a-half-minute pitch was friendly, clever and pointed.

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Most of few anglos who were watching will almost certainly disregard the message. Even so, if this supposedly friendlier PQ is truly interested in anglo outreach, it should at least be open to discussing a few changes.

Lisée praised founder René Lévesque, who once described the PQ’s rather presumptuous name as a reminder that it should be “the party of all Quebecers.” Easily the PQ leader most proficient in English since Parizeau, Lisée described the Liberal government as “bumbling” and one that “gives liberalism a bad name.”