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Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitão caught an earful last week when he met with representatives of anglophone community groups to hear their concerns.

Leitão, the Liberal MNA for Robert-Baldwin riding, said he wasn’t surprised by most of what he heard from 20 groups at at closed-door meeting at McGill University.

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“I think, for the community in the Montreal area, I think we know the main issues of access to services, healthcare and education, significant issues of young people with access to the labour market. There are issues to address but that wasn’t a surprise to me.

“What surprised me the most was the extent of the challenge outside Montreal, whether its in the Eastern Townships, the Gatineau area, Pontiac or the North Shore,” Leitão said.

“The plights of small English communities that have a hard time having access to service in English, and they’re getting older.”

But keeping young English-speaking Montrealers from leaving the province is also a concern, Leitão added.