Identity politics fade to the background in Quebec ahead of October’s provincial election

On the eve of the 2018 Quebec election campaign, François Legault made a promise that would help define his nearly eight years as premier.

A Coalition Avenir Québec government would table a bill on secularism within a year, he declared. Judges, police officers and teachers would no longer be allowed to wear religious symbols on the job.

Bill 21 was the first in a series of controversial and broadly popular laws, intended to defend Quebec values, which became a cornerstone of Mr. Legault’s brand of nationalism. But in this fall’s election campaign, overshadowed by an escalating trade war with the United States, no one wants to talk much about identity politics.

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This was on full display last week, when Élections Québec announced it would be mailing out voter information in French only for the first time, to comply with the CAQ government’s 2022 overhaul of the province’s French-language charter, known as Bill 96.

Despite backlash, Ms. Fréchette said the decision would stand, and insisted the rights of English-speaking Quebeckers were being respected.

Eva Ludvig, president of TALQ, a group representing Quebec anglophones, said the decision “has created a lot of anger in the English-speaking community.” But she said there is currently no champion of Quebec’s English speakers among the province’s main political parties. And there will be no English-language debate during the election campaign.

“We’ve always had much greater access,” she said. “This is the first time where we are totally excluded from this election.”