TALQ has concerns, high hopes for new OCOL commissioner-designate

The provinces’ largest English-language rights advocacy group is raising concerns that the likely future commissioner of official languages comes from outside Quebec’s English-speaking community….

Since the early 1990s, the position has been filled alternately by and anglophone Quebecers and francophones from outside Quebec. The nomination of burke, a Franco-Ontarian, to succeed the Franco-Manitoban Théberge breaks that president.

“We had hoped that the [Théberge’s successor] would be someone from Quebec,” said Sylvia Martin-Laforge, director general of TALQ (formerly the Quebec Community Groups network). “There has been a loose understanding that the nominee would be someone from Quebec, and we were hoping it would be someone form Quebec or at least someone with Quebec experience.