Anti-bill 14 petitions gain steam
Two petitions opposing the PQ's new language bill are growing in popularity on the National Assembly website.
Both are now among the website's top 5 in terms of signatures, despite having been online for less than a week.
The petitions outstrip a call to end "institutional bilingualism" in government services, as well as a call to drop the charges against participants in last spring's student conflict.
"I'm quite impressed. I'm very pleased," says Laura Derry, the chairperson for the central parents committee of Lester B. Pearson school board.
Her groups' petition, which rejects bill 14 out-right, had already reached 3, 691 signatures after six days.
"We have not gone to the press at all. it has been word of mouth, so far," she says.
A second petition, from Stephen Burke and the Central Quebec school board, is fighting to keep an exemption that allows military families to access the English school system.
"What pleases me the most is that a lot of these signatures come from Francophones," he says. The petition has gathered more than 5 thousand signatures so far.
Still, neither petition is anywhere near the all-time record of 250 thousand signatures for a National Assembly petition that once called for Jean Charest's resignation.