Next Alliance Quebec boss: "I'm mainstream"

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by Kristian Gravenor

High-profile English-language rights lawyer Brent Tyler looks ready to take over English-rights group Alliance Quebec after Prez Anthony Housefather quit Monday to run in the first-ever megacity election. Alliance members want Tyler, and the feisty, bearded lawman wants the post.

"I'll put a greater priority on the court cases," says Tyler, currently leading three major challenges to provincial language legislation. "When I look at the situation in Quebec, the anglos and ethnics are politically powerless. We'll never be able to influence the results of a provincial election. The only chance of lightening up on the screws is the courts by invoking the charter of rights."

Tyler says that up until now, AQ has devoted an "infinitesimal percentage" of its budget to the various court challenges, which include test cases challenging linguistic restrictions on signs, Internet use and English language schooling. Tyler also wants to challenge provincial laws on the language of work, which he describes as "the most outrageous discriminatory piece of social engineering legislation on the planet."

He realizes that, if elected AQ boss October 2nd, not all will be friendly to his efforts. "People with my political opinions have been cast as extremists and radicals but the irony of that is that we're in favour of promoting the values of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms," he says. "In any other place we'd be considered mainstream. Only in Quebec do we have this prevailing nationalist orthodoxy and anybody who deigns to criticize it is instantly demonized."