The arrival of a CAQ government after 15 nearly unbroken years of Liberal rule is leading some anglophones to feel less secure about their future in Quebec.
That's the conclusion of a study conducted late last month by Forum Research.
The vast majority of the 126 English-speaking Quebecers the firm spoke with — 81 per cent of them — say they're more worried with their rights than they were just two years ago, while just over half of them said they were "much more worried".
They're also telling Forum Research that services for anglos have noticeably declined in the nine months the CAQ has been in power.
The president of Forum Research, Lorne Bozinoff, says several recent moves by the government — including the passing of Bill 21, the forced transfers of English schools to the French-language sector, and the move against bilingual signs at the Lachute hospital — prompted the firm to conduct the survey.
"We just have a feeling that anglophones might be more worried about their place in Quebec, so we asked about different aspects of that," Bozinoff said.
He suggests, too, that the CAQ's plans to abolish school boards, one of the few remaining institutions in the province that English-speaking Quebecers have control over, isn't making anglophones more confident about their future.
The study also suggest that a whopping 92 per cent of those polled say the CAQ government is doing a poor job of attracting and retaining English-speakers to Quebec — while 63 per cent say the government is doing a very poor job.
Forum Research also found that just over half of Quebecers, both anglophone and francophone, say it's important for Quebec to work to attract people to the province that speak languages other than French.
CJAD 800's Sofia Misenheimer contributed to this report.