Across Quebec, thousands of people wore that symbol to protest, to bear witness, to demand justice. Those blue hearts are not worn by extras, but by business leaders, unions, members of the National Assembly, mayors, students, immigrant workers, families. People on the ground who live every day with the consequences of cold, disconnected, inhumane political decisions.
Those blue hearts are not symbols. They are children pulled out of their classrooms in the middle of the school year. Students rejected after years of effort and heavy investment. Workers deported while they are helping Quebec companies thrive. Years of effort, of French-language training, of integration thrown in the garbage overnight. Families going to sleep with a knot in their stomachs, hanging on the whim of an arbitrary decision. An economy struggling for air. A Quebec betraying its own signature.
This carnival of pain is not an accident. It is the direct result of decisions made by Minister Jean-François Roberge, by the Quebec government, by Quebec.
In abolishing the PEQ, the minister did not adjust a program. He broke a contract. He tore up the path Quebec had laid out. He swept aside the certificate of acceptance he had issued. He betrayed the promises made to those he had invited. The message is clear: “What we promised you? Forget it.”
The toll is catastrophic. You do not put broken families back together. You do not erase the anguish imposed on children. You do not recover lost contracts. You do not get back nine months of wasted productivity. And above all, you do not recover destroyed trust. Trust takes a long time to build and is terribly easy to lose. I measure that every day.
In my training sessions, I used to urge workers to embrace Quebec culture, to commit body and soul. Today, I answer participants who are anxious, humiliated, forced to prepare exit plans in the face of the unthinkable: betrayal by the province that invited them. These women and men are brilliant, courageous, ambitious. They came to help build a shared life. We are turning them into hostages of uncertainty. Into disposable electoral stepping stones.
This psychological torture could stop tomorrow morning. All it takes is a decision. A minimum of humanity.
The official Carnival will end. The installations will come down. But the carnival of blue hearts will leave a far heavier mark: a collective scar. A political disgrace.
On Saturday, Quebec danced. And Quebec wept.
History will remember the names. Those who turned “Je me souviens” into “I betray”.
