It's a unique campaign message: A man who aspires to be premier of Quebec has compared the province's young people, unfavourably, to Asian kids.
Fran莽is Legault says he doesn't regret suggesting this week that young Quebecers are more interested in living "the good life" and could learn a thing or two from their harder-working Asian counterparts.
In fact, Legault dug in his heels Tuesday.
"I'm sticking to it," he told reporters. "Right now in Quebec, we don't value education and effort as much as we should."
The leader of the new Coalition party first waded into the subject during a chat with an 85-year-old man during a campaign stop a day earlier. The man had lamented the work ethic of today's youth, and Legault concurred.
Legault mused that things were different in Asia where, he said, parents want their kids to become engineers and actually need to stop them from studying at night because they nearly work themselves sick. He said if people in Asia keep working so hard while young Quebecers just want "the good life," Quebec society is in trouble.
He said he doesn't blame young Quebecers at all. He said he blames older Quebecers, and parents, for not transmitting the values of hard work to youth.
Legault's remarks were ridiculed by opponents who questioned their basis in reality. He quickly became an object of online scorn. "La belle vie," the French phrase for "the good life," became a trending topic on Twitter. One person noted that Legault had lived with his parents until age 30.
There is one obvious dark spot in Quebec's education system: the dropout rate. Statistics 乌鸦传媒 said Quebec had the highest average high-school dropout rate of any province between 2007 and 2010.
