QUEBEC - Quebec's intergovernmental affairs minister says the Harper government appears indifferent to the province.
Yvon Vallieres, who is the minister responsible for dealing with Ottawa, made the remark during a news scrum with reporters in Quebec City.
He was asked whether the Harper government appears to have forgotten Quebec.
The minister replied: "Absolutely."
In recent days, Ottawa has replaced bilingual people on the Supreme Court and the auditor general's office with successors who don't speak French.
The Conservatives have also shut out Quebec in the awarding of giant shipbuilding contracts, announced the scrapping of the long-gun registry and said it would destroy the records so Quebec couldn't use them.
These gestures have caused the pro-Canada Liberal government in Quebec to take some heat from the separatist opposition -- which accuses it of being powerless to defend Quebec's interests.
Earlier this fall, however, the federal government did make multibillion-dollar promises to help replace Montreal's Champlain Bridge and to reimburse Quebec for harmonizing its sales tax with the GST.
Stephen Harper's Conservatives lost seats in Quebec during the spring federal election while making huge gains elsewhere in the country, all of which has created a rare phenomenon in Canada: A federal majority government with little representation in the French-speaking province.
Vallieres made the remarks as he and a colleague promised to fight to keep using the federal gun-registry data that Ottawa plans to destroy.
