Premier Philippe Couillard answered a French question in the National Assembly in English.
He said a Quebec premier's never done that before.
He did so on Thursday during ongoing debate following the Bonjour-Hi controversey.
That's a greeting many Montreal merchants use.
Couillard was responding to Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée, who introduced the anti-'Bonjour-Hi' motion in the Assembly a week ago, and who asked in the latest legislative session what the government would do to follow up on the symbolic motion.
According to the premier, among other things, English isn't a foreign language in Quebec, that anglophones are first class citizens.
He told the Aaron Rand show why the Liberals voted for the PQ's motion to remove the Hi part of Bonjour-Hi.
"Frankly, we were sure, and still today I'm sure, that we were basically neutralizing what the PQ was attempting to do. Remember that they were qualifying this as irritating, in a very negative way. Basically, we neutralized what they wanted to do and, you know, as far as we were concerned we considered the matter closed", said Couillard.
The PQ calls the motion a trap, demonstrating, it says, that the premier isn't really interested in saying French is Quebec's primary
language.
Couillard acknowledged that the row over Bonjour-Hi has become an embarrassment for the province.