Bernard Lord, who served two terms as premier of Canada’s only officially-bilingual province, handed Prime Minister Stephen Harper a live grenade last week. How the Conservative government handles this will matter greatly to Quebec anglophones.

The issue is support for official-language minorities, that is, for francophones outside Quebec and anglophones inside. The former Liberal government’s five-year, $830-million policy on the matter expires March 31. Before proposing a new plan, the Harper Conservatives asked Lord to hold consultations and make proposals.

A fully-bilingual New Brunswicker, Lord was an inspired choice. And he moved fast : Appointed last December, Lord held meetings in seven cities across Canada, and also invited individuals and organizations to submit comments online. In all he heard from more than 140 groups, from the Réseau santé albertain to the Quebec Community Groups Network.

His recommendations, submitted to the government last month but made public only last Thursday, call for a more vigorous program than the one now ending. His would cost a minimum of $1 billion over five years, and ranges over everything from such practical matters as access to health care to generalities about co-ordination of government services. Along the way it touches, too, on helping francophone immigrants settle in places outside Quebec where French is spoken, on credential recognition for immigrants, on the value of interprovincial exchange programs, on cultural issues, and so on.

But the heart of Lord’s proposals is education : Recommendation 1 is that "education in the official language of the minority and second-language education be given a paramount position" within the new strategy. Recommendation 2 is "that the new strategy emphasize support to post-secondary institutions that serve official-language minority communities."

Taken all together, Lord’s proposals pose an important test for Harper and his government. Are they willing and able to do their constitutional duty and support Canada’s official minorities, or will they duck this responsibility and prefer partisan politics ? The Liberals can be expected to support a new plan, but the Bloc Québécois is already screaming. Conservative strategists will be wincing as they consider how Bloc candidates could flay the government for "trying to make Quebec bilingual."

Jean Dorion of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste told another newspaper last week that supporting francophones outside Quebec and anglophones inside equally is like giving the same medicine to two patients, one at death’s door and the other in good health. There is a kernel of sense underneath his airy disregard for Quebec anglos : Francophone communities outside Quebec face challenges more like those of Quebec anglophones outside metro Montreal. Montreal anglophones, meanwhile, have a somewhat easier time living in our language.

But small minorities, whether francophone in Alberta or anglophone on, say, the North Shore, do face equally challenging language climates. Fortunately Canadians have decided, and asserted in their constitution, that official-language minorities deserve support and sustenance.

Lord is aware of all this : He notes that a symmetrical approach to official-language minorities won’t work. Stakeholders told him, he said delicately, "that not all provinces are equipped to discharge their responsibilities for linguistic duality." What he meant, or what the groups meant, is that some provinces find federal support for official-language minority groups downright distasteful.

In the current climate in Quebec, it took the Bloc Québécois no time at all to call Lord’s report "an insult to Quebecers." Of course, their definition of "Quebecer" doesn’t seem to include anglophones. Nor has the Bloc ever cared much about francophones outside Quebec.

Last week, meanwhile, Jean Charest’s government moved to beef up the Office québécois de la langue française with voluntary rather than coercive measures. That wasn’t good enough for the Parti Québécois, either.

As a former premier, Lord will have understood the politics of all this, and seems to have deliberately overlooked them. Good for him. Is Harper made of the same stuff ?

Josée Verner, the minister of official languages, is a Quebec MP, and she will be well aware of how this report will be received in this province. It might not have been coincidence that the report was made public just at the start of what amounts, these days, to a four-day weekend.

But Verner will have to come up with a policy. It is promised for this spring, although delays would, under the circumstances, be a shame but not a surprise.

But courage sometimes pays off, even in politics. Lord presents opinion-poll data showing strong support for bilingualism in every region - the lowest figure is 53 per cent in Alberta, the highest 85 per cent in Quebec.

Such numbers tell us that Canadians, in all provinces, do not see bilingualism as a zero-sum game. Only the PQ and BQ believe that anything that helps English hurts French, and vice-versa. The rest of us understand the advantages of having two main language groups.

For the text of Lord’s report go to www.canadianheritage.gc.ca and click on "public consultations."