Since the adoption of the Charter of the French Language in 1977, many Anglophones have never accepted that Francophones refuse their minority status and assimilation. This is why a whole system was put in place to weaken the scope of Bill 101, notably with the repatriation of the 1982 Constitution. For these fighters for Bill 101, the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord gave too much to these Francophones who refuse Anglonormativity.
Then came the theft of the referendum by the federal government in 1995, the Reference on Secession of Quebec and the Referendum Clarity Act that followed, which put institutional handcuffs on Quebecers already tired of this long fight for the language. Result: many fighters returned to their land to rest and have moved on to other, less tiring fights for the past 25 years.
The exemplary nature of the State with Amed
Bill 96, the Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French, adopted in 2022, rekindled the dormant flame and improved the Charter of the French language in several aspects, including that of the exemplarity of the State.
If the linguistic behaviour of the Quebec State is not exemplary, how can we hope that it will be so in businesses and at work? How can we illustrate what the exemplary behaviour of the State would be in linguistic matters?
Let’s take the example of Amed, my mother’s roommate who left Turkey 35 years ago to settle in Quebec. From his first interactions with the Quebec government, he was categorized with the “A” code, or English-speaking, since he knows more words in English than in French. Let’s remember that he does not write complete sentences in either of Canada’s two official languages. This code allows him to communicate in English with the Quebec public service for the rest of his life.
So, he does not have to learn French, and this situation encourages the requirement of knowledge of English for all civil servants who have to communicate orally and in writing with Amed. He has administrative relations with civil servants and none of these communications have any effect on his personal safety. Worse, it is my mother who must now settle Amed’s affairs with the Quebec government in English.
Minister Roberge’s administrative directive
Once the regulatory and legislative framework of Bill 96 was in place, the government had to draft guidelines to clarify how employees should act with citizens like Amed depending on different situations. Thus, the Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, made public on July 18 a guideline that specifies the situations in which the health network intends to use a language other than French.
This directive told Amed, who forgot to renew his health insurance card last winter, that from now on he must have a certificate of eligibility if he wants to communicate in English with RAMQ officials. The directive did not say that he must have his certificate of eligibility to receive emergency care. The certificate of eligibility would have been obtained through the Ministry of Education, which has a list of all Quebecers entitled to access English schools, which is practically all members of the historical English-speaking community. Since Amed did not attend English schools in Canada, he would not have had his certificate of eligibility and would not have been able to communicate in English with the Quebec government.
This measure would have solved the language code problem, but the pressure and lies told about the directive by the Montreal GazetteEnglish-speaking advocacy groups and Justin Trudeau’s government were right about the latter since a motion tabled last week in the National Assembly was unanimously adopted so that English-speakers would not have to obtain and use a certificate of eligibility.
I am not saying that obtaining the certificate of eligibility for English speakers so that they have administrative services in English throughout Quebec is a flawless measure, but the parliamentary joust on the subject would have highlighted the major factor of anglicization that the bilingual Quebec state represents. What do the opponents of the certificate of eligibility have to propose so that we stop anglicizing relations between the state and newcomers who have a better knowledge of English than French?