The Liberal Party will have to live with a proposal for the French language that it itself tabled and described as an “error”, because the CAQ government refused Thursday to extricate it.
The elected members of the National Assembly voted last month in favor of an amendment to Bill 96 on the reform of the Charter of the French language in order to oblige students enrolled in an English-speaking college to take three courses taught in French during their CEGEP studies. No matter the discipline.
The article, adopted in concert by the elected officials of the Committee on Culture and Education, has caused a stir in CEGEPs and in the English-speaking community in recent weeks. At the end of the month, the Fédération des cégeps strongly denounced in the pages of the To have to the risks of “social crisis” that it generated. “There are thousands of students who will be unable to graduate,” then launched its president, Bernard Tremblay.
The Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ), which put the first proposal on the table, has already agreed that it should not have done so. In an interview with the English daily The Gazette this week Liberal MP David Birnbaum, who sits on the Commission, admitted his party had “made a mistake”. Its leader, Dominique Anglade, acknowledged earlier this month that the proposal “would not work” in its current form.
To correct the situation, Liberal MP Hélène David tabled a new amendment on Wednesday evening. This provided that students could “replace the three courses given in French […] three French lessons. This tiny nuance would have allowed English-speaking students to train in French as a second language rather than taking courses in a language they do not master.
However, after an hour of debate on Thursday, the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) chose to vote against the adjoining proposal. The Minister responsible for the French Language, Simon Jolin-Barrette, said he did not have enough time to think because the Parti Québécois (PQ) refused to postpone the debate until later.
In the morning, both the CAQ and the PQ made fun of the shift recently made by the PLQ. “Yesterday, they proposed amendments to make sure to get out of the shit,” said PQ MP Pascal Bérubé in English. “The Liberals got themselves into trouble,” added the Prime Minister’s parliamentary assistant for relations with English-speaking Quebecers, Christopher Skeete.
Asked by journalists, Mr. Jolin-Barrette thanked “Mr.me David for having made his first proposal, because it makes everyone aware that it is necessary to work more on French”.
The vast reform of the Charter of the French language – which has around 200 articles – is quietly approaching its conclusion, two months before the end of the parliamentary session.