Since the adoption of the Charter of the French language, in 1977, its detractors have always claimed that it was possible to ensure the promotion of French without causing prejudice to Anglophones.
According to them, linguistic development in Quebec is not a zero-sum game, where a gain for one would necessarily result in a loss for the other. The “two solitudes” that coexist there could therefore develop side by side without harming each other.
Unfortunately, that cannot be the case. Whether we like it or not, increasing the place occupied by French can only have the effect of reducing that of English, and vice versa. Immigrants have to integrate into one community or another.
This obviously does not prevent anyone who so wishes from receiving health care in English, as expressly prescribed by the law adopted for this purpose by the National Assembly. Only bad faith or crass ignorance can lead anyone to argue the contrary.
The MP for Mount Royal, Anthony Housefather, is however right to say that applying the provisions of Bill 101 to federally regulated companies operating in Quebec could prevent English-speaking employees from working in their language.
Neither the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms nor its Quebec equivalent stipulate, however, that working in the language of one’s choice constitutes a right. Inevitably, in the more or less long term, bilingualism leads to anglicization. The National Assembly, including the PLQ, is now unanimous in demanding that Bill 101 apply to federally chartered businesses.
The crusade undertaken by a few English-speaking members of Parliament from Quebec, supported by their colleague Marc Garneau, against the new version of the Official Languages Act presented by the Trudeau government demonstrates in reality that this law was only acceptable to them insofar as it did not did not harm the anglicization of Quebec.
Since its adoption in 1969, this law placed on the same footing the Anglo-Quebec community and the French-speaking communities outside Quebec, considered as equally threatened species. The new version (C-13) takes note not only of the fact that this symmetry does not correspond to reality, but also of the special attention that French deserves even in Quebec.
As long as it was a matter of a merely theoretical recognition, the irreducible Montrealers of the Liberal caucus could perhaps have accepted it, but for them to translate it into practice is intolerable.
Beyond the philosophical objections to the use of the notwithstanding clause raised by the reference to the Charter of the French language, the amendments to Bill C-13 that the Bloc Québécois wants to make, with the support of the Parti Conservative and the NDP, have precisely the fault of giving it a minimum of substance.
As long as the rebellion was the work of a handful of “angryphones” or colonized minds, we could probably have let things go and let everyone vote according to their conscience. The entry into the debate of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Marc Miller, close to Justin Trudeau, suddenly gives it another dimension.
It is no longer a simple show de boucane” led by English-speaking Montreal, denounced by Franco-Ontarian MP Francis Drouin. Francophones outside Quebec now fear the derailment of a reform in which they see real progress.
It was detestable to hear Mr. Miller say that applying Bill 101 to businesses under federal jurisdiction in Quebec could have negative consequences for them, as other provinces might decide to legislate that only English has of cities in their territory. Curiously, the principals concerned have never expressed this fear.
This kind of blackmail is not new. Quebecers have always been warned that their “brothers” in the rest of the country could pay for the excesses of their nationalism. During the 1995 referendum campaign, they were virtually taken hostage. If Quebec left the federation, God knows what would happen to them…
Former Minister Jean-Marc Fournier also used this argument. He spoke of a “diplomacy of the Francophonie” which imposed a certain restraint on Quebec in its claims of a linguistic nature so that they did not harm the efforts of Francophones outside Quebec. Thus, the Couillard government was opposed to Bill 101 applying to federally chartered companies.
English Canada certainly does not need an excuse to neglect its French-speaking minority. Even if it were, Quebec cannot afford to link the future of French on its territory to that which awaits it in the rest of the country.