The winds of concern that rose in English-speaking communities on the day of the adoption of the Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French (PL 96), have not abated, noted The duty by stopping off at Brome and Stanstead, in the Eastern Townships. By Marco Belair-Cirino.
Bromine
Riding of Brome-Missisquoi
(15.9% English speakers in 2016)
“Have you ever been to a hospital where everything was in a language other than your own? asks Lisa in front of her house on Stagecoach Road, in the heart of Brome.
Lisa, a unilingual Anglophone, abhors the initiatives taken to strengthen the presence of French, including those contained in PL 96 — three additional courses “in” or “de” French compulsory in Anglophone CEGEPs, government communications exclusively in French for immigrants who have been settled for more than six months, “clear predominance” of French in public notices, communications in French with any worker who requests it in companies with 25 or more employees, specificity of Quebec enshrined in the Constitution of Canada … — which was adopted by the National Assembly despite cries of protest from elected members of the Quebec Liberal Party last spring. She is convinced that access to health care in English will become more difficult than at present, even if the Legault government repeats the opposite. But the elector of Brome-Missisquoi will remain silent on polling day. “I don’t vote. I do not care. My little vote wouldn’t change anything,” said the English-speaking Quebecer, faced with the prospect of another victory for the Coalition avenir Québec. The political color of the next deputy does not matter to him. “It doesn’t matter, what we think, it’s going to happen anyway. It is Legault who has the last word, ”she replies with fatalistic resignation.
Lisa has decided to give up on Quebec. She will sell her home in the Eastern Townships, then settle in Ontario, “where it’s English”, “where you can read the road signs and know where you’re going”. The idea of packing up has been in his head for a while. The arrival of the CAQ at the helm of the Quebec state and the PL 96 which followed three and a half years later – “the icing on the cake”, she specifies – crystallized her decision.
She will move on after the death of her mother, she explains, a stone’s throw from the site that has hosted the Expo Brome agricultural fair every Labor Day weekend for more than 165 years. “Today, it’s all in French,” she says spitefully. His neighbor Roland, a unilingual English speaker, did not rule out going to vote. “I would like someone who doesn’t push English away like it has for the past four years,” he says after stopping his van at the end of the gravel driveway to his property. “I grew up in English. I am now over 60 years old. I will not learn French now,” he adds.
François and Christine, two young French-speaking retirees, pass in front of the houses of Lisa and Roland, each on his electric bike. They settled in Brome during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, PL 96 was debated and adopted. “I don’t feel any tension [entre les anglophones et les francophones], but I do not accept that English speakers do not speak French. It’s contempt, for me, ”says François under his helmet, while specifying that he grew up in the theater of a linguistic crisis, that is to say in Saint-Léonard. “Me, my father arrived from England and he learned French”, adds Nathalie.
Stanstead
Ward of Orford
(14.3% English speakers in 2016)
George Weller says he learned of alleged English Fridays at the Center hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS), where English-speaking Quebecers can apparently converse in their language with health professionals, as if they could not do so the other six days of the week.
“As Anglophones, we were told that ’96’ was going to restrict the provision of care in English,” he says in the entrance to the Colby-Curtis museum where The duty ran into him, while mentioning that a couple of friends moved to Montreal for this reason.
The architect of Weller Farm — home to an airfield, sprawling orchards and vegetable patch, golden retriever farm, square dance floors, a herd of beefalos, trout, walking trails and connoisseurs of the mythical islandAtlantide, among other things — says he has the unpleasant impression that to the ears of the average Quebecer, “English is bad”. Except in Stanstead, he consoles himself. “Did Quebec shoot itself in the foot with this law? »
George Weller plans to support the new Parti canadien du Québec, which brings together “serious, established and responsible citizens […] deeply committed to the defense […] equality of official languages in Canada”. He prefers the new political formation led by jurist Colin Standish to Dominique Anglade’s PLQ, because “the Liberals have not been as diligent” in defending the rights of English-speaking Quebecers over the past four years.
According to him, Quebecers should be inspired by New Brunswickers who have embraced bilingualism. “It would be so simple,” he said.
Kim Prangley nods. The new receptionist at the Colby-Curtis museum finds that the PL 96 misses the mark by betting on the stick rather than the carrot to strengthen the presence of the French language in Quebec. “If you want to encourage ways to teach people a new language, there are ways to do that that don’t feel like punishment. You have to have fun,” she says, her hands resting on a green satchel bearing the inscription “Procedure for welcoming visitors”.
She grew up on both sides of the border before the language became a “sensitive” subject, she says, while specifying “to speak French better after a bottle of wine”. “I always thought we got along well here. I know there are people in the community who are staunchly anti-Anglophones. It’s a shame. The language you speak shouldn’t matter. We are all human beings. »
Kim Prangley finds that the “scariest part of ’96’ is not having access to medical care in English”. “If it results in someone’s death because they don’t understand a word that changes the meaning of a sentence, that would be shameful,” she says from across the counter.
Naomie Dana, that The duty crossed outside the Haskell Library and Opera House, which sits on the Canada-US border, points out that PL 96 puts “even more pressure to learn French,” including in the “bilingual village” that Stanstead has always been. “It’s like a screw around the neck, which tightens even more,” says the child of an American father and an Ontario mother who studied in French.
Today, Naomie Dana teaches French.
Aboard the CAQ campaign bus
Since the beginning of the campaign, François Legault has been asking English-speaking voters to evaluate the CAQ in the light not only of its linguistic record, but also of its economic plan… while repeating that PL 96 has no repercussions on the providing health care in English to English-speaking Quebecers. However, he refrained from repeating the call to swell the ranks of the CAQ that he had launched to Anglophones by means of a “ Join us! felt good four years ago.
Mid-campaign, the CAQ dominates in the ridings of Brome-Missisquoi and Orford, with 44% and 45% of voting intentions respectively, according to the statistical model of the Qc125 electoral projection site.
“My little vote won’t change anything,” Lisa repeats before rushing to the community mailboxes. For her, there is nothing she can do, “Legault” will pass like a letter in the mail on October 3.