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It is clear that a certain consensus emanates from the current linguistic debate in Quebec: a sense of urgency, a widely shared conviction that action must be taken to curb the decline of French. But beyond Law 96, statistics and indicators, what meaning should we give to this debate? How to stir up this “national awakening” of which Minister Jean-François Roberge speaks?
A beginning of an answer may be found upstream, going back to the sources of language policy, to the principles on which it is based: the idea of a common language, inseparable from culture, a language which is the basis of social ties. Because what seems obvious today has not always been so: before Law 96, before the Charter of the French language, there was an initial awareness, a vision, a principle. Then, only, the will to act.
Despite the disagreements on the means to be taken, few voices are raised in Quebec to contest the need to curb the decline of French. Rarer still are those who question the objective that has driven language policy since Bill 101: to make French the common language.
However… It took some time for this principle to gain ground. Although stemming from a recommendation of the report of the Gendron Commission (1972), it will not be written into the Charter until the recent adoption of Bill 96. While the original version made French the “official language” of the Quebec, Bill 96 now adds to it the status of “common language of the Quebec nation” and specifies that it “constitutes one of the foundations of its identity and its distinct culture”.
Mere rhetorical effect? We can certainly choose to see in this addition only a reformulation without consequence. But the fact is that it corrects an “asymmetry” of which Guy Rocher spoke in an article published in The action national in 2002, a discrepancy between the Charter itself and the principles contained in the policy statement — Camille Laurin’s famous white paper.
This emphasized the cultural dimension of the language, even though it was only mentioned implicitly in the text of the law. By emphasizing the importance of language and culture “as binders in society”, Bill 96 therefore makes the Charter of the French language more consistent with its “initial spirit”.
White papers, from Laurin to Laporte
To appreciate this change at its true value, it is necessary to reread Camille Laurin’s white paper.
Presented in March 1977, the Quebec French Language Policy sets out in depth the principles that underlie and justify the adoption of a charter. It explains that the latter is based on the existence, among a large number of Quebecers, of a “desire to redress the situation of the French language in Quebec” and the conviction that it is necessary for the State intervene.
However, Laurin recalls the preliminary path that this idea had to travel, an idea that is rooted in a slow awareness among French-speaking Quebecers that began in the 1950s. As they tried to define their identity , Quebecers note the poor status conferred on their language and the threat that hangs over it, a threat that appears to them as a reflection of their own fragility and their state of subordination.
However, this awareness – this national awakening –, affirms Laurin, constitutes in itself an important fact: “We must not fail to underline it; because lucidity is an eminently positive component of the situation of the French language in Quebec. »
To find the origin of this awareness and this “desire for recovery”, we must however go back even further upstream, to another document written in 1965 under the Lesage government: the white paper on culture by Pierre Laporte. In his policy statement, Camille Laurin also cites this document as one of the first to have set out the duties of the state in terms of defending national culture.
Prepared by Laporte, then Minister of Cultural Affairs, and written in large part by historian and Deputy Minister Guy Frégault, this white paper made the language question “the keystone of the cultural destiny of French Canadians”. He denounced institutional bilingualism, which was still a consensus at the time, and recommended developing a language policy by taking the necessary steps to ensure that French became “the priority language” in Quebec.
Considered too controversial, these proposals gave rise to major debates within the Lesage cabinet (remember that we are before the Saint-Léonard crisis, before the adoption of laws 63 and 22, and more than 10 years before law 101), so much so that they lead the Prime Minister to keep the document secret.
The “phantom white paper”, as historian and sociologist Fernand Harvey explains, was not finally made public until 1976 by Minister Jean-Paul L’Allier, within his green book on culture. In Chronicle of the lost years (1976), where he returns to the episode, Guy Frégault will say himself that “the time was definitely not ripe for us to be able to recommend that French become ‘the official language’ of Quebec”.
A global vision
After its accession to power in 1976, the Parti Québécois government drew inspiration from Pierre Laporte’s white paper, both for the drafting of its language policy and in the development of the Québec Cultural Development Policy in 1978. The Charter of the French language is therefore imbued with a similar vision.
But what is the essence of this vision? It stems first from a “global” reading of the linguistic question. Whereas for a long time the issue of language had been treated from a strictly linguistic angle — a problem of “speaking well” — it is now considered in its entirety: as a question that is simultaneously economic, social, linguistic and cultural.
Like economic inequalities, linguistic inequalities are seen as sources of injustice. Consequently, the status of the French language becomes a question of social justice, inseparable from the destiny of the entire nation.
Moreover, while the Canadian language policy, adopted in 1969, favors an instrumental approach to language, the Quebec vision is anchored in a principle of “territoriality”, i.e. the idea that a language is attached to a distinct territory .
Laurin’s white paper states as a first principle that “in Quebec, the French language is not a simple mode of expression, but a living environment”. It is through it that we bond with each other, that we debate, that we form a community; it “coincides with a society.” The objective of Quebec’s language policy therefore goes beyond the protection or enhancement of French. This is a social project to which all Quebecers are invited, regardless of their origin, and in respect of their rights.
The French language is seen as a factor of cohesion: it must become the language of integration, a language that brings people together and allows the nation — understood in the inclusive sense — to express its culture and its identity.
Beyond the law
Even by emphasizing the ties that unite language and culture, Bill 96 will not curb the decline of French in Quebec, but it does consolidate the foundations of language policy. By the same token, it reminds us why the fate of French constitutes an “existential issue” in Quebec and why it is legitimate and urgent to act to rectify the situation.
In his Chronicle of the lost years, Frégault explains that the main strength of Pierre Laporte’s white paper lay in the principles it tried to highlight. “If the situations evolve, writes Frégault, the principles, however, remain, as long as they have been identified correctly. »
As Camille Laurin said: “It bears repeating: in a language policy, the law is not everything. However, to confront the current threat to French in Quebec, much more than a law will be needed. In this, strong principles and solid foundations are needed. Because any law draws its legitimacy from the political will and, before it, from the conscience of public opinion.
In an increasingly diverse Quebec, and in this digital and globalized environment, it will be necessary, despite platforms and algorithms, to constantly return to the sources: to reaffirm the cohesive role of French, to reaffirm its cultural function. We will constantly have to put the course back on the objective: to make French a common language; a language that sets us apart, brings us together and allows us to exist.
To propose a text or to make comments and suggestions, write to Dave Noël at [email protected].