The Bloc Québécois is relaunching its demands for the protection of French with a view to modernizing the Official Languages Act, scheduled for the first 100 days of the Trudeau government’s new mandate.
“What we are asking is that the Official Languages Act does not go against the principle of French as a common language, that it cease to hinder the application of Bill 101”, summarized Sunday the Bloc’s official languages spokesperson, Mario Beaulieu, at The Canadian Press.
The sovereignist party wants in particular to put back on the program the application of Bill 101 to federally chartered companies in Quebec, which had received the support of the Conservatives and the New Democrats during the last legislature.
“If he had not had the early election, it would have followed its course as we had majority support in the chamber. The only people who opposed it were the Liberals, ”said Mr. Beaulieu.
The Bloc Québécois also wishes to reintroduce its bill which would require sufficient knowledge of French to obtain Canadian citizenship in Quebec.
The party also wants a review of federal funding for linguistic minority groups so that the Quebec government has its say.
“For Quebec, that goes exclusively to Anglophone organizations, institutions and pressure groups because the federal government considers that Anglophones constitute the minority,” deplores Mr. Beaulieu.
He sees it as an “aberration” to favor English, whereas the federal government argued in the Speech from the Throne that it had a responsibility to promote and defend French in Quebec. “It’s talking on both sides of the mouth,” said Beaulieu.
The Bloc would like the only official minority language recognized in Canada to be French. Ottawa must therefore adopt “a differentiated approach for the English-speaking community of Quebec compared to the French-speaking and Acadian communities,” indicates Mr. Beaulieu.
The Liberals made a commitment in their election platform to modernizing the Official Languages Act during the first 100 days of their mandate. This desire was reiterated in the Speech from the Throne this week.
The reform of the law remained at first reading, that is only the tabling of the bill.