The president of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), Marlene Jennings, spoke out against Bill 96 in front of hundreds of people gathered on the campus of Dawson College on Saturday, May 14. ” Stronger ! launched one of them. Behind her sunglasses, the former federal deputy let out a great cry for 10 well-counted seconds similar to those she let out from time to time in the House of Commons from 1997 to 2011. “Mr. can you hear us now? she later asked to applause.
The groups defending the rights of English-speaking Quebecers have finally managed to break the general apathy towards the bill on the official and common language of Quebec, French, with shocking formulas such as “The CAQ is trying to limit the ‘access to government services only to citizens eligible for instruction in English’.
Lawyers like the Dean of the Faculty of Law at McGill University, Robert Leckey, give weight to the fears they have been carrying for a year. “Bill 96 will impede communication [dans une autre langue que le français] between health professionals and their patients, and even in an intimate context, the door of the closed consultation room, ”said the lawyer on the forecourt of Cégep Dawson last week.
Several tenants of the Checkers Place apartment building, located on the other side of Sherbrooke Street, watched with their noses glued to their windows or their elbows resting on their balconies as the mobilization gathered momentum on the lawn of Dawson College, notably thanks to last-minute political reinforcements — and not only those brought by the founders of the Canadian Party of Quebec, Colin Standish, and of the Quebec Movement, Balarama Holness, who were born out of dissatisfaction with the nationalist turn of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ). In fact, Liberal members of the National Assembly and the House of Commons joined the opponents of Bill 96, even though the “27 proposals for the future of the French language” (Liberal Party of Quebec) and Bill C-13 amending the Official Languages Act (Liberal Party of Canada) are also causing discontent within English-speaking communities.
“Premier Legault, can you hear us now? Repeated QCGN spokesperson Marlene Jennings, while specifying that she had to save her voice for other battles.
Away from the noise of the street, a doctor tells a patient, in a joking tone, to have to speak to him in a low voice in English so as not to be the subject of denunciation; another fears that his medical records will end up before the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF).
Prime Minister François Legault sees this as a backlash to the “disinformation” campaign waged against Bill 96 and, in particular, about its effects on health services. “It’s stirred a little bit in the last few days,” he said during a press scrum in Laval earlier this week. ” [Les anglophones] don’t have any worries about education services, health services,” he added, defending his government’s “very reasonable” language program.
Towards two classes of English speakers?
The QCGN suspects François Legault’s team of seeking, through Bill 96, to reduce the English-speaking population to whom the Quebec state is required to offer services in English.
According to the 2016 Census, Quebec has approximately 1,103,475 people with English as their first spoken official language of Canada (13.7% of the total population), including 718,985 people with English as their mother tongue (8. 9% of the total population).
“There are 9% of Quebecers who are English-speaking, according to the definition”, specified François Legault this week.
Their rights will remain intact following the adoption of Bill 96, repeated the Minister responsible for the French language, Simon Jolin-Barrette, throughout the examination of the bill. They will have a guaranteed place in an English-speaking CEGEP, despite the brake given to development of the college network Anglophone by Bill 96. They will also be able to continue to communicate in English with the Quebec State, despite the consecration of the French language as “the only common language of Quebec”.
But what about other English speakers, such as immigrants from a country where English reigns supreme? Or even a refugee who knows the basics of the English language, but not those of the French language? These non-members of the “historic English-speaking community” will not all find a place in an English-speaking CEGEP and will not be able to communicate in English with the Quebec government for more than six months, right? ask opponents of Bill 96.
The head of the non-profit Filipino Women of Quebec (PINAY), Cheney de Guzman, told them at the May 14 protest that she had worked hard for seven years to become fluent in French, in addition to supporting her family. “Bill 96 uses nationalism for electoral purposes and immigrants as scapegoats,” she said.
However, Québec solidaire (QS) will vote for Bill 96 even if its amendment aimed at increasing from six months to two years the period beyond which newcomers cannot be served in a language other than French. unless “health, public safety or the principles of natural justice so require” was rejected by the CAQ government.
The Parti Québécois has still not indicated in which camp it will be on the day of the vote: that of the “for” with the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) and QS; that of the “against” with the PLQ; or even that of the “abstentionists”. Bill 96 lacks teeth, according to Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s team.
Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette pointed out to parliamentarians that the forthcoming adoption of this law — “a law of Quebec pride” in his mind — represents, 45 years after the adoption of the Charter of the French language under the impulse of Camille Laurin, “the beginning of a great linguistic revival which will allow the Quebec nation to continue to express its identity and to share it proudly”.
The CAQ has determined the objective of its next offensive on the identity front: to strengthen the Quebec government’s control over immigration.
Moreover, François Legault reiterated this week his call to Ottawa to transfer full powers to him in matters of selection of immigration resulting from family reunification. ” Half [de ces immigrants] do not speak French. That, for now, is the responsibility of the federal government. We are asking to repatriate this 26% [de l’immigration] there,” he said after commissioning a survey from Léger. According to him, the “high number of immigrants who do not speak French” constitutes the “main threat” to the French language in Quebec and Montreal.