Until recently, the language of work in private companies under federal jurisdiction in Quebec was not governed by any language law.
In interprovincial and international transport companies, banks, telecommunications and broadcasting companies, postal service companies, Quebec workers were not entitled, for example, to communications in French from their employer. Unless they exercised their activities in one of these federal companies having voluntarily submitted to the obligations of the Charter of the French language (law 101).
In May 2021, Bill 96 is tabled. He proposes to add a section 89.1 in the Charter of the French language: “No provision of the present law can be interpreted in such a way as to prevent its application to any company or to any employer which exercises its activities in Quebec. »
In a federal state such as Canada, considering the incidental effects that the laws of one level of government may have on matters falling within the jurisdiction of the other, a question may be of “double aspect”. With regard to federal enterprises in Quebec, a question (the language of work) which lies at the crossroads of the jurisdictions of the parliaments of Quebec (property and civil rights) and of Canada (banks, communications, services postal) may be covered for one aspect by a Quebec law of general application, under certain conditions.
“Law 96” was adopted in the spring of 2022. Since 1er last June, the Charter of the French language applies to federal enterprises in Quebec.
In March 2022, Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Official Languages, tabled Bill C-13. Its article 6 provides that federal undertakings in Quebec may “subject[r] voluntarily to the Charter of the French language […] replacing” the federal regime created by C-13; that a Canada-Quebec agreement must first have been entered into as a condition to “give effect” to the possibility of choosing Bill 101.
In an interview in June 2022, Petitpas Taylor summarily justifies himself: “Quebec and Ottawa share the same objective of protecting the French language, but there is more than one way to achieve it”. If it’s the same goal, why should the Government of Canada bother? We could be reviving a federal-provincial dynamic that we have already seen.
The antechamber of repatriation
In 1977, the Government of Quebec included the Quebec clause in Bill 101: English school is reserved for children one of whose parents had received primary education in English in Quebec.
If Camille Laurin and René Lévesque manage to reach an agreement, it is thanks to the addition of an article 86 in Bill 101. The English school may also be attended by “persons covered by a reciprocal agreement concluded between the government of Quebec and the government of another province”.
In his memoirs, René Lévesque explains: “With the provinces that would grant our French minorities educational rights more or less comparable to those enjoyed by Anglo-Quebecers, we were ready to conclude agreements where the same advantages would be guaranteed to their own residents. »
The offer was tested in 1977 at an interprovincial conference in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. ” [J]I immediately bumped into a wall of indifference,” says Lévesque in his memoirs. According to Jean-Claude Picard, Laurin’s biographer, it was the federal government that was in charge: “Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau decreed, from the top of his Olympus, that the fate of French-speaking minorities outside Quebec should not be the object of ‘a bargain, especially not with a separatist government’. Trudeau wants to enshrine language rights in a constitutional charter.
The Government of Quebec tries to catch up the following year (1978) during a new conference in Montreal. He deemed it necessary to come to an agreement with the nine other provinces in order to keep the federal government away from questions of education and constitutional solutions. It is declared: “Every child of the French-speaking or English-speaking minority in each of the provinces has the right to receive instruction in his or her language. […] “.
In 1980, Pierre Elliott Trudeau reactivated his repatriation project. There is a Canada clause, which opens the doors of English schooling in Quebec to children one of whose parents received their primary education in English in Canada. Is the Canada clause a federal measure imposed on Quebec exactly where the Quebec clause of Bill 101 finds application?
Jean Chrétien, Minister of Justice, explained on January 14, 1981 before a parliamentary committee that the federal government imposed nothing on Quebec since Quebec and Ottawa agreed on the objective. He justifies himself approximately: “I have already said that as far as education is concerned, the premiers agreed at St. Andrews and at Montreal.” If it’s the same goal, why should the Government of Canada bother?
The Canada clause replaced the Quebec clause. For its part, C-13 is not yet law. Above all, one element has changed. At the time, Pierre Elliott Trudeau faced a Quebec whose political springs were broken by the 1980 referendum. In 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister Petitpas Taylor face a Quebec that is recovering. Will the ending be different this time around?