In the eyes of 23 municipalities with bilingual status, certain provisions of the Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French (“Bill 96”) violate their rights and those of their English-speaking citizens. In an action filed in Superior Court, these cities ask the court to invalidate the articles that allow inspectors of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) to access documents in municipal offices and the government to deprive them of their grants if it deems that they have contravened a provision of the law.
The municipalities united to file an application for judicial review and declaratory judgment before the Superior Court. Many of them are part of the Montreal agglomeration, including Côte-Saint-Luc, Beaconsfield and Westmount, but others are located in various regions of Quebec, such as Blanc-Sablon, Stanbridge East or New Carlisle.
They may be in favor of the protection of the French language, but they believe that Bill 96 contains articles that grant excessive power to the government and to the OQLF. “To promote the French language, Quebec should use positive strategies, not punitive actions,” said Côte-Saint-Luc Mayor Mitchell Brownstein during a press conference on Wednesday, along with of several of his colleagues.
In their appeal, the cities contest the obligation imposed on them to pass a resolution in order to maintain their bilingual status if less than half of their population has English as their mother tongue. In Quebec, 48 cities have adopted such a resolution. But what these cities argue is that the law is too restrictive and should instead base its requirement on the language spoken at home and not the native language of the citizens.
For example, in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, 71% of the population uses English first at home, but according to Statistics Canada, only 45.2% of the population has English as their mother tongue.
Excessive entries
The municipalities are also contesting the articles governing the inspections that can be carried out by the OQLF. These provisions notably allow an inspector to enter the offices of a municipality and to have access to the content of a computer or any other electronic device. However, cities may have in their possession documents containing sensitive or confidential information that is protected by the Law on Access to Documents of Public Bodies, they argue.
Me Julius Grey, who represents the cities in their appeal, points out that nothing in the law indicates that inspectors need a warrant to carry out such seizures. “These are powers that even the police don’t have,” he said.
On its website, the Ministry of the French Language however assures that “at no time, the OQLF does or will make excavations, searches and seizures. »
The municipalities are also contesting the validity of the section of Law 96 which allows the Minister of the French Language to withhold any subsidy to a city if he judges that the latter has not respected an element of the Charter of the language. French. Mayor of Beaconsfield, Georges Bourelle judges that the right of veto held by the Ministry of the French Language is not justified.
Measures concerning civil servants
The cities believe the court should invalidate the article that requires them to sanction an official who violates a provision of the law. An employee who does not speak French well enough could be subject to disciplinary action, lamented Steven Erdelyi, municipal councilor in Côte-Saint-Luc.
Among other elements, the mayors cite the obligation for municipalities to write all their contracts in French. For Dale Roberts-Keats, mayor of the small municipality of Bonne-Espérance, on the North Shore, which has 700 inhabitants, this provision concerning contracts is nonsense. “It’s absurd that for our municipality where 99% of the population has English as their first language, we cannot write contracts with our local suppliers in English,” she said.
The lawsuit includes 23 municipalities, but Mayor Mitchell Bronwstein hopes other cities will join the movement.