A group representing Quebec’s English-speaking community is seeking an injunction with the court to challenge the province’s controversial French-language law known as Bill 96, CTV News has learned.
A group representing Quebec’s English-speaking community is seeking an injunction with the court to challenge the province’s controversial French-language law known as Bill 96, CTV News has learned.
What do you find so punitive about bill 96?
While it’s true that most of the country doesn’t have a requirement to offer services in both official languages, there’s only one province that is trying to actively and aggressively forbid it. That’s not protectionism, that’s punishment.
I need to file an official request to be served in English with businesses that are serving me paperwork since the bill was passed. This isn’t because they can’t serve me in English. Previously, they had been without issue. These official requests are cover-your-ass statements so they don’t get in trouble when using English versions.
Additionally, the only language you can get certain things like birth certificates, wedding certificates, power of attorney, etc. is French. Need an English version? You’ll need to pay for a translator.
Additionally, even if I wanted to access any government services in English, I need to lie. I don’t speak fluent French, but have been here for more than 6 months, so technically, none of those English-provided services are legally accessible to me. If I want to find out what forms I need, or get information on government services, according to bill 96 I better learn French right now or stay ignorant.
And this is just the hassle it’s caused me. Small businesses have to report headcounts of how many people don’t speak fluent French. Signage needs to be put up by next year that’s compliant with the need to be “visibly French dominant.” Failure to comply means fines.
I don’t care what the official language of Quebec is. I don’t care if the government wants to devote holidays and school time to teaching about French history. This doesn’t affect me, and it’s educational and helps keep Quebecois heritage alive.
I care that, because French isn’t my first language, I’m made to feel like a second-class citizen for asking for service not in French. I care that government services deny accessibility because they’re speaking a different language. I care that businesses will have to jump through even more hoops to do business in Quebec, not because of product safety or consumer protection, and not even because of lack of accessibility, but instead because it’s just not a language the government prefers. I got my citizenship last year, and I’m glad I’m a Canadian. But Quebec’s government sure as shit doesn’t want me living there.
I understand your frustration, and I agree with the 6 month period rule for new immigrants being completely unreasonable.
But, how do you think you would’ve fared in a country like, Brasil, or Spain, or Japan, or France? It’s the same thing.
It’s not though. None of those countries are explicitly banning government communication in other languages, and removing other services that have been in place. None of those countries are going out of their way to say to businesses “If you don’t communicate in the language of our choice, you’ll be required to pay us money.”
Coming from the United States, services were often offered in Spanish because it was an uncommon language, but still prevalent enough that people spoke it regularly. Spanish isn’t an official language of the US, but they recognized the need to serve their people better and took steps to do this. Citizens might be assholes who would say something like “This is America, speak American,” but the government at least made the effort to help. Quebec is echoing those citizens, while saying their own heritage is so fragile that if they have to serve their populace better that it will disappear. I can’t imagine any of those other countries you mentioned are so thin-skinned.
You’re picking the United States as an example? The one country that’s in itself practically the sole responsible for worldwide decline in local cultural and linguistic heritage?
I chose an example I know of that ensures language services are available for its people. If you want to discuss the overall content of my comment instead of a minor aspect of it, feel free. If not, I think we’re done.
I don’t think it’s a bad example in this case, since the US hasn’t lost it’s own cultural heritage much. For better or for worse, the US does a great job of assimilating people and making them “American”.
That’s pretty much exactly what Quebec is trying to accomplish, right? something like ‘if you want to live in Quebec, you have to become Quebecois’. So if US policy doesn’t blanket ban other languages in signage and social services and still manages to ‘americanize’ people, then Quebec could potentially do the same.
The US and Quebec are in pretty different situations, so it’s not a perfect example, but I think it is a pretty good basis for an argument against Quebec’s culturally protectionist policies.
How about Saskatchewan as an example? With Alberta, we are the butt cheeks of Canada, yet in Saskatoon, you can go to the city hall website, click the accessibility button, and get the site served in 19 different languages. Yes, they’re just using Google Translate, so there are no Canadian Indigenous languages, but it’s a start. In addition, I think those languages and more are available for in-person service through an interpretation contractor.
There are plenty of efforts to prevent languages from disappearing. I have no problem with Quebec doing things to preserve their French, but I’m not sure it should be via removal of other language services.
On the other hand, I have no language I’m trying to preserve, don’t live there, and haven’t visited in decades, so I’m willing to let them make their own decisions.
It’s not. I’ve had colleagues in Hungary who had not learned Hungarian in five+ years and were doing just fine
And they never bothered to learn the local language?
Man, I’ve taken some basic Japanese, Italian and Spanish for going on vacation for three to four weeks and these guys never even learned Hungarian after five years living there???
You don’t think this was wrong of them?
Not everyone has an ease with language, unfortunately.
You and I do, but I know francophones who are incapable of learning English no matter how hard they try, and anglophones who are incapable of learning French, or any other language for that matter.
It works out for some people, but others will never learn anything beyond their native tongue, especially if they migrate as adults.
European countries and their citizens tend to understand and speak English pretty well, with some exceptions, and most of them offer services in English upon request
I disagree with your argument and here’s why.
In Canada, Québec is the most bilingual province in the whole country, followed by New Brunswick. Nearly half (46%) of the population in Québec and about a third (34%) in N.B. is English-French bilingual. Whereas the rest of Canada is about 10% or below. And, outside of Québec, between 2001 and 2021, bilingualism has decresed in most provinces except for the N.W.T and Yukon. (Source from Stats Can)
This means one thing. Francophones in Canada had no choice but to learn English, mainly for work, as we are in a continent where the vast majority of the countries have English as an official language and it is the most widespread language on the continent. (Source)
Meanwhile, anglophones have the privilege of having as a first language one of the most widespread official language in North America, the most spoken language on the continent and the de-facto language of commerce, the Internet and the most popular culture on Earth. Why should they even bother to learn a second language? Right? That’s what we call a privilege. What I noticed in Québec is that anglophones are very entitled about that privilege. And I think that the fact that Québec is denying them this privilege and really upsets them. They will say it’s discrimination, that they are treated as second-class citizens or that it’s xenophobia. This is equivalent to a white cis male saying they are being discriminated against when a company doesn’t hire them because they use positive discrimination to have more diversity.
And regarding European countries, you’d be surprised how much the majority of people actually DON’T know English. The moment you step outside of Paris, Rome or any other major metropolis or big tourist destinations, you will find out that people don’t speak a lick of English. They’ll know more than one language though, but not necessarily English. One example I can give you is in France, while French is the official language, people also learn and speak Chtimi, Breton Gaelic, Basque, Corsican, Dutch, German, Italian, Creole, all depending on the region. (source) If you try to speak to them in English in those regions, most people won’t understand or won’t be able to respond. I know because I’ve travelled quite a bit in Europe and if I hadn’t taken a language course for the country I was visiting, I would’ve been stuck because they couldn’t understand English at all.
I feel like you and I are on the same page, with a slight variance in opinion 😅
I respect your opinion, it’s quite a common one in Quebec outside of Montreal.
What I’m understanding from your text is that anglophones who grew up in Quebec should just up and leave their home province if they don’t want to, or can’t, learn the French language because the language they always used and were able to converse in for their whole life is no longer acceptable, since they can essentially live anywhere else in Canada / USA.
Personally, I’ve always been of the opinion that Quebec should export their French to other provinces rather than turn itself into an enclave. Make the Canadian east coast French! Hell, make Vermont French! Nothing’s more fun than going to Vermont or Ontario and speaking French with the locals.
We won’t have the opportunity to teach people French if we ban English CEGEPs and universities because the people we could potentially be teaching French to will just go to other provinces and learn no french at all.
But I understand how you feel due to how we were treated historically in Canada, and I too feel that it’s important to teach French to immigrants and kids, but I don’t agree with forcing people to speak French by banning other languages. Official signs should definitely be french-only though.
An aside: France is one of the exceptions I was talking about, they don’t really do English, but most of the countries around it do.
TL;DR: I don’t want Quebec to be known as the province that bans languages, I want Quebec to be known as the province that spreads French far and wide.
If someone who speaks Chinese and only Chinese lives in a country like Germany. Either they are immigrants or children of immigrants who were born there and lived there for their whole life and never learned German for whatever reason. If they can’t integrate into the society, find work and make a living, or can’t get any services in their mother tongue, this person has a serious problem on their hands. What do you expect them to do then?
I don’t wish for people to have to uproot their lives and leave their home because of a language barrier, but let’s be reasonable. If they don’t want to learn French out of stubbornness, disdain or xenophobia (which is often the case, believe it or not) then that’s on them.
The Canadian East Coast is more French that you might think actually. Québec also is the almos single major producer of francophone content in Canada. Why else is Radio Canada (French CBC) having so much success compared to English CBC? We produce a lot of TV series, movies, music, litterature, that is available throughout Canada. Nothing’s stopping people outside of Québec from consuming all this cultural content. Meanwhile French populations are losing ground across the country with every generation. I mean, Franco Ontarians, the second largest francophone population outside Québec, have been fighting tooth and nail to get financing for French schools, they’ve been fighting to get ONE francophone university. They have ONE francophone hospital, Montfort hospital in Ottawa. I would love for French to spread across Canada too, but it seems there is no will from provincial governments to enable this at all. Quite the opposite even.
English CEGEPs aren’t banned, but I get your point and I agree with you there. The whole limit they want to apply to English colleges is stupid.
Anyway, for the record, Québec is not banning any language. They’re not banning anything. It’s still one of the provinces with the most services and accomodations for both languages. There are several school boards, colleges and universityes (Link) several hospitals (see top 7 in the results here) and there are still plenty of employers who will hire unilingual anglophones. Commercial signage is still in both English and French.
At most, the things the bill 96 will do is cause a bit more inconveniences for non-francophones, but that’s about it. Nothing and no one is getting banned.
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Your comment was deleted but I was somehow able to see it in my app?
I’ve read a bit about the bill. As a franco québécois, I agree with the majority of it except on two points. The limit applied to English colleges (cégeps) where they can only allow 17.5% of the overall college students in Québec and the six month limit for new immigrants to communicate in a language other than Franch with the provincial government. Those two points are ridiculous.
Otherwise this bill’s intention is to cement French as the sole official language of the province and define it as the language of its nation, the language of integration and the language that will bond society together and the language of the legal system in Québec. It has several points that require people to learn French sufficiently to be able to fully integrate into the francophone society. I think this is really important for equality and to enable everyone to have the same opportunities in Québec. For far too long francophone québécois have been treated like second class citizens by the anglophone elite up until the 80’s, and even afterwards still required to know English to get pretty much any kind of job in the province from minimal wage jobs to upper management jobs or even to become a supreme court judge in a francophone society.