Quebec and Language Laws

From Good Friday's Globe and Mail

March 21, 2008 at 5:52 AM EDT

QUEBEC -- The Quebec government yesterday rejected calls to toughen its language laws and proposed instead to use persuasion and voluntary compliance to promote French in the province.

Culture and Communications Minister Christine St-Pierre announced a $12-million, two-year plan aimed at merchants, especially companies with fewer than 50 employees, to encourage the use of French. Under the French Language Charter known as Bill 101, only companies with 50 employees or more are required to use French in the workplace.

The province will hire 20 more language inspectors, launch a promotional campaign, organize a summit with business leaders, offer financial assistance to companies and unions to improve French in the workplace and promote the use of French-language computer keyboards and software.

Rather than using coercion, the government plans to rely on the goodwill of merchants and small employers to protect, promote and enhance the French language, especially in Montreal, where Quebeckers of French stock now make up less than half the population.

We will not change Bill 101, Ms. St-Pierre said. I'm not in favour of coercive measures. We want to work in partnership using measures that will convince and help businesses to improve French.

The opposition parties called the government's package disconnected and ridiculous, noting that even Liberal Party members had called for tougher fines and penalties for non-compliance with Bill 101.

Half of immigrants still work in English, said Opposition Leader Mario Dumont. You need to set targets ... so that if they aren't met you can use other measures.

Parti Qubcois Leader Pauline Marois referred to recent studies showing a decline in the French language in Montreal. The action plan can only be qualified as ridiculous, she said.

The opposition parties also said it was unacceptable that four of Quebec's nine English-language school boards decided to use public funds to fight Bill 101 before the Supreme Court of Canada.

The boards joined a group of parents challenging a 2002 move to close a loophole in the bill that allowed children of immigrants and French-language parents who attended a non-subsidized private English-language school for one year to enroll in a publicly funded English-language school. The law allows only children whose mother or father attended an English-language school in Canada to attend an English-language school in Quebec.

James Morton

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