Quebec's new language law

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I want to briefly describe it, although I mentioned it in another thread in IMHO.

The law basically outlaws the use of English for many purposes, especially in business and government. One of the most outrageous parts of it is that if someone feels wronged by the use of English say by a business, he can make a formal complaint and the tongue troopers can come in and seize papers, cell phones, computers, without a warrant. Here is a general description of the new law: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-96-explained-1.6460764. Here is a an exerpt of the relevant section:

`Under Quebec’s Charter of the French Language, inspectors were already allowed to investigate in those cases, including asking to see documents. However, that power was always limited by the Canadian charter, which protects Canadians from unreasonable search and seizure.

The new law not only gives this power to the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), but since it invokes the notwithstanding clause, it can override basic freedoms guaranteed by the charter.

“Which means that the ministers or the inspectors can do whatever they like in the regards of a seizure, which is against my conception of the rule of law,” said Frédéric Bérard, a professor in constitutional law at the Université de Montréal.

“It’s certainly not a good feeling to see that it’s so easy for those inspectors to go to your place and seize whatever they like without any judicial authorization.”’

2

I never understood that part. Surely Algonquian and Portuguese are right out, too, not just English? I mean that the ostensible nature of official complaints would be the business discriminating against employees who only know French.

3

It seems that Canadian provinces have a lot more independence than even US states do. Does the federal government have any say whatsoever in the matter? Can this law be challenged in court? I thought dual languages were the law in Canada as a whole.

4

And I thought the US was going fascist.

Une différence qui n’est pas une différence ne fait aucune différence.

…

Pardon my French: A difference that isn’t a difference makes no difference.

5

No, Quebec has had its own language laws, which make the use of French mandatory in many situations (or at least preferred over English) for many years.

My family moved out of Quebec way back in 1977 when the first serious laws of this nature were enacted. Even back then, my father could see the writing on the wall.

We moved to Los Angeles. Talk about culture shock!

6

  1. This is discussed in a Coyne article in the thread “Canadian Politics 2022”. It applies to any non-French language, including (as mentioned in the original) Mandarin, and possibly in health care scenarios. Also, if a complainant thinks it might become a problem.

  2. Quebec has its own Charter of Rights and Freedoms which (as few provinces do) emphasizing that privacy is a fundamental right. However, I believe this does not apply to this bill since it also has a notwithstanding clause.

  3. Quebec should be allowed to conduct its own affairs, but not conduct its own Constitutional changes. I disagree with this bill and think Trudeau should speak up even though he does not want to, being le p’tit gars de Papineau.

7

What does the law say about bilingual documents? If any document has the same text in French and English side-by-side, is that good enough?

8

As I said in the other thread, I suspected that the comment you had made was about Bill 96. TBH, this bill goes a lot further than I had thought after briefly reading about it, but as the article says, it remains to be seen how many of its provisions are going to be enforced. The idea that the Language Police will, Gestapo-like, raid businesses and arbitrarily seize computers and cellphones and the like sounds a bit far-fetched. OTOH, the Language Police have surprised many before with their unthinking zealous extremism.

No question that this is an absolutely terrible piece of legislation, a new low in Quebec’s ever-increasing language extremism. It’s the broadest application yet of the ill-advised “notwithstanding” clause to bypass the Constitution, a clause that exists only because Quebec alone demanded it.

Beginning in the 1970s, Quebec has had several periods of major business exodus prompted by its franco-cultural extremism, and I predict this will precipitate another one. At one time Montreal was a more populous and more prosperous city than Toronto. That status has now been reversed, and the decline of Quebec continues to accelerate as it moves ever closer to being a third-world shit-hole. I imagine that the worse things get, the more the extremist francophones will hate the rest of Canada and the USA, and blame “les maudit anglais” for all their troubles.

As a Canadian, this greatly saddens me. But on the bright side, from a purely selfish point of view, the good news is that much of the exodus of wealth, talent, and jobs will gravitate to Ontario. Despite all the linguistic nazification, Quebec (mainly Montreal) still has significant businesses in the areas of aviation, pharmaceuticals, and digital technology. And when Quebec finally does turn into a fascist third-world shit-hole, they are welcome to separate, so that the federal government can stop throwing money at them in the form of equalization transfer payments and the rest of us can prosper as a unified nation.

If it’s any indication, Quebec documents like birth certificates and driver’s licenses have been issued in French only for years now. This has real practical implications. The US government, for instance, will not accept documents written in French for official purposes without a court-approved official translation, which isn’t cheap. Last I saw, Quebec claimed that documents like birth certificates are available in English by special request, but there was no way that anybody could find to make that request.

9

Surely an extremist francophile would in fact blame les maudits anglais? :wink:

Once I was in France, and the French government would not accept documents not written in French for official purposes without an official translation.

Surely the controversy is about unconstitutional breaches of privacy? Who cares what language is written on a driver’s license?

What people do care about, though, is being able to speak the language of their choice at home and in their community, including primary school classes, cultural events, and so on, without governmental interference.

10

Quebec is fighting language shift. Given the sheer heft of anglophone North America, there is no question that French will erode and eventually disappear if not firmly protected. In that sense, I think they’re right to have a law with teeth.

That said, their threat is from English, not any other language, and largely because of English-language educational and employment opportunities on the one hand and English media on the other. So any time spent fighting Mandarin, Portuguese, etc., is just foolish and / or racist—especially the Indigenous languages.

Six months isn’t an unreasonable deadline to achieve basic functionality in a language, particularly if people are given some help to achieve this functionality. Nor is the requirement that higher education be conducted in the provincial language: that’s the case in the rest of Canada with English, isn’t it?

The only part that really troubles me is the enforcement, with raids by the language police, and the general punitive tone. The government is going to bolster its main language, and fail to promote the others, and that’s reasonable enough, but in Canada the Indigenous languages need to have even MORE promotion and protection, rather than less, and I’m not keen on attacking the languages of immigrant and historical minorities.

11

Only if you start with the assumption that the erosion of French is a problem to begin with.

12

Six months of intensive immersion might put someone into a position in which they could go to a Montreal McDonald’s and “commander une Big Mac puis une chocolat shake” but IME, not much more. I know because I’ve seen and experienced it during a career in the Canadian military, with a Franco roommate for my first year at RMC, French classes daily for four years at RMC, three different two-month French courses at BFC St Jean, and a three year posting to Montreal.

Apparently, according to a language aptitude test early in my career, I also have a strong aptitude for learning languages. I also enjoy practicing its use even now, during my second time in Montreal. And all of that is on top of 12 years of French classes in public and high school.

Here’s the thing - I can bumble through a conversation in French with a server in a restaurant or with co-workers but without a significant and deliberate effort of listening to French language media for an hour or so every night for some time, or joining a French only social club, I will never be at a point where I can be functionally useful in French at work, or able to genuinely socialize in French only, unless the Francos in the group speak deliberately slowly for a while. However, had I been born and raised in a post Bill 101 Montreal it would be a completely different story, as I see daily.

13

It must be said that Quebec is a French speaking province. It is and to live in Quebec one should speak the French language. How Quebec politicians use the state to ensure and enshrine this into law is something that might seem authoritative to the ROC simply because linguistic integration of English is done quite effectively through non-legal means.

That said, there are problems in fearing that French is in danger in Quebec. Francophones in Quebec are not under the same demographic pressures that Francophones in the ROC are. I do believe that this fear and these laws will hurt Quebec economically.

14

Linguistically, it’s neutral.
Politically, the majority of Quebec’s population, and their status as a significant minority of Canada’s population in at times an uneasy union, suggests that it’s a problem.

Personally, having kept French as a spoken language there for a few hundred years, I don’t see why we can’t keep it going. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people to either learn the language of the place they live, or resign themselves to workarounds. It’s what we expect in the English-speaking areas. Where I draw the line is chasing people down and punishing them for not speaking French on their own time.

For a lot of people (tourist-facing businesses, for example), it is in their economic self-interest to use English at work. This will contribute to the erosion of French in that domain, at least, and might spill over. I can see why the government is concerned, though I don’t think shooting themselves in the foot (or shooting their own non-Francophone people) is the best solution.

15

It depends. My aunt lived in Montreal for 50 years and never learned a word of French. She wasn’t even that good in English, for that matter, having a thick Hungarian accent all her life.

16

Isn’t this a separate issue?

I mean, I don’t know how it is in Montreal (please tell) but I had to work in Paris for a couple of years. French was spoken by colleagues both in and out of the office, some of the staff did not know a word of English, certainly not enough for even a basic conversation, business was conducted in French only, if you go to a bar or club or party guess in what language people are chatting, etc. If one is not “functionally useful” in French at work, they are going to have a big, big problem. Analogous experience in other countries with other languages, too. However, in none of these cases was my experience due to the “language police” (as far as I know; certainly countries like France as well as others have a notorious past history of repressing minority languages, which should not be swept under the rug).

ETA What is the latest situation in eg Ireland? They obviously have a historical problem with English. Are there laws excluding you from most jobs if you cannot demonstrate basic fluency in Irish? Similar question concerning, e.g., Estonia. Belgium has also had notorious language wars.

17

This depends on the business’ clientele. I work in a large Montreal-based multinational which deals with numerous businesses overseas and, regardless of the nationality, the language used is English. So consequently, most meetings occur in English at work, the subject matter of our work is in English, and the provincial government thinks that that is a terrible thing.

A year or two ago the a survey was conducted in which a number of businesses were asked if a knowledge of English was a requirement for their business. A fairly sizable percentage (for some reason I recall 60% but that may not be accurate at all) responded that it was. The provincial government was, of course, horrified.

Unfortunately, what people outside of Quebec may not realize is that there are two Quebecs - there’s Montreal, the cosmopolitan and diverse business-centric part of the province, and then there’s the province, which is generally insular and, well, provincial, somewhat xenophobic with a large population who have been bamboozled into thinking that the English population is a threat to their culture. That, btw, is about as accurate as saying that Prince Edward Island is a threat to Russia. Many of the province’s recent language laws are based on ignorance and fear. Yes, there was a time when Anglos ruled the province and its business, but that time is long gone.

(And, as an interesting side note, in the Canadian military, most Francophones have to become sufficiently bilingual to deal with NATO doctrine and training).

18

I’m sure that’s the case in many situations, that if you can’t function in language X you’re going to have a problem. But I think what Velomont was actually talking about is that six months is not a reasonable deadline to achieve functionality in a new language. And it really isn’t - in fact, I know people who grew up bilingual who took longer than six months to become functional at work in their non-preferred language. They had spoken that language mainly at home, and therefore didn’t have the vocabulary needed to be functional at work.

19

This will certainly be a problem if you are working in retail or other service industries. One of the interesting cultural things that developed in Montreal was the use, by store employees of “bonjour-hi” as a greeting. As it happens there’s a fair number of Anglos in Montreal and a ton of English speaking tourists so, on the island of Montreal, this is a thing that developed over the years. And the provincial government has actually wasted tax dollars and time trying to eradicate this evil cancer.

From Oct 2019 Quebec won't make a law to crack down on 'bonjour/hi' | CBC News "The Quebec government says it has no plans to introduce legislation to force businesses to greet customers in French only, instead of with the “bonjour/hi” used in many Montreal stores.

Immigration Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, who is also responsible for the protection of the French language, said Monday he will not use “repressive measures” to curb the bilingual greeting.

But Jolin-Barrette said he is still looking at ways to encourage the use of “bonjour” through other means, such as public awareness campaigns."

And in 2020 the Federal Bloc Quebecois stupidly suggested, for Christmas, replacing “Bonjour Hi” with “Bonjour Ho”, not really grasping how that would go over with female customers (seeming to be called a “ho”). Bloc Québécois wants to replace Bonjour-Hi with Bonjour-Ho | Montreal Gazette

This, unfortunately, is the endless shit that the provincial government focuses on. A couple of posts up I mentioned that I work in a large multinational which does almost all of its work in English, because of our clients. Yet, to satisfy the petty insecurities of these people, I’m supposed to be using the French version of my work computer’s operating system. I tend to be more of a menu guy than a mouse guy, so I could theoretically waste a shitload of time trying to find stuff in Word that I otherwise could find immediately in English.

I honestly would not be bothered by this stuff if it was functionally accurate and true, but it’s not. I would not be able to get a job in retail or in a restaurant, and I’m fine with that. But if all our customers, regardless of whether they’re in France, UAE, the UK or Germany, or wherever, do business in English, then the province should keep their fucking noses out of it.

20

Come to think of it, isn’t English the primary language used in hospitals in Quebec? I’d hate to be treated by a medical team who are only permitted to communicate with each other using first-semester language skills.