Too Far or Not Far Enough: Quebec’s New Language Law Leaves Many Displeased

Quebec Premier François Legault responds to the Opposition during question period, at the Legislature in Quebec City, May 12, 2022. The Canadian Press/Jacques Boissinot

News Analysis

The province of Quebec’s National Assembly adopted Bill 96 to protect the French language on May 24. But critics on both sides of the language debate are displeased, with Anglophones considering it a violation of their rights and Quebec separatists saying it doesn’t go far enough.

Bill 96 updates Quebec’s French charter and modifies a number of laws, which will reinforce the use of the French language in education, workplaces, the production of official documents, and how new immigrants will receive services.

The Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) and the Parti Québécois (PQ), who are fundamentally opposed to each other on the core issue of Quebec’s place within Canada, both sided against the governing Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) over the bill, but for very different reasons.

The PQ decried the bill as “soft” and “without aim nor objective” in a May 24 statement.

“It’s sad to see that the CAQ’s federalist wing won the debate on language; and French is going to lose,” said its MNA Pascal Bérubé.

PLQ Leader Dominique Anglade has called the bill divisive and raised concerns in the Assembly surrounding health care accessibility for Anglophones expressed by the province’s college of physicians.

“The text of the bill ... maintains grey zones and raises concerns about the future possibility of patients to speak in the language of their choice with the person providing care,” wrote the Collège des médecins du Québec on May 20.

Quebec Premier François Legault has maintained that the bill doesn’t impact the health care arena, and told those who bring up this issue to “stop talking nonsense.”

Bill 96 states that French is the language of the administration, which public services such as health care fall under, but it says another language than French can be used “when health, public safety or principles of natural justice require it.”

The CAQ has a majority and could have passed the bill unilaterally, but it received support from the left-wing party Québec Solidaire.

A Quebec not-for-profit organization linking English-language groups in Quebec has decried the bill as “the most significant derogation of human rights in the history of Quebec and Canada.”

“Bills of rights protect people from abuse by the state. With the preventive use of notwithstanding clause, this protection is eliminated," said the Quebec Community Groups Network in a May 24 statement.

“The government has created a ‘Charter free zone’, where all citizens have lost their fundamental rights and freedoms in the application of the Charter of the French Language.”

Montreal-based human rights attorney Julius Grey says a group of lawyers intends to challenge the law despite the notwithstanding clause, up to the Supreme Court or international instances if needed.

Quebec also uses the clause for its Bill 21 which prevents the display of religious symbols by public servants in positions of authority.

Not Far Enough

Like the PQ, some nationalist groups and personalities say Bill 96 doesn’t go far enough in protecting the French language, which they see as under attack due to cultural pressures and demographic shifts.

French defence group Impératif Français would have liked to see Bill 96 impose French in colleges (CEGEPs), the education level between high school and university in Quebec, or to implement Bill 101, which restricts access to primary and secondary education in English.

Bill 96 does target CEGEPs indirectly by capping the proportion of students in English-language institutions to 17.5 percent of the overall student population. Statistics Canada says that as of 2016, English was used as the first official language for 13.7 percent of Quebec’s population.

A French proficiency exam will also need to be passed to obtain the CEGEP diploma.

Commentator and author Mathieu Bock-Côté, an influential Quebec intellectual, also says Bill 96 misses the mark by not applying Bill 101 to CEGEPs, and adds it doesn’t address the issue of immigration, which he says is the main cause of English being used increasingly in Montreal.

“The ridiculous reaction of the Anglophone community to Bill 96 demonstrates how many within its ranks do not even want to pretend to respect the principle of a French Quebec. They associate this to ethno-linguistic supremacy. It’s odious,” he wrote in Journal de Montréal on May 24.

After passing Bill 96, the CAQ will be turning its attention to the issue of immigration to wrest more power away from Ottawa to determine who gets to be admitted and settle in Quebec.

With attacks from both sides, Premier Legault qualified Bill 96 as “balanced” and “moderate.”

“On one side there’s a party that says it goes too far. On the other one says it doesn’t go far enough. Hence, we see that the CAQ is in a balanced position,” said Legault on May 25, reported by Le Devoir.