Anglos resent and regret Bill 101, but it has an upside
Bill 101 — the most loaded term in the anglo-Quebec vocabulary, along with its cousin “referendum.”
Bill 101 turns 40 this summer, but few anglos will be singing Bonne Fête and many will mourn.
For decades the law aggravated, infuriated, exhausted and entertained us with its legal lunacies. Anglos resent and regret it, yet so do some sovereignists — because Bill 101 brought unpredictable consequences, even to those who created it.
The “Charter” was fathered by Camille Laurin, a psychiatrist with dyed black hair who claimed we anglos needed “shock therapy” en français. The “language doctor” became our favourite villain, eventually replaced by language minister Louise Beaudoin, who Aislin famously dressed as a dominatrix with a whip.
Bill 101 provoked black humour by English journalists, as our tongue-troopers roamed Quebec — arresting apostrophes, tape-measuring English letters and occasionally sparking global headlines.
There was the Chinatown Affair, where zealous inspectors wanted Chinese words translated into French. Journalists everywhere had fun re-naming Chinese dishes, so “egg foo young” became oeuf fou jeune — while “chow mein” became chow Boul. St-Laurent.
There was Pastagate, where inspectors wanted Italian francisized on Italian menus — so presumably fettuccine carbonara would become fête Charbonneau.
There were endless battles over the language of Stop signs — Arrêt or Stop? — that literally stopped when “Stop” turned out to be a French word in France.
Bill 101 aggravated me — but also changed me, because it invented the Anglo People.
Before 101, we were just English-speaking Quebecers, but afterward we became exotic anglophones, allophones and xylophones. Laurin was practically the father of our people.
In the early ’80s, several of us Montreal writers co-wrote The Anglo Guide to Survival in Quebec, about a “previously unknown minority, forgotten by the world.”
“It’s not easy being a Quebec anglo,” it began. “French-Quebecers think you’re as passionate as a snow tire, wine stewards automatically bring you the worst vintage.
“You can’t even go out for a quart of milk without worrying your kids will move to Toronto.”
Our problem was Ontario’s gift as hundreds of thousands fled 101 on the 401, bringing head offices, smoked meat and our anglo “joy of living” to Toronto.
Torontonians joked that René Lévesque was the best premier Ontario ever had. Yet there have been unexpected upsides to the sign law, too, though I’ll probably be hanged for saying it.
Sign language tensions have greatly eased and rarely cause much public fuss on either side. Montreal has a French Look — it should as North America’s only French-speaking metropolis. I’m glad to see bigger companies finally taking part, like Café Starbucks and Les Cafés Second Cup.
Meanwhile many francophone-owned shops have lightened up with signs like Le Pool Room, L’Eggs and Boutique WebMaster. Plenty of older anglos still bristle at all-French signs, but younger bilingual anglos hardly notice them — a sign of the times.
Bill 101’s lasting big problem is in the school system, where it forbids any immigrants from attending English classes.
It’s wreaked havoc on our schools, denying them fresh blood. But it also pushed once-unilingual anglos to send their kids to French schools, or immersion — where they became comfortably bilingue.
Our son went to French grade school and came home saying things like “Dad, I want a dodo,” (that’s a nap, though I thought it was a bird).
Today his anglo friends say things like: “Hey — passe-moé le Château Dépanneur.”
Bill 101 brought other changes that would make Laurin choke on his poutine.
It brought floods of immigrants to French schools, changing them into multicultural melting pots. I hear Chinese and East-Indian kids speaking joual like car mechanics — though they often speak English, too, in a city where being trilingual is becoming routine.
Bill 101 wounded our anglo community — but it also hurt the PQ, which lost two narrow referendums. That’s partly because a new generation of post-Bill 101 francophones felt more confident in a French Quebec — and saw no need to separate.
I think Bill 101 accidentally saved Canada.
It may also be killing the PQ, which finds sovereignty increasingly impossible to sell. Young francophones don’t understand the complaints of their parents’ generation — and are eager to embrace, not resist English.
Anglophones and francophones get along well — and many young anglos barely know what Bill 101 is.
At a recent Bill 101 conference, anglo reps said they’re now appealing to the Couillard government to let American English-speaking kids into our anglo schools. Keep your fingers crossed.
Ultimately Bill 101 badly hurt us, but also changed and re-created us. Somehow, it’s left social peace between language communities in Quebec, in a world moving the other way.
If our anglo community can survive and thrive, by the 75th anniversary of Bill 101, we may be lucky enough to have no idea what it was.
Meanwhile, if you want to hang me, envoyez vos messages à:
Before 101, we were just English-speaking Quebecers, but afterward we became exotic anglophones, allophones and xylophones.