The ‘kind-of’ success of 101
The problems Bill 101 were designed to solve four decades ago have not been solved. On this, many Quebecers of various linguistic backgrounds can agree.
For anglophone francophiles like this one, completely comfortable with the reality of a francophone Quebec, the solution lies not in continuing to marginalize minority languages — the position held by language hawks marking the anniversary by pushing for heavier speech policing — but in adopting modern, sciencebased strategies to ensure the long-term vitality of Quebec’s French character.
Has Bill 101 worked? The most generous of retrospectives would suggest “kind of.”
Much of the retrospection of the nationalist political class on the Charter of the French Language can be summed up thus: Bill 101 was a historic advancement for francophones, the French language remains seriously imperilled and only strengthening existing polices will reverse the course.
Clearly there are lingering logical fallacies regarding this most sensitive of issues.
Certain measures in the law remain as necessary today as they were in 1977: the right to work, be educated and receive public services in French. The broad strokes outlining the province’s French character mostly make sense. The devil, however, is in the details.
There are, of course, the infamous language inspectors, front-line tongue troopers in what the late 60 Minutes TV correspondent Morley Safer once lampooned as a “war of words.”
The linguistic xenophobia expressed by parts of Quebec’s political class is not comparable to the overt racism of the U.S. Republican party’s staunchest nationalists. Proposing, however, even in the reddest of red states, to outlaw Spanish signage that didn’t feature English “predominantly” would be almost universally condemned as aggressive, discriminatory and counterproductive.
Bill 101 exhaustively outlines exemptions for the historic anglophone and Indigenous communities but not for minority communities deemed less historic, creating at least three distinct classes of citizens on matters of language.
As millennials champion diversity and human rights, codifying privileges for certain citizens over others based on ethnicity is problematic for any western democratic government.
Other ineffective aspects to Bill 101 that haven’t aged well relate to education: immigrants being forced into French schools when all schools should teach French adequately, and disempowering francophone children by barring them from English schools. Miscellaneous convoluted regulations are meant to reassure the francophone majority while assuaging Quebec’s larger minority groups.
The result is at best only incremental advancement for the French language and the perpetuation of societal divisions. Quebec’s massive educational infrastructure could easily allow for all children to graduate high school fluent in French, along with a second or third language based on regional considerations.
In this respect, Quebec’s language infrastructure doesn’t come close to living up to the ambitions of Quebecers, more anglo-friendly than their nationalist leaders.
The most fervent proponents of Bill 101 would have Quebecers believe the long-term vitality of French can only be strengthened through the diminishment of languages seen as competing. There is no reason the precariousness of the French language in North America, a highly debatable facet to these deliberations, should trump basic, universal rights to free expression.
The competition thesis is longstanding fiction codified by Bill 101.
The application of the Notwithstanding Clause has shut down debate on the charter’s legality but it can’t make Quebec language policing relevant in modernity. Isolating Quebec francophones is now impossible when every citizen has instant access to unlimited multilingual content on mobile devices, something Bill 101’s authors could not have foreseen.
It might not be under this government or the next, but eventually Quebec will have to update the charter so every word is in line with democratic values.
The most effective method of strengthening a language is to empower those who teach it. The xenophobic restrictions and divisions outlined by parts of Bill 101 might feel like standard operating procedure to Quebecers but, 40 years later, there is no evidence to suggest these measures are most effective.