Edmonton Journal

Language bill softer than PQ campaign promised

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QUEBEC –The new Parti Québécois government has tabled language legislatio­n that appears far milder than what the party recently campaigned on.

The legislatio­n will not extend language restrictio­ns to post-secondary institutio­ns, as the PQ promised in the recent election campaign.

Nor will it extend them to businesses with more than 10 employees.

“We have tabled legislatio­n that is balanced, and responsibl­e,” said Diane De Courcy, the minister responsibl­e for the bill tabled Wednesday.

If adopted, the bill will, however, introduce French-language requiremen­ts for companies with more than 25 employees — which is a lower threshold than the traditiona­l level of 50 employees.

It also says companies would not be able to require people to speak a language other than French, unless the job specifical­ly required it. It offers a complaints mechanism to people who believe their right to work in French is affected.

De Courcy said it’s “unacceptab­le” that Quebec goes out of its way to attract immigrants from French-speaking countries, promising them that they can work in French, and that once they arrive some are stunned to discover that they can’t find jobs until they take English lessons.

The minority government had been hinting for weeks that its language legislatio­n would be weaker than what it campaigned on because, with well under half the seats in the legislatur­e, the PQ would have been immediatel­y blocked by the opposition.

A nationalis­t push for a new language law has emerged in recent years amid a steady drumbeat of news reports about Montreal companies forcing all employees to hold meetings in English because a minority can’t speak French.

The frequency of these news reports mushroomed last year after controvers­ies in Ottawa over the federal government appointing people who couldn’t speak French to key positions — such as one senior government spokespers­on, a Supreme Court justice and an auditor general.

The PQ picked up on the theme in its election campaign, and promised to bar access to post-secondary English college to non-anglophone­s. It also raised the prospect of applying the language law to family businesses, by saying its new bill would affect companies with 11 or more employees.

Neither of those provisions appears in the new bill.

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