When all else fails, pick a fight with les anglais
Reopening language issue bad idea, Tom Mulcair says.
For those of us who've been through the ups and downs of Quebec language laws over the past few decades, the news that the provincial government of Premier François Legault wants to reopen the language file has been met with disbelief.
We are living in a period of exceptional language peace. Blessed are the peacemakers: those who sought mutual understanding, built bridges between linguistic groups and participated positively in making French our common language in Quebec.
It's not helpful that the corrosive justice minister, Simon Jolin-Barrette, is spearheading the task. Based on little objective research, the government has decided that French is in danger, especially in Montreal. The next steps are as predictable as they will be unproductive.
Jolin-Barrette, of course, is the author of Quebec's shameful Bill 21, which openly discriminates against Muslim women. His time as immigration minister was disastrous. He's a political boutefeu whose lack of depth in his files was revealed early when he was excoriated by an expert in immigration law in a parliamentary committee. He was as arrogant as he was ill-informed, and Legault had no choice but to eventually pull him from the file.
Sending him to Justice and giving him the language file was vintage Legault, who is no stranger to goring the Anglo ox, as former official languages commissioner Graham Fraser has pointed out. If you're going to provoke a fight, might as well be with les anglais.
I've spent a large part of my career working on the language front. Several years at the Conseil de la langue française and at Alliance Québec taught me the importance of knowing the legal, demographic and political subtleties of the issue. My time as a commissioner on the Commission d'appel sur la langue d'enseignement opened my eyes to the fact that individual lives and families were directly affected by a file
Come armed with patience, and don't take the bait.
that too often seemed purely political.
The two language ministers I've worked under, Camille Laurin and Claude Ryan, couldn't have been more different in their politics, but they had one thing in common: They were brilliant scholars of the complexities of the language issue. This is not a file that can be shaped productively by a blunt instrument like Jolin-Barrette.
Legault's baseless affirmation that Quebec Anglos get their news from CNN reflects his 1960s view of the English-speaking community. Young Quebec Anglos are the most bilingual generation in our history. Much of these oldguard ethnic and religious reflexes of the CAQ are anathema to young Québécois, whatever their backgrounds. But that won't stop Legault from using this as a way to distract from his performance during the COVID -19 pandemic.
A word to the wise: Come armed with patience and don't take the bait. There will be a draft bill and there will be hearings. There will be hand-wringing, sketchy studies and some emoting. Stick to the facts. Some proposals won't make it out of the starting blocks, but that's not the point. It's all about Legault positioning himself with his nationalist base without annoying the business sector.
Other ideas that have been floated deserve a good airing. One area where positive change could come is with regard to the language rights of employees of federally regulated businesses. Employers are quick to point out that several large banks, for example, already follow Bill
101 with regard to their relations with Quebec employees. That's great, but it doesn't create a right for employees of other companies. There is no valid reason why an employee working in Quebec cannot have the right to get his or her written communications from the employer in French. A nuanced approach on this issue will be helpful in more ways than one.
Tom Mulcair, a former leader of the federal NDP, served as minister of the environment in the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest.