Crowd-funded lawsuit focuses on Bill 96’s impact on human rights
Legal challenges argue parts of the bill — the wide-ranging expansion of Quebec language rules — are unconstitutional
Six Quebecers are taking on Bill 96 via a crowd-funded lawsuit — a police dispatcher, an entrepreneur, a retiree, a teacher, the mother of a boy with autism spectrum disorder and a woman with a chronic disease.
The legal challenge was scheduled to be filed at the Montreal courthouse Wednesday morning by the Task Force on Linguistic Policy .
The lawsuit, a draft of which was obtained by the Montreal Gazette, argues parts of Bill 96 — the wideranging expansion of Quebec language rules — are unconstitutional.
“Bill 96 impermissibly creates a new rights order and hierarchy of group rights referred to as collective rights,” the document says.
One way it does this is by setting “the collective right of the Quebec nation in paramountcy to all other rights and freedoms.”
Under Bill 96, “the identity of Quebec’s francophone majority and culture takes precedence over the individual identity, language and culture of Quebec’s non-francophones who are required and obligated to restrain the public expression of their minority identity, language and culture.”
“In an open society, the government has a very, very important role for every individual,” task force president Andrew Caddell said in an interview Tuesday.
“If certain individuals don’t have access to the services they have paid for as taxpayers, then you end up with this society where there are different categories of citizens.
“Among the anglophone, allophone and non-francophone communities, we’ve adapted so much, and gotten accustomed to language laws over the years, that we kind of roll with the punches.
“But this time, with Bill 96, it’s going to be pretty serious; it affects fundamental issues of human rights.”
The task force was founded by Colin Standish before he went on to create the Canadian Party of Quebec, which ran 20 candidates in the October provincial election .
Caddell now leads the task force, which is not affiliated with the Canadian Party of Quebec.
Via its website, the task force says it was formed because “community members recognized that they were being abandoned by the major political parties in Quebec’s legislature and our federal Parliament.”
Bill 96 is part of a determined effort by Premier François Legault to further limit the use of English in Quebec. The Coalition Avenir Québec government argues French must be elevated because it is under threat.
Several lawsuits challenging Bill 96 are already winding their way through the courts, including ones focusing on access to justice and the impact on the English Montreal School Board .
However, the latest case, brought forward by constitutional lawyer Michael Bergman, appears to be the first one financed entirely by donations from the public and the only one focusing on the concrete impact on individual Quebecers.
The task force’s Gofundme page shows almost $27,000 in donations, some as small as $10, others in the thousands.
These are the six individuals behind the lawsuit:
A bilingual Terrebonne man who works as a dispatcher for the Sûreté du Québec says some fellow dispatchers “routinely refused to engage in any conversation with callers in English.” He fears “this practice will become mandatory and that despite his fluency in English and desire to help people in distress, he will be forced to speak with them in French, regardless of their level of comprehension.”
A Nicaraguan immigrant who came to Canada more than 50 years ago, has a bowel disease and says she has been repeatedly denied health services in English on the South Shore. “Increasingly, hospital staff refuse to schedule an appointment for her due to her (limited) French-speaking skills and insist that she communicate with staff in French in order to access health-care services.” Her husband is a francophone and her children were educated in French.
An Irish-born microbiologist whose technology company employs three people in Gatineau wants to expand in Quebec, but says government support services are only available in French. In addition, “it has been exceedingly difficult for the company to attract and retain talent in Quebec, in large part because of Bill 96. More specifically, the requirement that the government communicate with immigrants exclusively in French following a six-month grace period has dissuaded many prospective employees from moving to Quebec.”
A fluently bilingual Laval mother says her 11-year-old son, who has autism spectrum disorder and is unable to communicate in French, was assigned a unilingual francophone social worker and educator. The boy, who sometimes has violent episodes, was also refused care at one psychiatric hospital because he is enrolled in an English school. The mother “fears the turbulence adolescence will bring about if (the boy) is not properly cared for.”
An Eastern Townships elementary school teacher is concerned about “the detrimental impact of Bill 96’s amendments to current laws, in particular with respect to how imposed quotas and limitation of English educational resources stand to impact children in general and children with special needs in particular. Moreover, the English school boards are already severely underfunded, with the continued trend of marginalizing not only English but anglophone culture and community, (and) the scarce resources will inevitably stand to be further diminished.”
An 81-year-old Mansonville retiree, “like many elderly anglophone Quebecers, (worries) that the ability of their local CLSC to continue to serve them in English will be obsolete in the face of the adoption of Bill 96.” His “right to care as well as his freedom of expression in the language he speaks and is understood in are violated by Bill 96’s amendments to laws and regulations in a grossly disproportionate manner.”
Caddell said each of the six people represents many other Quebecers. Other people may be added to the lawsuit later.
“We think of ourselves as being the David versus Goliath,” he said. “We hope to have the same outcome.”
Bill 96 is part of a determined effort by Premier François Legault to further limit the use of English in Quebec.