CHAPTER 1
A great Canadian law
Canada must end because it sanctions, supports, and defends a discriminatory law.
What “great Canadian law” does the title of this chapter refer to?
The province of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language,
[2] also known as Bill 101.
Who said “Bill 101 is a great Canadian law”?
Stéphane Dion, former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Dion says he is
proud to have made the statement and brags of repeating it.
[3]
Tell us about Bill 101.
As it states in the preamble, Bill 101 seeks to make “French the language of
Government and the Law, as well as the normal and everyday language of work,
instruction, communication, commerce and business.” In pursuit of this goal, it
touches on almost all aspects of life in Quebec, both public and private (the
following is not an exhaustive list):
- French is the official language of government, including the legislature and
the courts;
- The right to service in French from the civil administration, health services
and social services, public utilities, professional corporations, and the
associations of employees and all enterprises doing business in Quebec.
- Every person has a right to speak in French in deliberative assembly and
workers have a right to work in French.
- Consumers have a right to be informed and served in French.
- Everyone in Quebec has a right to receive instruction in French.
- French must take prominence in business and commerce in the following areas:
commercial signage, posters, advertising, firm names, contracts, catalogues,
brochures, folders, commercial directories, application forms for employment,
order forms, invoices, receipts and quittances.
- Public education until the end of high school is in French with exceptions
for, primarily, English-speaking Canadians.
- Businesses of a certain size are required to form francization committees in
order to “generalize the use of French.” These workers’ committees must make
sure that management personnel and boards of directors learn French; that French
be the language of work, communication, working documents, communication with
outsiders, and that French terminology, signs posters, advertising be used.
- An entity called the Office québécois de la langue française is created which
has the responsibility to ensure everyone complies with the Act, including
assessing penal penalties for non-compliance.
How do members of Quebec’s minority Anglophone community feel about such a
law?
Bill 101 was passed into law in 1977. Up until at least 1991, public opinion
polls demonstrated an overwhelming opposition to the major components of Bill
101 on the part of Quebec‘s Anglos. A CROP/La Presse/ Tele-Metropole poll of
April 28, 1991 found that of those Anglophones expressing an opinion 89 per cent
“disagreed with the fact that French is the only language of instruction for the
children of immigrants in Quebec.” This was up from 84 per cent of those
surveyed in their 1987 poll. The same 1991 poll showed that 74 per cent of
Anglophones with an opinion “disagreed with the fact that French is the language
of work in Quebec,” up from 69 per cent in 1987. And 90 percent “disagree with
the fact that French is the only official language in Quebec,” up from 88 per
cent in 1987.
As late as 2001, Bill 101 still elicited marked opposition from Anglophones,
most strongly from young people (age 18-24) and females.[4]
Curiously, young people recorded the highest opposition to Bill 101. Considering
that the youth are the most bilingual Quebec Anglophone subgroup, one would
expect the least opposition emanating from them. It appears that the opposite is
true.
By 2007, however, things has apparently changed, at least according to Montreal
Gazette writer Hubert Bauch. Citing a poll conducted by another newspaper, Bauch
wrote that “two thirds of non-francophones” called Bill 101 “a good thing” and
that the law “made no difference to their daily lives.”[5]
Of course, Mr. Bauch didn’t mention how many Anglophones had actually left the
province by then. Bill 101 and its predecessor law, 1974’s Bill 22, are held by
many in the community to be responsible for an exodus of Anglophones out of
Quebec over the past 35 years, perhaps accounting for the discrepancy between
Bauch’s reported findings and the earlier ones.
What are the numbers?
The science of How many anglos have gone down the 401 is not an exacting one.
Variables such as mother tongue, home language, dual languages spoken at home,
etc. muddy the tallying process.
One report from 2001 tells us that “in real numbers, the Anglophone population
has declined about 20% since 1971.”[6]
Here are some facts from Statistics Canada:[7]
Total population of Quebec:
in 1971: 6,027,765
In 2001: 7,237,479
% change: +20.07%
Quebec Anglophone population, mother-tongue:
In 1971: 789,200
In 2001: 591,379
% change: - 25.07%
Extrapolating from the figures above:
Number of Quebec Anglophones in 2001 if they had increased at the same rate as
the total population of Quebec (+20.07%) from 1971 to 2001: 947,585.
What about student enrollment?
In 1970, there were 250,000 students in Quebec’s English-language school system.
This had declined by 57% to 108,000 by 1990 and then risen slightly to 122,834
by 2003.[8] This marked decline, however,
is more a function of changes to eligibility requirements to English schools
rather than reduction in population (more on the eligibility requirements in the
next chapter).
For me, these numbers are not as important as whether individuals are free to
pursue life as they see fit. When it comes to “common language” -- a central
theme of Quebec’s language legislation -- freedom of expression and freedom of
association are the two that are most important.
Language is speech which falls under the freedom of expression guarantees
contained in both Canada’s and Quebec’s charters of rights. The language that
two or more people decide, freely by themselves, to communicate in during the
course of commerce or interpersonal relations falls under freedom of
association. The extent to which these freedoms are infringed by virtue of Bill
101 is the main issue.
You started this chapter by telling us how you feel: “Canada must end because
it sanctions, supports, and defends a discriminatory law.”
In the pages ahead we will examine these issues and I’ll leave it to the reader
to decide for him or herself the extent to which Bill 101 violates human rights
and, if it does, whether such limits are justified.
The reader is also asked to scrutinize the responses and policies of the federal
government towards Bill 101 as well as the voting patterns of Quebec’s
Anglophone community and Canada at large.
At the end of this Why section, you, the reader, will be in a position to assess Stéphane Dion’s observation and ask yourself whether Bill 101 is, indeed, a
great Canadian law.
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