Categories: Canada

Talk amongst yourselves, but en français

Proposed changes would make Quebec’s language laws even more draconian

by Martin Patriquin on Monday, February 7, 2011 10:54am - 55 Comments

By extending Bill 101 to smaller businesses, the PQ is going against the very Péquiste who wrote the law. Its architect, PQ minister Camille Laurin, wrote in 1977: “There is no question of preventing [non-French-speaking] employees from working together in their own language, provided it is understood that they must serve their French customers in French.” In fact, PQ premier René Lévesque worried about OQLF coming down on business owners like Bolduc, as well as on Montreal’s ubiquitous dépanneurs, a huge number of which are owned by non-francophone immigrants.

Curzi says it is time to “update” the law, though he has yet to hash out how the PQ would enforce it—or how much it would cost. Policing Quebec’s smaller businesses, which make up 95 per cent of all businesses registered in the province, would be a significant bureaucratic feat. Already, Quebec “is at the head of the pack in Canada when it comes to regulations” and has the highest per-employee costs in the country, according to Canadian Federation of Independent Business president Martine Hébert. “It would be another reason to get out of the province,” says Kyle Kerr, co-owner of the Bofinger, a Montreal-based chain of BBQ restaurants.

“It could be a nightmare to enforce,” admits Curzi. His solution would be to concentrate OQLF efforts on Montreal’s estimated 48,000 smaller businesses, since most off-island businesses are mostly French-speaking already. “We’re not all crazy all the time, and we aren’t completely stupid,” he says.

Perhaps not. But many Montreal businesses say a return to the bad old days of language laws and “tongue troopers” is just what the province doesn’t need, given the importance of smaller business to the economy. “Why would they even care?” Bolduc says of the PQ initiative. “Even if they enforce it, it won’t change the fact that my bread and butter is English students from McGill.”

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Tags: French language debate, Language laws, Parti Québécois, Quebec

More by Martin Patriquin

jlh

Most of these comments are as short-sighted and self-righteous as those of Pierre Curzi.

I guess it's no surprise, since the more ignorant you are of something, the more you think you understand it.

Pierre Curzi doesn't know anything about how his ends might be met, the merits of his ends put aside…

and most of you don't know anything about Quebec.

Also, Mister Patriquin, Office is a masculin noun, despite ending with an "e". Therefore the "Québecoise" should have no "e" either.
jean poutine

Who really cares if the frogs enforce french only. That means they have to stay in quebece.

And that is a REALLY good thing.
jean poutine

Who cares what a bunch of inbred frogs do, as long as they do it in quebec ?
Leo

Well they shut down the Max, Max, Max commentary so I'll post this here.

If the PQ goes ahead with their plans it will back-fire.

True storey – my Montreal in-law, professional photographer, took stunning photos of the 1976 Olympics. He used the opening and closing shots to produce commercial Christmas cards for businesses to send to clients. Huge success – thousands ordered and printed, ready to go. The Bill 101 police stopped him because on the front of the card, bottom, left corner it said "proud moments" and on the bottom, right corner it said "fiers moments" – the French had to be first!!!! He lost hundreds of thousands as the printer still had to be paid, money refunded to clients, on and on.
s_c_f

How will it backfire? They will eventually win another election, and since they're back to a 2 party system in Quebec, they'll pass the law with their majority, just like they passed Bill 101 and all its successors. Once the law is in place, the xenophobic atmosphere in Quebec will prevent the law from ever discussed, let alone being repealed (as Max has aptly demonstrated).
Leo

On the main media sites that are covering the Max storey, the most popular comment is Bravo Max!! Don't count out the French in Montreal – they still very much want the right to send their kids to English schools – the same as the sepratists founders did.
s_c_f

That may be true, but at the same time, that doesn't change anything I said. People will eventually vote in the PQ, some of them not separatists, as has happened on numerous occasions in the past, in part because there is no other alternative to the Liberals (now that the ADQ is dead). In fact, it looks like this will happen in the next election. They will say to themselves that it's perfectly fine, as they have in the past, that Quebec will not separate. But at the same time, they'll end up with one more in a long line of draconian laws like Bill 101. Do you not believe that a majority in the PQ want this new law? If a majority in the PQ want the new law, Quebec will eventually get the new law.