Opinion: go back to the drawing board with Bill 96

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Heading into a new legislative session, after Tuesday’s “reboot”, Prime Minister François Legault and his government of the Avenir Québec Coalition should rethink the deeply flawed approach they have outlined with Bill 96.

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A common theme emerged during a well-attended parallel consultation organized by the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) and subsequent National Assembly committee hearings: There is a striking absence of evidence that Bill 96 could or could do something to improve the protection and promotion of French. The downside fact: Bill 96 would largely fail, by any measure, to bring us significantly closer to its stated goal.

Various voices have nailed the bill’s many central shortcomings: Bill 96 would seriously undermine Quebec’s economic vitality and prospects. It would compromise the independence of our judiciary. It would ignore long-standing individual rights and freedoms with draconian measures, including introducing warrantless search and seizure rights for language law enforcers.

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The CAQ is scheduled to run a feel-good ad campaign until Christmas. This political marketing approach cannot mask the flaws inherent in the bill.

Michel Kelly-Gagnon, president and CEO of the Montreal Economic Institute, warned that Bill 96 could cause major companies to reduce their presence in the province: “Our flagship Quebec companies doing business abroad will have, at least, therefore, an incentive to base some of its most vital operations outside the province, “he warned in an open Montreal Gazette. “It’s as if the government’s right hand doesn’t know what its left hand is doing.”

Bill 96 would paralyze the principle of judicial independence noted the Quebec Bar Association. It would also harm the timely delivery of justice by undermining language protections that have long helped sustain our framework of peace, order, and good governance under the Constitution. “It is important to ensure that the linguistic rights of the majority do not infringe on the rights of the individual ”, underlined Philippe-André Tessier, president of the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse.

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The preventive invocation of the clause would nevertheless constitute the most radical nullification in the history of Quebec and Canada of the guarantees that govern our human rights and freedoms. For many months, the QCGN has been asking Simon Jolin-Barrette, the minister responsible for the French language: Why does the protection of the French language require the total suspension of human rights? Our conclusion, now, fortunately, also increasingly understood and expressed by others, is that this is not the case.

During the National Assembly hearings, some MNAs tried, repeatedly, to combine reasoned and well-founded criticism of Bill 96 with hostility towards the Charter of the French Language and efforts to promote French as our common language. This is a false narrative.

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As the Quebec Association of English School Councils noted: “We were the pioneers of French immersion, bilingual programs and now what we call Français Plus. We ensure success in French for all of our students and prepare them to live and work in Quebec with pride ”.

Bill 96 would severely limit the availability of services in English. Requires the government to use only French in written communications, except in specific situations. One of the exceptions is for so-called “historical Anglophones”, those who received English education in Quebec or elsewhere in Canada. This could deprive between 300,000 and 500,000 English-speaking Quebecers of services in their own language in critical areas such as health and social services. Being forced to provide proof of eligibility for health care in English would be hateful in a liberal and democratic society.

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The QCGN is pleased that many more Quebecers have begun to realize the unnecessary and counterproductive fragmentation of Québec society that the divisive approach taken to date by the CWC would allow and encourage.

We ask the prime minister to return to the drawing board. Together, we can chart a better course. We urge you to step back and unite Quebecers to identify challenges, separate myths from realities, and most importantly, build consensus on the best way forward to properly promote French in and for our Quebec.

Marlene Jennings is president of the Quebec Network of Community Groups.