The federal Action Plan funds destined to assist Anglophones in Quebec should be utilized for French-language instruction of the English-speaking community, said Quebec’s minister of the French language, Jean-François Roberge, to reporters in a scrum this morning.
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Par Taylor C. Noakes, journaliste indépendant et historien public
Nous avons passé presque toute l’année en pensant éviter notre tradition annuelle : cette fameuse crise linguistique existentielle. Mais la nouvelle était trop bouleversante pour être ignorée. Quelqu’un a dit « hi » dans un magasin de la rue Sainte-Catherine ! En un clin d’œil, 43 ans de progrès de la loi 101 se sont évaporés. Pouf ! Les Anglais sont de retour. Nous sommes condamnés.
Pour aggraver les choses, une jeune femme passionnée de politique a osé demander, au commissaire des langues officielles, des informations statistiques… sur les langues officielles du pays. Pire encore, elle a fait cette demande inconcevable lors d’une réunion du comité linguistique parlementaire!
November 24, 2020 – Quebec’s Minister Responsible for the French Language, Simon Jolin-Barrette, announced on Tuesday a plan to table a bill aimed at strengthening French in the province.
“Quebec was born in French, and it will stay French,” Jolin-Barrette said at a news conference on Tuesday. Read more
November 24, 2020 – The Coalition Avenir Québec government will soon make changes to Quebec’s French language charter. Simon Jolin-Barrette announced that he will table legislation to modify Bill 101 early in the new year. But as Gobal’s Raquel Fletcher reports, he has revealed few details of what that plan will actually look like, which is causing some anxiety in the English community. Read more
Our community has the Constitutional right to manage and control our schools. The Coalition Avenir Québec government has taken this right away from our English-speaking community – and together we must fight to take back this fundamental right. All nine of our English school boards along with the Quebec English School Boards Association have launched a legal challenge to quash Bill 40. This controversial legislation abolishes our democratically elected school boards and transforms them into government-controlled service centres. Our legal action declares that this upheaval of our education system contravenes our linguistic minority community’s right to manage and control our school system. This foundational right, under Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, guarantees education in one of Canada’s two official languages. It is an essential element of linguistic duality, a cornerstone of our national identity. It took French parents in British Columbia five years to win another case that solidified minority-language education rights. Just like our West Coast counterparts, we are in this for the long haul. This is bound to be a long and costly fight. Please consider making a contribution to the Go Fund Me campaign to support this legal action to defend the Constitutional rights of Quebec’s English-speaking community and advance the minority-language rights of all Canadians. Any donation, big or small, is appreciated – but most importantly a large number of donors will unequivocally demonstrate to our governments that we believe in our rights and we will fight to protect them. Please contribute what you can and help us get the news out by sharing this appeal extensively throughout your networks.
Rather than picking fights with our community, we urge the Legault government to alter course, work with us, and cease defining us as a problem, writes QCGN President Geoffrey Chambers in this opinion piece for The Gazette. Chambers argues that today’s English-speaking community is invested in Quebec. We have encouraged and enabled our children to develop French-language skills. We accept and celebrate the predominance of French as the linguistic and cultural norm here. We don’t see ourselves, our language, or our culture as something bad that must be suppressed. Our community’s bilingualism is an asset to be celebrated — as multilingualism is applauded in any European country. Read more
English-speaking Quebecers and other linguistic minority groups would be more open than French-speaking Quebecers when it comes to religious minorities according to a new Léger poll. More broadly, it highlights the presence of a clear linguistic divide on issues relating to secularism.
Read more (In French only)
The stakes are high as Quebec’s first-ever televised English-language provincial leaders debate is coming up on September 17. Joanne and Elias are joined on the BT Panel by Harold Staviss, lawyer & language activist; Geoffrey Chambers, president of the Quebec Community Groups Network; and Christopher Curtis, reporter from the Montreal Gazette.
The Quebec government continues to reach out to anglophones. Quebec Finance minister Carlos Leitao will be meeting with them on Wednesday ahead of his next budget.
As part of consultations preparing for the budget, he’s holding a private meeting with several anglo groups at McGill University seeking feedback on how Quebec should spend money.
Par Michaël Nguyen, Journal de Montréal
Après toutes les discussions sur la place du français et de l’anglais dans l’affichage, des patients de l’Hôtel-Dieu ont été étonnés de constater qu’une affiche les prévient maintenant du temps d’attente aléatoire au centre de prélèvement dans les trois langues, l’espagnol s’étant ajouté aux deux langues officielles.
« Il est clair que nous ne rendons pas service aux Québécois issus de l’immigration en ne leur demandant pas d’adopter la langue commune », a réagi par courriel le député péquiste Yves-François Blanchet, porte-parole de l’opposition officielle en matière d’immigration, communautés culturelles et langues.
The QCGN is funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.
