A young woman who requested to do her driver’s test in English was denied by a branch of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec, with employees claiming that the test would be administered in French under Bill 96. “People are unsure of their rights and how to prove their rights and about the individual applications in these situations,” says QCGN President Eva Ludvig.
Under Bill 96, we can expect to see more incidents like that of Susan Starkey, who was hung up on by the RAMQ for asking to converse in English, says QCGN President Eva Ludvig.
“He made me feel like a second-class citizen.” West Island resident Susan Starkey speaks about her phone call with a RAMQ employee who, despite being bilingual, hung up on her after she asked to communicate in English. QCGN Director General Sylvia Martin-Laforge says that the passage of Bill 96 will lead to such egregious incidents.
“[François Legault] promised that health care services wouldn’t be impacted by Bill 96.” MNAs Gregory Kelley and Madwa-Nika Cadet voice their indignation over a 75-year-old West-Island woman being hung up on by the RAMQ due to her lack of knowledge of French. The QCGN voiced its discontent of the RAMQ’s conduct on Twitter.
The Townshippers’ Association will meet with elected officials to express its concerns about Bill 96, rather than organize protests about the language legislation, says Townshipppers’ President Don Warholtz. The approach taken by groups like the QCGN and the Task Force on Linguistic Policy “is a little bit different than us,” he adds.
Under Bill 96, the family of a man who passed away 14 years ago is required to pay $100 for the death certificate to be officially translated into French. “There are so many elements in Bill 96 that are so invasive, so ridiculous, so unnecessary that we knew as time went on and things started being implemented that we would see the absurdity,” says QCGN President Eva Ludvig.
Pontiac Journal editorial writer Fred Ryan asks, “Does C-13 actually modify Canada’s constitution — without going through the constitutional process of national consent?” He continues, “If the QCGN interpretation is accurate, then it seems, to a layman, that the federal Liberal government has allowed a serious end-run around constitutional guarantees by strengthening Quebec’s Bill 96.”
“Once in each generation, it seems, Quebec’s English-speaking community faces a period of intense stress and strain over language,” writes QCGN President Eva Ludvig in an op-ed for the Montreal Gazette. She lays out the challenges that lie ahead for Quebec’s English-speaking community, which include Bills 23, 15, 40, C-13, “[a]nd of course, the continued grinding implementation of Bill 96.”
Commentator Robert Libman takes note of the forceful pushback by the Quebec Community Groups Network, among many others, on the embedding of the Quebec Charter of the French Language –as buttressed by Bill 96 – in the new Official Languages Act under study at the Senate.
The Quebec Community Groups Network called on senators to work to remove the controversial references to Quebec’s Bill 101 within the federal Bill C-13 during their time before the senate committee studying the proposed language legislation on Monday. “We remain deeply concerned about the effects of Bill C-13 on the English-speaking community of Quebec and on the increased asymmetry with respect to Quebec in Canada’s federation,” said QCGN President Eva Ludvig.
The QCGN is funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.
