The federal government appears to be sleep-walking past a ticking constitutional timebomb to avoid provoking Premier François Legault, all the while ignoring whatever perilous consequences its current approach might entail, write Eva Ludvig and Joan Fraser, QCGN president and board member, respectively.
Premier Legault’s recent Twitter outburst “should not deter the Trudeau government from seeking a Supreme Court of Canada ruling on the notwithstanding clause,” writes Joan Fraser, a former senator and editor in chief of the Montreal Gazette, as well as current QCGN board member.
The QCGN calls for all mention of the Charter of the French Language to be removed from the federal Bill C-13. Former Senator and QCGN Board Member Joan Fraser says that the bill’s acknowledgment of the charter, recently amended by Bill 96, “would be explicitly declaring federal support for this use of the notwithstanding clause to trample on the minority language rights of English-speaking Quebecers.”
The fundamental changes to the Official Languages Act proposed by Bill C-13 will have profound effects on the language rights of a great many Canadians, writes Eva Ludvig, QCGN interim president, along with Joan Fraser, former senator and member of the QCGN’s Executive Committee: “It’s time to stop, get back to basics, and return to the consensus achieved by the people the Official Languages Act affects the most.”
Ontario MP Pierre Poilievre is the only candidate in the Conservative leadership race to stay mum on Quebec’s controversial new language law, Bill 96.
The law’s consequence to the federal government (touching on official languages and the Constitution) mean “these are not minor questions that nobody really cares about,” said Joan Fraser, a retired Liberal senator and former editor-in-chief of the Montreal Gazette who sits on the board of the Quebec Community Groups Network, which opposes Bill 96.
The Quebec government has secured the largest expansion of its language laws in more than 40 years, imposing new rules to reinforce the use of French in the public service, education and business despite bitter opposition from the province’s English-speaking minority.
“The mood now in the English-speaking community is quite bleak,” said Joan Fraser, a former senator and Montreal Gazette editor who now sits on the board of the Quebec Community Groups Network, an anglo advocacy group.
Retired Senator and former journalist Joan Fraser has for decades been one of the most insightful observers of Quebec politics. So, when Fraser says that Quebec’s English-speaking population is angry like never before, one must take the situation seriously. “We feel abandoned,” she told me this week. “For 50 years, we have been told that we have to adapt to the changes in Quebec society. But we get the feeling that it’s never enough, that each time we adapt, the goal posts are moved.” This perception is correct.
“It’s downright asymmetrical,” says Joan Fraser, a QCGN Board member and former senator, on the recently-tabled Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act: “It only talks about promoting and protecting the use of French within private companies in Quebec. There is no word on the protection of members of the [Anglophone] linguistic community in Quebec.”
The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) is disappointed with the bill presented by Ms. Petitpas Taylor.
According to the organization, it deplores what it analyzes as an abandonment of the principle of symmetry in the Act between minority Francophones and Anglophones.
We are creating a dangerous precedent, not only for us, but also for Francophones in other provinces
, says Joan Fraser, former senator and member of the QCGN’s board of directors.
The federal government plans to set a target to bring more francophone immigrants to Canada as part of a drive to revive and protect French in the country.
Joan Fraser, a board member of the Quebec Community Groups Network, said the proposed law focuses heavily on protecting French within Quebec, and the French-speaking minority in the rest of Canada, and not enough on the English-speaking minority within Quebec.
The QCGN is funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.
