The QCGN is profoundly disappointed that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages has allowed references to Quebec’s Charter of the French Language to remain in proposed new federal language legislation to amend Canada’s Official Languages Act, reads an open letter from the QCGN in the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph.
At the House Committee on Official Languages’ meeting on Jan, 31, 2023, a Bloc Québécois motion to insert “French as the common language of Quebec” into Canada’s Official Languages Act (OLA) was defeated. A majority of MPs on the committee studying Bill C-13, which would amend the OLA were uncomfortable with the concept of a ‘common language’ being contained in Canadian legislation.
The QCGN does not support the use of the term “common language”, which was used in Bill 96 to unilaterally amend the Constitution Act, 1867.
“This is a major setback for the rights of English-speaking Quebecers,” says QCGN President Eva Ludvig of the recognition of the Charter of the French Language within Bill C-13. The Standing Committee on Official Languages had rejected proposals from Liberal committee members to remove reference to the Charter in C-13, while proposals by the Bloc Québécois to further entrench the Charter into the Official Languages Act were adopted.
The Liberal proposal to remove mention of the Charter of the French Language from Bill C-13 was shut down in committee by opposition parties on Friday. “Despite the best efforts of many Liberal MPs led by Anthony Housefather, Patricia Lattanzio, and Marc Garneau, it is clear to us that the deck is stacked against English-speaking Quebec,” reads a statement from QCGN President Eva Ludvig.
The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) is profoundly disappointed that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages has allowed references to Quebec’s Charter of the French Language to remain in proposed new federal language legislation to amend Canada’s Official Languages Act.
With the dramatic changes proposed to the federal Official Languages Act, the language rights of the English-speaking community in Quebec are currently being treated with disdain by both the federal government and the majority francophone community in the province, Sylvia Martin-Laforge, director general of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), tells ONfr. Geneviève Tellier, a University of Ottawa political scientist, takes a different tack.
Today, Minister Petitpas Taylor’s Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act, to enact the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act and to make related amendments to other Acts, was tabled in the House of Commons. Like its predecessor C-32, an Act for the Substantive Equality of French and English and the Strengthening of the Official Languages Act, that died on the order paper before the last election, the new legislation contains some positive measures. However, it must also be acknowledged that in several areas the federal government has abandoned 50 years of commitment to the national vision of linguistic duality and equality in federal law between our official languages from sea to sea to sea.
After more than a half-century of rising and falling tensions between Quebecers over the use of English and French, concerns are rising among stakeholders that some rights and protections Quebec anglophones fought for since the introduction of Bill 101 more than 40 years ago are threatened by Quebec’s proposed Bill 96 and changes to Ottawa’s Official Languages Act.
The Quebec Community Groups Network recognizes the federal bill tabled this morning in the House of Commons to amend the Official Languages Act for what it is – a clear attack on the equality of Canada’s official languages.
Traditionally, the Official Languages Act has given life to constitutional official language rights. These rights define much of the relationship between Canadians and our federal government. The Act has been grounded on the principle that English and French are equal in law.
“It is no longer a question of modernizing the Official Languages Act. We have returned to the negotiation of the partnership between French and English in Canada,” QCGN President Marlene Jennings says of Bill 96 before the Senate Committee of Official Languages.
Jennings comments that the Trudeau government is proposing to “territorialize language rights by crushing the vision of linguistic duality in our country.”
The QCGN is funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.
