In an editorial taking a broad view of the federal Action Plan for Official Languages announced last week, Robert Dutrisac of Le Devoir takes note of the response of the Quebec Community Groups Network with regard to federal funding levels.
Ottawa, April 26, 2023 – The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) welcomes the Government
of Canada’s new Action Plan for Official Languages 2023–2028: Protection-Promotion-Collaboration, launched today by Official Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor, accompanied by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The Prime Minister made special mention of the federal government’s continuing leadership role in protecting Quebec’s English-speaking communities: “We firmly believe that it is both possible and necessary to do more to protect the French language in Canada, including in Quebec; that the Government of Canada must continue to play a leadership role in protecting official language minority communities across Canada, including Quebec’s English-speaking communities; and that a coherent, coordinated, whole-of-government approach can foster collaboration, particularly with the provincial and territorial governments, to ensure broad support for the vitality of our two official languages.”
Reaction from anglo groups was swift and negative, with a warning that Ottawa must not cede any responsibility for official languages to the provinces.
QUEBEC — The Coalition Avenir Québec government has sparked an angry reaction from Quebec’s English-speaking community over its vision of reforms to Canada’s Official Languages Act.
“This is a non-starter,” said Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) president Marlene Jennings.
“Quebec is attempting to territorialize language by demanding that the government of Quebec have sole jurisdiction for linguistic planning and control on its territory and displacing federal leadership on the protection of Canada’s official language communities,” Jennings said.
As language tensions heat up, it will be important not to lose sight of our community’s strategic interests.
Raymond Théberge, Canada’s commissioner of official languages, has aptly described English-speaking Quebecers as “a young minority.” By that, he is not referring to the community’s history, which is a long one, but to its lack of what he called “social infrastructure capacity” and mature organizations devoted to advancing the community’s interests and assuring its future, relative to what is seen in francophone minority communities in the rest of Canada.
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
Supreme Court judges will hear from minority languages communities today in the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique v. British Columbia case. While the case is about language education rights for French speakers in British Columbia, the QCGN is showing solidarity with Francophone minority organizations in calling for a broad and generous interpretation of Section 23 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. QCGN will be participating in the hearings, with President Geoffrey Chambers explaining that the goal “is to remind the court that this article concerns English-speaking and French-language minorities and explains why the management and control of minority language instruction is equally important in the context of Quebec.”
Read article (In French only)
Read QCGN’s legal factum on the Supreme Court of Canada case of Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique v. British Columbia, at
Winnipeg – September 25, 2019 – Section 23 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms –which guarantees minority language educational rights to French-speaking communities outside Quebec and to the English-speaking minority within Quebec – requires a generous and expansive interpretation that favours all official language minorities throughout Canada.
This is what the lawyerfor the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) will plead Thursday as the Supreme Court of Canada hears arguments in the case of Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique v. British Columbia, at proceedings taking place in Winnipeg, Man.
“The QCGN is showing solidarity with Francophone minority organizations in calling for a broad and generous interpretation of Section 23,” QCGN President Geoffrey Chambers declared. “We aim to remind the court that this section applies to English-speaking as well as French-speaking minorities and explain why management and control of minority-language education is equally important in the Quebec context.”
Read More
Organizations which represent the three largest official language minority communities in the country want their issues to be at the forefront during the upcoming federal elections. For the first time, the Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario (AFO), the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), and the Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick (SANB) have signed an agreement to work together.
Read more (In French)
Quebec’s quiet certitudes were troubled on the morning of August 23 when the Québec Solidaire party published on its website the following sentence: “English is an official language of Quebec and Canada.” Horrors!
The consternation was compounded when the party’s co-spokesperson, Manon Massé, repeated the heresy, in English, in a tweet, and then, after launching the party’s election campaign that afternoon before the press, she replied, in French, to a reporter’s question: “Currently, because we are still in Canada, English is an official language in Quebec. What I’m saying is that Québec Solidaire is a sovereignist party, pro-independence, which, in its first mandate, will launch the process of Quebec’s independence and, in that Quebec, for Québec Solidaire, French is the official language.”
The QCGN is funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.
