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The final vote was 78 in favor and 29 against.
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May 24, 2022 • 53 minutes ago • 4 minutes reading • 18 comments Quebec Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrett, in charge of the French language, presents a law to change the language law, Thursday, May 13, 2021 in the legislature in Quebec City. Photo by Jacques Boissino / Canadian Press
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QUEBEC – Criticized by both sides of the language division, Bill 96, which revises the Charter on the French Language, was formally passed by the National Assembly on Tuesday.
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A year after the government of the Avenir Québec Coalition introduced extensive and controversial legislation, the MNA voted Tuesday in favor of the bill. It looks at almost every aspect of Quebec’s daily life: from who has access to English CEGEP, the language of the workplace and even the name of the election ride.
And Bill 96 includes the built-in use of the independence clause of the Constitution, which takes precedence over individual rights, to protect it from endless judicial challenges, which opponents promise anyway.
The final vote was 78 in favor and 29 against.
The votes “for” came from the ruling CAQ plus the solidarity MNA of Quebec. QS supported the bill despite its own reservations on many elements of the 201-member bill.
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As announced two months ago, the liberal MNA voted against the bill, as did those from the Parti Québécois. PQ abstained from announcing how they would vote until the last minute.
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However, the Liberals and the PQ opposed the bill for very different reasons. While liberals say Bill 96 goes too far and tramples on minority rights, PQ says it doesn’t go far enough to protect the French.
The vote is not exactly what the French minister, Simon Jolin-Barrett, had hoped for. At the beginning of the one-year adoption process, Jolin-Barrett proposed a unanimous vote on the bill to show that all politicians care about the future of the French language.
But Jolin-Barrett, who described the bill as “Quebec’s pride”, managed to avoid using closure to pass it.
As a way to limit the legislative debate, the CAQ uses the closure of two of its other controversial pieces of legislation, Bill 21 on state secularism and Bill 9 on the revision of the immigration system.
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The minister quickly tried to make political points from the PQ decision.
“PQ is allied with the Liberal Party of Quebec,” Jolin-Barrett said after learning that PQ would oppose the bill. “I no longer recognize PQ. They abandon the French language for purely party calculations.
“Quebecers know that the only political party they can count on to defend the French language is the CAQ. We showed it. “
PQ, however, was not ready to play with the ball.
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“We can’t justify anything that is the least misleading,” PQ leader Paul St. Pierre Plamondon told reporters at a news conference. “This bill will not reverse the decline of the French language in Quebec, and we are proposing much stricter measures that would.
“For PQ MNAs, it’s a matter of moral duty.”
“Bill 96 is not a worthy continuation of PQ Bill 101, passed in 1977,” added PQ language critic Pascal Berube. “In 1974, the PQ MNA voted against Bill 22 (introduced by the Liberals) because it was an unstable compromise instead of the measures needed for our language to face the challenges it faces.
“In 2022, the CAQ (Coalition Avenir Québec) will make the same mistake. He lacks the courage to take on the challenge. We can only conclude that the federalist wing of the CAQ has won the language debate (within the party). The French lose. “
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The message is not so surprising. From the very beginning, Berube expressed dissatisfaction with the bill. The main advantage of PQ in the bill is that the government has not chosen to extend the rules of the French Charter to the CEGEP system.
If this happens, allophones and francophones will not be allowed to attend.
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The Quebec Solidarity voted with the government, even if it had some reservations about the bill, and has tried several times in recent weeks to force the government to extend the six-month period during which newcomers can receive services in a language other than French.
Bill 96 sets a six-month limit for the period.
“There has been some progress (for the French), but there are other things that could be done,” said QS spokesman Gabriel Nado-Dubois, adding that if the QS took power after the October 3 election, it would make the clause ineffective. .
“We will correct them, but the good things are still there,” said Nado-Dubois.
Jolin-Barrett and Prime Minister Francois Lego are due to hold a press conference later Tuesday to answer questions about the new bill, which is expected to receive royal approval from the lieutenant governor soon.
The government took a year after passing the bill to present new language policy directives to all government ministries and agencies. These directives will determine the specifics of the application of the law.
pauthier@postmedia.com
twitter.com/philipauthier
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Breakdown of key points of the bill 96
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Hannes: After the divisive debate on Bill 96, what happens to the Anglophones in Quebec next?
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