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Speak English where you shouldn’t, and you may face search and seizure without a warrant
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May 11, 2022 • 2 hours ago • 5 minutes reading • 101 comments Quebec Prime Minister Francois Lego, whose government is expected to soon adopt a large-scale extension of French-language mandates in the province. Bill 96 significantly expands the Charter on the French Language, first introduced in 1977 under the much-disputed Bill 101. Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS / Jacques Boissinot
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TOP HISTORY
The Quebec National Assembly is entering the final stages of passing Bill 96, a controversial law that should drastically expand the province’s ability to impose the use of French in both public and private life.
Proponents of the bill called it a critical tool for preserving Quebec as the last French-speaking jurisdiction with a majority in North America. However, indigenous leaders condemned the bill as a “cultural genocide” for imposing French on predominantly English-speaking communities in the province’s first nations. Doctors’ groups warned that “it could endanger people’s lives or have a negative impact on mental health if applied.” And last week, students from a college in Quebec staged a mass rally to protest the restrictions on the English language education bill. Below are some of the more contested aspects of the bill 96.
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Doctors will be forced to address patients in French
With limited exceptions, Bill 96 requires physicians to address their patients in French, even in situations where both the physician and the patient would understand each other better. Some bilingual institutions, such as the Jewish General Hospital, have been exempted. As well as patients who can prove that they have attended an English school in Canada, or immigrants who have arrived in Quebec in the last six months. But for everyone else, everything from being diagnosed with cancer to Alzheimer’s treatment must be done in French.
If a doctor violates the principles of Bill 96, all that is needed is an anonymous complaint to the Office québécois de la langue française so that investigators can enter their office and start seizing records without a warrant, including confidential medical documents. And doctors are not alone in this: many of the provisions described below are similarly supported by the extended search and seizure powers of the Office québécois de la langue française.
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Entire categories of legal contracts will become mandatory for drafting in French
The bill requires a “franchise” of each company with more than 25 employees, which means that companies will have to obtain a government certificate that they operate primarily in French. According to the provincial government, about 20,000 businesses will be covered by the new regulations.
Quebec’s current laws are not particularly enthusiastic about job advertisements, which require proficiency in a non-French language, but allow it in situations where “the nature of the duties requires such knowledge.” Bill 96 takes this a step further and requires employers to take “reasonable measures” to ensure that Nephrenic languages are spoken in the workplace as little as possible.
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According to Bill 96, all “accession treaties” must also be drafted in French, with violators subject to penalties of up to $ 30,000 a day (making liability for non-compliance “almost indeterminate” according to a legal analysis). Any employment or service contract must exist in French form, even if both parties would prefer another language. This also applies to court proceedings.
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First Nations leaders say bill destroys “any hope of reconciliation”
Indigenous communities in Quebec do not usually speak French as a first language. The Iroquois Kahnawake territory outside of Montreal is part of a broader Mohawk council that includes many members in the English-speaking United States. Inuit and Cree communities in the province’s Arctic regions were not even part of Quebec until 1912, and Inuit in particular still retain the widespread use of Inuktitut in the household, with English being the usual second language. For this reason, the leaders of the First Nations have a particular problem with the mandates of Bill 96 on CEGEP, the publicly funded colleges offered to Quebec between high school and university.
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CEGEP English-speaking students will now have to complete at least five French classes to complete it, which First Nations leaders say will reduce the already low indigenous graduation rate. “We declare that this bill, if passed, will never be implemented… and that our people will not accept its application anywhere in their ancestral lands,” said a recent statement from Haudenosaunee Longhouse, the traditional Iroquois government. in Kahnawake.
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English-language schools will now have a firm limit on how many students they can accept
Another provision related to the education of Bill 96 is that CEGEP in English will have quotas from top to bottom on how many students can be admitted. English-language primary and secondary schools are currently offered in Quebec by a select subgroup of what are called “historical Anglophones”; English speakers with established roots in the countryside. New immigrants in Quebec, for example, are now required to study in French, regardless of their mother tongue.
But CEGEP students still have the freedom to choose an English or French school. Bill 96 puts an end to this regime; From now on, the CEGEP English-speaking student will be entitled to represent only 17.5 percent of the total number admitted to CEGEP, a measure condemned by Francophone students who want to refresh their English before studying at an English university in Canada or the United States. .
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One of the lesser-known aspects of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to Ukraine is that he helped present a medal to a dog. The patron of the Jack Russell Terrier is credited with smelling more than 200 explosives since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. Photo by Adam Scotty / Office of the Prime Minister / Distribution via REUTERS) THIS IMAGE IS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY
IN OTHER NEWS
On the eve of the federal investigation into Trudeau’s government’s use of the Emergency Act to repeal the Freedom Convoy, the man who drafted the act told the Canadian Press that the Liberals would be well served to be on the side of transparency. “Trust us is not enough if you want public trust at the end of the day,” said Perrin Beatty, who drafted the 1985 Emergency Situations Act as a replacement for the Military Measures Act. The investigation has indeed been criticized for having a “trust us” atmosphere, and its mandate seems to be intended only to check the actions of the protesters and not the government’s actions to temporarily suspend the civil liberties of these protesters.
The majority of Canadians sincerely support the sending of weapons from Ottawa to Ukraine, and the majority believe that we need to send more. A survey published this week by the Angus Reed Institute found that only 13% of respondents believe that Canada has “too much support” for Ukraine. Meanwhile, 38% believe that Canada should continue to supply arms. While Canada’s military aid to Ukraine is lower than that of the United States and the United Kingdom, since the beginning of the invasion, Ottawa has sent aid equal to about 3.6% of our total defense budget – a ranking that puts us sixth. place among the countries sending aid to Kyiv.
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