Canada: Quebec language activists target phone menu system

[Harold Schiffman]

Que. language activists target phone menu system
Updated Fri. Nov. 9 2007 10:14 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Quebec's language activists are targeting the telephone menu systems
of provincial and municipal offices. They don't like the fact that
people who phone into government offices are given the option of
linking to an English menu before they hear French instructions. The
head of the Mouvement Montreal francais says asking for an English
option to come at the end of government messages isn't radical. French
language activists say all they want is for the government and its
departments to live up to the province's language policy.

The province's language watchdog recently distributed a pamphlet
reminding government officials that the provincial policy is to have
the English language option for phone services at the end of the
French message. "The first language is French, and I want to keep the
French language of Quebec," Michel Morin, a French language activist,
told CTV Montreal. He and other activists have been bunkered down in a
call centre, calling government and municipal offices demanding
changes. Some activists say that having any English on voice messages
implies that anglophones are first class citizens.

Lobbyists for minority rights in Quebec say they find the entire
debate ridiculous.
"These guys have got way too much time on their hands,'' anglo-rights
lawyer Brent Tyler told the Canadian Press. "They must be scraping the
bottom of the barrel for things to complain about if that's what
they're coming up with.'' Minority rights groups in the province say
they are being increasingly marginalized, and English is in danger of
disappearing in Quebec.

Lately, anglophones in the province have been on edge. Last month,
Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois proposed a new Quebec
citizenship bill, which would submit new arrivals to language testing.
It would also make French a prerequisite for running in local and
provincial elections, including school boards.
Montreal Canadiens captain Saku Koivu was also criticized last month
after a speaker at a commission looking into the province's reasonable
accommodation debate said the NHL star didn't speak French, despite
having lived in the province for a dozen years.


Allen Nutik of Affiliation Quebec, an anglo-rights party, says it's
time for anglophones to stand up and fight back. He told CTV Montreal
that the recent attacks on the English language are no accident. "They
want us gone. If don't go, they can't win the next referendum." But
Beaulieu said it's French -- not English -- that is under assault. He
says that's why his group has teamed up with another hardline language
group, Imperatif francais, in the campaign to provide French before
English on the phone. "It's urgent because French is declining in
Montreal,'' he said, according to CP. "For us it's a crucial question,
it allows the integration of newcomers to Quebec's common culture."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071109/Quebec_language_071109/20071109?hub=Canada
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