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<h2 id="ctl00_MainTop_GenericControl8_uc951d66daad574dd5ab305aa6867a98a7_lblArticleHeadline" class=""> Quebec businesses cut off from service in English</h2>
<h3 id="ctl00_MainTop_GenericControl8_uc951d66daad574dd5ab305aa6867a98a7_lblSubheadline" class="">Provincial government rolls out new language policy</h3>
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<span id="ctl00_MainTop_GenericControl8_uc951d66daad574dd5ab305aa6867a98a7_lblPostedOn" class="">1/10/2014 5:00:00 AM</span>
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<span id="ctl00_MainTop_GenericControl8_uc951d66daad574dd5ab305aa6867a98a7_lblAuthorName"><a href="http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/author/angelica-montgomery" class="" target="_blank">Angelica Montgomery</a></span>
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<div id="ctl00_MainTop_GenericControl8_uc951d66daad574dd5ab305aa6867a98a7_ucPrimaryMediaTop_lblPrimaryMediaCaption" class="">Pauline Marois</div>
<div id="ctl00_MainTop_GenericControl8_uc951d66daad574dd5ab305aa6867a98a7_ucPrimaryMediaTop_lblPrimaryMediaAttribution" class="">Angelica Montgomery/CJAD</div>
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<p>The provincial government is telling all its ministries
and agencies to not communicate in English with businesses or
organizations established in Quebec.</p>
<p>The policy is still in the roll-out phase, though some government bodies have already adopted it.</p>
<p>"The administration is to use French exclusively with institutions
and businesses established in Quebec," says the 2011 provincial policy
paper that the Charest government used to first launch the initiative.</p>
<p>The province's old policy, written in 1996, said the government could
respond to companies in English if they were first addressed in that
language.</p>
<p>It also once said that meetings with Quebec-based organizations
should "generally" take place in French. The new policy says meetings
must take place in French.</p>
<p>"I'm hoping that we would have been consulted on this policy," says
Sylvia Martin-Laforge, says the director general the Quebec Community
Groups Network (QCGN), the umbrella group representing English
organizations across the province. "They should not be doing this behind
closed doors."</p>
<p>"No wonder people are upset and discouraged and feel disenfranchised," she says.</p>
<p>While it is difficult to measure how many small businesses or
self-employed Anglophones will be effected by the move, hundreds of
small companies are listed with CEDEC, an organization that focuses on
supporting English-speaking entrepreneurs.</p>
<p>The province's new language policy also includes a number of other
measures. For example, it tells the administration that it should avoid
translating the entirety of government websites into English.</p>
<p>Attempts to obtain a comment from the language minister's office were not successful.</p>
<p>However, Christine St-Pierre, who was in that office when the policy
was first launched, says her government was reacting to complaints.</p>
<p>"They [businesses] have to contact the government in French and they
have to communicate with the government in French if they want to do
business with the government," she says.</p>
<p><strong>Roll-out</strong></p>
<p>Ministries and organizations have been told to re-write their own
internal language policies to reflect the government directive.</p>
<p>Many, such as the Medicare board (RAMQ), Revenue Quebec and Service
Quebec, told CJAD they have not yet finalized their revisions, though
some of the provincial policies may have already been put into practice.</p>
<p>The Justice Ministry says its old policy remains unchanged: companies
who correspond in English can still get a response in that language. A
spokesperson says the ministry has re-read its former language policy
and believes its practices already fall in line with the provincial
directive.</p>
<p><strong>SAAQ</strong></p>
<p>The SAAQ, in the meantime, has added to the provincial order. The
auto insurance board's new guidelines say questions or comments they
receive in English on social media should only be answered in French.</p>
<p>The SAAQ says this is to ensure consistency since not all of their employees speak English.</p>
<p>Quebec-based businesses will not have access to English-language SAAQ
forms anymore, and any forms that go to companies outside of Quebec
must be stamped with "for companies without a Quebec address" to ensure
that Quebec businesses do not use them.</p>
<p>The new SAAQ policy also says safety campaigns and information for
compensating accident victims must be in French when distributed to
hospitals and schoolboards, as well as other ministries and
organizations.</p>
<p>An SAAQ representative says these two institutions are given as
examples and it is just a coincidence that they have counterparts that
work closely with the English-speaking community. Individuals can still
receive English information, it says.</p>
<p>The auto-insurance board's new policy also says that people who have
been in Quebec for more than three years can no longer complete their
written drivers tests in a language other than English or French.</p>
<p>Although none of these provisions are specifically set-out in the
province-wide framework, spokesperson Mario Vaillancourt says they do
fall in line with it: "We adopted it according to the services we have."</p>
<p><strong>Piecemeal</strong></p>
<p>The Quebec Community Groups Network says the fact that government
bodies do not appear to be applying the province's directives in a
consistent way is also a deep concern.</p>
<p>"How would you know that one cranky civil servant is not giving
service because he or she doesn't want to give service or that its the
policy of that ministry?" says Martin-Laforge.</p>
<a href="http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/2014/01/10/exclusive-quebec-businesses-cut-off-from-service-in-english">http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/2014/01/10/exclusive-quebec-businesses-cut-off-from-service-in-english</a><br>
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