Canada: Quebec's language hawks are back

[Harold Schiffman]

Quebec's language hawks are back
 TheStar.com - Ideas - Quebec's language hawks are back


All of Quebec's political parties are hewing to a harder line on
language and identity, so if there remains a semblance of societal
balance on Bill 101, the equilibrium is shifting to a more militant
consensus, writes Sean Gordon. What happens next Parti Québécois
National Council meets in February to discuss party policy, including
language. The National Assembly will consider an Action démocratique
request for a legislature committee hearing on proposed reforms to
religious education in publicly funded schools in Quebec. The assembly
will also vote on a proposal to amend the provincial Charter of Rights
and Freedoms. In March, the provincial Liberals will hold a policy
convention.

A provincial budget in April could well provoke an election. The
tabling of recommendations in early spring by the Bouchard-Taylor
commission on reasonable accommodations. If the `reasonable
accommodation' hearings revealed anything, it's that sovereignists are
cannily shelving their dreams of separation in favour of a newly
muscular brand of linguistic and cultural nationalism

December 15, 2007

MONTREAL – In March 2005, the Supreme Court scrutinized the meat of
Quebec's iconic language law for the first time in more than a decade
and in a pair of rulings upheld the legal basis for Bill 101. But the
justices did loosen one requirement relating to access to
English-language instruction – a technical change that affects about
150 families – prompting a minor outcry from language hawks.
Former Parti Québécois premier Bernard Landry, by then relegated to
the opposition benches, accused Canada's top court of erpetrating "an
erosion" of Bill 101, adding "it's one erosion too many." When asked
at a news conference whether the judgment could upset a fragile truce
over language laws, Landry grudgingly allowed that the answer was no.
"(The judgment) could be, for the time being, not important," he said.

The story quickly faded from Quebec's front pages, but Landry was
prescient with his assessment of "for the time being."

Two years later, language laws are very important again.

Indeed, "linguistic peace," one of the main political buzzwords of the
last 15 years in Quebec, has effectively been consigned to the
rhetorical slagheap.

All of Quebec's political parties are hewing to a harder line on
language and identity, so if there remains a semblance of societal
balance on Bill 101, the equilibrium is shifting to a more militant
consensus.

The evolving dynamic and preoccupation with identity politics
foreshadow a language showdown that could have wide-ranging effects on
the politics of this province – and, by extension, the country.

The Bouchard-Taylor commission on "reasonable accommodations" of
religious and cultural minorities this week drew to a close after
nearly four months of hearings.

There's a sense of fatigue surrounding the commission – on one day
this week, only 11 spectators turned up – but there's no denying the
indelible impression it has left after thousands of witnesses and
blanket media coverage.

The cultural and linguistic insecurities displayed during much of the
testimony – the commission has morphed into a forum on identity – have
had a direct impact on Quebec's political agenda.

With an election widely expected next year, there is considerable
jostling in the National Assembly.

Two recent polls suggest the sovereignist Parti Québécois, relegated
to third place in Quebec's minority legislature after last spring's
election, have become the odds-on favourite to form the next
government.

The Action démocratique du Quebec, which rode to official opposition
status largely on a wave of discontent over "reasonable
accommodations" of minorities, is receding fast after an uneven fall,
and Premier Jean Charest's minority Liberals remain deeply unpopular
among Francophone voters despite a recent resurgence.

The PQ this fall issued a proposal to institute a Quebec citizenship,
where voting rights are at least partially tied to one's ability to
pass a French test. Now activists within the sovereignist PQ have
served notice they will push for a further radicalization of the
party's language policy, which will be addressed at a party conference
early next year. This week the ADQ signalled their intention to revive
the debate over religious education in public schools, arguing
Quebec's identity is rooted in Catholic teachings.

Similarly, the Quebec Liberals this week proposed an amendment to the
provincial Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to assert equality of
the sexes as a bedrock principle; the opposition parties have
signalled they will seek to include primacy of French and secular
institutions.

The Liberals also floated a plan to make newcomers to Quebec sign a
nebulous "moral commitment" to uphold Quebec values.

Federally, the willingness to protect French and bolster Quebec's
identity has also returned as a major point of political
differentiation.

The Bloc Québécois is demanding that Ottawa allow federally-regulated
companies to be subjected to Bill 101, saying that Prime Minister
Stephen Harper's recognition of the Québécois as a nation implies that
he must now step forward to protect that nation.

Last week's release of census data on language only added fuel to the
mounting existential dread that's pervaded Quebec's Francophone polity
for the past year.

Regardless of the finding that immigrants are demonstrably more likely
to adopt the majority language and the fact that more people in Quebec
speak French than ever before, the attention in French-speaking Quebec
has focused on the revelation that mother-tongue francophones are now
a minority on the island of Montreal and represent fewer than 80 per
cent of the population for the first time in 75 years.

Beyond the to and fro between the language wars' glass-half-empty and
half-full factions, there are very real political consequences to the
perception – right or wrong – that French is under attack

The key to the PQ's renaissance is the election of a new leader,
Pauline Marois, who has put talk of a sovereignty referendum on the
back burner to concentrate on identity and language.

If the political class decided the issue of language should be
relegated to the background in the aftermath of the divisive battles
of the early 1990s, the population has decided to bring it back to the
fore.

The best illustration is Marois' proposed citizenship bill, widely
criticized by political opponents and branded unconstitutional by the
commentariat. Two recent polls have now confirmed that a broad
majority of Francophone Quebecers – who decide elections – strongly
support the bill's aim.

Jean-François Lisée, a Université de Montreal researcher who advised
Marois on her citizenship plan, said the current debate is a natural
extension of debates in Europe and Britain concerning the integration
of minorities.

"Everyone is putting more insistence on newcomers gaining knowledge of
the language of the land," he said. "In all cases, they are also
insistent about the values component. Some values are non-negotiable.
In Quebec it's French, secular institutions, equality of women and
respect of a cultural and historical patrimony."

But how did Quebec get here? What has provoked the province's
existential angst? The answer is complex, but many have pointed to a
sunny day in late July 2006, when the Supreme Court overturned a
Montreal school board's blanket ban on carrying Sikh ceremonial
daggers.

The ruling prompted strong reactions in Quebec and three months later,
the right-leaning ADQ, by then grasping at straws to revive its
sagging popularity, found the theme that has provoked a minor
political revolution.

In November of that year, the populist tabloid Journal de Montreal
plastered a photo of ADQ Leader Mario Dumont under the headline "Ca
n'a plus de bon sens" ("This no longer makes any sense.")

Dumont was reacting to a Montreal public health clinic's decision to
institute a women-only pre-natal class after requests from Muslims,
Sikhs and Hindus.

Two weeks before, Le Soleil's headline on a column about the ADQ was:
"Mario is sunk." The furore over "reasonable accommodations" had
provided a life buoy to Dumont.

The unrelenting media focus on "reasonable accommodations" over the
last year has breathed new life into an old form of nationalism; It's
once again fashionable to speak of Quebec's dominant linguistic
community as nous (us).

Indeed, Lisée's most recent book bears the pronoun as its title.

"The flames haven't reached the house. But we're in a drought, so we
need to put some water on the walls to avoid the fire," he said.

http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/285422
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