[lg policy] Quebec businesses cut off from service in English

[Harold Schiffman]

  Quebec businesses cut off from service in English Provincial government
rolls out new language policy
 Posted on 1/10/2014 5:00:00 AM by Angelica
Montgomery<http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/author/angelica-montgomery>

 Pauline Marois
Angelica Montgomery/CJAD

The provincial government is telling all its ministries and agencies to not
communicate in English with businesses or organizations established in
Quebec.

The policy is still in the roll-out phase, though some government bodies
have already adopted it.

"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.

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.

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.

"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."

"No wonder people are upset and discouraged and feel disenfranchised," she
says.

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.

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.

Attempts to obtain a comment from the language minister's office were not
successful.

However, Christine St-Pierre, who was in that office when the policy was
first launched, says her government was reacting to complaints.

"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.

*Roll-out*

Ministries and organizations have been told to re-write their own internal
language policies to reflect the government directive.

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.

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.

*SAAQ*

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.

The SAAQ says this is to ensure consistency since not all of their
employees speak English.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

*Piecemeal*

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.

"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.
http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/2014/01/10/exclusive-quebec-businesses-cut-off-from-service-in-english


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