Quebec: Which Minority?
Jenson, Jane
Any report from Quebec requires that the reporter disclose where she stands in this complex political field. The very notion of being in a "minority" depends on one's standpoint. For example, I...
...Yet it has opened a breach into • This French word has been incorporated into Quebec English to describe the process by which institutions increase their capacity to provide services to their workers and clients in French...
...The rest of Canada still must come to terms with the situation...
...The alternative is to behave like a minority in Quebec and insist on the protection of language rights, as well as cultural recognition, not only in the present but in any future independent Quebec...
...One set of measures was designed to make French the language of choice in the immigrantreceiving society that Quebec is...
...In effect, partition-talk forced them to confront their willingness to comply with a democratic decision that would leave them no longer part of the anglophone majority in Canada but simply a minority within Quebec...
...Assuring a Democratic Future Nonetheless, the specter of partition did force many to confront basic principles...
...Only Aboriginal peoples living in Quebec have thus far been able to gain broad pan-Canadian support for a strong (if not watertight) claim to split their territory from an independent Quebec, so as to remain with Canada...
...The danger is, of course, that such threats and tough talk might simply rile Quebeckers, causing support for sovereignty to climb...
...Although the platform of the sovereignist party, the Parti quebecois, pledges to repeal the 1993 law, the PQ government elected in 1994 has done nothing to reverse it...
...The debate is about the right of the French-speaking majority of Quebec to affirm its commitment to its own language and culture, a commitment that inevitably confines it to minority status in North America...
...Their situation is complex and legitimate enough to merit separate full treatment...
...In January 1996, Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and the newly appointed Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stephan Dion declared that "if Canada is divisible, so is Quebec...
...q 46 • DISSENT...
...Obviously, the policy of funneling virtually all immigrants into French schools and the substantial exodus of AngloQuebeckers from the province means that the population base of the schools is shrinking...
...Some simply wished to send a strong message about the need for Canada to recognize francophone Quebeckers as a people...
...In Montreal, with the largest concentration of anglophones, the comparable figures are 36 percent to 26 percent...
...One could think and behave like a member of a majority, thereby choosing to focus on opposition to sovereignty and its high costs...
...He does not ask them to abandon their support for federalism...
...This type of destabilization is also evident in other domains...
...The charter sought to protect French by promoting, and even compelling, its use...
...Although a referendum vote for sovereignty would clearly indicate that they had become a political minority, they are Quebeckers...
...Nonetheless, I have equally relevant minority identities...
...In 1977, the central goal declared in the Charter of the French Language was to make French the public language (longue commune) of Quebeckers...
...We Quebeckers are also a minority within Canada, residents of one of its ten provinces...
...He became leader of the Parti quebecois and premier as the popular replacement (his current approval rating is higher than 70 percent) of the discredited Jacques Parizeau, who angrily blamed the referendum defeat on "money and the ethnic vote...
...The law originally required unilingually French commercial and other signs...
...And losers in the next referendum will have to argue their case in the court of international public opinion if they seek to delegitimate the democratic credentials of a majority vote or if they try to convince the federal government to protect their "partitioned homelands...
...It clearly diverged from the model of official bilingualism promoted by the government of Canada in the 1970s...
...This question obviously evoked matters of identity...
...For an excellent overview see the report of the Interministerial Committee on the Situation of the French Language, Le francais...
...One strategy involves asserting that only a majority substantially larger than 50 percent plus one is sufficient to legitimate separation...
...Federal strategists were totally unprepared for the strength of popular support for the idea that Quebec should form a "partnership" with Canada, around shared institutions, a common currency, and the like...
...As a third-generation Anglo-Quebecker I am a member of a minority group within Quebec society (83 percent of Quebec residents speak French at home...
...The fact that the constitutional question is on low simmer does not mean that other dimensions of minority politics are any less likely to boil over...
...Neither of these strategies is likely to succeed...
...It is far too late to convince anyone that next time Quebec must submit to new rules imposed by the majority of the country...
...The haunting sense of living in a disappearing community has not been allayed by recent expressions of goodwill on the part of the new premier, Lucien Bouchard...
...Legitimate claims for protection of minority rights do not define the political strategy for achieving them, precisely because the very status of "minority" is so mutable...
...Quebeckers, whether anglophone or francophone, confront the rest of Canada when they seek recognition of Quebec as a distinct political community...
...The 1993 amendment permits but does not require bilingual signs...
...their wish is to be both...
...The idea prompted outcries in Quebec and the rest of Canada about the danger of such talk, as well as derision about its impracticality...
...Since the 1970s, governments of Quebec, both PQ and Liberal, have passed laws to protect and promote French...
...Therefore, partition would simply create more minorities...
...Everyday politics in Quebec may be the politics of minorities, but there is no single "minority...
...Therefore, they would never choose to abandon their lives as Quebeckers to remain Canadians...
...Therefore, children of those who immigrate to Quebec are obliged to study in French schools...
...they contain large numbers of francophones, many of whom are federalists to be sure...
...Finally, federalists, even if they "won" the 1995 referendum, are in many ways a minority in Quebec...
...The new premier has taken a different tone, reaching out to minorities within Quebec...
...Another is to insist that all of Canada has a right to participate in any decision about Quebec's future...
...This is the dilemma that confronts AngloQuebeckers...
...Nevertheless, October 30 did clearly announce that many Quebeckers demand a change in Quebec's political status...
...The discourse of Aboriginal peoples' challenge to Quebec's territorial integrity has been annexed by anglophones, albeit to advance quite different arguments...
...And recent reductions in health care spending have forced several anglophone hospitals in Montreal to close...
...This slipperyslope argument is not without credibility...
...Such efforts to engage in dialogue, to express tolerance, and to acknowledge the contributions of anglophones to modern Quebec are very important...
...Although anglophone school boards, hospitals, and other institutions providing basic services are guaranteed protection, only sufficient clientele and adequate financing will make this guarantee meaningful...
...Similarly, it forced people to decide whether they were willing to compromise their commitment to democratic decision making and to validate threats of force...
...Since 1977, the anglophone minority has feared that its educational and social institutions will wither for lack of clientele...
...SUMMER • 1996 • 43 Quebec some have argued that the rules of the game must be changed...
...Second, the "public face" of Quebec would be French...
...Many doubt the sincerity of the PQ leadership, particularly as they see budget cuts reducing their services...
...Each individual in Quebec belongs to at least one...
...Nonetheless, the issue remains unsettled...
...In the referendum of October 30, 1995, a near majority (49.6 percent, with a 94 percent turnout) of that minority voted in favor of sovereignty for Quebec...
...Since the 1995 referendum, however, parts of the anglophone community have become increasingly militant, demonstrating publicly to force department stores in predominantly anglophone areas to provide bilingual signs...
...These demands are phrased in a language of rights—the "right to shop" in English...
...A simplified version of the argument is that international business speaks English, and people coming to Montreal from around the globe will feel more welcome if they can read the signs...
...One is that the language of rights is expandable, and the second is that the 1993 compromise lacked the coherence of earlier legislation, thereby making it harder to defend...
...The public face of Quebec is a French-speaking one, and polls record a high level of satisfaction with the current legal situation...
...As claims to such so-called "rights" intensify, two lessons can be drawn...
...As a result, the federal government backed away from talk of territorial divisibility...
...In the confusion, * It is also very important to note that none of these positions reflects that of Aboriginal peoples living in Quebec, who have their own right to national recognition, and make different claims to linguistic protection and the right to stay with Canada in the event of the separation of Quebec...
...The idea is impractical in that the areas that voted No in the referendum are not linguistically homogenous...
...Parizeau's outburst caused dismay not only among those whom he targeted, but also among those nationalists whose vision of an independent Quebec is one of a polyethnic and multinational society...
...For anglophones the issue was less clear-cut...
...For francophone federalists the issue was not a hard one...
...Whether and how claims are made depend on the concrete political situation as well as on the identity privileged by the claimants...
...Thus, the argument is a practical and economic, not a rights-based, one...
...For example, I am part of Canada's anglophone majority (three-quarters of Canadians use English as their primary language) as well as the federalist majority (that is, I want Quebec to remain in Canada...
...The risk here is that by envisioning it, one would in fact aid the transition toward separation...
...The result would be to partition Quebec into a series of noncontiguous "homelands...
...The decision to allow some bilingual commercial signs troubles many nationalists, who fear that an efflorescence of English signs, especially in Montreal, will provoke demands for official bilingualism...
...They advocate "partition," proposing that if the majority of Quebec were to vote to secede, strongly federalist municipalities could then hold their own referenda about staying part of Canada...
...At the same time, a few moments of reflection reveal that municipalities are not self-sufficient units...
...The absence of such signs is deplored as signaling "lack of respect" for the anglophones...
...Among those who said Yes to the Parti quebecois (PQ) government's question, polls uncovered uncertainty about the meaning of their vote...
...Signs of the Times Since October 30, 1995, the ball has been in the federal government's court...
...The details of language legislation are too complicated to present here, as is its history...
...An idea that had never seemed more than a mean-spirited threat to go home with one's marbles was given credence by the intervention of the federal government...
...Third, Quebeckers gained the right to work in French, and companies are compelled to demonstrate that they are moving toward francisation.• This legislation has worked...
...In both 1980 and 1995 the federal government accepted the principle that the "majority" in Quebec could decide...
...many stores have chosen to continue their previous practices...
...rather he wishes to allay their fears about their status in a sovereign Quebec and to engage their cooperation in revitalizing the provincial economy, especially in Greater Montreal, which contains more than half the population and generates almost two-thirds of the Gross Domestic Product...
...We realize that when one is at a political crossroads, as we are, the democratic routes are not clearly marked...
...Revived controversy about language policy has real potential for destabilization...
...Products sold in Quebec must have French labels, and francophones have the right to receive all services, public and private, in French...
...44 • DISSENT Quebec which minorities can insert their claims, and which others then feel compelled to close, in order to protect the underlying vision of language legislation...
...Since a change made by the Liberal government in 1993, some signs may now be bilingual, but must give clear priority to French...
...These three minorities are not the same people, nor is their political field the same.* Englishspeaking Quebeckers confront the provincial government when they claim linguistic rights, with the courts, especially the Canadian Supreme Court, as an ally...
...Recent fiscal policy decisions are feeding this concern...
...Its strategy was to sit out the campaign, confident that the Yes vote was no more than a minority in Quebec...
...It seemingly accepts the former government's rationale, which is that some visible English presence is needed to strengthen Montreal's place as an international city open to global economic forces...
...The calculation is that a tough stance will cause waverers among the Yes voters of 1995 to appreciate the real costs and complexities of trying to take Quebec out of Canada...
...But more than this, it had become obvious that such partitions could occur only if the Canadian army were used to enforce them...
...In other words, economic policy works against the protection of minority rights as much as do heated debates within the ranks of the Parti quebecois about language law...
...Putting Quebec's fiscal house in order is Bouchard's primary short-term goal...
...Longue commune (Quebec: ministêre de la Culture et de la Communication, 1995...
...In such situations, then, our first commitment must be to the importance of protecting and expanding the democratic political process by which such claims-making occurs and within which it must be resolved...
...Far beyond that, however, it compelled serious strategic thinking...
...They cannot, however, totally alleviate the fears...
...Indeed, demographic predictions suggest that if the sociology of the vote remains the same, the sovereignty option will carry the day in the next referendum...
...Residents of Greater Montreal, for example, cross municipal SUMMER • 1996 • 45 Quebec boundaries for secondary schooling and health care, not to mention for employment...
...The language of violence and armed conflict was being invoked and the situation threatened to deteriorate...
...In 1971-1972, 16 percent of schoolchildren studied in English, but by 1994-1995, the number was 10 percent for the whole province...
...Partition Talk Since the referendum, parts of the anglophone minority have exhibited a siege mentality that is highly dangerous...
Vol. 43 • July 1996 • No. 3
