Linguistic Liberty in Canada
WALLER, HAROLD M.
A NEW FRENCH CHALLENGE Linguistic Liberty in Canada By Harold M. Waller Montreal The predominantly English appearance Canada presents to outsiders tends to obscure the fact that it is a...
...These developments represented concessions to French Canadian demands for linguistic parity, yet they did not go far enough in assuaging f eelings of subordination among the smaller language group (about 25 per cent of the population...
...Since then a Royal Commission has researched the matter exhaustively, a government that actively cultivated the support of both Frenchand English-speaking Canadians passed a Federal Official Languages Law, and the country's elites have embraced the virtues of bilingualism to an unprecedented extent...
...Intended to force distributors to dub movies in French, the legislation stipulates that unless prints of the French version of a film are made available in sufficient number, only one English print is to be allowed in the province...
...Bourassa's opponents have both substantive and tactical reasons for keeping him on the defensive...
...Predictably, the Fortier report raised a furor in Quebec...
...Five years later the PQ suffered a crushing defeat at the polls, and its Liberal Party replacement adopted a more conciliatory approach on language issues...
...Robert Bourassa, who heads the province's Liberal government, was maneuvered by the opposition PQ into supporting a motion in the National Assembly (Quebec's unicameral legislature) condemning the Commissioner...
...If the lower court ruling is upheld, as constitutional experts widely expect, Bourassa will be under intense pressure from the language militants to somehow salvage the sign section ofLawlOl.He will then probably invoke the "notwithstanding" clause of the Constitution...
...This spring, for example, hooligans systematically went through a commercial district in the West End of Montreal (where many Anglophones live) and spray-painted all the English signs...
...Under certain circumstances, this permits provincial legislatures to enact laws notwithstanding their possible infringement of constitutionally protected individual rights...
...Any suggestion that the excessively harsh provisions of the language legislation might be eased by the current Liberal government are met with cries of "Ne touchez pas la loi 101...
...The challenges posed by the conflicting interests of French- and Englishspeaking Canadians will require an extraordinary degree of statesmanship to resolve...
...It was less than 30 years ago that longacknowledged differences between the two main Canadian language groups led the Federal government in Ottawa to confront the possibility of Canada ending up binational...
...This too aroused strenuous protests, convincing the government to delay putting the act into effect...
...An outcry over the proposed scheme caused it to be abandoned, at least for the time being...
...It nevertheless became official in 1982, but Canada's politicians have understood the importance of obtaining approval for the constitution from the country's second most populous province...
...Two of the five justices contended that even unilingual English signs were protected by the Constitution...
...Whether it is inevitable that majorities will tyrannize minorities, as James Madison argued so eloquently in the Federalist Number 10, can be debated...
...The Quebec government therefore has a special vocation to guarantee their survival...
...Although this bilingual make-up has periodically produced serious fissures in the country's political system, and even threatened it with breakdown, by the mid '80s most observers believed the dangers posed by the language issue had been successfully shelved for at least a generation...
...Bourassa would prefer to turn Quebec's attention from such divisive matters to what he considers his forte, the economy...
...In the meantime, observers are puzzling over the legal consequences of declaring Quebec a distinct society...
...The point of codifying individual rights in a constitution is to prevent "the tyranny of the majority...
...from both the opposition PQ and from the more radical St...
...Despite misgivings harbored by many Assembly members, especially the Anglophones, the measure passed unanimously—further alienating the English-speaking residents of Quebec from their provincial government...
...Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Meech Lake agreement is its designation of Quebec as a "distinct society" with requirements and powers differing from those of all the other provinces...
...The rationale for this and kindred legislation is fairly simple: French language and culture in North America are imperilled by demographic trends (a very low birthrate among the Québécois) and by the dominant English environment...
...Several plaintiffs have challenged this on the grounds that it violates guarantees of freedom of expression contained in the Canadian Constitution's Charter of Rights and Freedoms...
...He prides himself on having brought a measure of calm to a troubled province, and intends to run primarily on his economic accomplishments...
...If Meech Lake is implemented, the integrity of the Constitution could be thrown into doubt, and the rights of Canadians may come to depend on the province they happen to reside in...
...Thus in 1976, over the opposition of then Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, his home province of Quebec —where Francophones outnumber Anglophones four to one—elected a Parti Québécois (PQ) government committed to a radical assertion of French power and the establishment of an independent state...
...It is on such occasions that minorities and individuals need the protection afforded by a constitution's safeguards of their rights...
...Although the Appeals Court's ruling coincided with Liberal Party policy on signs, the Quebec government inexplicably appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which should be handing downa judgment after its summer hiatus...
...Last March Canada's Official Languages Commissioner, D'Iberville Fortier, commented unfavorably on Quebec's policy in his annual report...
...As of now his party is far ahead of the competition, yet a heated argument concerning the language issue could defeat him, as it did in 1976...
...Posing asordinary shoppers, the spies were to determine whether the business people spoke the right language or made illegal sounds...
...This reasoning has become virtually an article of faith in Quebec...
...But surely they do so on occasion, even in countries like Canada and the United States...
...The flaw in Trudeau's effort was that he was unable to persuade his late arch rival René Lévesque, who headed Quebec's PQ government, to sign the document that was finally arrived at...
...The PQ government did leave a legacy, however...
...The Meech Lake Accords must be ratified by all the provincial legislatures before its provisions become part of the Constitution...
...One possible interpretation, not unreasonable, is that this would exempt Quebec from the Federal constitutional provisions limiting the powers of the other provincial governments—in particular, the constitutional constraints on language policy...
...The case to be decided has to do with Law 101, specifically with the section of the law that makes English signs illegal...
...Harold M. Waller, a frequent contributor to the NL, is a professor of political science at McGill University...
...In 1980 the PQ's proposal to open "sovereignty-association" talks with the Federal government was voted down in a provincial referendum...
...In fact, his problems in this regard are likely to be exacerbated in the near future by a long-awaited ruling of the Canadian Supreme Court...
...If the agreement is scuttled because of opposition in some of the provinces, Quebec will remain outside the constitutional consensus and may become further alienated from the Federal system...
...Some schools prohibit children from speaking English in the halls or playgrounds, and one student wrote a letter to his high school newspaper urging his classmates to respond "Tagueule, têteux" ("Shut up, blockhead") when addressed in English...
...Criticizing legal restraints on the use of English—one of the country's official languages, after all—he declared that "the salvation of French in Quebec or elsewhere must surely lie in positively asserting its own demographic weight, cultural vigor and innate attractiveness, and not in humbling the opposition...
...Don't touch Law 101...
...A NEW FRENCH CHALLENGE Linguistic Liberty in Canada By Harold M. Waller Montreal The predominantly English appearance Canada presents to outsiders tends to obscure the fact that it is a complex society with a substantial French-speaking minority concentrated in the province of Quebec...
...There appears to be considerable hostility between French and immigrant children, though, particularly over the use of English outside the classroom...
...Ottawa alternately challenged and placated the secessionists in Quebec, to good effect...
...This cavalier attitude toward individual liberties is not a new phenomenon...
...That objective was finally achieved last year in the forni of the Meech Lake Accords, which were signed by all the provincial prime ministers...
...Given his history of fumbling on the language issue, one that dates back to his earlier tenure as provincial prime minister some 15 years ago, it makes good sense for the PQ to attack him as soft on English...
...But thanks to his opponents' efforts, the language issue continues to dog him...
...One of Law 101's requirements is that all children in Quebec, except those with at least one parent educated in English, must attend French schools...
...Bourassa, for his part, suggested that Anglophones might have to consider accepting their reduced linguistic rights under the status quo to preserve "social peace...
...Bourassa can hardly relish the prospect of such a polarization with provincial elections coming up next spring...
...These include the recent drawing up of a budget replete with tax cuts and fertility bonuses (up to $3,000 per child...
...Collective action to protect the French language may impinge on the rights of the English-speaking minority (particularly numerous in Montreal), but that is the price which must be paid to realize the overriding goal...
...Iflegislatures, presumably reflecting the majority will, can circumvent these safeguards by simply enacting a law notwithstanding them, it makes a mockery of the document...
...The object is to steer immigrant children into the French sector and eventually into the Québécois community...
...In the 1985 election campaign Bourassa pledged to relax Law 101's proscription of English-language commercial signs (intended to ensure that Quebec will have a French face...
...Jean Baptiste Society, a group of self-appointed guardians of linguistic purity...
...It is Law 101, a 1977 provincial act that has elevated French to primacy in Quebec and downgraded English to a status little different from that of other languages...
...Recently the Court of Appeals, Quebec's highest tribunal, ruled unanimously that the provision was unconstitutional when applied to bilingual signs...
...Should Bourassa take that route, his Anglophone ministers would be torn between the parliamentary value of cabinet solidarity and their obligations to their constituents...
...Some of them wondered whether those who had the temerity to post illegal signs could properly complain when they were defaced...
...The vandalism — similar to what had occurred in the suburban town of Mont Royal a few months before—elicited ambiguous comments from politicians...
...Canada's current Constitution is the fruit of Trudeau's determination to transform the British North American Act, which had defined the country's government since 1867, into a genuinely Canadian charter...
...In another attempt to subordinate the rights of the individual to the needs of the majority, Quebec's National Assembly last year passed a Cinema Act that severely restricts the freedom of theater owners to screen films in English...
...Earlier in the year the Conseil de la langue française, a government body, announced plans to send language spies into stores to check up on merchants and clerks...
...The Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney has tried to do this by coming up with amendments that would satisfy all of Quebec's demands, as articulated by Bourassa...
...In times of tension and crisis, it is comforting to recall that Canada has remained one nation for over 120 years in spite of its language divisions...
...Meech Lake portends trouble regardless of how it ultimately fairs...
...Not all of the agitation has been verbal...
...What makes the possible invocation of the "notwithstanding" clause especially troubling, though, is its implications for civil society in Canada...
...In effect Mulroney consented to giving Quebec special constitutional status within the Canadian system—a compromise that was anathema to Trudeau...
...The extremists' vehemence that the law not be touched, however, has led him to equivocate on his promise, resulting in a loss of enthusiasm among minority voters for the Liberal Party...
...But in recent months it has emerged again as a source of tension, to the surprise and consternation of many Canadians...
Vol. 71 • July 1988 • No. 13
