SAINT-SAUVEUR, QUEBEC – A few weeks before the municipal election campaign in Quebec, Bruno Marchand was far second in the poll.
Speaking to a journalist about international missions on behalf of the capital of Quebec, he mentioned that he believed that the lack of bilingualism of his main opponent could be a handicap for the City. This sparked a heated debate which influenced the campaign. As Election Day approached, Marchand’s numbers started to improve rapidly.
Sunday evening, against all expectations (and after a victory speech by this opponent, Marie-Josée Savard) Bruno Marchand was elected mayor of Quebec.
Linguistic issues have always been part of the Canadian political fabric. Most of the time dormant in recent years, the question of bilingualism, or the lack thereof, has barely returned to the news as the president of Air Canada has stumbled into a quagmire of his own making.
Michael Rousseau is clearly an exceptional business leader. His record speaks for itself… in English only.
Despite his last name and his 14 years in a French town, he does not speak a word. When we learned that the president of Air Canada intended to deliver a unilingual English speech to the Chamber of Commerce, people were very worried. The experts and analysts I work with on French television and radio were all ready to watch this thing go “kaboom”!
Prime Minister François Legault’s office sent a clear message that it was a bad idea, as did the Commissioner of Official Languages. Air Canada’s otherwise superb communications team also had to add its own voice to the chorus of concerns.
Rousseau didn’t see the problem and went ahead with the speech. He also chose to hold a press scrum after the speech and left little doubt that he really, really can’t understand a word of French. He also showed that as the head of an officially bilingual airline, he was completely deaf to the problem.
No doubt wishing he had listened to all this great advice, he quickly apologized for his blunder which produced a linguistic mess like we hadn’t experienced in years.
All against a backdrop of the “decline of French” so much decried in Montreal. It is a subject for a cool head and sober analysis. We had everything except. Legault’s Minister of Language (and Justice), Simon Jolin-Barrette, is currently testing new, stricter language legislation (Bill 96) through the Quebec National Assembly.
It removes the constitutional rights to the equality of English and French before the courts and is clearly unconstitutional. It does not matter. Quebec claims to be able to unilaterally amend the BNA Act (Constitution Act of 1867). The Quebec Bar Association sounded the alarm bells in the legislative committee, to no avail.
Fearing a fight with Legault, during the rise of the recent federal election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh all went into duck and cover mode and declared that they supported Bill 96..
At the same time, Trudeau’s Minister of Languages, Mélanie Joly, presented her own linguistic proposal, Bill 32. It is a far-reaching law whose main objective is to consolidate the status of French. in Canada.
It aims to clearly recognize that French is the minority language in Canada and that it needs special protection. The federal government would start imposing language rules on federally regulated businesses operating in Quebec and in francophone regions.
Airlines like Porter and WestJet would soon be required to be able to provide services in French on their flights, an obligation that currently exists only for Air Canada. The backlash against Rousseau will, as one might expect, be referred to as an object lesson for ‘give a thumbs up, take a yardstick’ and it will be fascinating to see if Trudeau decides he has better things to do than go. moving forward with Bill 32.
The problem for these federally regulated companies is that Legault is considering subjecting them to its own linguistic rules and Minister Jolin-Barrette feels emboldened and justified following the Rousseau debacle. Here again, the constitutionality is more than sketchy, but hey, Legault has his own election next fall and a good fight with the federal government is always a crowd pleaser.
Quebec’s English-speaking community has been shaken by both Legault’s Bill 96 and Trudeau’s Bill 32. A unilingual English speech like that of Rousseau was particularly upsetting for Anglophone leaders who, for decades, sought to build bridges with the majority of Quebecers and to protect the institutions of their community. .
As the new minority Liberal government takes hold, Trudeau will be caught between the Republic of Canada and a hard place for Quebec. He must remember that his first obligation is to defend the Constitution.
Tom Mulcair was the former leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017.
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