Pauline Marois didn’t have much new to add to Parti Québécois policy on language when she promised her “new Bill 101” on Wednesday during a campaign stop in the Gaspé region.
Even so, the fact that her promises didn’t resonate very strongly in the francophone media was striking, given how emotional issues of language and identity normally are. In fact, Marois was happy to move on quickly and feed the news cycle with other content, raising the question of whether the party has concluded that its proposals on language are more of a liability than an asset with undecided voters.
For one thing, the proposal to extend Bill 101’s education provisions to CEGEPs is not something that most francophones want. Polling has been fairly clear on this issue for some time. For many francophones, English CEGEPs are vehicles for improving their English.
In this respect, it was notable that Marois failed to underline the party’s plans for access to CEGEPs while in the Gaspé. Odd as well is the fact that she pledged to extend Bill 101’s workplace-francization provisions to companies with 25 employees or more whereas party policy calls for 10 employees or more. On Wednesday, she clarified the contradiction. It’s 10, not 25.
As it is, Bill 101’s workplace-francization provisions apply only to companies with 50 employees or more. Certainly Marois had no problem with that when she served as finance minister and in other portfolios in past PQ governments. And with good reason. Over the years, governments headed by René Lévesque. Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard very reasonably concluded that small entrepreneurs should be allowed to operate and innovate in their own language, or the preferred language of their own small core teams.
The state’s overarching interest, it was determined, should be to let these companies grow in Quebec and subject them to the language law only once they have grown large enough that forces of inertia are likely to keep them here. It’s just too easy for small companies whose employees and equipment can fit into two cars and a large van to pick up and leave if they feel unreasonably harassed.
Marois also complained in the Gaspé about retailers in Montreal not serving customers in French. But independent studies have shown these cases to be exceptional, not representative, more likely to happen in a Starbucks staffed by university kids or in a souvenir shop than a Simons or an Ogilvy's.
There’s a principle in law that says the law shouldn’t concern itself with trifles. But this is what Marois and her party are proposing to do with a new Bill 101. Marois says if French is to be the common language in Quebec, then it is unacceptable for shopkeepers to address customers first in English. She doesn’t like the organic Bonjour/Hi of Montreal. But how would a War on Hi work? Is she proposing amendments to outlaw an English salutation uttered within a certain numbers of seconds of an opening French salutation? It’s ridiculous.
The truth is that Quebec has pretty well reached the limits of possibilities as to what reasonable language legislation can be expected to accomplish. Some of what the PQ is proposing borders on pure prejudice. The fact is that there is an English-speaking population the size of Winnipeg in Montreal, and English and anglophones have a natural place in this city. The PQ needs to come to terms with this.
Despite cries of alarm from the PQ and its hawkish allies, the language situation in Quebec is healthy. Last June, the Conseil de la langue française came out with a study that demolished the thesis put forward last April in L’actualité magazine by journalist Jean-François Lisée, now a candidate for the PQ in the Rosemont riding, suggesting anglos, especially young anglos, have no respect for French. The Conseil study showed most anglos support the primacy of French and measures to ensure that. And it showed that a clear majority of francophones think the state, whether the provincial government or municipalities, should be able to communicate with citizens in the language of citizens’ choice. There’s a difference between the direction in which the PQ wants to go in language policy and the direction favoured by many francophones. There are plenty of undecided voters who don’t want manufactured trouble over language, or referendums. But then Marois probably already knows that.