Front Burner - Why Quebec's new language law is stirring controversy

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

Bill 96, Quebec's newly adopted language law, is meant to protect the use of French in areas such as education, government services, courts and the workplace. But there has been a fierce backlash against it from some Indigenous communities, advocates for immigrants and refugees, business owners, and experts who say it infringes on an array of human and legal rights. Some analysts have criticized the Quebec government for invoking the notwithstanding clause, which allows provinces to override Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to pass the bill. That could help set the stage for a broader fight between Quebec and the federal government, they say. Today, Emilie Nicolas, a columnist with Le Devoir and the Montreal Gazette and host of Canadaland's French-language podcast Detours, walks us through some elements of the new law that critics find contentious.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. So Quebec has just adopted this contentious new law. My future! My future! My future! My future!

Officially titled An Act Respecting French, the Official and Common Language of Quebec, Bill 96 is the largest expansion of the province's language laws in more than four decades. We are proud to be a francophone nation in North America and it's our duty to protect our common language and I invite all Quebecers to speak it, to love it, and to protect it. Among other things, it increases French language requirements in the education and business sectors

and limits the use of languages other than French in public services. Premier François Legault's government says that Bill 96 is a moderate law that protects French while also maintaining access to English services. You will continue to have English-speaking hospitals, schools, CJEPs and universities. But it's receiving this fierce backlash from Indigenous communities, advocates for immigrants and refugees, business owners, parents and experts who say it infringes on an array of human and legal rights. French is not being threatened by us. It's the French that are threatening us. It's also been criticized for its extremely broad application of the Notwithstanding Clause,

which allows the province to override Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Today, I'm speaking with Emily Nicola. She's a Montreal-based columnist for Le Devoir and the Montreal Gazette, and she also hosts the monthly French-language podcast Detours on the Canada Land Network. Hey, Emily, it is great to have you on the podcast. Hello, it's good to be here. Thank you so much for taking the time. I want to start with the case in favor of this bill.

So what is the government trying to achieve with this law? Why do they say it's necessary? So the CAAT government is worried about the state of French in Quebec. So they're putting a bill forward that basically reinforces the Bill 101 that's been in place since the 70s. And it's doing a couple of things that a lot of people think might help with French, but a lot of other people say it will not help. It's been criticized basically both by nationalists who think the bill is not doing enough or not doing what's needed to help French, and also by people that are saying it's doing too much and infringing on human rights, and also by people who are saying, you know, French is doing well, and there is no reason

for such a bill to even happen. So it's a very divisive topic in Quebec. It's a question of survival. If we don't take action to protect French, it's a matter of time before we lose the presence of French in Quebec. So I know that you're on the side of not supporting this bill. You're not a fan of this bill. And we're going to get into some of the specific criticisms in a minute, but just briefly, broad strokes, why do you not support Bill 96? I think that there is a lot that could be done to make French even more thriving in the province, given that French is a

minority language within North America. But what is in the bill will not help, and that it might also harm some aspects of it when it comes specifically to relationships with the English community in Montreal and around Quebec. And also when it comes to people who don't have French nor English as a first language, people who are new to Canada, people who are refugees, there are really big questions asked in terms of their rights. And finally, it's basically the government of Quebec also telling how they want language to have a role in the education of Inuit and First Nations in Quebec, which is also something that's heavily criticized. Okay, so let's dig into some of what you just went through there. And let's start with immigrants

and refugees, because the bill says that immigrants and refugees will be able to access services in English or another language for the first six months that they're in Quebec. But after that, they can only get government services in French. And so tell me a little bit more about what the concern is here, what the criticism is. Yeah, so before going into the criticism, I think what the government is responding to by doing that, you see a lot of ads for jobs in Quebec, and some of them might be in government, some of them might be in the private sector, where although, you know, Bill 101 is in Quebec, and technically businesses who are not very small are supposed to work in French, more and more job offers require bilingualism, right? And so if you're a Francophone who's not bilingual, it's difficult sometimes to get access to certain kind of positions, even within Quebec. And so the bill aims to basically reassert the right to work in French and not have to speak English as a way for you to work in Quebec. And so that's what

the bill aims to do. The result is that it's basically there's a lot of people who can speak multiple languages, and it's basically telling them to stop using those while communicating with the public. So theoretically here, could this mean that if like I'm a government worker and I speak Vietnamese at home and I'm helping an immigrant whose first language is Vietnamese, I would be obligated to help them in French? Yes and no, in the sense that there is some provision in the bill that say that when it comes to, for example, healthcare services or health or principles of natural justice, as the words in the bill are involved, that this would not necessarily apply. So say you're trying to speak Vietnamese to a Vietnamese

speaker, but in the healthcare system or in the courts the bill would not force you to speak French but for example if you're in the education system there's been a lot of people for example teachers who are working in very multicultural schools who they have parents who don't necessarily speak French fluently yet and their children are in the school system and they're afraid that the bill is going to stop them from being able to communicate with those parents in whatever language they also speak with the parent that being said the application of the bill is kind of complaint based so if I was a teacher and doing that speaking a language other than French it's like if nobody hears us

and nobody complains then you can do it. And there's also some provision in the bill that basically makes it that some colleagues can give the state anonymous tips if they feel like the fact that some of their colleagues are using other languages is harming their right to work in French. So it creates a workplace dynamic where people might be on guard about what language they use. And obviously the people who might be impacted by that the most are the people who are the most vulnerable in society who don't actually speak the language yet. Broadening out from immigrants and refugees, so you talked about this provision in the bill, this exception for when health, public safety, or the principles of natural justice so require.

And focusing on health for a minute, Premier Francois Legault, he has said that the government will protect access to health care in English. But there have also been a lot of concerns here, including from Quebec's College of Physicians, that this may not be the case. This doctor says it will still impact his patients, many of whom are new immigrants. It's going to make things much more difficult, more confusing, especially for the people who don't speak French properly. And it'll create a lot of panic and a lot of worry. And just talk to me a little bit more about what the concerns are in health care. Well, that's the thing. Legault sometimes, you know, give declarations that's about reassuring what many people have called in conversation around this big,

the historical English Quebecer community. English Quebecer community because basically the bill is saying you can you can have access to English services for however long you want if you are part of the people who are exempt from application of bill 101 so people who have the right for to to register their children or themselves in English schools they can use English services their entire life. But if you're not part of that group, and for example, if you're somebody that's, you know, coming from India, and you're trying to have access to services in English, after six months arriving in Quebec, then you're not necessarily exempt, depending on what kind of service you want to seek and which hospitals you want to go to. There's still a question in terms of how a situation like that would fare under the new law.

And there's not clear directives coming from the government in terms of how to apply the bill in which situation. And there's a lot of physicians or other health healthcare practitioners that basically feel like the bill might put them in an impossible dilemma when it comes to their professional obligations to help people and to communicate as effectively as possible. So the confusion itself puts everyone on guards and is worsening the social climate. Yeah, it really does seem like one of the biggest issues here is the ambiguity. Like it's so confusing. It is. And that confusion is hard to explain for folks who are not living in the Montreal region where most of the immigrant population is concentrated in Quebec, who don't have an experience seeing those realities. The bill is mostly garnering support in places in Quebec where, you know, people don't actually have any people who don't speak French around them in their lives. So

it's hard sometimes for those folks to actually, you know, envision what the reality of Montreal is and why it actually works the best to make people feel like they're welcome in spaces where French is predominant. So there's a disconnect in terms of who the bill affects and who the bill is for politically in terms of trying to gain some votes. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to,

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about 5% of Anglophones said they supported it. So it's like very popular among francophone Quebecers. Yeah, but at the same time, I don't necessarily read too much into that support, because basically the way the bill has been discussed is, do you want more protection for the French language? And in Quebec, it's like asking, do you want another slice of apple pie? Like, obviously, everybody wants it. But I don't think a lot of people are aware in Quebec that the bill gives the power to a new commissaire for the French language to potentially seize material, documents, confidential information from businesses who are suspected not to use French enough. And that is a huge infringement of rights to privacy. And there might be a lot of people, including Francophones, whose private information are seized by the government as a result of that. And they are not necessarily aware that it's going to be very hard to challenge that aspect

of the bill because of the use of the notwithstanding clause means that it's going to be very hard to challenge that aspect of the bill because of the use of the notwithstanding clause means that it's going to be hard to challenge the bill on issues of, you know, rights to privacy is one of the rights and freedoms that have been basically waived in huge quotation marks, by the way, by the use of the notwithstanding clause. So I think people are backing the bill because they like the blue wrap and the French language tag that is on the bill. But I'm not clear on what they actually know about what the bill does in detail. The other big concern that I've heard is from a number of indigenous communities who have also voiced like really strong opposition to Bill 96. The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake has actually suspended communications with the provincial government. And our producer, Ali, spoke to Mike DeLille.

He's a member of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake. And he said they've got a number of concerns with this law. One is that it's going to be a lot harder and more expensive to navigate the court system because the law says, for example, the judges won't need to have any language skills other than French. court, a lot of our institutions would have to bear additional costs to ensure that our people understand what the courts are saying, what lawyers are saying, what the judge ultimately would say. So we just feel that it's unnecessary. Why are you looking to protect the language that has more than 7 million speakers within a province? And they're also really concerned about rules, as you talked about.

Let's say that SAGEP college students have to learn three additional courses in French and pass a French proficiency exam to graduate, which many people in Kahnawake have said is like an additional burden on students and that it would even get in the way of them being able to study Mohawk, among other things. Historically, over 100 years plus of Canada trying to alienate us from our language and culture, whether it be through the Indian Act, whether it be through the attempted white paper in the 60s by then Indian affairs ministers, as well as the atrocities of residential school and so on. The added burden of French, I think, has some historical background.

So it's definitely going to be an imposition and another burden to carry for our young CEGEP students. Indigenous communities, including Kahnawake, have asked for exemptions from Bill 96. And what does it say to you that those exemptions were denied? It tells me that Indigenous communities in Quebec at this point are an afterthought, if they are a thought at all, when it comes to the priorities of the provincial government. We've seen other examples of broken relationships. There's been a big report that came out of the Vien Commission in Quebec that was supposed to advance the issue of reconciliation.

There was also an inquest, a coroner's inquest, into the death of Joyce Echaquan. Echaquan filmed herself while in hospital as staff insulted her with racist remarks. Echaquan was quickly and mistakenly labeled a drug addict by hospital staff. Her cries for help were not taken seriously and she didn't get the care she should have. That came with a lot of recommendation in terms of how to address systemic racism against Indigenous people in the health care system. And very few, very little of that has actually moved ahead. So I'm not surprised that when it comes to language, there hasn't been much time. Also, you know, sitting down and listening and trying to see how things could be done

differently. It's a pattern of behavior when it comes to this Quebec government and Indigenous peoples. It's really not something that's specific loop back to the use of the notwithstanding clause. And so it's very controversial. standing clause. And so it's very controversial. Last week, Federal Justice Minister David Lamedi said that the Canadian government is not ruling out challenging Bill 96. We'll work in good faith to protect the rights of Quebecers and Canadians, but we won't eliminate the possibility of joining court challenges. I wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about the concerns, particularly from the federal government standpoint.

Yeah, so notwithstanding clauses is something that's been put in the Canadian Constitution because premiers of provinces back then in the 80s didn't want to sign it unless it wasn't there. So basically, they didn't want to have a Charter of Human Rights and Freedom in the Canadian Constitution unless they could sometimes choose to opt out from it for certain laws. And there's a lot of people who question whether or not that was a historical mistake, but this is where it's coming from. What's new now is that the Quebec government has been adopting two laws now, Bill 21 on secularism.

The bill bans some public servants, such as teachers and police officers, from wearing religious symbols at work. And Bill 96 on language and building the notwithstanding clause within the bill itself so that people don't have a chance to challenge the bill in court. It's basically muzzling the courts from having an opinion on the bills themselves. And that's the use of notwithstanding clause that's being criticized. And that is also something that many other provinces could be tempted to do in the future. And that worries some people across Canada, and definitely including Minister of Justice David Laméry, who said this week that this is something that he'll look into if the federal government was to act as an intervener.

If Bill 21 was to go to the Supreme Court, they would make a point about the use of the non-withstanding clause in and of itself. Obviously, we're very concerned about the preemptive use of the non-withstanding clause. I announced today that if and when the Bill 21 case gets to the Supreme Court, the federal government will be there. It will be de facto a national issue. This announcement from Lumetti that they're prepared to challenge Bill 21, the religious symbols law, and then also won't rule out challenging the language law, Bill 21, the religious symbols law, and then

also won't rule out challenging the language law, Bill 96, what we're talking about today. There's a political angle to this as well, right? And what kind of clash are we potentially seeing be set up right now between Quebec and the federal government? So the CAAC government has nationalism as part of the key core of its identity and its platform. It just did last weekend a last convention before the provincial election we're going to have in the fall. And they want basically most things in their platform to have something to do with pride. And so pride, nationalistic pride, then becomes expressed, according to the CAQ, with things like the secularism bill

and also the language law, the new language law, and with immigration. They plan to ask Canada to repatriate all powers when it comes to immigration power is currently shared between Quebec and Canada so Quebec chooses economic immigrants and Canada chooses family reunification and refugees and they want Quebec to have all the powers

so immigration, language and religion obviously three very hot buttons topic. And the goal with that is to come at a narrative where, you know, Quebec wants to express its identity, and I'm using huge quotation marks around that, and Canada is getting in the way of that. It's creating division actually within the CAC itself. There's a lot of strong nationalists and even sovereigntists who feel like that's the way to revive the sovereigntist movement is to basically manufacture a constitutional crisis and

making impossible demands basically to Canada so that it leads to a clash. And there's also more moderate people within the CAC, I would use that word, who are you most concerned about? How do you see this playing out? How do you see this playing out? As someone who was involved almost 10 years ago now in the fight against the proposed bill of the Charter of Quebec Values, which is basically the ancestors of Bill 21, which was never voted in,

I saw that even if that bill never was voted in, there were social consequences to the bill. It changed the way we were having conversation in the media about Islam and Muslim women specifically. And that created a social climate that was increasingly more hostile towards Muslims specifically and other religious minorities as well. And I feel like what we're arriving at now is a similar phenomenon where you have the language law, you have the secularism bill that's still being debated, and you also have inflated rhetoric on immigration. And all of

those together, regardless of the actual policies, are changing Quebec, are changing the way people relate to one another, are making people's spider senses more heightened when they hear different languages in the street of Montreal. They're making some English-speaking Quebecers feel like it's not their home anymore, and they're making people who are first or second or third generation coming from different immigrant communities feel like maybe they don't belong. And they're making people who had xenophobic reflexes feel like those bills entitles them to express their prejudices. And that's the last thing I feel like Quebec needed after a historical pandemic. Emily, thank you so much for this. I have like a much better grasp of what's going on there right now. So I really appreciate it. And I hope that you'll come back

on soon and talk about this again. Thank you. All right, so before we go today, an update on an issue we've covered quite a bit on the show. British Columbia will become the first province in Canada to decriminalize small-scale possession of hard drugs like fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines. drugs like fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines. People 18 and over in the province will be able to carry up to a combined 2.5 grams of these drugs without fear of being arrested or charged, starting at the end of January 2023. The change comes in response to a request from the province to be exempted from federal laws criminalizing drug possession. It's been six years since BC called a public health emergency in response to rising overdose deaths. Close to 10,000 people have died in the province in those six years. For more details on this story, you can go to cbcnews.ca. I'm Jamie Poisson, and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

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