Charter of the French Language
Encyclopedia
The Charter of the French Language (La charte de la langue française, in French
), also known as Bill 101 and Loi 101, is a law in the province of Quebec
in Canada
defining French, the language of the majority of the population, as the only official language
of Quebec, and framing fundamental language rights for everyone in the province. It is the central legislative piece in Quebec's language policy
.
Proposed by Camille Laurin
, the Minister of Cultural Development under the first Parti Québécois
government of Premier René Lévesque
, it was passed by the National Assembly
, and granted Royal Assent
by Lieutenant Governor
Hugues Lapointe
on August 26, 1977. The Charter's provisions expanded upon the 1974 Official Language Act
(Bill 22), which was enacted under Premier Robert Bourassa
's Liberal
government to make French the sole official language of Quebec. Prior to 1974, Quebec had no official language and was subject only to the requirements on the use of English and French contained in Article 133 of the British North America Act, 1867
.
The nine chapters of Title I, pertaining to the status of the French language, declare French the sole official (chapter I), define the fundamental language rights of persons (chapter II), and defines the status of French in the legislature and the courts (chapter III), the civil administration (chapter IV), the semipublic agencies (chapter V), labour relations (VI), commerce and business (VII), and language of instruction (VIII).
The five chapters of Title II, pertain to linguistic officialization, toponymy
, and the francization of the civil service and enterprises.
Title III establishes the Office québécois de la langue française
(Quebec Office of the French language), defines its mission, powers, and organization.
Title IV establishes the Conseil supérieur de la langue française
(Superior Council of the French language).
Title V and VI define penal provisions and sanctions and transitional and miscellaneous provisions.
The French language became the sole official language of Quebec with the adoption of the Official Language Act
in 1974.
French or English may be used by any person before the courts of Quebec. Parties may request the translation in French or English of the judgments by the courts or decisions rendered by any "body discharging quasi-judicial functions".
The French text prevails over the English one, in case of any discrepancy, for any regulation to which section 133 of the Constitution Act of 1867 does not apply.
The first version of the Charter of the French Language provided that Bills be enacted only in French. In 1979, the related provisions (articles 7 through 13) were rendered inoperative by a ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada
in Attorney General of Quebec v. Blaikie
; however, Quebec responded by re-enacting in French and in English the Charter of the French Language, leaving intact articles 7 through 13.
In 1993, the Charter's provisions related to the language of the legislature and courts were made compliant with the Supreme Court's ruling.
Knowledge of the official language appropriate to the office being applied for is required.
A non-official language may be used on signs and posters of the administration for health or public safety reasons.
Employers are to draw up written communications to their staff and publish job offers or promotions in the official language.
An employer cannot dismiss, lay off, demote or transfer a staff member on the sole account of his being exclusively French-speaking or of possessing insufficient knowledge of a non-official language, or because that member demanded the respect of his right to work in French. As a job requirement, knowledge or a specific level of knowledge of a language other than French is prohibited, unless the nature of the duties require it.
The Commission des relations du travail (Commission of Labour Relations) arbitrates in case of disagreement over the necessity of knowing a non-official language to perform a given work. The burden of the proof is on the employer.
Catalogues, brochures, folders, commercial directories and other such publications, must be in the official language. All software (for example, video games and operating systems) must be available in French unless no French version exists.
Signs and posters must be in the official language and they may also be in another language provided the official language be markedly predominant.
A number of exceptions to the general rules for commercial products, signs, and advertising:
In many parts of Quebec, various signs with bilingual French and English text of equal sizes can be seen, although French is usually slightly predominant on these signs; for example, it is located to the left of other languages so that it is read "before" the non-French text when reading left-to right. Formerly, the size and colour of text in other languages were tightly regulated as well.
Articles 87, 88 and 89 provide for the use of Amerindic languages and Inuktitut
as language of instruction. The rate of introduction of French and English as languages of instruction is left to school committees and parents' committees.
At the request of parents, the following may receive instruction in English:
The original 1977 Charter provided for the English instruction not on the basis of a parent having received his instruction in English in Canada, but in Quebec only. This came to be amended following the adoption of the Constitution Act 1982, which defined the educational right of French and English minorities in all provinces under section 23
of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
.
.
since 1969 and is part of the Constitution of Canada
since 1982. Parts of the Charter of the French language have been amended in response to rulings by Quebec Courts which were upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada
.
Before 1982, the only part of the Charter of the French Language that could be challenged constitutionally was that of the language of legislation and the courts. It was challenged in 1979 by Peter Blaikie
, Roland Durand, and Yoine Goldstein
(Attorney General of Quebec v. Blaikie
).
In 1982, the patriation
of the Canadian constitution occurred as the British Parliament passed the Canada Act 1982
. This act enacted the Constitution Act, 1982
for Canada (including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
) whose section 23
introduced the notion of "minority language education rights". This novelty opened another door to a constitutional dispute of Quebec's Charter of the French Language.
Alliance Quebec
, an anglophone rights lobby group, was founded in May 1982. It is mainly through this civil association that various lawyers challenged the constitutionality of Quebec's territorial language policy.
. Allophones who integrated into the French-speaking community are more inclined to support the charter than allophones who integrated in the English-speaking community.
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
and provinces outside Quebec criticized the Charter strongly. In his memoirs, Trudeau described Bourassa's Bill 22 as a "slap in the face," as it ran contrary to the federal government's initiative to mandate bilingualism. Except for New Brunswick, most other provinces that accepted grudgingly Trudeau's bilingualism initiative never fully implemented it, likely in protest to Quebec's language laws. The most notable case was Ontario
, where Premier Bill Davis
refused to grant full status to francophones, despite the fact that the infrastructure was already in place.
Political opposition to the Charter and earlier francophone-favoring language legislation has had limited success, given the support of the laws by the Parti Québécois and Quebec Liberal Party. Legislative initiatives prior to Bill 101 were often denounced by francophones as insufficient, such as An Act to promote the French language in Quebec
(Bill 63). After Bourassa passed the Official Language Act
, opponents turned their support to the Union Nationale in the 1976 election, but despite that short resurgence of support, the party collapsed in the subsequent election. Court challenges have been more successful: Many of the key provisions of the initial language legislation having been rewritten to comply with rulings. Despite compliance since 1993 of the Charter with the Canadian constitution, opposition to the Charter and the government body enforcing it has continued.
According to Statistics Canada, up to 244,000 English-speaking people have emigrated from Quebec to other provinces since the 1970s, and the Quebec population of those whose mother tongue is English had dropped from 789,000 in 1971 to 575,555 in 2001 but increased in 2006 to 607,165. According to the 2001 Canadian census, 575,555 (7.6% of population) in Quebec declare English as their only mother tongue, 744,430 (10%) use mostly English as their home language, and 918,955 (12.2%) comprise the Official Language Minority, having English as their First Official language spoken, but there has been an increase in the 2006 census including the official language minority being at 994,720. Because many anglophones relocated outside of Quebec after the introduction of the Charter in the 1970s, several English-language schools in Montreal closed their doors.This is only partially the cause, since the restrictions on who can attend English schools are also an ongoing drain on the English school system. Many companies, most notably Sun Life, Royal Bank
, and Bank of Montreal
(which even considered removing "Montreal" from its name), moved their major operations to Toronto as a consequence of the adoption of this law. This concerted fleeing of business and subsequent loss of thousands of jobs is sometimes said to have hindered Quebec's economy and allowed Toronto to overtake Montreal as Canada's business centre. On the other hand, Toronto's advantage had been growing since the 1930s and had become apparent in the 1950s, and is also related to the greater importance of the U.S., rather than Britain's, in Canada's economy. It can also be said that this movement led to a larger role for Quebec Inc. in Quebec's economy.
Levying fines of up to $7000 per offence, Charter enforcers were widely derided in English media as the "language police" or "tongue troopers". While the Office québécois de la langue française
(OQLF) provides several warnings before resorting to legal sanctions, alleged abuse of its power has led to charges of racism and harassment. The OQLF urged stores to remove imported kosher goods that did not meet labelling requirements, an action perceived in the Jewish community as an unfair targeting that coincided with a high-profile case against the well-known Schwartz's
delicatessen, the owner of which was told that the apostrophe in his sign was illegal. In 2002, there were reported cases of harassment of allophone
merchants who refused to speak French.
The 2004 annual report of the OQLF was criticized by a columnist of The Gazette who complained of a "totalitarian mindset in the bureaucracy". The columnist believed the report contained sections describing the continued prevalence of languages other than French in two-thirds of Montreal's households as an "alarming" trend, because it would present a formidable challenge to francophone
s in Montreal. In reality, the report judged alarming the fact that adoption of English as home language by allophones grew faster than the adoption of French as home language.
The use of the notwithstanding clause in the 1990s to circumvent the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms with regards to signage also drew a reaction in other Canadian provinces; the syndrome de Sault Ste. Marie
was a series of symbolic but divisive resolutions by some municipalities outside Quebec declaring their towns unilingually English in protest of this supposed infringement on the rights embodied in the charter. It is often believed that the controversy over the Charter was what caused the Meech Lake Accord
and Charlottetown Accord
to fail.
It should be noted that the Supreme Court in their ruling regarding the signs case which led to the use of the notwithstanding clause, ruled that in fact any sign law was a violation of the freedom of expression right.
Aside from the civil rights infringement, the Charter has faced legal challenges because the restricted education opportunities have hindered not only unilingual but bilingual anglophones' employment. Although the Charter made French the official language of government and civil administration, the same cannot be said of the private sector. The francization programs for businesses were largely successful in the 1980s; however, the 1990s saw the return of bilingualism and the exclusive usage of English in a number of new economic sectors that did not exist in Quebec before, for example the hi-tech industry. Despite nearly 30 years of the Charter, it has never been applied as rigorously as intended. English is still often made a requirement by employers in Montreal and, to a lesser extent, in Gatineau and Quebec City, with the workforce in Montreal remaining largely bilingual despite the Charter.
On November 14, 1988 the political and human rights watchdog organization Freedom House
published “The Doctrine of ‘Preponderance of Blood’ in South Africa, the Soviet Union and Quebec” in its journal Exchange. Introduced by Zbigniew Brzezinski
(an anglophone who lived in Montreal) former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s National Security adviser, the essay compared the language of instruction provisions of the charter with South African apartheid statutes and jurisprudence. However, the Supreme Court of Canada
refused the discrimination-based-on-ancestry argument under the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms in Gosselin (Tutor of) v. Quebec (Attorney General)
on the grounds that it conflicted with section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
. The criteria used by Quebec to determine if parents are entitled to have their children instructed in the language of the minority are the same as those found under section 23 of the Canadian Charter.
identified the negative perception of Quebec's language policy in the rest of Canada and the United States as a problem to solve. It stated:
Recommendation 147 of the report suggested the creation of an institutional television and radio campaign targeting both Quebec citizens and certain publics abroad to inform on the facts of the situation of French in North America and the language policy of Quebec. Recommendation 148 suggested the creation of a watch to correct the errors made "both in good faith and bad faith" in the media.
As part of the effort to correct the errors of perception, the OQLF conducted an inquiry on the influence of Quebec's language policy abroad in countries where the fragility of certain languages prompted the use of legislative measures. It requested and published the opinions of various experts from Spain
, Israel
, the United States
, Estonia
, Latvia
and Lithuania
, Wales
, Australia
and Flanders
in a special issue of the OQLF's Revue d'aménagement linguistique celebrating the 25th anniversary of Quebec's Charter of the French language in 2002.
Jonas Žilinskas, lecturer at University of Šiauliai, in Lithuania described the state of the Lithuanian language after a prolonged Russian rule over his country:
This "false bilingualism" was followed by the Sąjūdis
movement during which the people of Lithuania declared their language the sole official language and began working on a language policy modeled on the experience of Quebec.
Mart Rannut, vice-dean of research at the Department of philology of the University of Tallinn, in Estonia, recalled the influence of Quebec's expertise in the field of linguistic human rights and language planning which helped countries that have gained independence from the former Soviet Union
and concluded that "Bill 101 indirectly touched one sixth of the planet".
Ina Druviete
, at the time dean of the department of sociolinguistics at the Linguistic Institute of Latvia, noted the similarities between the language policies in all three Baltic States and that of Quebec. All policies aiming "to prevent language shifts and to modify the hierarchy of languages in the public life. The principal sectors of intervention were the language used in the government agencies and the administration, in meetings and office spaces in particular, in corporate names, information and education. The principle of territorial linguistic rights was instituted."
In Wales, the language policy of Quebec had a great influence, but could not be implemented as it was in the Baltic States because Welsh speakers do not form a majority in this constituent country of the United Kingdom. According to Colin H. Williams
, professor and researcher at the Welsh Department of Cardiff University
particular lessons followed in Wales which stem from the experience of Quebec are:
In Israel, while the "penetration of English in the sociolinguistic organization of the country" is perceived, according to Bernard Spolsky, professor emeritus of English at the Bar-Ilan University
, as a threat to Hebrew, the language policy has thus far only influenced linguists and some politicians. He writes:
In Catalonia, according to Miquel Reniu i Tresserras, president of the Comissió de Lectorats and former chief executive officer of the Catalan language policy, Quebec's legislation has constituted a "reference model" and the OQLF and the equivalent body in Catalonia are in close collaboration.
In the United States, Joshua A. Fishman
, professor emeritus at Yeshiva University
, in New York observes that whatever the subject "all our sources, greater public to academic, all contribute to give a negative impression concerning Quebec".
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
), also known as Bill 101 and Loi 101, is a law in the province of Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
defining French, the language of the majority of the population, as the only official language
Official language
An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
of Quebec, and framing fundamental language rights for everyone in the province. It is the central legislative piece in Quebec's language policy
Language policy
Many countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language or set of languages. Although nations historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language at the expense of others, many countries now have policies designed to...
.
Proposed by Camille Laurin
Camille Laurin
Camille Laurin was a psychiatrist and Parti Québécois politician in the province of Quebec, Canada. MNA member for the riding of Bourget, he is considered the father of Quebec's language law known informally as "Bill 101".-Biography:Born in Charlemagne, Quebec, Laurin obtained a degree in...
, the Minister of Cultural Development under the first Parti Québécois
Parti Québécois
The Parti Québécois is a centre-left political party that advocates national sovereignty for the province of Quebec and secession from Canada. The Party traditionally has support from the labour movement. Unlike many other social-democratic parties, its ties with the labour movement are informal...
government of Premier René Lévesque
René Lévesque
René Lévesque was a reporter, a minister of the government of Quebec, , the founder of the Parti Québécois political party and the 23rd Premier of Quebec...
, it was passed by the National Assembly
National Assembly of Quebec
The National Assembly of Quebec is the legislative body of the Province of Quebec. The Lieutenant Governor and the National Assembly compose the Parliament of Quebec, which operates in a fashion similar to those of other British-style parliamentary systems.The National Assembly was formerly the...
, and granted Royal Assent
Royal Assent
The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...
by Lieutenant Governor
Lieutenant Governor of Quebec
The Lieutenant Governor of Quebec : Lieutenant-gouverneur du Québec, or : Lieutenant-gouverneure du Québec) is the viceregal representative in Quebec of the Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who operates distinctly within the province but is also shared equally with the ten other jurisdictions...
Hugues Lapointe
Hugues Lapointe
Hugues Lapointe, PC, OC, CD, QC was a Canadian lawyer, Member of Parliament and 22nd Lieutenant Governor of Quebec from 1966 to 1978....
on August 26, 1977. The Charter's provisions expanded upon the 1974 Official Language Act
Official Language Act (Quebec)
The Official Language Act of 1974 , also known as Bill 22, is an act of the National Assembly of Quebec which made French the sole official language of Quebec, a province of Canada...
(Bill 22), which was enacted under Premier Robert Bourassa
Robert Bourassa
Jean-Robert Bourassa, was a politician in Quebec, Canada. He served as the 22nd Premier of Quebec in two different mandates, first from May 12, 1970, to November 25, 1976, and then from December 12, 1985, to January 11, 1994, serving a total of just under 15 years as Provincial Premier.-Early...
's Liberal
Parti libéral du Québec
The Quebec Liberal Party is a centre-right political party in Quebec. It has been independent of the federal Liberal Party of Canada since 1955....
government to make French the sole official language of Quebec. Prior to 1974, Quebec had no official language and was subject only to the requirements on the use of English and French contained in Article 133 of the British North America Act, 1867
Constitution Act, 1867
The Constitution Act, 1867 , is a major part of Canada's Constitution. The Act created a federal dominion and defines much of the operation of the Government of Canada, including its federal structure, the House of Commons, the Senate, the justice system, and the taxation system...
.
Objective
The preamble of the Charter states that the National Assembly resolved "to make French the language of Government and the Law, as well as the normal and everyday language of work, instruction, communication, commerce and business". It also states that the National Assembly is to pursue this objective "in a spirit of fairness and open-mindedness, respectful of the institutions of the English-speaking community of Quebec, and respectful of ethnic minorities, whose valuable contribution to the development of Quebec it readily acknowledges". In addition, it states that the National Assembly of Quebec recognizes "the right of the Amerinds and the Inuit of Quebec, the first inhabitants of this land, to preserve and develop their original language and culture".Titles
The Charter of the French language consists of six titles and two schedules.The nine chapters of Title I, pertaining to the status of the French language, declare French the sole official (chapter I), define the fundamental language rights of persons (chapter II), and defines the status of French in the legislature and the courts (chapter III), the civil administration (chapter IV), the semipublic agencies (chapter V), labour relations (VI), commerce and business (VII), and language of instruction (VIII).
The five chapters of Title II, pertain to linguistic officialization, toponymy
Toponymy
Toponymy is the scientific study of place names , their origins, meanings, use and typology. The word "toponymy" is derived from the Greek words tópos and ónoma . Toponymy is itself a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds...
, and the francization of the civil service and enterprises.
Title III establishes the Office québécois de la langue française
Office québécois de la langue française
The Office québécois de la langue française is a public organization established on March 24, 1961 by the Liberal government of Jean Lesage...
(Quebec Office of the French language), defines its mission, powers, and organization.
Title IV establishes the Conseil supérieur de la langue française
Conseil supérieur de la langue française (Quebec)
The Conseil supérieur de la langue française is an advisory council in Quebec, Canada, whose mission is "to advise the minister responsible for the application of the Charter of the French language on any question relative to the French language in Quebec." It works in close collaboration with...
(Superior Council of the French language).
Title V and VI define penal provisions and sanctions and transitional and miscellaneous provisions.
Status of the French language
To achieve the goal of making French the "normal and everyday language of work, instruction, communication, commerce and business" and ensure the respect of Quebecers' language rights, the Charter contains a number of key provisions and various regulations.Official language
In the first article of the Charter, French is declared the official language of Quebec.The French language became the sole official language of Quebec with the adoption of the Official Language Act
Official Language Act (Quebec)
The Official Language Act of 1974 , also known as Bill 22, is an act of the National Assembly of Quebec which made French the sole official language of Quebec, a province of Canada...
in 1974.
Fundamental language rights
The fundamental language rights of every person in Quebec are:- The right to have the civil administration, the health services and social services, the public utility enterprises, the professional corporations, the associations of employees and all enterprises doing business in Quebec communicate with him in French. (article 2)
- The right to speak French in deliberative assemblies. (article 3)
- The right of workers to carry on their activities in French. (article 4)
- The right of consumers to be informed and served in French. (article 5)
- The right of persons eligible for instruction in Quebec to receive that instruction in French. (article 6)
Legislature and courts
French is the declared language of the legislature and courts in Quebec. Section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, however, requires that Bills be printed, published, passed, and assented to in French and in English in the Parliament of Canada and Quebec.French or English may be used by any person before the courts of Quebec. Parties may request the translation in French or English of the judgments by the courts or decisions rendered by any "body discharging quasi-judicial functions".
The French text prevails over the English one, in case of any discrepancy, for any regulation to which section 133 of the Constitution Act of 1867 does not apply.
The first version of the Charter of the French Language provided that Bills be enacted only in French. In 1979, the related provisions (articles 7 through 13) were rendered inoperative by a ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...
in Attorney General of Quebec v. Blaikie
Attorney General of Quebec v. Blaikie (No. 1)
Quebec v. Blaikie, [1979] 2 S.C.R. 1016 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on language rights in the Constitution Act, 1867...
; however, Quebec responded by re-enacting in French and in English the Charter of the French Language, leaving intact articles 7 through 13.
In 1993, the Charter's provisions related to the language of the legislature and courts were made compliant with the Supreme Court's ruling.
Civil administration
The government departments, agencies are designated by their French name alone, all administrative documents are drafted and published in the official language. All communications by the administration with other governments and legal persons, between departments and internally inside departments, are conducted in the official language.Knowledge of the official language appropriate to the office being applied for is required.
A non-official language may be used on signs and posters of the administration for health or public safety reasons.
Semipublic agencies
Public utilities and professional orders must provide service in the official language and use it for their internal and general communications. Professional orders may issue permits only to persons who have a knowledge of the official language appropriate to the practice of their profession.Labour relations
Ten articles of the charter provide for the general goal of making French the language of labour relations.Employers are to draw up written communications to their staff and publish job offers or promotions in the official language.
An employer cannot dismiss, lay off, demote or transfer a staff member on the sole account of his being exclusively French-speaking or of possessing insufficient knowledge of a non-official language, or because that member demanded the respect of his right to work in French. As a job requirement, knowledge or a specific level of knowledge of a language other than French is prohibited, unless the nature of the duties require it.
The Commission des relations du travail (Commission of Labour Relations) arbitrates in case of disagreement over the necessity of knowing a non-official language to perform a given work. The burden of the proof is on the employer.
Commerce and business
Product labels, their instructions, manuals, warranty certificates as well as restaurant menus and wine lists must be in the official language. Other languages may be used, provided the official language's prominence is at least equivalent.Catalogues, brochures, folders, commercial directories and other such publications, must be in the official language. All software (for example, video games and operating systems) must be available in French unless no French version exists.
Signs and posters must be in the official language and they may also be in another language provided the official language be markedly predominant.
A number of exceptions to the general rules for commercial products, signs, and advertising:
- Products destined exclusively for export;
- Educational products for the teaching of a language other than French;
- Cultural and ideological companies, groups, signs, and literature (including non-French broadcasters, newspapers, etc.);
- Companies (usually multinational corporations) that sign an agreement with the OQLF permitting an exemption from the francization requirement. (However, the rules regarding the right of a worker to work in French still apply.)
In many parts of Quebec, various signs with bilingual French and English text of equal sizes can be seen, although French is usually slightly predominant on these signs; for example, it is located to the left of other languages so that it is read "before" the non-French text when reading left-to right. Formerly, the size and colour of text in other languages were tightly regulated as well.
Language of instruction
The language of instruction from kindergarten to secondary school is French. (The instruction language is the language in which the classes are taught. Learning of English as a second language is mandatory for all children attending French school beginning in elementary school.)Articles 87, 88 and 89 provide for the use of Amerindic languages and Inuktitut
Inuktitut
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...
as language of instruction. The rate of introduction of French and English as languages of instruction is left to school committees and parents' committees.
At the request of parents, the following may receive instruction in English:
- a child whose father or mother is a Canadian citizen and received elementary instruction in English anywhere in Canada, provided that that instruction constitutes the major part of the elementary instruction he/she received in Canada;
- a child whose father or mother is a Canadian citizen and who has received or is receiving elementary or secondary instruction in English in Canada, and the brothers and sisters of that child, provided that that instruction constitutes the major part of the elementary or secondary instruction received by the child in Canada.
The original 1977 Charter provided for the English instruction not on the basis of a parent having received his instruction in English in Canada, but in Quebec only. This came to be amended following the adoption of the Constitution Act 1982, which defined the educational right of French and English minorities in all provinces under section 23
Section Twenty-three of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Section Twenty-three of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the section of the Charter that constitutionally guarantees minority language educational rights to French-speaking communities outside Quebec, and, to a lesser extent, English-speaking minorities in Quebec...
of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. It forms the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982...
.
Office québécois de la langue française
The Office québécois de la langue française is the commission responsible for conducting the policy pertaining to linguistic officialization, toponymy and francization of civil administration and enterprises. It also has the mission of "monitoring the linguistic situation in Québec", promoting the official language, and conducting research. In 2005-2006, the budget of the OQLF was of $18.5 million CADCanadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
.
Conseil supérieur de la langue française
The Conseil supérieur de la langue française (Superior Council of the French language) is an advisory council whose mission is "to advise the minister responsible for the application of the Charter of the French language on any question relative to the French language in Quebec". It works in close collaboration with equivalent bodies in France, Belgium and Switzerland.Legal dispute
Language in Canada is defined federally by the Official Languages ActOfficial Languages Act (Canada)
The Official Languages Act is a Canadian law that came into force on September 9, 1969, which gives English and French equal status in the government of Canada. This makes them "official" languages, having preferred status in law over all other languages...
since 1969 and is part of the Constitution of Canada
Constitution of Canada
The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law in Canada; the country's constitution is an amalgamation of codified acts and uncodified traditions and conventions. It outlines Canada's system of government, as well as the civil rights of all Canadian citizens and those in Canada...
since 1982. Parts of the Charter of the French language have been amended in response to rulings by Quebec Courts which were upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...
.
Before 1982, the only part of the Charter of the French Language that could be challenged constitutionally was that of the language of legislation and the courts. It was challenged in 1979 by Peter Blaikie
Peter Blaikie
Peter Macfarlane Blaikie is a prominent Canadian lawyer and a fluently bilingual statesman from Quebec.-Genealogy:Blaikie was born in Shawinigan, Mauricie on May 10, 1937. He was the son of Kenneth Guy "Bill" Blaikie and Mary Petrie Black....
, Roland Durand, and Yoine Goldstein
Yoine Goldstein
Yoine J. Goldstein is a Canadian Jewish lawyer, academic, and former Senator.Born in Montreal, Quebec, his education includes a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University in 1955, a Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill University in 1958, and a Doctor of Laws from the Université de Lyon in 1960. He...
(Attorney General of Quebec v. Blaikie
Attorney General of Quebec v. Blaikie (No. 1)
Quebec v. Blaikie, [1979] 2 S.C.R. 1016 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on language rights in the Constitution Act, 1867...
).
In 1982, the patriation
Patriation
Patriation is a non-legal term used in Canada to describe a process of constitutional change also known as "homecoming" of the constitution. Up until 1982, Canada was governed by a constitution that was a British law and could be changed only by an Act of the British Parliament...
of the Canadian constitution occurred as the British Parliament passed the Canada Act 1982
Canada Act 1982
The Canada Act 1982 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was passed at the request of the Canadian federal government to "patriate" Canada's constitution, ending the necessity for the country to request certain types of amendment to the Constitution of Canada to be made by the...
. This act enacted the Constitution Act, 1982
Constitution Act, 1982
The Constitution Act, 1982 is a part of the Constitution of Canada. The Act was introduced as part of Canada's process of "patriating" the constitution, introducing several amendments to the British North America Act, 1867, and changing the latter's name in Canada to the Constitution Act, 1867...
for Canada (including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. It forms the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982...
) whose section 23
Section Twenty-three of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Section Twenty-three of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the section of the Charter that constitutionally guarantees minority language educational rights to French-speaking communities outside Quebec, and, to a lesser extent, English-speaking minorities in Quebec...
introduced the notion of "minority language education rights". This novelty opened another door to a constitutional dispute of Quebec's Charter of the French Language.
Alliance Quebec
Alliance Quebec
Alliance Quebec was a group formed in 1982 to lobby on behalf of English-speaking Quebecers in the province of Quebec, Canada. It began as an umbrella group of many English-speaking organizations and institutions in the province, with approximately 15,000 members. At its height in the mid-1980s,...
, an anglophone rights lobby group, was founded in May 1982. It is mainly through this civil association that various lawyers challenged the constitutionality of Quebec's territorial language policy.
Opposition and support
The Charter of the French Language has been received poorly by many anglophones and allophonesAllophone (Quebec)
In Quebec, an allophone is a resident, usually an immigrant, whose mother tongue or home language is neither English nor French. The term is also sometimes used in other parts of Canada. The term parallels Anglophone and Francophone, which designate people whose mother tongues are English and...
. Allophones who integrated into the French-speaking community are more inclined to support the charter than allophones who integrated in the English-speaking community.
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
Pierre Trudeau
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, , usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals,...
and provinces outside Quebec criticized the Charter strongly. In his memoirs, Trudeau described Bourassa's Bill 22 as a "slap in the face," as it ran contrary to the federal government's initiative to mandate bilingualism. Except for New Brunswick, most other provinces that accepted grudgingly Trudeau's bilingualism initiative never fully implemented it, likely in protest to Quebec's language laws. The most notable case was Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, where Premier Bill Davis
Bill Davis
William Grenville "Bill" Davis, was the 18th Premier of Ontario, Canada, from 1971 to 1985. Davis was first elected as the MPP for Peel in the 1959 provincial election where he was a backbencher in Leslie Frost's government. Under John Robarts, he was a cabinet minister overseeing the education...
refused to grant full status to francophones, despite the fact that the infrastructure was already in place.
Political opposition to the Charter and earlier francophone-favoring language legislation has had limited success, given the support of the laws by the Parti Québécois and Quebec Liberal Party. Legislative initiatives prior to Bill 101 were often denounced by francophones as insufficient, such as An Act to promote the French language in Quebec
An Act to promote the French language in Quebec
An Act to promote the French language in Quebec of 1969 , also known as Bill 63, was a language law passed in the Canadian province of Quebec...
(Bill 63). After Bourassa passed the Official Language Act
Official Language Act (Quebec)
The Official Language Act of 1974 , also known as Bill 22, is an act of the National Assembly of Quebec which made French the sole official language of Quebec, a province of Canada...
, opponents turned their support to the Union Nationale in the 1976 election, but despite that short resurgence of support, the party collapsed in the subsequent election. Court challenges have been more successful: Many of the key provisions of the initial language legislation having been rewritten to comply with rulings. Despite compliance since 1993 of the Charter with the Canadian constitution, opposition to the Charter and the government body enforcing it has continued.
According to Statistics Canada, up to 244,000 English-speaking people have emigrated from Quebec to other provinces since the 1970s, and the Quebec population of those whose mother tongue is English had dropped from 789,000 in 1971 to 575,555 in 2001 but increased in 2006 to 607,165. According to the 2001 Canadian census, 575,555 (7.6% of population) in Quebec declare English as their only mother tongue, 744,430 (10%) use mostly English as their home language, and 918,955 (12.2%) comprise the Official Language Minority, having English as their First Official language spoken, but there has been an increase in the 2006 census including the official language minority being at 994,720. Because many anglophones relocated outside of Quebec after the introduction of the Charter in the 1970s, several English-language schools in Montreal closed their doors.This is only partially the cause, since the restrictions on who can attend English schools are also an ongoing drain on the English school system. Many companies, most notably Sun Life, Royal Bank
Royal Bank of Canada
The Royal Bank of Canada or RBC Financial Group is the largest financial institution in Canada, as measured by deposits, revenues, and market capitalization. The bank serves seventeen million clients and has 80,100 employees worldwide. The company corporate headquarters are located in Toronto,...
, and Bank of Montreal
Bank of Montreal
The Bank of Montreal , , or BMO Financial Group, is the fourth largest bank in Canada by deposits. The Bank of Montreal was founded on June 23, 1817 by John Richardson and eight merchants in a rented house in Montreal, Quebec. On May 19, 1817 the Articles of Association were adopted, making it...
(which even considered removing "Montreal" from its name), moved their major operations to Toronto as a consequence of the adoption of this law. This concerted fleeing of business and subsequent loss of thousands of jobs is sometimes said to have hindered Quebec's economy and allowed Toronto to overtake Montreal as Canada's business centre. On the other hand, Toronto's advantage had been growing since the 1930s and had become apparent in the 1950s, and is also related to the greater importance of the U.S., rather than Britain's, in Canada's economy. It can also be said that this movement led to a larger role for Quebec Inc. in Quebec's economy.
Levying fines of up to $7000 per offence, Charter enforcers were widely derided in English media as the "language police" or "tongue troopers". While the Office québécois de la langue française
Office québécois de la langue française
The Office québécois de la langue française is a public organization established on March 24, 1961 by the Liberal government of Jean Lesage...
(OQLF) provides several warnings before resorting to legal sanctions, alleged abuse of its power has led to charges of racism and harassment. The OQLF urged stores to remove imported kosher goods that did not meet labelling requirements, an action perceived in the Jewish community as an unfair targeting that coincided with a high-profile case against the well-known Schwartz's
Schwartz's
Schwartz's, also known as the Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen is a delicatessen established in 1928 by Reuben Schwartz, a Jewish immigrant from Romania. It is a landmark at 3895 Saint-Laurent Boulevard and the most famous Montreal-style smoked meat restaurant. Schwartz's often has a line extending...
delicatessen, the owner of which was told that the apostrophe in his sign was illegal. In 2002, there were reported cases of harassment of allophone
Allophone (Quebec)
In Quebec, an allophone is a resident, usually an immigrant, whose mother tongue or home language is neither English nor French. The term is also sometimes used in other parts of Canada. The term parallels Anglophone and Francophone, which designate people whose mother tongues are English and...
merchants who refused to speak French.
The 2004 annual report of the OQLF was criticized by a columnist of The Gazette who complained of a "totalitarian mindset in the bureaucracy". The columnist believed the report contained sections describing the continued prevalence of languages other than French in two-thirds of Montreal's households as an "alarming" trend, because it would present a formidable challenge to francophone
Francophone
The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....
s in Montreal. In reality, the report judged alarming the fact that adoption of English as home language by allophones grew faster than the adoption of French as home language.
The use of the notwithstanding clause in the 1990s to circumvent the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms with regards to signage also drew a reaction in other Canadian provinces; the syndrome de Sault Ste. Marie
Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Sault Ste. Marie is a city on the St. Marys River in Algoma District, Ontario, Canada. It is the third largest city in Northern Ontario, after Sudbury and Thunder Bay, with a population of 74,948. The community was founded as a French religious mission: Sault either means "jump" or "rapids" in...
was a series of symbolic but divisive resolutions by some municipalities outside Quebec declaring their towns unilingually English in protest of this supposed infringement on the rights embodied in the charter. It is often believed that the controversy over the Charter was what caused the Meech Lake Accord
Meech Lake Accord
The Meech Lake Accord was a package of proposed amendments to the Constitution of Canada negotiated in 1987 by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and ten provincial premiers. It was intended to persuade the government of the Province of Quebec to endorse the 1982 Canadian Constitution and increase...
and Charlottetown Accord
Charlottetown Accord
The Charlottetown Accord was a package of proposed amendments to the Constitution of Canada, proposed by the Canadian federal and provincial governments in 1992. It was submitted to a public referendum on October 26 of that year, and was defeated.-Background:...
to fail.
It should be noted that the Supreme Court in their ruling regarding the signs case which led to the use of the notwithstanding clause, ruled that in fact any sign law was a violation of the freedom of expression right.
Aside from the civil rights infringement, the Charter has faced legal challenges because the restricted education opportunities have hindered not only unilingual but bilingual anglophones' employment. Although the Charter made French the official language of government and civil administration, the same cannot be said of the private sector. The francization programs for businesses were largely successful in the 1980s; however, the 1990s saw the return of bilingualism and the exclusive usage of English in a number of new economic sectors that did not exist in Quebec before, for example the hi-tech industry. Despite nearly 30 years of the Charter, it has never been applied as rigorously as intended. English is still often made a requirement by employers in Montreal and, to a lesser extent, in Gatineau and Quebec City, with the workforce in Montreal remaining largely bilingual despite the Charter.
On November 14, 1988 the political and human rights watchdog organization Freedom House
Freedom House
Freedom House is an international non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C. that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights...
published “The Doctrine of ‘Preponderance of Blood’ in South Africa, the Soviet Union and Quebec” in its journal Exchange. Introduced by Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
(an anglophone who lived in Montreal) former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s National Security adviser, the essay compared the language of instruction provisions of the charter with South African apartheid statutes and jurisprudence. However, the Supreme Court of Canada
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...
refused the discrimination-based-on-ancestry argument under the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms in Gosselin (Tutor of) v. Quebec (Attorney General)
Gosselin (Tutor of) v. Quebec (Attorney General)
Gosselin v. Quebec , [2005] 1 S.C.R. 238, 2005 SCC 15 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada on the constitutional protection of minority language rights under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The case was part of a trilogy of minority language rights cases including Solski...
on the grounds that it conflicted with section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. It forms the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982...
. The criteria used by Quebec to determine if parents are entitled to have their children instructed in the language of the minority are the same as those found under section 23 of the Canadian Charter.
Influence abroad
The 2001 report of the Estates-General on the Situation and Future of the French Language in QuebecEstates-General on the Situation and Future of the French Language in Quebec
The Estates-General on the Situation and Future of the French Language in Quebec is the name of a commission set up by the government of Quebec on June 29, 2000...
identified the negative perception of Quebec's language policy in the rest of Canada and the United States as a problem to solve. It stated:
In Canada and abroad, the linguistic policy of Quebec is too often negatively perceived. The business community and the media in particular know it very little. For their part, the Americans remain opposed to a legislation that appears to them to reduce individual liberties and limit the use of English. For them, language and culture are two separate elements, they do not see how the protection of Quebec culture also includes the protection of the French language, even though 35 American States have adopted declarations proclaiming English the official language. Thus, must be developed the perception that Quebec culture is a part of the North-American heritage and that it is necessary to preserve it. It is also important to correct the erroneous perceptions regarding the Quebec language policy and its application.
Recommendation 147 of the report suggested the creation of an institutional television and radio campaign targeting both Quebec citizens and certain publics abroad to inform on the facts of the situation of French in North America and the language policy of Quebec. Recommendation 148 suggested the creation of a watch to correct the errors made "both in good faith and bad faith" in the media.
As part of the effort to correct the errors of perception, the OQLF conducted an inquiry on the influence of Quebec's language policy abroad in countries where the fragility of certain languages prompted the use of legislative measures. It requested and published the opinions of various experts from Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
and Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
in a special issue of the OQLF's Revue d'aménagement linguistique celebrating the 25th anniversary of Quebec's Charter of the French language in 2002.
Jonas Žilinskas, lecturer at University of Šiauliai, in Lithuania described the state of the Lithuanian language after a prolonged Russian rule over his country:
One proclaimed a policy of bilingualism which was expressed only by the obligation made to Lithuanians to learn Russian while Russians did not bother to learn Lithuanian. If the written Lithuanian language were more or less protected by writers through newspapers and publishers, the spoken Lithuanian language was degraded. Often, in the institutions, it was only a language of oral communication, the greatest part of technical documentation and correspondence being written in Russian.
This "false bilingualism" was followed by the Sąjūdis
Sajudis
Sąjūdis initially known as the Reform Movement of Lithuania, is the political organization which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was established on June 3, 1988 and was led by Vytautas Landsbergis...
movement during which the people of Lithuania declared their language the sole official language and began working on a language policy modeled on the experience of Quebec.
Mart Rannut, vice-dean of research at the Department of philology of the University of Tallinn, in Estonia, recalled the influence of Quebec's expertise in the field of linguistic human rights and language planning which helped countries that have gained independence from the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and concluded that "Bill 101 indirectly touched one sixth of the planet".
Ina Druviete
Ina Druviete
Ina Druviete was the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Latvia in 2004-2006.Ina Druviete graduated from the University of Latvia in 1981 with a degree in the Latvian language and literature. Her first political party was Communist Party of the Soviet Union...
, at the time dean of the department of sociolinguistics at the Linguistic Institute of Latvia, noted the similarities between the language policies in all three Baltic States and that of Quebec. All policies aiming "to prevent language shifts and to modify the hierarchy of languages in the public life. The principal sectors of intervention were the language used in the government agencies and the administration, in meetings and office spaces in particular, in corporate names, information and education. The principle of territorial linguistic rights was instituted."
In Wales, the language policy of Quebec had a great influence, but could not be implemented as it was in the Baltic States because Welsh speakers do not form a majority in this constituent country of the United Kingdom. According to Colin H. Williams
Colin H. Williams
Colin H. Williams, is Research Professor in Sociolinguistics in the School of Welsh, Cardiff University.-Biography:...
, professor and researcher at the Welsh Department of Cardiff University
Cardiff University
Cardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...
particular lessons followed in Wales which stem from the experience of Quebec are:
- The acquisition of detailed census data and explanatory facts aiming at clarifying the public discussion
- The linguistic legislation (official language status, right to speak Welsh before the court, Welsh Language BoardWelsh Language BoardThe Welsh Language Board is a statutory body set up by the UK Government as part of the Welsh Language Act 1993. It is now an Assembly Sponsored Public Body...
responsible to administer the law) - The iconography of the linguistic landscape
- The progress in the teaching of the Welsh language
In Israel, while the "penetration of English in the sociolinguistic organization of the country" is perceived, according to Bernard Spolsky, professor emeritus of English at the Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University
Bar-Ilan University is a university in Ramat Gan of the Tel Aviv District, Israel.Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is now Israel's second-largest academic institution. It has nearly 26,800 students and 1,350 faculty members...
, as a threat to Hebrew, the language policy has thus far only influenced linguists and some politicians. He writes:
Periodically, Israeli politicians present bills to proclaim Hebrew the sole official language of the country. Presently, Hebrew shares this title with Arabic only, because a measure was taken soon after the foundation of the State, in 1948, to modify the British policy, which imposed three languages, and gave up English. The last attempt at giving a judicial protection to Hebrew goes back to December 2000: two bills were then rejected.
In Catalonia, according to Miquel Reniu i Tresserras, president of the Comissió de Lectorats and former chief executive officer of the Catalan language policy, Quebec's legislation has constituted a "reference model" and the OQLF and the equivalent body in Catalonia are in close collaboration.
In the United States, Joshua A. Fishman
Joshua Fishman
Joshua Aaron Fishman, is an American linguist who specializes in the sociology of language, language planning, bilingual education, and language and ethnicity.-Life:...
, professor emeritus at Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
, in New York observes that whatever the subject "all our sources, greater public to academic, all contribute to give a negative impression concerning Quebec".
See also
- Language demographics of QuebecLanguage demographics of QuebecThis article presents the current language demographics of the Canadian province of Quebec.-Demographic terms:The complex nature of Quebec's linguistic situation, with individuals who are often bilingual or multilingual, has required the use of multiple terms in order to describe who speaks which...
- Language policyLanguage policyMany countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular language or set of languages. Although nations historically have used language policies most often to promote one official language at the expense of others, many countries now have policies designed to...
- Minority languageMinority languageA minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities.-International politics:...
- French languageFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
- English-speaking Quebecers
- Children of Bill 101Children of Bill 101The children of Bill 101 is the name given to the generation of children whose parents immigrated to Quebec, Canada after the adoption of the 1977 Charter of the French Language ....
- Official bilingualism in Canada
- Toubon LawToubon LawThe Toubon Law , is a law of the French government mandating the use of the French language in official government publications, in all advertisements, in all workplaces, in commercial contracts, in some other commercial communication contexts, in all government-financed schools, and some other...
- Ford v. Quebec (Attorney General)Ford v. Quebec (Attorney General)Ford v. Quebec , [1988] 2 S.C.R. 712 is a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision in which the Court struck down part of the Charter of the French Language, commonly known as Bill 101. This law had restricted the use of commercial signs written in languages other than French...
- Devine v. Quebec (Attorney General)Devine v. Quebec (Attorney General)Devine v. Quebec , [1988] 2 S.C.R. 790 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the constitutional protection of minority language rights.-Background:...
External links
- Website of the Office québécois de la langue française (English section)
- Infoguides on French language requirements (business, commerce, workplace), in the website of the Office québécois de la langue française
- Filippo Salvatore, Vive a trilingual Quebec!, in the UNESCO Courier, July–August 2001
- CBC Digital Archives - Fighting Words: Bill 101
- Educaloi - La Loi vos droits - Citizens - Charter of the French Language
- Bill 199 Charter of the French and English Languages (Equality PartyEquality Party (Quebec)The Equality Party was a political party in Quebec, Canada, that promoted the use of English in Quebec on an equal basis with French. Four Equality Party members were elected to Quebec's National Assembly in 1989, as part of an anglophone reaction to changes made by the governing Liberals to...
of Quebec)