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As the Cereal Box Turns: Québec Enters the Côté Era

© Robert Henderson

I recently returned from two and a half weeks in Québec. My stay coincided with an exciting development in Canada's linguistic politics: judge Danielle Côté's call for a review of Law 101, part of a body of Québec law called the French Language Charter which mandates the preeminence of French on signs, in government, and in education. The judgment has reopened the debate on the health of French in Québec.

Though posts in Globe and Mail fora predict the extinction of Canadian French in as little as a generation, just a day in Québec debunks any such fantasy. All the road signs are in French; if today's children do in fact mysteriously lose the ability to understand their parents' language, they're going to get lost a lot. Supermarket racks groan with French-language magazines and newspapers. English publications, when available, are limited to token titles. And that's greater Montréal. A short drive north, and English magazines vanish entirely. Even in areas with large anglophone minorities, French remains the language of public interaction.

In view of these facts, Judge Côté suggests that standing interpretations of Law 101, enacted in 1977, may no longer be valid. She notes that Law 101 was an emergency measure, intended to reverse the decline of French in public life in Québec. If it has enjoyed some success, she reasons, government must restore as many rights to non-francophones as circumstances warrant.

Predictably, the two communities received her decision differently. Hardcore separatists railed about the "destruction" of the French Language Charter, while equally radical anglophones exulted at Law 101's "overthrow." In fact, it's neither. Mme. Côté is merely rotating democracy's tires, as her job description specifies. The Language Charter inherently compromises the fundamental rights of provincial language minorities, a dangerous flirtation at best. Mme. Côté is correct; such laws must be periodically audited to ensure that they accomplish their stated goals and don't degenerate into a weapon of repression.

Opponents attack the Language Charter as a thinly disguised plot to do just that. For my part, experience convinces me that the need for it is real. A salient example is Mont Tremblant, Québec's posh, Whistler-esque resort town. Wandering its faux European streets, I can't help but marvel at the predominance of French. English is also present, but always precisely half the size of the French characters, as per Charter regulations. Given that only 15% of Mont Tremblant visitors are Québécois, market forces would totally annihilate French there, if not for legal protection like Law 101. For an egalitarian and an anglophone such as myself, it's an instructive example. I'll grant that most cases are less clear-cut, and a lot messier, but in cases as unambiguous as this one, the Language Charter works.