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Requirement of knowledge of French in Quebec: Federal Liberals want to stifle debate
Once again, a legitimate and vital claim for the future of Quebecers as a nation, will simply be swept away from the back of the hand?
Under Canadian law, knowledge of one of the official languages, English or French, is mandatory to obtain citizenship. The Bloc Québécois has tabled bill C-421 so that in Quebec, knowledge of French is mandatory. This is a measure that goes in the direction of the commitments of the Quebec government and nothing makes any more sense, because the Charter of the French language aims to make French the official and common language of Quebec, the only state predominantly francophone in America.
But in Ottawa, federal politicians are trying to get around this debate. The parliamentary re-entry will be marked by a rare procedure: A secret vote, the outcome of which may be to prevent Canadian parliamentarians from having to publicly vote on this yet consensual issue in Quebec.
"It is downright a hijacking of democracy to stifle an essential debate for Quebecers."
Indeed, a recent light survey shows that 73% of Quebecers believe that "the minimum knowledge of French should be a mandatory requirement to remain in Quebec" (79% among francophones and 52% of Anglophones and nonlanguages).
But that seems inconceivable to the federalist-pan-Canadian politicians. As soon as the bill was tabled, the former Commissioner of official languages, Graham Fraser, intervened. He felt that requiring sufficient knowledge of French would be contrary to the official Languages Act of Canada on the pretext that it would prevent someone from communicating with the government in the language of their choice. What our bill has no effect on.
The load was ringing
Even before the bill was brought into the chamber, when it moved to the Subcommittee on Business from Members of Parliament, the Liberal MP for Laurentides — Labelle, David Graham (ardent advocate of "Bonjour/hi") said the bill is clearly Unconstitutional by referring to a personal anecdote. He was opposed to the possibility that his wife, who spoke five languages, but not French, should have passed his citizenship examination in Ontario.
At the same time, the Liberal MP for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, Linda Lapointe, fears that "Americans who have become permanent residents are going to pass their citizenship test in Ontario because they could not do so in Quebec for lack of Sufficient knowledge of French. "
"In their view, requiring the success of a test on the knowledge of French in Quebec would be contrary to the Canadian Constitution."
The coroner and parliamentary adviser to the Procedural Committee indicated that the bill was not clearly unconstitutional, and therefore votable, the Liberals were able to obstruct the Bloc's bill because they are in the majority. It is downright a hijacking of democracy to stifle an essential debate for Quebecers.
We appealed to the House of Commons and obtained a secret vote on the "votability" of C-421 on January 29 and 30.
"Once again, a legitimate and vital claim for the future of Quebecers as a nation, will simply be swept away from the back of the hand?"
This is unfortunately possible because the federal system makes another nation make crucial decisions in our place. Only independence would certainly allow us to make French the true common public language and to ensure the future. But by then, the role of the Bloc Québécois is all the more important because it is the only party that systematically defends Quebec's language positions, both through its interventions in the Canadian Parliament and its actions to mobilize public opinion.
