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I often hear elite American intellectuals (experts, academics and futurists, etc.) express great optimism about Canada’s potential. The country is framed as a crack of hope in a bleak world, a dynamic, modern, urban, democratic, multicultural and open-minded success story, free of toxic nationalism and populist authoritarianism that runs the rest of the planet to a ditch.
The big blind spot in this optimistic analysis has always been Quebec: a province that welcomes 8.7 million of Canada’s 38.7 million citizens, and a place concerned with pursuing policies that disagree with all flattering Canadian stereotypes. . In virtually any metric, it could be correlated with a modern and promising society: a hospitable business climate, an up-to-date education system, open and welcoming communities, strong protection of individual liberties, a moderate and rational political class, the second largest in the world. Canada. province march without apology in the opposite direction.
This week, the Quebec parliament passed Bill 96, “A law regarding French, the official and common language of Quebec.” This is an ambitious law that gives the state broad powers to ensure that speaking French, the alleged cornerstone of Quebec’s “distinct identity,” is virtually mandatory in virtually every area of life. The project to make Quebec a homogeneous French-speaking nation is now the goal to which everything else is officially subordinated.
Private companies in Quebec with more than 50 employees have long been forced to use French as the main language of internal communication. Law 96 halves the number of employees needed to reach the threshold and gives the so-called language police new powers to attack companies without any order to ensure compliance, looking for documents, computers and even phones to ensure -I know … I don’t know, that employees don’t secretly plan the company’s softball tournament in English (or, therefore, in Korean, Arabic, or Greek). Violators could have their business licenses revoked.
The bond around English education is also tightening: English-language colleges in Quebec now have to require students to take several French courses, and students have to demonstrate proficiency in French to graduate. if. The government is also required to ensure that these dangerous schools never account for more than 17.5 percent of provincial students.
Immigrants, long considered one of Quebec’s most daunting challenges, given the small French-speaking world these days, will see their ability to communicate with the English-speaking province cut short after six months. They don’t have access to English schools for them, of course.
Meanwhile, Quebecers who speak English as a first language will see their status as an “official minority” more closely defined and controlled than ever before, to ensure that only Quebecers who access English-language services have some valid and “historic” reason. To do so. – Don’t let ordinary Quebecers have any idea. It is estimated that up to half a million English-speaking Quebecers could lose access to services due to the bureaucratic redefinition of their community.
The list goes on. Doctors will need to speak to patients in French, bilingual judge appointments will be discouraged, and packages, signs, and advertisements will need to highlight French even more than they do now.
Bill 96’s dream, along with other nationalist initiatives by Quebec Prime Minister François Legault, including immigration cuts and a ban on public servants from wearing religious clothing, is that of a “pure” Quebec. , splendidly virgin for other cultures. It reminds me of the “sakoku” years. of Japan, in which a protected political elite convinced of the inherent inferiority of the outside world isolated itself for two centuries, restricting even learning about foreign things.
Apologists for Legault’s agenda, while not necessarily in agreement with all of his bills and decrees, tend to make grandiose gestures at the idea that Quebec’s French culture is so precious and delicate that virtually any effort to preserve it is forgivable. A recent article in the National Post by Lise Ravary struck the standard notes of sympathy for the “400-year dream of a French-speaking corner of North America.” This included a mandatory mention of Louisiana, one of the most culturally rich and distinctive places on this continent, but commonly imagined as a kind of hell in Quebec circles, because the state no longer speaks widely French.
Aside from Louisiana, there are countless places that Quebec could have chosen positively inspired by: prosperous and dynamic European nations such as Sweden or the Netherlands, where a strong pride in language and traditional customs coexists with very high levels of fluency in English and a deep cultural integration with the wider West. In fact, Quebec does not even need to look outside its own borders: the city of Montreal has long captivated the world with its confident multilingualism and multiculturalism, but generations of Quebec nationalist leaders have seen cosmopolitanism vibrating of his larger city as a shameful problem to solve.
Canada may still be a country worth betting on, but in a post-Bill 96 world, it is clear that any compliance with Canadian progressivity must be accompanied by a large Quebec-shaped asterisk.