Quebec’s new language law has dozens of municipalities in the province asserting their bilingual status, and few are considering giving up the right to serve their citizens in both English and French.
Almost 90 cities, towns or neighborhoods in Quebec are considered officially bilingual, a designation that allows them to offer services, send signage and mail communications in the country’s two official languages. Jurisdictions without this status must communicate only in French, with few exceptions.
Bill 96, the new language law that came into effect on June 1, proposes revoking a municipality’s bilingual status in places where less than 50 percent of citizens speak English as their first language maternal However, a bilingual town or city can avoid losing its status by passing a resolution within 120 days of receiving the province’s notice.
Scott Pearce, the mayor of the town of Gore, north of Montreal, said choosing to remain bilingual was an easy decision for his town of just over 1,700 residents.
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“The Irish founded us here in the 1800s, so it’s part of our history: English speaking and English culture,” he said in a recent interview.
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Although the percentage of Gore residents who speak English as their first language has dropped from more than 50 percent to about 20 percent, he said maintaining bilingualism is popular among French and English-speaking citizens.
Language, he said, “has never been an issue here.”
Pearce, who represents bilingual municipalities in the province’s federation of towns and cities — Fédération québécoise des municipalités — said most of the mayors he has spoken with plan to pass similar resolutions, or have already done so.
“I spoke to mayors across the province and they are very proud of the bilingual status and how their communities (English and French) get along,” he said.
While Bill 96 has been criticized by groups representing English speakers, Pearce, who is married to a sitting lawmaker, says he believes in this case, the governing party has done cities a favor by giving them an easy way to formalize your status.
The Canadian Press has contacted all bilingual municipalities and districts to ask if they have passed, or plan to pass, a resolution to maintain their status. Of the more than two dozen who responded, all but three said they intended to remain bilingual. The others said they were still studying the law or declined to comment. None said they planned to give up being officially considered bilingual.
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A spokesman for the province’s language office, the Office québécois de la langue française, said in an email that notices would be sent “shortly” to cities that no longer meet the 50 percent threshold.
Although they can offer services in English, “a municipality recognized as bilingual must ensure that its services to the public are available in Quebec’s official language, French,” Nicolas Trudel wrote in an email.
The official purpose of Bill 96 is to state that French is the only official language of Quebec and “the common language of the nation of Quebec.” But four mayors who spoke to The Canadian Press by phone, as well as many who responded by email, said the decision to operate in two languages was unanimous among city council and generated little or no debate between the citizens
“I think the French language is already protected and well protected,” said Richard Burcombe, mayor of the city of Brome Lake, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. “They don’t need to cut services to the English population to protect the French language.”
He said his city, which falls below the 50 percent threshold, has yet to pass a resolution, but will do so once it receives notice.
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Kirkland, a Montreal-area city, described bilingualism as a “core value in all aspects of municipal life,” while Ayer’s Cliff, Que., in the Eastern Townships, said it was “essential for the character of the municipality and as a witness to the historical presence of the two communities, Anglophone and Francophone”.
Otterburn Park, a town 40 kilometers east of Montreal, said it wanted to maintain its bilingual status despite only 5.7% of its population reporting English as their first language last census
“The English-speaking population is largely made up of seniors,” Mayor Melanie Villeneuve wrote in an email.
“To provide a quality service, especially to the most vulnerable groups of people, we believe it is important to be able to communicate with English-speaking citizens in the language that works for them.”
Several mayors expressed the hope that the option to remain bilingual would be accepted as permanent and that new resolutions would not have to be passed every time there is a census.
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