4 ms·

The country's language isn't just French though. Yes, the province is French and I'm all for protecting the French language, but this particular law is pure pan

The country's language isn't just French though. Yes, the province is French and I'm all for protecting the French language, but this particular law is pure pandering to the massive quebecois nationalist wing. Your argument does not even make sense, considering that Québec managed to translate and provide services in English to those who need it for decades now. That law has just been passed so it's actually going to require more effort to suddenly put in place a policy that actively discriminates against immigrants than to just do nothing. Remember, this is not going to apply for "native" English quebecers or anglo-canadians. How is that more efficient, and how isn't that blatantly xenophobic? Also, the irony here is that the RoC has to basically keep providing (or at least pretend to keep) services in both languages, and I as a French speaker can request services in French even in a completely anglo region of say, ontario and I'd be legally entitled to do so. At a federal and provincial level. But Québec should be allowed to blatantly refuse government services because we don't feel like it anymore? We are trying to get our cake and eat it too here. And it's not like this policy is even going to do anything. The key to preserve the language is to make sure the children are taught French, not force some poor middle aged immigrant parents to avoid interacting with their government because they can't learn a foreign language in 6 month. Again, this entire thing is pure pandering

908B64B197 4y ago
> can request services in French even in a completely anglo region of say, ontario and I'd be legally entitled to do so. At a federal and provincial level. Ontario and the feds could just vote similar laws. My understanding is that anyone among the feds trying that would just lose their next elections but at the province level it seems doable.
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  That depends on how the Supreme court sees the situation. We don't have a very coherent constitutional framework so everything is very fuzzy. I wouldn't be surprised if legault went as far as to use the non withstanding clause if it came to that (Québec did that in the past, and there would be almost 0 backlash since he'd be "standing for our language/standing against the anglo feds"). Actually that would probably be the best thing that could happen to Legault,and would make the nationalist pandering extremely effective. That "implicit" threat is the reason why the qc government has been able to basically ignore charter rights when it comes to language. That's why for example, children with non anglocanadian parents cannot get an English education until college. Any attempt to strike that down judicially, even if successful, will just lead to invoking the clause and a surge of nationalist sentiment. Though that policy in particular is probably what saved french and kept it relevant, so its hard to argue against the results. I wouldn't say that the same power dynamic applies to Ontario at all. Even if they were to pull back on bilinguism, they'd certainly get slapped in court and not push further. Because there's no real political capital to gain in invoking the clause for an issue like bilinguism in anglocanada.

908B64B197 4y ago

> can request services in French even in a completely anglo region of say, ontario and I'd be legally entitled to do so. At a federal and provincial level. Ontario and the feds could just vote similar laws. My understanding is that anyone among the feds trying that would just lose their next elections but at the province level it seems doable.

mardifoufs 4y ago
That depends on how the Supreme court sees the situation. We don't have a very coherent constitutional framework so everything is very fuzzy. I wouldn't be surprised if legault went as far as to use the non withstanding clause if it came to that (Québec did that in the past, and there would be almost 0 backlash since he'd be "standing for our language/standing against the anglo feds"). Actually that would probably be the best thing that could happen to Legault,and would make the nationalist pandering extremely effective. That "implicit" threat is the reason why the qc government has been able to basically ignore charter rights when it comes to language. That's why for example, children with non anglocanadian parents cannot get an English education until college. Any attempt to strike that down judicially, even if successful, will just lead to invoking the clause and a surge of nationalist sentiment. Though that policy in particular is probably what saved french and kept it relevant, so its hard to argue against the results. I wouldn't say that the same power dynamic applies to Ontario at all. Even if they were to pull back on bilinguism, they'd certainly get slapped in court and not push further. Because there's no real political capital to gain in invoking the clause for an issue like bilinguism in anglocanada.