Pontiac MNA André Fortin spoke with THE EQUITY the day after the bill was introduced to share some of his thoughts on how these changes will affect the Pontiac.

“The bill struck me in how sweeping it is in terms of its changes,” he said. “It … touches on everything from . . .

access to justice, to language of judges to signage to access to higher education, to regulations on small businesses. It struck me just how a significant move this is on the part of the government, to on the one hand to try and promote and protect the French language and on the other hand to restrict English-only services in some sectors.”

While the consultation on the bill is set to begin shortly, Fortin said that it wouldn’t actually come into force until the end of the year. The CAQ has a majority in the National Assembly, and has the ability to limit debate and consultation around the bill as it sees fit.

“The premier has indicated that he wants to adopt this before Christmas and … every bill goes through a consultation period, a debate period and the adoption period,” he explained. “I suspect the consultations will start shortly, and the debate on the bill itself and every article will likely be in the fall for adoption around Christmas time. I think the premier, in his own time frame strategy, wants to have these measures in place before the next election in 2022.”

“The government’s already told us that there would be small-scale parliamentary consultations with a very limited number of groups,” he added. “To us that’s very worrisome because there’s going to be points of view out there that we will not be able to hear.”

Some of the changes that drew the most attention were regarding commercial signage and the use of French in businesses. Bill 96 would mandate that non-French trademark names on business signs be accompanied by “markedly predominant” French writing, and companies will have three years to comply. Citizens will have a right to be served in French, and can file a complaint with the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) if they are not accommodated. Additional powers and funding would also be given to the OQLF to ensure compliance. Businesses with between 26 and 49 employees and federally regulated businesses like banks would also fall under the regulations of Bill 101, the province’s original language charter.

“The impact to businesses could be significantly heavy and a lot of the business groups have already come out and said exactly that,” Fortin said. “They’re worried about the additional burden to small business, which government has said that they will apply Bill 101 to businesses that are between 26 and 49 employees, and we’ve got a few of those in the Pontiac.

“If government is really intent on going that way, they’ve got the majority, they can do it, but we’ll fight to try … and make it easier on businesses, maybe to have a bit of a lightened version of Bill 101 applied to them because it is quite impactful, quite significant to ask these businesses to comply,” he added. “At the same time, government seems like it’s intent on being a lot stricter. The CAQ announced that they would give 104 million dollars to the OQLF in their last budget for compliance and an overview of the application of this bill, so I suspect we’ll see a lot more OQLF inspectors.”

The bill would also remove the bilingual status of any municipalities that no longer have 50 per cent English-speaking population, though the municipal councils would be able to pass their own laws maintaining it if they choose. The only jurisdiction in Fortin’s riding that will be affected is the Municipality of Pontiac.

“My understanding is that the current mayor will try and reinstate bilingual status, but that’s dependant on every council across the province,” he said. “It’s a bit of a roundabout way for the government to take its responsibilities and delegate it on the mayors, in a year where they have an election period. We’ll see where it lands but that’s an area where potentially services could be affected.”

Among the other changes, English CEGEPs would have their number of Francophone students capped at 17.5 per cent (the ratio of students from last year) and going forward, the percentage cannot be higher than the previous year. French-language CEGEPs would also have their English courses curtailed.

Bill 96 would also seek to amend the Canadian Constitution Act to include two clauses stating that “Quebecers form a nation” and “French shall be the only official language of Quebec. It is also the common language of the Quebec nation.” Fortin had doubts that such a move would even be possible.

“There’s a lot of debate across the country about whether a province can simply amend the constitution without the federal government’s approval or approval of the other provinces,” he said. “I think if Alberta tried to do it to say they don’t want to pay equalization any more, there might be more uproar about something like that. I’m far from a constitutional expert, but … we’ll need advice from constitutional experts to see if it can even be done. The more important issue to me as the representative of Pontiac is how this bill is going to affect people, how this bill will affect services that are available to citizens and that’s really what I’m going to be focused on.”

He was critical of the CAQ’s use of the notwithstanding clause, which allows them to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“The one thing that the premier did say was that he would use the notwithstanding clause on language, but the notwithstanding clause is being applied on the entirety of the bill, so it’s hard at this point to pinpoint exactly where in the bill citizen’s rights are being infringed upon,” he said. “[The] government needs the notwithstanding clause to bypass the Charter or Rights and Freedoms. I hope we’re going to get more substance and more details from the government in the coming days, weeks and during the parliamentary debate on the bill.”

One positive change that Fortin pointed to was the introduction of free French courses for Anglos who wants them, enshrining it as a “right” to improve their language skills. The article was similar to one that was introduced by Fortin’s colleague Gregory Kelley back in December 2019.

“That’s a good thing, it’s something we’d asked for, we’d lobbied for and that a lot of citizens groups, like the [Regional Association of West Quebecers] first on the list, had asked government to do for years and years,” he said. “That to me, is a more constructive way to do things, it’s a way of getting Anglophones to learn French and for people to want to learn French in their own community. I will always be more of an advocate for positive change rather than restrictive change when it comes to this.”

“The only other thing I’d like to say is that Premier Legault has really, through his more restrictive approach, and obviously not having consulted with the English-speaking community, has shown his old PQ colours on the bill, and hopefully it won’t lead to a divisive debate,” he concluded. “Hopefully it’s not an attempt to pit an us versus them, an Anglo versus Franco … That’s not a game we’re interested in playing and hopefully it’s not where this debate goes and government is open to listening to the community and making changes to the bill where needed.”

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