"This is a major setback for the rights of English-speaking Quebecers.”
The federal Liberals were blocked Friday by opposition parties from having references to the Charter of the French Language removed from Bill C-13, the proposed legislation to modernize the Official Languages Act.
During a committee hearing held in Ottawa to amend the bill, members of the Conservative Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party sided with the Bloc Québécois to block the minority Liberal government’s proposed changes.
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“The Official Languages Act had always been based on what’s called substantive equality, which is the equality of the English-speaking minority in Quebec and the French-speaking minority outside Quebec,” Liberal MP Anthony Housefather told the Montreal Gazette. “The Bloc’s amendments today that were adopted by the Conservatives, the Bloc and the NDP, change that philosophy to an asymmetrical approach where the two language communities are no longer equal.
“Obviously, the Liberals voted against those amendments, but it passed because the other parties all supported them. I left the meeting very demoralized. It was not a good day.”
Bill C-13 is still in the early stages of being amended, but Housefather noted the changes made on Friday cannot be reversed. The Conservatives and the Bloc want businesses in Quebec, including federally regulated businesses, to comply with the Quebec charter, which restricts the right of Quebec anglophones to work and be served in English.
“Despite the best efforts of many Liberal MPs led by Anthony Housefather, Patricia Lattanzio, and Marc Garneau, it is clear to us that the deck is stacked against English-speaking Quebec,” Eva Ludvig, president of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), said in a release. “We saw today in committee how the Conservatives and NDP have clearly abandoned linguistic duality and are working hand in hand with the Bloc to rip apart 50 years of federal official languages policy. This is a major setback for the rights of English-speaking Quebecers.
“This is a disastrous bill that will profoundly erode our language rights and the relationship between the federal government and our English-speaking minority.”
Joan Fraser, a former senator and the Montreal Gazette’s former editor-in-chief, also expressed disappointment in the QCGN release.
“In 2018, Canada’s English and French linguistic minority communities had reached a consensus on how the Official Languages Act could be modernized,” said Fraser, a QCGN board member. “This consensus would not only have strengthened and fixed long-standing issues with the OLA, but it would also have protected the core national value of linguistic duality and the official language rights of all Canadians from sea to sea to sea.”
pcherry@postmedia.com