‘Language police’ clamp down on English-speaking in Quebec

Press, 29 April 1981, Page 21

‘Language police’ clamp down on English-speaking in Quebec

By

CHARLES HANLEY.

Associated Press

The “bread” is gone from the side -of the “Wonder Bread” truck.. Enrolment in English-language schools is dropping sharply. The “language police” have hauled four businessmen into-court for stubbornly sticking to English. The French accent of Quebec is growing thicker as the Canadian province’s farreaching language law takes hold. Soon almost every French-Canadian housewife will know that her kitchen holds not a “pop-up toaster.” but a “grille-pain a ejection automatique.” Many in the English-speak-ing minority (about one-fifth of the population of 6.3 million) complain they are being force-fed French, their English school system is dying, the business climate is cooling, and their young adults are heading elsewhere for careers.

The French-speaking majority, however, is pleased with- the three-and-a-half-year-old Charter of the French Language, a law that asserts the primacy of their tongue in a province adrift on an “Anglophone” continent.

“The Charter once and for all has guaranteed the absolute right we have as a majority to live, to work, to advance in all sectors in French, our language,” says Quebec’s Premier, Mr Rene Levesque. Levesque’s Parti Quebecois, re-elected on April 13 to lead the Provincial Government, wants Quebec to secede from the rest of Eng-lish-speaking Canada. It lost a provincial referendum on that question last year and is not expected to raise the issue again for some time. The separatist sentiment and the language law both grew from the generationsold resentment of Quebec’s French toward the English who dominated the province’s economy. The law, taking effect in stages ending in 1983, requires that French be the everyday language of “government. work, instruction, communication, commerce and business.”

Immigrants’ children must enrol in French schools. Eng-lish-language commercial signs are banned. Business firms must “Francise” the office environment — from memos to hiring practices.

Professionals must demonstrate a good knowledge of French to obtain a licence. A 450-member bureaucracy called the Office of the French Language administers the law. A Montreal economic research institute estimates that the changeover is costing Quebec business about $lOO million (SNZ92 million) a year. “French is certainly becoming the language of the workplace much more than it was,” said Storrs McCall, a McGill University philosophyprofessor who is co-chairman

of the Postive Action Committee, a group dedicated to keeping Quebec in Canada and opposed to parts of the language law. Mr McCall said the committee does not oppose the basic objective of the law — protecting the French language. “What we are against is what strikes us as a rather heedless, vindictive tone designed not only to encourage the use of French but actually to discourage and restrict the use of English,” he said.

The law is changing the face of this metropolis of two million people. As of last December 31, an estimated 60,000 shops, factories and other businesses had to get rid of their Englishlanguage signs and substitute French words. Thousands of facades now sport sparkling new signs, or ragged patches of paint changing “laundry” to “blanchisserie,” “shoemaker” to “cordonnerie,” or “supermarket” to “supermarche.” The bakery truck now reads “Pain Wonder” — ‘“Pain” being the French word for bread. In Englishlanguage bookstores customers must hunt for books under signs identifying each section in French. The Surveillance Commission, the enforcement agency, has 20 inspectors on the lookout for merchants purveying their wares in English. So far they have nabbed four who refuse to change their signs — a stationer, two warehouses and a realestate firm. They face possible fines of up to $5OOO (SNZ46OB).

Provisions requiring the “Francisation” of the workplace apply to firms with at least 50 employees. Managers must know French, must increase the number of French speakers in the firm, and must ensure that French is used as the ordinary language of work.

The 4000 firms affected have until the end of 1983 to comply. The Language Office says it is flexible in negotiating the certification. One firm,

Hewitt Equipment, which has 1400 employees, said that under its deal with the Government it will “favour” but not “assure” the hiring of people with a good knowledge of French.

At the same time, the Language Office has issued booklets that list the proper French terminology in about 100 areas of endeavour—from the kitchen to factories to banks. The literature is designed to reverse the “Anglicisation” of Canadian French.

French-speaking mechanics who have always called them “exhaust manifolds” are being told to use “collecteurs d’echappement.” One booklet lists 796 proper French terms for household appliances and parts. Streets and highway traffic signs and many traffic tickets are only in French. Most Government forms arrive in the mail in French, although English forms are available on request. Perhaps the most contentious section of the law, however, deals with education. It requires all children to attend French-language schools, except those whose parents attended English schools in Quebec. Thousands of immigrant children whose families might otherwise have insisted on English education are being sent to French schools.

Since the law was passed in August, 1977, enrolment in the lower grades of English schools is reported to have declined by 32 per cent — not only because immigrant children are not enrolling, but also because Englishspeaking families are moving out of Quebec.

The Liberal Party, the opposition to the Parti Quebecois. has proposed relaxing the law to allow people coming to Quebec from elsewhere in Canada to educate their children in English. It also favours allowing bilingual commercial signs and relaxing the language restrictions on nurses and other professionals.

The’ more immediate threat to the language law is Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s plan for reforming this country’s constitution. It includes a Bill of Rights that would guarantee all English speakers the right to educate their children in their language. Mr Levesque and his followers are desperately fighting the constitutional reform. “It’s a real fear,” said McCall. “If I were a Francophone, one of five million in a sea of 250 million Anglophones, I would also be very concerned about the future of the French language and culture.”