Official language
Campbell Gordon
A r John Turner is the man who will IVA almost certainly succeed Mr Pierre Trudeau as Leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister of Canada. He has the sup- port of the great majority of delegates who will elect the Leader, and is in an unassailable position. Quebec is Canada's largest province, en- dowed with plentiful natural resources, and a quarter of Canadian industry and popula- tion, including the vast majority of French- speaking Canadians and an important English-speaking group. Evidently the two are important to one another, particularly for Mr Turner whose principal challenger, M. Jean Chretien, is from Quebec.
So it is odd that, with his decade-long ex- perience as a senior Cabinet Minister in the 1960s and 1970s, Mr Turner has revealed himself to be wanting on the political evidence in Quebec. April was the usual mixture of cruelty and sweet showers in Quebec, and provides the stage for Mr Turner's little mechance.
First, the Quebec Minister of Education, M. Yves Bembe (education is a matter of provincial jurisdiction under the Canadian constitution) discovered to his horror that several French schools were teaching English to six-, seven- and eight-year-old children. An opinion poll showed that 80 per cent of the 5,100 parents surveyed approved. And yet M. Bembe found the whole thing 'immoral'.
Let me explain. It was not that the children were using The Joy of Sex as their English textbook. It was rather that the provincial government have been trying hard to keep French-speaking people French, and oppose greater bilingualism because it might open Quebec more to North America, injure its linguistic security and, of course, reduce support for their paramount and all-pervasive object of in- dependence.
In their efforts, the provincial govern- ment, faced with mounting unpopularity and declining support for discriminatory language policies, have tended to proceed by stealth. The language legislation of the province, most of it in an Act popularly known as Bill 101, consists largely of general statements such as 'The official language of Quebec is French'. Practical implementation of these general statements is entrusted to an enforcing agency called L'Office de la Longue Franfaise, which is The Spectator 26 May l98 empowered to pass regulations. The regniara tions have tended to be, as one woth,, expect, bureaucratic and inconvenient, and also in many instances, discriminatory ant authoritarian. Decent citizens, usual/ English-speaking, have frequently run fotlf. of them, and many have lost jobs and se fered seriously because of them. Yet another of the little incidents, and the,. second I mention in the background to , Turner's situation, also happened in Aped concerns the little village of Stansteaut Plain, a village near the American border(); just over 1,000 inhabitants, of whom 59' are French-speaking and 495 English; speaking. The nearly equal divisinti in precisely the problem, for the lawe Quebec says that if over 50 per cent of till: citizens of a municipality are Fret; speaking, then the workings and manifestations of the municipal ailtherlh' must be carried on in French 011'4 Stanstead Plain (and please forgive the bathos) has been instructed to remove ,E" words 'Fire Department' from its three u.trh vehicles, where they at present co-exist be their French equivalent. The Six-inellibee village council, Village Hampdens all, 113';', voted unanimously to refuse. (It wotll d ?ObLie t some $2,000 to repaint the fire engines' it's also the principle,' said the Mayor.) the provincial government won't back 01: 'We can't make a special case,' said :,„0° ficial of the Office de la Langue Francare This is where Mr Turner conies Int Against this background, the most rec.elli r and trivial in comparison with many stmt incidents over six years, Mr Turner said that he supports Bill 101 'in principle' bee. 'it's a matter of provincial rights'. W Nob on every count. Language is not an eg: elusively provincial domain under the et)", stitution. On nearly every occasion thaL severable bits of Bill 101 have been taken to court since its enactment, they have hee,i struck down. Only Quebec's tradition'; role of 'protecting' the French larignagt could possibly be construed as a right. 131!,r there is a line to be drawn. Since 1977 erv`e elm50ig,000ratedEnbgelcaishu-ssepoeafkiainngguQagueebecers hav_ and even most French- QuebeeePA dislike Bill 101 as they come to understanue it. In fact, the English Quebecers Pressurs group, Alliance Quebec, attracts enortnou sympathy from the French communitY' As some of the greatest abuses of elvee rights in Canada are taking place in Queb_d and Manitoba on the same issues, it is "_ that Mr Turner sought to conciliate 4_ bigoted nationalist feeling that no conciliate really exists in any strength. He has certain. - ly suffered for it, although he will still win the Leadership. And he has done some provincial jurisdiction. What I meant whe_11 ex- plaining: 'I said that Bill 101 . is within sPeakingPersecutiati I said "in principle" was that the provin.ects had the right to protect language withiri In borders. That is a constitutional right& attempting to achieve it, I believe they wee.e constitutionally too far. That's a legalistic view. In human terms, 1 know they went too far'. Much better.
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