(Ottawa) The Legault administration has failed to make French the official and common language for businesses under federal jurisdiction, but it has persuaded the federal government to incorporate other elements of the French language charter so workers can work in the language language of Moliere.
Posted 4:26pm Updated 5:42pm
“I’m going to call it a great solution to a language problem we had,” French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge summed up in an interview. “I’m reassured and more than that, I’m satisfied. »
Negotiations between Quebec and Ottawa have been going well for several weeks in an attempt to find common ground. Mr. Roberge met on several occasions with the Minister for Official Languages, Ginette Petitpas Taylor, and with her office staff and officials.
“We weren’t here a few months ago. A month ago, in February, we weren’t even here,” he said. “From a federal point of view, it was difficult to find a solution that was good both for the francophone communities outside of Quebec and for Quebec itself. »
“Finally, what we see today are a lot of mirror clauses where we have raised the law on the official languages to the same level as the charter of the French language and I don’t think that not many people believe it,” added the minister .
Liberal MP Marc Serré tabled a series of last-minute amendments to Bill C-13 on Friday afternoon to bring reform of the Official Languages Act in line with that of the French Language Charter. They were all approved unanimously.
These changes generalize the use of French as the working language. Managers must be fluent in this language, job advertisements must be written in French, as must employment contracts and notices. Companies must also justify hiring non-French speakers.
“We remove the ambiguity,” explained Mr. Serré. There is now a cooperation between Quebec and Canada to ensure that services are provided in French, regardless of whether the employer chooses to do so [une des deux langues]. »
Bill C-13 still leaves employees in banks, telecoms, airlines or railroads the choice to work in English, but government sources say the vast majority have registered with the Québécois de la langue française agency (OQLF), as by Bill 96 called for. This reform of the French language charter was approved by the Legault government in May 2022.
“The right of Francophones in Quebec to speak French and work in French in government-licensed businesses is now guaranteed,” explains Mr. Roberge. The same applies to regions with strong francophone dominance abroad. »
Air Canada and Canadian National (CN) have made headlines for not being able to allocate adequate space for French on their boards. CN employees also complained that English took precedence over French in their Quebec workplace. The two companies recently announced that they would comply with the new provisions of the French Language Charter.
Minister Petitpas Taylor reiterated the Trudeau government’s desire “that private companies under federal jurisdiction do their fair share to stem the decline of French”.
“We have on our hands a robust bill (C-13) that will give us the means to fulfill our ambitions to address the decline of French and support our minority communities in the official language, and we look forward to this bill.” comes true,” she wrote in writing.
This Legault government victory is bittersweet for the Bloc Québécois, whose amendment to make French the sole working language in companies under federal jurisdiction in Quebec was opposed by Liberal and NDP MP Niki Ashton. Bloc Québécois MP Mario Beaulieu said he was pleased with the progress made.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said. This is not what the vast majority of Québecians wanted, i.e. full application [la Charte de la langue française]. He accused the New Democrats of “having neglected their position a little.”
“We want to respect the ability of these two governments to handle this issue properly and not to get involved in politics,” Ms Ashton said.
Conservative MP Joël Godin highlighted the efforts of the opposition parties. “We have done an exceptional job of putting pressure on the Canadian government to force them to bend their knees a little,” he said during the deliberations.
There was applause at the end of this parliamentary committee meeting, as the bill to modernize the official language law, a liberal campaign promise, has just taken an important step. It will be returned to the House of Commons for the reporting phase ahead of the third reading. Then comes the study in the Senate. The government hopes to pass it by the end of the parliamentary process in June.
With the Canadian Press