Documents on the Controversy Surrounding the Language
of Commercial Signs in Quebec (Bill 178) December 1988
Anglo
Quebec Must Start All Over Again William Johnson, Columnist, Montreal
Gazette, December 19, 1988, p. B-3 OTTAWA
- The masks have come off. The illusions are shattered. English
Quebec, its hopes and its faith in ruins, exposed to the savage resentment of
its enemies, finds itself today abandoned by all it took to be its friends. It
must start all over again. Many
English-speaking Quebecers will now take the road towards exile, joining the hundreds
of thousands who have left in the past 20 years. Those
who remain must re-examine their assumptions, change their leadership, learn the
toughness and the caniness required to survive as a minority in a Quebec sick
with nationalist fever. The
banning of outdoor English signs, with or without the notwithstanding clause,
whether for two, five, or a hundred years, sends one clear message: English is
not wanted, English is viewed as a threat, and the many harassments which have
decimated the community will continue, perhaps intensified. The
Quebec government's decision to ban all but French outdoor signs is the worst
setback for Canadian unity since the conscription crisis of the Second World War. It
is worse than the election of the Parti Quebecois in 1976, or the imposition of
Bill 101 in 1977. The PQ came to power on anger at Robert Bourassa: it seemed
a fluke. The brutal suppression of English rights then was the work of separatists,
surely temporary. The
PQ lost its referendum and the I985 elections. The provincial Liberals came to
office on a promise to permit bilingual signs. Minority
rights guarantees The
shock, now, is to discover anti-English sentiment in the provincial Liberal Party. The
three federal parties also gave their assent, tacit or explicit, to the suppression
of' English Quebec. Make
no mistake, the Meech Lake accord was one of those historic agreements in which
leaders declare a great victory for peace by tacitly agreeing to sacrifice some
threatened, group. Munich comes to mind. Brian
Mulroney, by giving Bourassa . a blank cheque to promote his "distinct society"
at a time when Bourassa was actively repressing English in Quebec was giving a
clear signal: do what you want with English in Quebec, we won't interfere. Mulroney,
as prime minister, as an English-speaking Quebecer, could have insisted that Bourassa
keep his promise and give guarantees for minority rights in Quebec. On
the contrary, Mulroney said he was for the visage français of Quebec -
a well-known code word for prohibiting English. He
passed Bill 72, the new Official Languages Act. When
the Official Languages Commissioner D'Iberville Fortier said last winter that
English Quebecers were "humiliated," Mulroney disowned him. The
members of the National Assembly passed a resolution censuring the commissioner.
The English-speaking members disgraced themselves by backing the resolution. Now
they must redeem that act of treachery by taking a principled stand against the
banning of outdoor signs and company names in English. John
Turner also supported Bourassas "distinct society" without demanding
minority rights guarantees or without ever denouncing the repression of English
in Quebec. Ed Broadbent did the same. In
Quebec, when Meech Lake was debated in the National Assembly, none of the elected
politicians in the Liberal government raised a question about guarantees for English
rights. Chose
an act of faith The
Gazette editorially backed Meech Lake. Alliance Quebec said it chose to make
an "act of faith" in Quebec society at a time when English was still
publicly banned. Bourassa
concluded that he had tacit complicity on all sides, in Quebec, Montreal or Ottawa,
and in all the provincial capitals which signed the Meech Lake accord, to do what
he wanted with anglo-Quebecers. "Social
peace" could only be troubled by nationalist lions, not by the gentle souls
who would rather lose their rights than make a scene. So
Bourassa will introduce his bill today to prohibit outside English signs and company
names in any language but French. Enough.
No more. The elected representatives of English Quebec must dissociate themselves
utterly from the provincial Liberal Party, which has become an instrument of nationalist
oppression. They
must sit as independents, until the future course to be taken by English Quebec
has become clear. The
three parties in the federal Parliament, which helped, by their opportunism, their
lack of vision and of principle, to pave the way for today's disaster, so destructive
to the future of Confederation, must articulate now a clear message disavowing
what Quebec is doing. This
is not an issue that involves just Quebec. Official languages are vital to the
social contract on which this country is based, and French cannot long be promoted
in nine provinces if English is suppressed in Quebec. English
Quebec is threatened with extinction as a large, dynamic community. It must come
together as a community to study its present and plan its future. English
Quebec must decide how to rebuild a community on the ruins of the past. ©
1999 Claude Bélanger, Marianopolis College |