Good afternoon.
Thank you for inviting me to talk to you about some of my language law research and, of course, my analysis of Bill C-316.
I often recall that in language law, there are two basic major models or principles: the principle of personality and the principle of territoriality. I am going to provide a brief overview of this issue before addressing the bill.
The principle of personality is simple. It offers individuals the freedom to choose among multiple languages for official use. This is the situation with official bilingualism or multilingualism. On the other hand, under the principle of territoriality, a single language is mandated, a single official language: the language of the majority.
A review of the scientific literature clearly shows that the territoriality model is really the only one that is able to enhance the vitality of a vulnerable minority language. The best example is the case of Canada, which is based on linguistic personality. The percentage who are francophone fell from 27.5% to approximately 22% between 1971 and 2021. In Switzerland, on the other hand, the francophone percentage rose from 18.4% to 22.9% between 1970 and 2017.
The reason I am telling you this is as follows. During the 1960s and 1970s, when there was a decline in French in Quebec, the Charter of the French Language and its territorial approach meant that a single official language was adopted. As a result, French made progress in the late 1970s and during the 1980s. After that, however, there came several judgments that had the effect of limiting the effect of the Charter of the French Language, which is also known as “Bill 101”, and striking it down in part. Since then, French has declined.
Why have there been so many judgments against the Charter of the French Language? As Prof. Brodie was saying, the Court Challenges Program was used to fund cases that led to judgments that struck down whole segments of the Charter of the French Language. This ultimately contributed to the decline of French.
I therefore propose that Bill C-13 be amended so that the program can no longer be used to challenge the Charter of the French Language and reverse the progress made by French. That would be logical. The 2021 white paper entitled English and French: Towards a substantive equality of official languages in Canada proposed that the federal government support French in the other provinces, as it has long done, and also support it in Quebec, rather than hurting it by funding challenges to the Charter of the French Language, for example. The amendment would be to that effect.
We could even go further to remedy this historic error. Funding challenges to Bill 101 like these was ultimately a historic error, so we might go further by proposing that actions in support of Bill 101 be funded, and this would help individuals who wanted to assert their language rights as provided in sections 2 to 6.2 of the Charter of the French Language. These are fundamental language rights. Obtaining federal funds to move forward would truly be a good thing, especially given that since 2022, with the new Charter of the French Language, fundamental language rights are now enforceable.
People really may bring proceedings to fill the gaps in the specific rules in Bill 101. I always offer the following example. Consumers of goods have the right to be served in French. In certain clothing stores in Quebec, however, the signs advertising clothing, particularly for children, are in English. No clothing is advertised in French. Could the right to be served in French, this fundamental language right of consumers, mean that clothing must always be advertised in French? We do not know, but it would be worth considering an action on that point being funded by the Court Challenges Program.
The purpose of this amendment would be so that someone could not challenge provincial legislation and certain groups of people would be able to use program funds to assert the language rights provided by provincial legislation, in particular the Charter of the French Language. The same logic should apply to Quebec's Act respecting the laicity of the State. Rather than challenging it and repeating the historic error surrounding Bill 101, the fund could be used to put into effect the right to secular public services provided by that law. That would really be preferable. It is what the amendments mean, fundamentally.
In addition, there are improvements to be made regarding governance. I found what Prof. Brodie proposed very interesting, in particular that various political parties nominate people to sit on the board that manages how funding is awarded.
We also think that if there could be even more Quebeckers—