The Slippery Slope of Language Intolerance

Back in 1977 when the PQ first introduced Bill 101, the justification by René Lévesque and company was that without enshrined French language rights, the French fact in North America, was destined to disappear, the loquiturs assimilated in a sea of English.

But unlike the hard-line wing of the party led by the author's bill, Camille Laurin, Levesque was troubled and somewhat embarrassed by the need for a such a restrictive law and battled royally to tone its more radical elements before ultimately acquiescing to the majority in his government who saw the law as not only necessary for the preservation of French, but as fair payback to the English who had in their eyes exploited and dominated the French majority for centuries.

Watch a fascinating video on Rene Levesque's unease over Bill 101 in French({fr}

Many clauses that were included in the original Bill 101 were so clearly unconstitutional that even a collegiate freshman would conclude that they were included purely for political reasons, since there was no question of those clauses surviving a constitutional challenge.

Bill 101: "French is the language of the legislation and of the justice system in Quebec"

Nothing but nothing demonstrates the bad faith of the drafter of Bill 101 than Article 7 of Chapter III, which completely contravenes the BNA Act, the founding document that created Canada and which represents the highest law of the land, which incidentally, to this day, defines the limits of federal and provincial jurisdiction.
It couldn't be simpler, Article 133 of the BNA act says;

133. Either the English or the French Language may be used by any Person in the Debates of the Houses of the Parliament of Canada and of the Houses of the Legislature of Quebec; and both those Languages shall be used in the respective Records and Journals of those Houses; and either of those Languages may be used by any Person or in any Pleading or Process in or issuing from any Court of Canada established under this Act, and in or from all or any of the Courts of Quebec.

The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that Dr. Laurin included these clauses knowing full well they'd be overturned in the Supreme Court, thus creating a 'humiliating setback' for French language rights, resulting in a heightened linguistic tension, a cynical attempt to stir up emotions of betrayal and persecution in Quebec through shameful deception and manipulation.

Today language militants still whine that their sacrosanct law has been unfairly sliced and diced by the Supremos, an attempt in their eyes, to limit Quebec's right to determine its own linguistic policy.

But for most Quebecers, Bill 101 was never about punishing Anglos, rather a reasonable effort to advance and protect the French language and culture.
Let us remember that in accepting Bill 101, the francophone majority willingly embraced restrictions on their own community in regards to sending their children to English schools.

And so we should understand that like Certs breath mint, Bill 101 is really two laws in one, a law to protect French and a law to punish the English.
Some see it as one, some see it as the other and some see it as both.

The effect of the Bill 101 is also a question of perspective, hardline separatists seeing the 35 year old law as ineffective, middle of the road francophones seeing it as effective and necessary while most anglos see the law as devastatingly punitive and coercive.

All this has been debated since the inception of the law and opinions abound in both the French and English press as well as the blogosphere.
There's not much I can add to bring much perspective to the debate, smarter and more erudite writers have covered the territory ad nauseum, but I would like to tackle an aspect that remains largely unexplored, that is the cumulative psychological effect that Bill 101 has had on the mainstream francophone opinion, vis-a-vis linguistic relations in Quebec.

Let us put aside for the moment the positions of French hardliners or Anglos and consider the Francophone majority, those who never saw Bill 101 as a weapon, but rather a cure.
The attitudinal shift of this group towards language intolerance over the 35 years reign of Bill 101 is nothing less than remarkable.
I think that if Rene Levesque were alive today, he'd be stunned and humiliated at witch hunt being waged against Anglos and the deliberate marginalization and exclusion of English in Quebec.
But this shift in attitude was inevitable, Bill 101 set in motion by accident or design, an inexorable shift towards linguistic intolerance.

I am reminded of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment back in 1971 wherein Philip Zimbard ran social experiment which laid bare the perils of allowing one group of seemingly well-adjusted citizens to hold dominion over another.
Simply explained, the experiment explored the;

 "...psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard."
 "The participants adapted to their roles well beyond Zimbardo's expectations, as the guards enforced authoritarian measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture." 
The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his role as the superintendent, permitted the abuse to continue. Two of the prisoners quit the experiment early and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days.

Bill 101 cast ordinary francophone Quebecers as the prison guards and Anglos as prisoners and painful as it is to say, we are seeing abusive and racist attitudes creeping into the mainstream society, all courtesy Bill 101, Quebec's very own real-life Stanford experiment.

How far have attitudes changed?
In a recent article in the decidedly middle-of-the-road La Presse, an article discussing the 'painful' preponderance of English store names, the author Louise Leduc, wrote this;

"Important to note: In Carrefour Laval, if a quarter of the stores have English names , the others don't exactly reinforce the French face of Quebec (Browns, Reitmans, Terra Nostra, Zaxe, Clarks, Briks, Rudsak, Aveda, La Senza, Michael Kors, etc.)."
(" Fait à noter, au Carrefour Laval, si le quart des magasins a un nom anglais, les autres ne renforcent pas nécessairement le visage français du Québec (Browns, Reitmans, Terra Nostra, Zaxe, Clarks, Briks, Rudsak, Aveda, La Senza, Michael Kors, etc.)." Link{fr}

 I don't think I've ever seen such a patently racist thing written in La Presse, yet it passed without a whimper of protest.
To those of you who are apt to defend the above words as something quite innocent, well all I can say is that you are part of the problem.

The author intimates that proper names that are not French, somehow disturb societal karma. Stores named after their Jewish founders (Browns, Reitmans, Michael Kors) or stores named after their English founders (Clarks, Briks,(sic) Birks) or even made up names that have no linguistic definition, are all unacceptable in post Bill 101 Quebec.

I don't know how the author can defend her characterization of Jewish or English family names as unhelpful without sounding racist. Clearly she is telling us Quebec would be better off without them, otherwise why bring them up?
I'm sure Madame Leduc will be furious at my characterization of her and therein lies the problem. To her, complaining about proper names not being French enough is not a sign of intolerance.

How about another mainstream commentator loosing this observation on television;

Have people lost their marbles?.......Yup, there it is, the Stanford Experiment in all its splendor. 

I bet Mr. Pelletier does not even realize how low he has sunk.
Perhaps he would also like impose a $4,000 fine on any person who publicly says "God Bless You" after a sneeze, $2,000 for speaking English and $2,000 for violating the secular nature of Quebec society.

Are these examples an aberration and a misrepresentation of what is going on in mainstream Quebec?
I don't think so, that is why we see stories of extreme language intolerance more and more often.

One of our valued contributors, R.S. put together this recap of language intolerance, ordinary Quebecers acting out their rage;

"Here is a round-up of just some of the recent events concerning franco-Quebecers who don’t want to hear any English in their lives, ever. Believe it or not, there are actually people in Quebec who still don’t understand that English is a right, not a privilege.

Let’s see… well, for starters, there’s always this famous example that went viral around the world:Angry Quebecer goes CRAZY over Asian people speaking English in public in Montreal

Then, there are always these people, whose jobs supposedly involved serving the public:Metro workers allegedly refuse to help English-speaking customer

Then, there was also this public transportation employee who put up a French-only sign in a majority-anglo neighbourhood, implying that he wouldn’t serve customers if they are English-speakers:Sign in ticket booth 'insulting,' metro user says

And then, there’s this intolerant woman in a hospital:Criminal Charges Justified After Man's Allergen Thrown In His Face

And then, there there’s this paramedic who was willing to put a little girl’s life in danger in order to argue about his political opinions:Quebec paramedic argues about language

And then, there was also this woman who was actually physically assaulted for having dared to speak English in public in Quebec:Woman Assaulted by STM worker

And then, there’s this nutbar, of course, who I don’t believe is a unique case in Quebec:Quebec language debate in the metro

And then, there are these people who don’t want to have a good coach for the Habs if he speaks English only:Protest Against Habs Anglo Coach

And then there are these people who are against an immigrant depanneur owner who was tricked by a radio station, illegally recorded and broadcast:Language protest in Montreal's Verdun district"

I've been watching the Bill 14 committee hearings, which is in the process of listening to the opinion of ordinary citizens as well as lobby groups, school commission, unions and even public servants over proposed amendments.
It's a bit sad, the level of disdain among those francophone groups which choose to appear  to fulminate and rage at the English 'enemy.'
There's but one tiresome and pernicious refrain....
"Crack down on the Anglos!"
"More enforcement!"
"More rules and restrictions!"
"Punish all who refuse to knuckle under and steamroll minority rights!"

I defy anyone to tell me that this characterization is not true.

We have come to expect certain behavior from Franco-supremacists like Mario Beaulieu and company, but make no mistake, linguistic intolerance has crept into mainstream society courtesy Bill 101.
Allow for official state-sanctioned discrimination on any level and the unintended consequence is that over time, we get what we have today, a society that breathes nastiness, xenophobia and intolerance.

Bill 101 has sent us down a slippery slope of language intolerance.

Bill 14, the current draft law being debated as a language upgrade, is the logical extension of the "Bill 101 Experiment," it is a law not meant to protect French, it is a law meant to codify the dominance of one societal group over another.

It is a story as old as organized society and as author George Orwell described in his allegorical masterpiece, Animal Farm;

The essence of Bill 101;
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

...and this, the essence of Bill 14;
“Four legs good, two legs bad.”   

I don't know if Bill 101 saved French in Quebec, but I do know that it has made Quebec a nastier and more intolerant society and it's more than a little sad to see what the province has become.