Infringing on Reason

There's Quebec at it again, re-inventing its Bill 101, the Language Charter. In the process, once again, oppressing its English-speaking minority and the province's allophones. Which cannot legally or morally be done in the rest of Canada, for this is an officially bilingual country, where French is protected and English, though the majority language, must battle for recognition in Quebec.

Oppressive, third-world regimes headed by misanthropic tyrants are well known to brutally suppress the language rights of their minorities. Making it illegal and punishable by law to practise a language, or a religion, or cultural activities that represent the heritage of minorities. These repressive, inhumane activities are looked at with true revulsion by free societies.

And here is Quebec in its hysterical mode again, attempting to force people to speak French, to the exclusion of any other language; either English, or a foreign language familiar as a mother-tongue to immigrants. Ah, but not just any people, this is a concerted effort to impress upon school children that they may not, under duress of censure, speak any language but French during school time, even out in the school playground, during recess.

"There will be no language police" said the Commission scolaire de Montreal chairwoman, Diane De Courcy.

"If they are automatically switching to another language, [the monitor' will gently tap them on the shoulder - not on the head - to tell them, 'Remember, we speak French. It's good for you.'"

Monitors are to be assigned the duty of reminding children that during recess, as anywhere within the school itself, no language but French is to be used in communication. The task of the monitors is to remind children of the 'rules'. "It will be enough to deliver a clear message that French must be spoken, and when we speak it often, we become very good at it."

Statistics emanating from the school board indicate that fully 53% of its students speak a mother tongue other than French. It simply will not do to have these children feel comfortable to speak, at relaxed moments, in the tongue they are most familiar with. Although children are remarkably adept at picking up a new language when they are immersed in a new country, this natural process of language-assimilation is obviously not reassuring enough for the paranoiac .

Quebec Charter of the French Language, Bill 101, lawfully requires immigrant children to attend French-language schools. Children have emerged from this experience perfectly at ease with French. Perfectly capable of switching from French, with which they become very comfortable, to their language used at home, with which they have a special relationship. And which formerly they could resort to in the school playground.

Should the Parti Quebecois ever come back to governing power in the province they have plans to extend Bill 101's provisions to include pre-university colleges into the equation. Removing choice from adult students, prohibiting them from attending a school of choice. They are also considering the practicality of applying Bill 101 to infants attending subsidized day cares.

In Quebec, it will be French and French only, from cradle to grave. "We are not infringing on children's freedom", insists Ms. Courcy.