Analysis: Critics say the CAQ's laws on secularism and language have created a coercive brand of politics that doesn't square with how Quebecers see the future of their province.
to create laws that override basic rights has created a coercive brand of politics that doesn't square with how Quebecers see the future of their province.
Between 1977 — when the language charter, known as Bill 101, passed — and 2015, the percentage of students going to school in French whose first language isn't French went from 20 per cent to 90 per cent. Though roughly 77 per cent of Quebecers list French as their first language, 94 per cent speak it well enough to have a conversation, according to the OQLF.
Marcoux says that back in the 1970s, Bill 101 was justified, given the dominance of English in North America, but that closely monitoring which languages are spoken in Quebec homes today does little to protect French.Polo, the Liberal MNA, was born in Colombia and moved to Quebec at the age of six in the winter of 1982. He learned French in a class for newcomers and by September was going to school full time in French.
His son, now 13, is trilingual and goes to school in French. Legault called Polo's situation an "anecdote," but the increase in children educated in French and who therefore regularly speak French, suggests otherwise. Nathalie Batraville is an assistant professor at Concordia University's Simone de Beauvoir Institute, researching Black feminism, queer theory, Haitian studies, prison abolition and decolonization., and Bill 96 both include extensive use of the notwithstanding clause, allowing them to override basic freedoms guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.