A group of 23 bilingual municipalities in Quebec has asked a Superior Court judge to suspend the application of several portions of the province’s 2022 language reform, known as Bill 96. Lawyer Julius Grey says the law will have “enormous consequences” for cities that have the right to serve citizens in both English and French.
Quebec municipalities without official bilingual status are prohibited from communicating with citizens in English.
Here is a list of some of the articles of Bill 96 that the plaintiffs say should be declared invalid and inoperative:
— Article 19. Following the release of each census, Quebec’s language watchdog may send a notice to bilingual municipalities where less than half the residents have English as their mother tongue. The municipality’s bilingual status is automatically revoked if its council doesn’t adopt a resolution — within 120 days of receiving the notice — that it wishes to maintain its status.
— Article 114. A person conducting an inspection to enforce Quebec’s language rules may “enter at any reasonable hour any place” — other than a private residence — to take a photograph of the place or the property located there. The inspector may also “cause any person present who has access to any computer, equipment … to use it to access data relevant to the application of (Bill 96) that is contained in an electronic device, computer system or other medium or to verify, examine, process, copy or print out such data.”
— Article 115. A person conducting an inspection for the purposes of Bill 96 may, by notification of a notice, require any person to communicate to him, within a reasonable time determined by the notice, any information or document relating to the carrying out of this act.
— Article 117 modifying section 204.31 of the Quebec language charter. In the case of a failure by a municipal body to comply with a provision of this act or of a regulation, the minister of the French language may, as long as the body has not remedied the failure, withhold any subsidy the minister grants to the body.
— Article 117 modifying section 204.32 of the Quebec language charter. Where a public servant or a public office holder fails to comply with a provision of this act or of a regulation, every agency of the civil administration shall establish disciplinary measures to prevent and punish such a failure by members of its personnel in the exercise of their functions.
The alliance of 23 bilingual municipalities includes Baie d’Urfé, Beaconsfield, Blanc-Sablon, Bonne-Espérance, Chichester, Côte Saint-Luc, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Dorval, Havelock, Hope Town, Kazabazua, Kirkland, L’Isle-aux-Allumettes, Montréal-Ouest, Mulgrave-et-Derry, New Carlisle, Pointe-Claire, Senneville, Sheenboro, Shigawake, Stanbridge East, Wentworth, and Westmount.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30. 2024.
