By Jack Wilson

Local Journalism Initiative

The Task Force on Linguistic Policy filed an application Jan. 17 asking a judge to stop the province from further restricting the English language or penalizing its use under Bill 96. A judge will hear the case Feb. 6.

“Every week that goes by, there’s another measure that’s being either promised or brought out by this government,” with the intention of protecting the French language, said Task Force president and lead plaintiff Andrew Caddell. “They’re using the anglophone community as a scapegoat for what they see as the decline in French.”

Caddell said he’s looking to “send a shot across the bow to the government that they cannot bring forth these other measures.” Anglophone Quebecers “are full citizens no matter what the government says,” he added.

“We’ve received stories from people who’ve received really egregious treatment from the government,” Caddell said. Indeed, the application lists 30 examples of people it says were discriminated against for speaking English.

The filing references a woman who left a hospital after a triage nurse refused to speak to her in English. The next day, the woman went to another hospital where she was found to have sepsis which triggered a cardiac event. “She almost died,” the document states.

The filing references other examples of discrimination in healthcare settings, a person hung up on by RAMQ after asking for service in English, another unable to seek justice for human rights violations because the Human Rights Commission won’t communicate with her in English and multiple people struggling to complete CEGEP as a result of new French-language rules under Bill 96.

Caddell said the Task Force enjoys wide support in the Anglophone community, having raised over $100,000 for its legal efforts.

He pushed back against notions that English-speakers aren’t integrated into French-speaking society. “Eighty per cent of Anglo Quebecers are bilingual, which is an incredible number when you think about it.” The notion that the French language is in decline doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, Caddell said, given the number of Anglophones and immigrants able to speak French.

Those who can’t speak English tend to be “people who are elderly, visible minorities, Indigenous people, rural poor and recent immigrants,” Caddell said, as well as people with physical or mental disabilities. As a result, marginalized people are the most impacted by the province’s language policies, he said.

“The people that are on the margins, they need to have somebody to stand up for them,” Caddell said. “That’s why I’m doing it.”