By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban
Superior Court Judge Silvana Conte rejected a request by 23 municipalities for a stay of various aspects of Quebec’s language law Bill 96 until the challenge can be heard on the merits.
The judge ruled that a stay ahead of a full court hearing should only be granted in urgent circumstances and that no serious effects of the law had been proven. This appeared to concur with the position of the Quebec government, which said Bill 96 did not cause harm to the 23 plaintiffs.
The provisions the cities want declared invalid and inoperative are the prohibition for contracts to be written in a language other than French, “even if both parties agree,”; allowing OQLF inspectors to inspect and seize, at any time without notice, any documents, equipment and computers from any municipal body; that cities have to declare in resolutions that they want to maintain their bilingual status if the English mother tongue population is below 50 percent; that the language minister or another designated minister can withhold provincial government grants to a city if they don’t comply with any provision of the law; and that a city has to punish any employee who does not comply with Bill 96.”
Côte St. Luc Mayor Mitchell Brownstein told The Suburban “we are years away from the hearing on the merits and we requested a stay of the law until then. It was the judge’s opinion that Bill 96 will not cause irreparable prejudice to the plaintiffs if a stay/suspension of the law is not granted, since no cuts in government grants have yet occurred, nor has the government exercised its other new powers under the new law.
“Hopefully, this will send a message to the CAQ not to use Bill 96 to penalize bilingual cities in any way before the hearing on the merits. It is difficult to prove a prejudice before it occurs, which is why stays/suspensions are only granted in exceptional cases. The Court did find that the issue of unilingual French contracts and the search and seizure questions raise serious concerns. The 23 cities will review the decision and weigh their options. Plaintiffs have 30 days to appeal the decision.”
The case, first announced last year, is being brought by municipalities that are officially bilingual because they have more than 50 percent mother tongue anglophone populations, and those which have opted in, declaring to the government they want to remain officially bilingual as they are below the 50 percent mother tongue threshold but were officially bilingual according to previous rules.
The municipalities challenging the law, represented by the Grey Casgrain law firm, are Baie d’Urfé, Beaconfield, Blanc-Sablon, Bonne-Ésperance, Chichester, Côte St. Luc, Dollard des Ormeaux, Dorval, Havelock, Hope Town, Kazabazua, Kirkland, L’Isle Aux Allumettes, Montreal West, Mulgrave and Derry, New Carlisle, Pointe Claire, Senneville, Sheenboro, Shigawake, Stanbridge East, Wentworth and Westmount.
The municipalities say that Bill 96 “compromises the concerned municipalities’ bilingual status, which is intrinsically part of their cultural identity, but the proposed provisions also extend far beyond language rights and undermine constitutionally protected and inalienable rights that belong to all Quebec citizens.” n