Among several live linguistic issues in the ongoing Quebec election campaign, the one that seemed to make the biggest dent in anglophone media in recent days was Élections Québec’s announcement that it would only distribute printed election materials, including voter information cards, in French.
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it → seem → French
Among other great democratic feats, the law divides Quebec’s anglophones into those with “acquired rights” to English-language services who have roots in the province, and more recent arrivals who have no language rights.
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who → divide → rights
Radio-Canada reported Friday that sales in adult diapers now exceed sales in baby diapers in Quebec.
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sales → report → Quebec
Does that sound like a society that can afford to pick and choose immigrants?
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that → sound → immigrants
Anyway, Élections Québec asked for an exemption from the law to provide bilingual material to voters.
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Québec → ask → voters
“For us, the right to vote is … fundamental,” Élections Québec spokesperson Julie St-Arnaud Drolet told CTV News.
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Drolet → vote → News
Both the minister and the commissioner responsible for the French language turned them down.
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minister → turn → them
The French-language versions come with a QR code that points you to the English-language instructions.
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that → come → instructions
(Only certain anglos are entitled to printed elections information, but apparently online is a mad free-for-all.)
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anglos → entitle → all
But as St-Arnaud says, voting is as fundamental a right as there is.
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voting → say → ?
It’s the last thing we should be meddling with for squeaks and giggles.
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we → ’ → squeaks
Reasonable people can disagree on ID requirements and such, but unlike a lot of systems in Canada, while very far from perfect, our relatively low-tech elections usually work within acceptable parameters (if not always to newspaper deadlines).
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elections → disagree → deadlines
That honour goes, not for the first time, to Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
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honour → go → Plamondon
And I feel like this got less notice.
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this → feel → notice
“Under the leadership of the CAQ and Christine Fréchette, every indicator related to the French language has declined,” a PQ press release averred.
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release → relate → language
Among the indicators listed were “mother tongue” and “language spoken at home.
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tongue → list → home
PSPP is quoted in the release: “In Montreal, the situation is simply catastrophic.
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situation → quote → Montreal
Less than half of Montrealers speak French at home.”
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half → speak → home
Nationalist campaigns have long begged to be asked what Gazette columnist Don Macpherson asked of the PQ way back in 2012: “How are you supposed to change your mother tongue?”
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you → beg → tongue
It’s a clear tell, as Macpherson said, that for the PQ, “the problem is not one of behaviour, but of identity.
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problem → ’ → identity
And “none of your goddamn business if I can and do speak French” is a very fine response to “what language do you speak at home?”
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you → speak → home
But it’s not true, for the record, that less than half of Montrealers speak French at home.
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half → ’ → home
Forty-four per cent was the PQ’s figure; it’s more like 60 per cent, as La Presse reported in December.
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Presse → ’ → December
The PQ omits from the figure roughly 16 per cent of Montrealers who speak French and another language at home.
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who → omit → home
That distinction is another huge tell: The PQ isn’t just concerned with the vitality of the French language; like many in the national-elite class, it doesn’t like bilingualism or multilingualism.
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it → concern → bilingualism
Another quick tangent: PSPP has a law degree from McGill, whose legal faculty requires entrants to be at least somewhat bilingual.
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faculty → require → entrants
He has a certificate in international law from Lund University in Sweden, whose legal faculty teaches in English.
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faculty → have → English
And he has an MBA from the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, which is, notoriously, in England.
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which → have → England
The school’s namesake and benefactor Wafic Saïd, incidentally, is a billionaire Syrian-Saudi businessman and arms broker, and a Canadian citizen who (as revealed in the Paradise Papers) established residency here in part by renting a farcically implausible basement apartment in the not-at-all-fancy Montreal neighbourhood of Côte-des-Neiges.
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who → reveal → Neiges
That’s not to say PSPP should have avoided Oxford.
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PSPP → ’ → Oxford
Just saying the world is far more complicated than an election narrative.
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saying → say → narrative
Any Quebec government, especially one with eyes on sovereignty — assuming it wants to prosper in a global economy and not be chased into the St. Lawrence River by an angry mob — should want bilingualism and multilingualism numbers to rise, not view them as a problem.
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numbers → assume → problem
Far more people speak English in the Netherlands than in Quebec.
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people → speak → Quebec
I’m not sure I’ve seen a Quebec leader quite so bluntly say he cares what language you speak on your own time — including at school, even during recess.
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you → ’m → recess
The PQ intends to launch a study into the “language of socialization” at French-language public schools in Montreal and Laval, in order to ensure that teenagers don’t divide themselves into identitarian cliques.
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teenagers → intend → cliques
That is going to be quite a battle against human nature.
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That → go → nature
I would bet heavily against victory.
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I → bet → victory
I would advise against trying.
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I → advise → ?
Alas, I wouldn’t put it past either of the parties with a good chance of winning this campaign.
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I → put → campaign
The Aporia
