The Gazette
Hardly a month goes by without a fresh instance of nationalist officialdom's overkill on linguistic diversity. At one extreme are those comic one-week wonders, like the Office de la Langue Francaise's order to Chinatown stores to banish Chinese signs, that embarrass even the most rabid nationalists and cause the government to backtrack. At the other zany extreme are cases, like the one in an Eastern Townships hospital, that are downright maddening.
That's because the government digs in its heels and will not relent. And because ordinary Quebecers can be hurt.
In the case of Cowansville's Brome-Missisquoi-Perkins Hospital, the OLF is insisting that by May 15 the institution remove all its bilingual signs. Many anglophones among the 88-bed facility's clientele are elderly and have difficulty coping with French, especially in the stressful moments when one requires medical help.
The case recalls those of two other outrages committed on Eastern Townships hospitals. In 1996, the Bouchard government stripped most bilingual signs from Sherbrooke's Centre Universitaire de l'Estrie, in so doing disregarding the protests of many of that city's francophones, including those on the hospital's board of directors. And in 1997, the government insisted on the removal of English signs printed on looseleaf paper and taped to some walls and doors of La Providence hospital in Magog; in the government's eyes, they bore unacceptable messages such as "Emergency Admissions."
The circumstances vary in each of these cases. But what is striking about the absurdity at BMP is that this institution, like many others, is a creation of the anglophone community. English-speaking Quebecers founded it in 1911, and to this day English-speaking Quebecers organize events to help raise funds for it. Yet English signs now are as unwelcome inside its walls as any antibiotic-resistant superbug.
In fact, though no one seems to have realized it, English became illegal there in 1977 with the language law's enactment. Then, when more than half of its clientele was English-speaking, the hospital could have probably obtained an exemption from posting French-only signs.
But, the Townships being the Townships, where relations between anglophones and francophones are a model of congeniality, it evidently did not occur to hospital officials to jump through obscure legalistic hoops and apply for protection against an improbable future era of narrow-mindedness.
Today, with anglophone numbers dwindling, it's far from clear if the hospital can technically qualify for an exemption.
The case holds several lessons. The first is that authorities at all anglophone institutions should not assume good faith by the government. While recognizing the legitimacy of the primacy of French, they should not delay in seeking whatever safeguards for bilingualism are now available.
The anglophone community should also not let itself fall into the Bouchard government's trap of dividing Quebecers. It should reach out for allies among the broad-minded francophone majority.
Finally, anglophones should look outside Canada for support. For too long, Premier Bouchard on his foreign trips has been able to get away with a ridiculous depiction of Quebec as a paradise of bilingualism. On his four-city trip next month to the United States, anglophones should be ready with facts and figures to puncture such nonsense.
The premier may then find that for his government to crush bilingualism is to crush international respect for itself.