By Tracy N.

I was born the same year that the first separatist government was elected to the Quebec Provincial Assembly, not long after the "Quiet Revolution".

I grew up amidst Bill 101, Bill 178, and the Office de la Langue Francaise. I witnessed voter fraud in the 1995 referendum firsthand, as I sat in a school gymnasium fighting for a crooked, dark, or faded "X" to be counted.

Somehow, I still managed to take whatever rights I had left for granted.

This only occurred to me at work two weeks ago, when I got in trouble for greeting a customer in English. Being perfectly bilingual, I have a tendency to speak whatever language comes to my mind first. In most bilingual countries, this would be considered an asset. Not here.

Even though I greeted the customer in French first, then English, my boss still informed me that I am to never address anyone in English unless they do so first. I am to always assume that the customer speaks French, even though the linguistic makeup of the city of Montreal is roughly 50/50, and the restaurant where I work is in a tourist district where Americans frequent.

The reason? The Office de la Langue Francaise, a.k.a. the Language Police. My boss had chosen to comply with their regulations, and force his employees to make French the "primary language of the workplace".

And I don’t blame him. Not complying would mean warnings, fines, maybe even the loss of his business. He did not open the store to make a social or moral statement; he opened it to make a living.

However, there is a part of me that wants to scream at him to wake up! Complying now won’t give him eternal peace. I think we can fairly assume that in a few years, the OLF will make it even harder on him, as an Allophone, to operate his business. His best bet (and what would earn him my eternal respect) would be to protest, risking fines, and using organizations like Alliance Quebec who are willing to offer him financial support in court as a backup.

But that’s a little idealistic.

The only body that needs a wake up call is our federal government. Our country has yet to come out of hiding to protect the rights of all of its citizens! It repeatedly allows the Province of Quebec to ignore the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, hoping that somehow this will make the separatists decide that maybe Canada isn’t such a bad place after all.

Ha!

All the Canadian government has managed to do thus far is reinforce the idea that it is the francophone population whose rights are being violated (which is blatantly false) by ignoring it.

True, a francophone living in a bilingual country should be able to receive services in his or her own language, and I will gladly provide it. But workers should also have the right to focus on their job, and not on what language they are speaking. Most of all, workers should be able to do their job without worrying that they will lose it if they accidentally speak one word of the "wrong" language.