Quebec's language police

[north450]

Town councillors in Beaconsfield voted Monday to defy a Quebec law that requires it to change its English-language street names to French.

It was a quick vote, and the decision was unanimous.

"To offer [a] suggestion to change the character of a street name that's been there for 100 years is just not acceptable to us," said Beaconsfield Mayor Bob Benedetti.

Benedetti said the province's Office de la langue française (OLF) has been after the city before on the street-sign issue, and has already fined it $2,000 for having signs that don't conform to the province's Charter of the French Language.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story ... d-olf.html


For the first time in 20 years, Montreal's Town of Mount Royal has French-only street signs after painting over the English words.
hat move came after a bitter dispute with the province's Office de la langue française (OLF).

All of which has left the mayor of the nearby bilingual municipality of Côte Saint-Luc confused. He says he won't give in to pressure from the language police and can't figure out why Mount Royal backed down.

"It's absolutely baffling that they would remove the English language that is part of the history of Town of Mount Royal," said Mayor Anthony Housefather.

"I mean, I don't want to ascribe motives to a council, but it seems to me to be a very foolish thing to have done."

Housefather said bilingual municipalities have the right to put up bilingual signs, as long as the French portion is to the left or at the top of the sign.
French must predominate

He said Côte Saint-Luc received the same warning as Mount Royal did from the OLF in 2002.

But the city refused to change, and it hasn't heard back from the language watchdog.
The OLF is also puzzled about Mount Royal's decision to paint over the English words. It thinks the city overacted.

"They could have erected these signs in both French and in English as long as the French is predominating," said OLF spokesman Gerald Paquette.

He said the city just needed to make some slight changes to the signs.

Signs did not comply

Mount Royal mayor Vera Danyluk says the language police have been hounding her city because the signs didn't comply with the Charter of the French Language.

Danyluk said the city was tired of fighting with the OLF, so it hired municipal workers to paint over the English words.

"Well, [it's] not that we threw in the towel," she said. "We feel that there are so many important things we should be doing in our municipality to improve the quality of life for our citizens."

Danyluk said the fight over the bilingual signs is petty and narrow-minded, and a waste of money.

However, the Côte Saint-Luc mayor said covering up the English on street signs sends the wrong message to anglophone youth in the community.
Housefather said it's an issue that crosses municipal boundaries, and bilingual municipalities should stick together.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story ... r-olf.html

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[north450]

http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/
http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/english/charter/index.html
1. French is the official language of Québec


http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/english/charter/index.html
Preamble

Title I : Status of the French language

Title II : Linguistic officialization, toponymy and francization

Title III : The Office québécois de la langue française

Title IV : The Conseil supérieur de la langue française

Title V : Penal provisions and other sanctions

Title VI : Transitional and miscellaneous provisions

Schedule
205. Every person who contravenes a provision of this Act or the regulations adopted by the Government thereunder commits an offence and is liable

(a) for each offence, to a fine of $250 to $700 in the case of a natural person, and of $500 to $l,400 in the case of a legal person;
(b) for any subsequent conviction, to a fine of $500 to $1,400 in the case of a natural person, and of $1,000 to $7,000 in the case of a legal person.

1977, c. 5, s. 205,s. 14; 1986, c. 58, s. 15; 1990, c. 4, s. 128; 1991, c. 33, s. 18; 1993, c 40, s. 59; 1997, c. 24, s. 21; 1999, c. 40, s. 45.


MONTREAL -- Internet surfers are flooding the Office de la Langue Francaise with waves of E-mail slamming the provincial language watchdog for trying to sink its teeth into the Information Highway.

"We're getting lots of (electronic) hate mail", OLF spokesman Gerald Paquette acknowledged Monday.

Paquette said the missives of discontent began pouring in after The Gazette published a front-page story Saturday about the language police patrolling the Net for World Wide Web sites that don't conform to Bill 101.
"Whenever (the media) use "language police', all the loonies in the world come out," he noted. "It's not pleasant, but we're used to it." Not all the reaction was negative, however.

"We got lots of technical calls from the United States Monday," Paquette said. "There's big interest over jurisdiction of the Internet."

"I'm not accepting that (the OLF) has jurisdiction over the Net," stressed Morty Grauer, whose West Island computer store was the focus of the weekend newspaper article.

Grauer said in a telephone interview last Friday that his Micro-Bytes Logiciels shop in Pointe Claire removed most of its homepage from the Net because the OLF had served notice last month that the company is in violation of the French Language Charter.
He was informed in a late-May letter that his store's Web site - www.microbytes.com - didn't meet the criteria of the charter's Article 52.

The clause states that catalogues, brochures, leaflets, commercial directories and all other publications of that nature must be in French.

Although it isn't specifically spelled out in Article 52, the Net is now included on that list, according to Paquette.

"I think they're just pushing it to see how far they can go," argued Grauer. Bolstered by growing support - Micro-Bytes received more than 100 e-mail messages during the weekend and at least 20 more Monday, besides phone calls and in-store visits - Grauer reinstated his homepage.

He had been given until the end of the month to translate his homepage into French or risk possible sanctions from the OLF.
"I'm still going ahead with a bilingual homepage (which is already 75 to 80 per cent complete), but whether it will be ready for July 1 or not, I don't know," Grauer said. "I don't think there's anything they can do."

Meanwhile, he is continuing to encourage Net users to fire off more angry E-mail to the government via its own Web site - www.olf.gouv.qc.ca - by regular mail and by phone.

Paquette said Quebec businesses that have their certificate of francization (firms with 50 employees or more) are being asked to have French on their Internet sites or risk having the certificates suspended or revoked.

Smaller enterprises like Micro-Bytes could face other sanctions under Article 52.

Links:
OLF E-Mail address: scom@olf.gouv.qc.ca
OLF Homepage: http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/
http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/calgary-h ... jun97.html

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[Lorraine]

The Province was doing fine before the PQ got into power.
Montreal was the THE FINANCIAL CAPITAL OF CANADA.

Many Montrealers left for Toronto which was dead, dead. dead in those days and the Montrealers that moved there in droves revived Toronto.
It was the Montrealer's input that made Toronto become the Financial Capital of Canada. It's still not 'MONTREAL' and never will be.

Montreal is a safe city and is a large island.
Montreal is a safe and friendly city.
Montreal is older than Toronto and looks more European.

Montrealers knows about "Joie de Vivre" The restaurants are equivalent to any well known restaurants around the world.

Montreal had the first EXPO in Canada in 1967, hence Expo67.
Before that it was called the Worlds Fair. None of which were in Canada.

Montreal has won more Stanley cups than any other city.
It is a Hockey city along with many other sports..

Montreal has Mount Royal in the centre of the City.

Most of the gals in Montreal are thin and pretty as well as very
fashion conscious.

Montreal is a BILINGUAL city no matter what the Office de la Langue tells you.

Most English speaking Montrealers in their thirties and less are bilingual and probably 75% of those are trilingual.

In the summer it is filled with all kinds of festivals and free shows.
More than a 100,000 people will congregate some Saturday nights, in the heart of Montreal to see these shows. There is never any problems with safety.

There are so many good things about Montreal that I would love to live there instead of the burbs.

I was born in Montreal. I had a great English education, most french people unless they were from affluent families didn't.

Politicians will do anything for votes.

Here is a great site to read about the origins of Quebec Separatism

http://www.uni.ca/sep_origins.html

-Lorraine

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[north450]

Hi
Montreal has not changed much
QUEBEC IS STILL QUEBEC
the origin of separatism is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXRE_7HzLEQ

Hi Lorraine nice to meet you.

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[James]

Again, you dig up an old thread... this time five years old. What is the point? These posters (at least one of them) haven't posted here in years. Why not stick with current threads and/or start your own?

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