Côte St-Luc Mayor launches website to rally Quebecers against Bill 14

MONTREAL – Côte St-Luc Mayor Anthony Housefather is taking to the airwaves and turning to the Internet to fight the Bill 14 – a bill which could dramatically reduce the number of bilingual cities in Quebec should it become law.

He’s launched a website, bilingualstatus.com, calling on an estimated 400,000 residents of bilingual municipalities to oppose the law.

Housefather characterized the bill as an attempt by the Parti Québécois to rally their hard-line base.

“They’re trying to do things to appease they’re radical supporters. There’s nothing of any benefit for people in Quebec for getting rid of bilingual status for those 86 municipalities and boroughs that have it today,” he said.

With an Anglophone populace above 80 per cent, Côte St-Luc would likely remain unaffected. But some bilingual-status West Island cities considered Anglophone strongholds could become French-only if the law passes.

Under the law, the Office Québécoise de la Langue Française would automatically review the status of a bilingual city following the latest census. Should a municipality’s Anglophone populace dip beneath 50 per cent, it could be stripped of its bilingual status.

Quebec’s minister for Montreal, Jean-François Lisée, said he favours a 40-per cent threshold, and told a group at Westmount Thursday that he wanted feedback from cities on the bill.

Since someone isn’t counted as an Anglophone unless that language is their mother tongue, historically Anglophone areas with high immigrant populations, such as the Town of Mount Royal, could lose their bilingual status. Currently TMR’s Anglophone populace clocks in at just above 20 per cent, and its francophone populace is less than 50 per cent.

Some immigrants who talked to Global Montreal didn’t want the town’s status to change.

“We need to have English and French,” said Alice Balibay, a Filipina who has lived in TMR for 33 years. “I’m not living in France.”

Some residents, like Brazilian émigré Tiago Americo, told Global Montreal that they were immigrants who saw bilingualism as a chance to become proficient in three languages. Others just want to retain a culture of mutual respect in Quebec’s municipalities.

“There should be room in the world for everybody,” said Yinka Egberonbe, a project coordinator who is originally from Nigeria. “I mean if people want to live in English they should be allowed to do so, just as if people want to live in French they should be allowed to do so.”

Housefather worries if things change, it could create a headache for administrating a bilingual city more than anything else.

“The only impact this would have,” he said, “would be to take away services that English-speaking communities who have built these cities have had throughout their history.”

For an in-depth interview on Bill 14 with the Director for the Association of Canadian Studies, watch Focus Montreal (Dec. 9) here.