MONTREAL – Premier Pauline Marois came under fire Friday for dropping a controversial language bill that seeks to bolster a kind of Québécois identity in favour of a Charter of Quebec Values that does the same.
“There was no consensus on Bill 14,” said Kathleen Weil, Liberal MNA for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. “If you are talking about Montreal, which is really where the issue is, everyone speaks French. The common language is French. The language of work is French and everybody understands that and everybody buys into it.”
Liberal opposition to Bill 14 prompted her to drop the bill for the time being, Marois said Thursday following a three-day party caucus.
“We want to get the law passed, but if it’s not, we can’t force the issue,” she said.
“It will die on the order paper. It won’t stop us from working on the language front.”
Weil points out that the Liberals have always been against Bill 14.
“Why does she bring this up now?” Weil asked. “She is trying to create this whole identity package. She doesn’t want to talk about the economy. She doesn’t want to talk about jobs.”
Bill 14 was originally proposed as an addition to Bill 101 to strengthen the French language in the province.
Most notably, it asked for English CEGEPS to prioritize anglophone students over francophones in their selection process.
The Parti Québécois has said it plans to make the charter its main priority for 2013, and will present the details of their proposed Charter of Quebec Values on September 9, just one week before the National Assembly comes back for its fall session.
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