When I consider the effects of Bill 14, the Parti Québécois’ latest legislative effort aimed at increasing restrictions against the use of English in Quebec, I think of Sandra.
Sandra goes to the English-language Dollard-des-Ormeaux school, just off Valcartier military base near Quebec City. When I met her, she emotionally asked why she would have to change schools and lose her friends.
Her father serves in the military and was wounded in Afghanistan. She lives with her mother. (Her parents separated partly due to the strain of post-traumatic stress after her father returned from combat.) Now, one of the few constants in her life, her elementary school and close friends, could be taken away by Bill 14.
There are 600 Sandras in Quebec City and Bagotville: children from military families who would lose the right to attend school in the language of their choice because of Bill 14. Almost 20% of the children in English-language educational institutions in Central Quebec School Board (CQSB) would be removed from their schools.
Bill 14’s attack on the children of war veterans and members of our armed forces lays bare the glaring contradiction, and indeed cruelty, of nationalistic governance in Quebec since the Quiet Revolution. A political movement predicated on preserving a minority-language group within North American, the French, has systematically sought to marginalize minority-language Anglos within Quebec.
