Der Bürgermeister von Quebec sagt, ein einheitliches Sprachengesetz sei für seine Stadt, in der Französisch floriert, nicht das Richtige

> The mayor of Gaspé, Que., nestled in an inlet along the St. Lawrence River, says part of the community’s greatest strength — cultural and linguistic diversity — is now disappearing due to French language laws.

> With about 15,000 residents, he says the community was founded by French, Mi’kmaw and English individuals — the latter now representing about 11 per cent of the population.

> But since the passing of Law 14, previously known as Bill 96 — the Act Respecting French, the Official and Common Language of Quebec — he says several towns which do not have bilingual status but house thousands of anglophones are seeing their right to receive information from the municipality in their first language slip away.

> “During all our history, we always talk to our citizens in English,” said Côté. “[Now] we must apply the law even though we don’t agree with that. If we don’t apply the law, the penalty is that the Quebec government will stop all subsidies.” He says that could potentially mean millions of dollars in lost support from the province.

> In the regions, Côté says French does not feel under threat. “It’s English that is declining here and the Mi’kmaw language struggles to [be] revived. So the one-size-fits-all laws are not made for us. We want to continue to correspond in English with our anglophone people,” Côte. “We want to respect them. It’s important for us. It’s historic.”

It’s pretty typical of Quebec. Local people want to respect anglophones as a founding people of their communities, but they’re afraid of being punished by the language police that have to enforce laws banning English in public life. This is why anglophones are rapidly being assimilated and disappearing from places like the Gaspe.

The locals don’t see us that way, but Quebec’s nationalists see as part of a sea of English that poses an existential threat to the Quebecois.

It is nice to see that there are some francophones willing to stick their necks out for us and take on the CAQ’s language laws and new powers given to language police. It’s why I stay in Quebec.

But it could be devastating if the language police and Legault cut off funding for things like roads and infrastucture in retaliation for using a bit of English. The language police and Legault can be very vindictive when crossed.