Guest column: Merci, M. Bernier, for challenging Bill 101

By Naomi Lakritz, for The Province February 9, 2011
You can tell just how much the truth hurts by how much the truth-teller gets slammed for telling it.
Former Foreign Affairs Minister and Quebec MP Maxime Bernier spoke blunt truths Friday on a Halifax radio station about his province's language law, Bill 101.
To judge by the reaction, including from his own party and from the federal Liberals, you'd think Bernier had committed treason.
The Tories distance themselves from matters of "provincial jurisdiction," which they "respect," according to Sara MacIntyre, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Which, I suppose, is pretty much all they can say; it wouldn't do to be seen indulging in a public orgy of hand-wringing and crying, "OMG! He's going to cost us votes in Quebec!"
The Liberals rushed to trash Bernier indirectly, by wondering aloud if his was the true Conservative position on Quebec, while Liberal MP Denis Coderre sniffed that Bernier makes "Sarah Palin look like an intellectual."
There's no truth so bold that a political party won't sacrifice its verity for the almighty aim of vote buying in Quebec, is there?
Here's what Bernier said, excerpted from his full comment in the National Post:
"Ideally, everyone in Quebec should be able to speak French. But we should not try to reach this goal by restricting people's rights and freedom of choice."
Rights and freedom of choice? That's heresy, I tell you! Hang him high!
There's more: "French will survive if Quebecers cherish it and want to preserve it; it will flourish if Quebec becomes a freer, more dynamic and prosperous society . . . Not by imposing it and by preventing people from making their own decisions in matters that concern their personal lives."
Worse, Bernier questioned the provincial government's "right" to tell parents which language their children must be educated in: "Why should francophone parents not be allowed to send their children to an English or bilingual school for parts of their studies, so that they become completely fluent in both languages? English is the language of 350 million people surrounding us. It is also the most important international language all over the world. Mastering it is a major asset . . . There has been an important English-speaking population in Quebec for 250 years. Unless we believe that Quebec today is simply an extension of New France, and that only descendants of the French settlers are real Quebecers, then English too is part of Quebec's identity."
Quebec Culture Minister Christine St.-Pierre, echoed by Premier Jean Charest, said everyone is aware that Bill 101 has "helped preserve the French language." Who's everyone, Christine? Not everyone is suffering from as severe a case of revisionist amnesia as you and Charest are.
I was living in Montreal in 1977 when Bill 101 came in. I watched the exodus of people and money and businesses west to Toronto.
I watched as Italians and other immigrants set up clandestine English schools for their children in people's basements, because like Bernier, they knew that mastering English is a major asset when you're living on a linguistic island in a sea of 350 million English speakers.
I listened as my francophone neighbour, Mario Lavoie, lamented to me that his poor command of English limited his hopes of a better career -his English wasn't even good enough for him to get a job driving a Montreal transit bus -and how he desperately wanted his daughter, Audrey, to escape the same fate by learning English. However, Bill 101 prevented him from sending her to regular English school. Nor did English immersion schools exist because Bill 101 says that in French schools, no class but English may be taught in English. And in French schools, they were too busy filling the kids' heads with separatist nonsense to give the teaching of English more than short shrift.
For 34 years Bill 101 has been a regressive, repressive piece of legislation that has no place in a democracy.
Merci, Monsieur Bernier, for saying so.
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Naomi Lakritz is a columnist with the Calgary Herald.