By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald - Les enfants terribles in Quebec are at it again. The Supreme Court of Canada has shot down a regressive, and repressive, language law in Quebec and the separatists have retaliated by muttering about sovereignty.
The law, known as Bill 104, prevented children who attended English private schools not subsidized by the government from qualifying for admission to English public schools. Immigrant parents whose children, under the province's Bill 101, were supposed to attend French schools instead were using the unsubsidized schools as a way of circumventing the law, since their kids would then be eligible to attend English public schools if most of their schooling had been in English.
It was completely lost on the irate sovereigntists that the judges' unanimous decision, which found Bill 104 in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, was written by Justice Louis LeBel, who is a Quebecer.
First off the block and foaming at the mouth was Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois, who introduced an emergency motion in the Quebec legislature denouncing the court's decision. The court rules that your law violates human rights, and you denounce the decision, thus showing you favour human rights violations over the law of the land? What would you be, then, if you got into power, some tinpot tyranny unworthy of the title "democracy"?
Marois was followed closely by Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, who said: "It's the Supreme Court of another nation --the Canadian nation. We need to draw lessons from this. For as long as we belong to Canada, there will always be situations like this." Could someone please explain what this man is doing sitting in Canada's Parliament if he considers Canada to be another nation?Why not find some other nation whose government you could sit in, Gilles? Will any old nation do? How about the U.S.? Would that work? Go to Washington and take a seat in Congress. It would make about as much sense as having your members warm the backbenches in Ottawa. Go--and good riddance to you and your party. If you don't love Canada, you have no business taking a seat in its Parliament, and you never did.
Another nation, indeed. But certainly one whose federal funding, including transfer payments from other provinces, you are quite happy to accept. Not to mention a nation whose money you like using, whose postal service suits you just fine, whose investments are always welcome and whose military keeps you safe. And shame on Marois, Duceppe and Mario Beaulieu, head of the St. Jean Baptiste Society, who said "it is unacceptable that the future of French in Quebec should be at the mercy of federal institutions controlled by English Canada, like the Supreme Court." Why shame on them? Because the Royal 22nd Regiment from Quebec, the Van Doos, are at this moment fighting in Afghanistan. They're fighting for Canada, and a number of them have lost their lives over there.
Shame on all those who are sitting comfortably at home in Quebec, mouthing vile separatist sentiments, while these soldiers are losing their lives proudly representing what the separatist contingent from their home province dismisses as "another nation."
When the highest court in the land rules that a provincial law has violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the natural reaction should be to move to make amends, not to denounce the court. Nor is calling the Supreme Court an institution controlled by English Canada anything less than a cheap shot, and an inaccurate one. Four of the nine justices are Quebecers. Besides LeBel, the others include Ian Binnie, Morris Fish and Marie Deschamps. Another justice, Louise Charron, is a francophone from Ontario. English Canada would almost seem to be under-represented if the roster of judges is viewed a different way.
If there is no sense of shame among the separatists at the judgment that the provincial law represents a breach of human rights, one has to wonder just what sort of lawless society they would be presiding over were petulant Quebec ever to separate from Canada and acquire its longed-for nationhood.
It's truly tragic that what the hardline Quebec politicians have failed to understand all these years is that there is no need to fight over language.
Why should one language be pitted against another language when the goal should be to ensure that all children growing up there are fluently bilingual, so that they can have the best of both worlds and enjoy all the opportunities for personal enrichment and future career success that speaking two languages fluently can give them? Nobody appears to be thinking of the children in any of this. That would require quite the paradigm shift. And as long as the separatists prefer the strife they can generate with their spoiled-brat status, such a transformation will never happen.
nlakritz@theherald. canwest.coM