Our understanding of Bill 96 on the Charter of the French Language

Since the Quebec government filed its Bill 96 on French—the official and common language of Quebec—many businesspeople have approached us with questions about the upcoming changes to the Charter of the French Language (CFL). They are worried about the impact of this bill on their companies, especially the measures against bilingualism.

Indeed, the government seems to believe that the decline of French in Quebec is due at least in part to the requirement for bilingualism in companies, a requirement that it claims is excessive. It therefore included a mechanism that will result in employers minimizing the number of jobs that require the use of a language other than French. As a result, every employer must assess the real language needs associated with the tasks required, inventory the language knowledge already required from other employees and reduce to a minimum the number of positions requiring knowledge of another language. To ensure this measure is followed, the Office Québécois de la langue française (OQLF) will establish an inspection program, maybe even a squad, to enforce this provision in companies.

Increased powers of the OQLF

This will considerably increase the OQLF’s powers. The OQLF will be able to issue orders, seek injunctions, investigate and inspect companies without a warrant. This also means that the Office can enter any premises other than a private home at any reasonable hour, take photos of said premises and the items it finds there, turn on computers, access data, copy said data and require any information it deems necessary, from the time there is reason to believe that the law is being flouted.

GP Conceptal’s expertise

Companies already in compliance with the law have nothing to fear from the upcoming changes, and those who do business with GP Conceptal are even better prepared, because the bill actually carries over many of our current practices. For example, all our clients refine their job offers to target their language needs very specifically. All our francization committees meet more than twice per year and copies of the minutes from each meeting are sent to the OQLF. All our clients also update their information on the registre des entreprises to be sure their situation is reflected accurately. These are a few of the many practices GP Conceptal implements that make up its added value: end-to-end systematic and continuous management of a company’s conformity process, always in compliance with the laws of Quebec.

The role of the administrative tribunal of Quebec

The bill does provide for counterweights to the expanded powers of the OQLF that do not exist in the current law. The administrative tribunal of Quebec will have the ability to overturn or uphold the orders of the OQLF. Furthermore, the French Language Commissioner will oversee the implementation of the law and could investigate the OQLF’s activities. These counterweights are important considering that the law establishes a language standard that requires constant interpretation based on the situation of each company.

Other changes

The aspect that will have the greatest positive impact on the situation of French in Quebec is unquestionably the creation of Francisation Québec, a one-stop-shop that will offer francization services to people all over Quebec and that will make it possible to reach at work everyone who does not yet have a functional knowledge of the French language. The bill also extends the obligation to generalize the use of French to all companies employing at least 25 people (rather than the current 50), eventually extending the obligation to approximately 35,000 companies rather than the some 7,500 currently affected.

Special agreements

Unfortunately, despite the scope of the amendments proposed in Bill 96, the government did not see fit to modernize the rules applicable to special agreements in Section 144. It even created confusion by amending Section 144.1 of the CFL, which currently concerns the extension of francization programs, while regulation 11 still refers back to the defunct Section 144.1 of 1993 that concerned the recognition of headquarters and research centres that could avail themselves of Section 144. As this part of the law allows for exceptions to the generalization of French for companies that are unable to comply, it was probably not politically opportune for the government to amend this part of the law precisely when it wants to demonstrate that it is looking askance at everyone who is threatening the survival of the French language in North America by trying to impose bilingualism. But this is only delaying the inevitable, because the fact is that Quebec will eventually have to adapt to reality. At least half of the companies in Quebec do business with the rest of the world in English, and some of them, exclusively in that language. Foreign companies established here and even some Quebec-created companies have no or very few clients in Quebec and many of them have expressed to us their concerns regarding what they read in this bill. Special agreements are certainly the answer to their questions, because they are how we can find reasonable accommodations without having to compromise on everyone’s rights. We encourage you to share with us your understanding of this bill and how the resulting changes will impact your company.

Contact us. We have solutions for you.

Chantal Larouche
President, GP Conceptal Inc.

514 347-3984
chantal@gpconceptal.com
gpconceptal.com