EMSB President Says CAQ Motion Criticizing Bill 96 Is An “Attack” Against Anglophones In Quebec

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MONTREAL – The Legault government and the English Montreal School Board (EMSB) are attacking each other as public hearings approaching Bill 96, a sprawling reform of Bill 101.

On Wednesday, Government House Leader Simon Jolin-Barrette adopted a motion condemning the “contemptuous remarks towards the Quebec nation” made by the EMSB on September 1.

The president of the school board spoke to the press to say that he considered the motion to be an “attack” against anglophones in Quebec.

Calling himself “deeply disappointed” with the government – and the Liberal Party that supported the motion – Joe Ortana suggested that it was unfair to criticize the September 1 resolution since it has since been amended.

“This is another example of an attack on us, the school board and the English-speaking community,” Ortana said in a virtual press conference on Wednesday.

Last week, Prime Minister François Legault called the EMSB a “radical” group.

The school board accused the bill of “unilaterally rewriting the constitution to recognize Quebec as a nation where the only language is French”.

“Quebec is not a“ nation ”, said the resolution of September 1. “The Quebec intelligentsia deliberately uses the word ‘nation’ to evoke a reality that only exists in its own mirage. The only correct word to use to define the reality of Quebec is “province”.

On September 14, the EMSB sent out a press release saying it had removed nation language from the resolution, but still opposed Bill 96.

Among other things, they maintain that the use of the notwithstanding clause is not necessary to protect and promote the French language in Quebec.

The motion targeting the EMSB, adopted unanimously in the National Assembly on Wednesday, also denounces “any form of ‘Quebec bashing’ or Quebecophobia”.

“Criticizing a bill in and of itself is not ‘denigration of Quebec’,” Ortana said. “The law is not unanimous everywhere in Quebec … and we must be able … to debate it.”

That does not make the dissenting minority anti-Quebec, francophobes or participants in “Quebec bashing”, he insisted.

Consideration of Bill 96 begins next week.

– This report by La Presse Canadienne was first published in French on September 15, 2021.

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