Bilingual status to stay with municipalities, says minister

The rules for a municipality losing its bilingual status have been softened.

According to the Gazette, Bill 14 gives the P.Q. the power to remove a city or town’s bilingual status if their non-French speaking population drops blow fifty per cent.

The clause was implanted in a revised Charter of the French Language introduced last week by the minority P.Q. government in power. It represents a hard-line stance in P.Q. policies and has raised concern among the Anglophone community.

Jean-François Lisée, the minister responsible for Montreal, told the paper on Monday that if a city’s bilingual population starts to decline, a committee would review the trend before making the decision on revoking or not its bilingual status.

Bill 14 will be up for consultations and committee hearing in the New Year. Lisée also encouraged cities facing population fluctuations to come forward with any questions.

Flickr Photo by: Parti Quebecois (officiel)