And though I’d love to point the finger at angryphone editorialists at large and say the language wars are media-hyped prejudiced alarmism, they’re not. “The PQ is trying to reassure its separatist base of its seriousness as a defender of Québécois identity,” wrote Hillary Brenhouse, from Time, on April 8. Issues like this, which haven’t failed to get a rise out of international media every one of the six times Bill 101 has been amended since its inception, are a great way to get attention. Their power is slight their voice seeks might. The Parti Québécois, in power for the first time in a long time, is in a minority government. They are fighting a mighty dragon, maybe not for their life, but for their sense of identity and distinction. The issue here is about power: minority and majority. When a whole country and its media machine mobilizes against the word “pasta” on a restaurant menu, it’s not really about the word “pasta.” I don’t doubt that the very agents of the Office de la langue Française, who were on the Buonanotte case, are chill enough to just point and nod when ordering food on their vacay to Italy. So let’s clear this aforementioned shit up-starting with five myths about Québec’s language laws.
On December 5, 2012, the Parti Québécois introduced Bill 14, a 155-point amendment to Bill 101 that has got so much shit hitting the fan that we can’t see our hands in front of our faces. Early 2013 saw the resurrection of an issue most of us Quebecers wish we could bury alongside Céline Dion’s unsullied youth: The so-called “language wars” of Canada’s outsider province, pitting poor, downtrodden French against brutish, domineering English since 1977. The public enemy numéro un of the Quebec Premier-and many more before her-is a lot less fun than drugs, obviously.
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