Ireland’s bill 101
A vast majority of Irish people support the adoption of legislation to protect the rights of Irish speakers in Northern Ireland.
Sixty-eight percent of some 11, 000 responders to a consultation by Northern Ireland’s government published last October responded favorably to a draft of the proposed Irish Language Act.
The proposed Irish law would use a rights-based approach. That is the same philosophy behind Québec’s language law.
Among the proposed modalities of the law is the creation of a Language commissioner who would have the power to “investigate complaints, and if necessary initiate a review, where there is failure to act on the rights of Irish speakers under the Act or any other enactment that deals with the use or status of the Irish language.”
The law would also stipulate that “Private individuals must have the right to make complaints and have court remedy if necessary.”
In 2005 the Republic of Ireland removed the legal status the English-language name of 2,000 towns, villages and roads in the Gaeltacht region of western Ireland and made the Gaelic version the only one that could be used by governement and public bodies.
Happy St-Patrick’s Day!
AngryFrenchGuy 
If it wasn’t a folk language, you wouldn’t need Bill 101.
Tony Kondaks
March 19, 2008 at 5:25 pm
eric,
yeah i’m clueless – why i can’t even tie my own shoelaces.
but if i agreed with you and “called” myself a proper thinking, compassionate citizen who knew what was good for everybody else – why then we’d be real pals. and we wouldn’t need to talk about what’s right or what’s wrong or even what’s left.
you can dress yourself up in any way you want and champion any cause under any name – but the moment you command individuals about what when and why concerning their rights – you have crossed a line that condemns your action and eventually your cause to bankruptcy in every sense.
you have rights to your language just like anyone else but the moment anyone officially steps on them is the moment all the alarms should go off. if you cannot hear the bells or you cannot see people hopping around on one foot; then, you are really your only steps away from being a komrade. it’s what some people refer to as the “slippery slope.”
a clueless guy like me has penny loafers. you cannot imagine how tiresome all that bending over could become.
johnnyonline
March 19, 2008 at 10:01 pm
“And that this discrimination procedure is used to determine access to a government service, I label Bill 101 a race law. As such, separatists, such as yourself who support the language of education provisions of Bill 101 are racists.”
You are ridiculous and not worthy of response.
“you can dress yourself up in any way you want and champion any cause under any name – but the moment you command individuals about what when and why concerning their rights”
Examples, please. Anglophone schools are funded by the Quebec government, and thus are subject to the laws of the Quebec government and democratic opinion. “Going to an English school” is not a human right (though Anglophones seem to think it is their God-given right).
“you have rights to your language just like anyone else but the moment anyone officially steps on them is the moment all the alarms should go off.”
Example, please.
“a clueless guy like me has penny loafers. you cannot imagine how tiresome all that bending over could become.”
Hey, you know what would be great? If you actually made real arguments about real things with real examples! It sure is purty and all what you wrote, but it doesn’t refer to anything relevant here.
Eric Grenier
March 20, 2008 at 9:36 pm
eric,
you choose to dismiss my point of view by declaring it as obtuse. at your own risk.
my comments attempt to direct readers to an understanding that freedom of choice in all respects has greater chance of improving the lives of human beings (regardless of what language they speak) than any statist/government intervention could ever hope for. a quick comparison of daily life that exists in repressive versus free states supports my contention.
i do not say that people’s lives and living conditions in quebec cannot improve with laws the way they are today – i simply suggest there are better alternatives. choice.
you categorically fail to support the idea of choice over government diktats like language/school restrictions. in fact, you defend and promote these restrictions (limits) as desirable.
truly eric, i hope you are never at the receiving end of any regressive legislation whether it is civil economic or political. for my part – i would never support or advocate anything like that. in conclusion i can only state the obvious: you make your choices and i make mine.
johnnyonline
March 21, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Where is the Office for the Protection of aboriginal languages in Quebec – these are the real languages at risk! The Huron-Wendat nation already lost theirs and now only speaks French. I think the OLF should be changed into an office that protects all of Quebec’s traditional languages, with priority going to saving aboriginal languages at risk.
Stan
March 21, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I agree. Interesting how the example you pick is one of the few communities that switched to French and not one of the countless communities that switched to english, though…
angryfrenchguy
March 21, 2008 at 8:45 pm
‘my comments attempt to direct readers to an understanding that freedom of choice in all respects has greater chance of improving the lives of human beings (regardless of what language they speak) than any statist/government intervention could ever hope for. ”
Perhaps, if we’re expected to live lives without a concern for things larger than ourselves.
“a quick comparison of daily life that exists in repressive versus free states supports my contention.”
If you are somehow comparing Bill 101 to repressive states, you are going too far.
“you categorically fail to support the idea of choice over government diktats like language/school restrictions. in fact, you defend and promote these restrictions (limits) as desirable.”
I do. Choice is not necessarily superior. Quebecers have chosen not to allow themselves to be swamped and assimilated. Does their choice mean nothing? We are defending ourselves. Should the choice of a murderer to murder me take precedence?
Eric Grenier
March 22, 2008 at 9:15 am
Tony writes: “I think it was more a case of laissez-faire; let what happens, happen.”
Laissez-faire is a deliberate policy taken by those who see their advantage in non-intervention.
“Toute politique de non-intervention consiste avant tout à choisir la voie du laisser-faire, à ignorer les problèmes lorsqu’ils se présentent et à laisser évoluer normalement le rapport des forces en présence. Dans la pratique, il s’agit d’un choix véritable, donc d’une planification, qui joue toujours en faveur de la langue dominante.”
Again from the site “L’aménagement linguistique dans le monde” where you can learn to compare language situations and policies world wide.
To let the “évoluer normalement le rapport des forces” which exist in Quebec as a direct consequence of its being a conquered country and an annexed nation, is a policy like any other. It is unwritten, it is officious, but is is as effective a policy as any other.
There is of course nothing natural about State-building. It is always the consequence of some political actions, all too often taken by small groups in total disregard for the human cost.
Tony writes: “the great human-rights activist Howard Galganov”
Now that made my day. Galganov, a human-rights activist!
Yves Michaud, who was publicly defamed and labelled an anti-Semite not to long ago, now that is someone who deserves to be called a human-rights activist, as co-founder of Quebec’s “Ligue des droits de l’homme” (today the “Ligue des droits et libertés”) together with Pierre Trudeau and others in 1963.
Of course, the media you consult daily might have presented the reality otherwise. In utter disrespect of the facts, one became a monster guilty of having said things nobody seems able to quote, while the other became a tabloid hero for professing the most obscene, chauvinist and bigoted anti-French statements through all known media types.
This sorry person’s lone crusade strikes me as most comparable to that of masculinists who make people laugh by portraying men as poor victims before the evil and powerful feminist lobbies!
Who other than old men with erection problems can fall for that kind of crap?
Mathieu Gauthier-Pilote
March 22, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Stan writes: “Where is the Office for the Protection of aboriginal languages in Quebec – these are the real languages at risk! The Huron-Wendat nation already lost theirs and now only speaks French. I think the OLF should be changed into an office that protects all of Quebec’s traditional languages, with priority going to saving aboriginal languages at risk.”
I could not agree more, except for the renaming. In a short essay I wrote in late 2003, I had proposed “L’Office québécois des langues”. Among other things, I suggested:
1. The constitutionalisation of the collective rights of all aboriginal nations in Quebec
2 . An educational reform so that learning an aboriginal language from Quebec be mandatory at college level. This would widen the cultural markets of these populations, greatly helping their cultural development.
3. The development of Aboriginal neighbourhoods in the 6 main cities of Quebec.
You might want to join the Parti Québécois or Québec solidaire and help us push those ideas, which could never truly be implemented but in a free Québec, “Aboriginal affairs” being a federal jurisdiction, and Ottawa preferring non-intervention and the continuation of racial segregation as core policies.
“Bill 101” on aboriginal lands is a very old idea of Quebec’s left, which resurfaces once in a while. For as long as we are in Canada however, Quebec will not be able to define autonomous aboriginal territories on which the law could apply.
Mathieu Gauthier-Pilote
March 22, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Congratulation to Ireland ! It’s a little bit late.
Israel did the same thing with hebrew. Ukraine, Lithuania and many countries have introduced a bill 101. These things are only allowed for other nations. French Québec must die and be diluted to death in english. Lord Durham rides again. Good luck to Ireland. It’s never too late.
Marc Authier
April 11, 2008 at 7:11 am
The French language will go extinct in North America, sooner or later. All participants on this forum write in English. If you type in French fewer people will understand you. Therefore you folks post in English, and there is nothing wrong about that. Language isn’t about perpetuating national identities, it’s about communicating with other people. French is becoming a museum language, whereas the English speaking world is fun and full of opportunities. Rear-guard battles are seldom won. http://theworldwidedeclineoffrench.blogspot.com/
Unfrench Frenchman
September 26, 2008 at 8:40 am