William Johnson: The legal status of English in Quebec

http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/features/viewpoints/story.html?id=79c98166-3381-429f-8a64-856ac7f1d527&p=1

During the 1995 referendum, I maintained in The Gazette that a referendum did not confer a right to secede unilaterally and that, if Canada was divisible, Quebec was also divisible. That shocked even good anglos but my position was confirmed in August 1998 by the Supreme Court of Canada ...

In their analysis of Bill 22, Frank Scott, John Humphrey (who had drafted the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights), Irwin Cotler and four others wrote: "Section 1 which provides that French is 'the official language of the province of Quebec' is misleading in that it suggests that English is not also an official language in Quebec, which it is by virtue of Section 133 of the BNA Act and the federal Official Languages Act."

These eminent legal authorities asserted: "To promote the two cultures on the basis of equality and to allow them freedom for their natural growth and development is, we believe, the only proper policy for Quebec and for Canada, and the only one consistent with contemporary international standards of human rights."

In his initial draft of what became Bill 101, Camille Laurin had this in Section 1: "Le français est la seule langue officielle du Québec." But he was persuaded to drop seule when he was told that it would certainly be struck down by the courts, thus confirming that English was also an official language of Quebec ..1

William Johnson: The myth of disestablished English - The Métropolitain

The myth of disestablished English - The Métropolitain

Even as English is again under attack at the National Assembly during the hearings on Bill 14, it is perhaps true that most Quebecers have been misled into believing that English is not also an official language of Quebec. But that’s entirely unfounded in fact or in law. English has been an official language of Quebec ever since 1763. Every law passed since then has been passed in English. Every law to be passed by the current [SIC] Parti Québécois government will be passed in English as well as French, and the English text will be official, just as will be the French. 

English is part of Quebec’s very identity. That part is largely what makes the difference between Quebec and other former colonies of France, such as Guadeloupe, Martinique, Louisiana, Haiti, Vietnam or Algeria. 

So how has the myth been propagated that French is the “sole official language?”  It began with the trickery of Robert Bourassa’s Bill 22 of 1974, the so-called “Official Language Act, which proclaimed – in English as well as French: “French is the official language of the province of Québec.” ...