Teh One Who Knocks
10-18-2012, 02:40 PM
CBC News Montreal
Immigrants to Quebec who want to send their children to daycare will soon have to look into finding a French-language centre, the government said Wednesday, outlining the latest plank in its plan to overhaul the province's language laws.
The measure will be part of legislation to be tabled this fall that is aimed at toughening Bill 101, formally known as the French Language Charter, Families Minister Nicole Léger said
"Bill 101 is going to be changed," Léger said in an interview. "I will have plenty of support as family minister to make sure it also extends to daycares."
Quebec has various types of child-care centres and it is not immediately clear whether the new legislation would apply to all of them — if the bill even passed in the legislature, where the Parti Québécois government has a minority. But it appears that the new rules would at least apply to children up to age five who attend publicly run or subsidized daycares and early-childhood centres.
The aim would be to accelerate the process of integrating immigrant families into Quebec's French-speaking majority. The province takes in about 50,000 immigrants a year, 38 per cent of whom don't speak any French.
But Gina Gasparrini, executive director of St. Mary early childhood centre in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, said stricter language laws could make it harder for childcare workers to do their job.
"When you're dealing with an 18-month-old child who's upset and crying about something and you have to stop and bite your tongue and not console him in the language that he understands, that's a little heartbreaking," she said.
Push to firm up Bill 101
Currently families settling in Quebec can send their children to a daycare centre in the language of their choice.
Premier Pauline Marois has made it clear, however, that she intends to strengthen the French Language Charter, which actually falls under the purview of another cabinet minister, Immigration Minister Diane De Courcy. The PQ's platform in the August provincial election had no mention of linguistic rules for daycares, though.
On the other hand, Marois did campaign on a pledge to extend Bill 101 to Quebec's CEGEPs, the post-secondary junior colleges. Another electoral vow was to look at forcing companies with between 11 and 50 employees to make French the official language of the workplace. Currently, that provision applies only to those with 50 or more workers.
Quebec has about 1,000 early childhood centres and 600 private but subsidized daycares, figures that don't include services like home-based childcare, non-subsidized private daycares and workplace daycares.
The government's aim is to create 32,000 new subsidized, $7-a-day places for children by 2016 to eliminate the current shortage.
Bill 101 was passed by the PQ government in 1977 and makes it compulsory for the children of most immigrants to attend French-language schools. Children with at least one parent who received the majority of his or her education in English in Canada are constitutionally exempt.
Immigrants to Quebec who want to send their children to daycare will soon have to look into finding a French-language centre, the government said Wednesday, outlining the latest plank in its plan to overhaul the province's language laws.
The measure will be part of legislation to be tabled this fall that is aimed at toughening Bill 101, formally known as the French Language Charter, Families Minister Nicole Léger said
"Bill 101 is going to be changed," Léger said in an interview. "I will have plenty of support as family minister to make sure it also extends to daycares."
Quebec has various types of child-care centres and it is not immediately clear whether the new legislation would apply to all of them — if the bill even passed in the legislature, where the Parti Québécois government has a minority. But it appears that the new rules would at least apply to children up to age five who attend publicly run or subsidized daycares and early-childhood centres.
The aim would be to accelerate the process of integrating immigrant families into Quebec's French-speaking majority. The province takes in about 50,000 immigrants a year, 38 per cent of whom don't speak any French.
But Gina Gasparrini, executive director of St. Mary early childhood centre in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood, said stricter language laws could make it harder for childcare workers to do their job.
"When you're dealing with an 18-month-old child who's upset and crying about something and you have to stop and bite your tongue and not console him in the language that he understands, that's a little heartbreaking," she said.
Push to firm up Bill 101
Currently families settling in Quebec can send their children to a daycare centre in the language of their choice.
Premier Pauline Marois has made it clear, however, that she intends to strengthen the French Language Charter, which actually falls under the purview of another cabinet minister, Immigration Minister Diane De Courcy. The PQ's platform in the August provincial election had no mention of linguistic rules for daycares, though.
On the other hand, Marois did campaign on a pledge to extend Bill 101 to Quebec's CEGEPs, the post-secondary junior colleges. Another electoral vow was to look at forcing companies with between 11 and 50 employees to make French the official language of the workplace. Currently, that provision applies only to those with 50 or more workers.
Quebec has about 1,000 early childhood centres and 600 private but subsidized daycares, figures that don't include services like home-based childcare, non-subsidized private daycares and workplace daycares.
The government's aim is to create 32,000 new subsidized, $7-a-day places for children by 2016 to eliminate the current shortage.
Bill 101 was passed by the PQ government in 1977 and makes it compulsory for the children of most immigrants to attend French-language schools. Children with at least one parent who received the majority of his or her education in English in Canada are constitutionally exempt.