Greenfield Park residents say they want to maintain their town's bilingual status as a matter of respect and history -- but the language minister says those considerations are irrelevant.
Councillors from the South Shore town were in Quebec City Tuesday for their opportunity to speak against Bill 14, the Parti Quebecois's planned legislation to revamp the Charter of the French language.
The municipality is one of several dozen in the province that could lose its official bilingual status if Bill 14 comes to pass, because according to the most recent census, less than 50 percent of its population listed English as the language spoken at home or as a mother tongue.
Councillors said living in French and English is not only healthy, it's part of their joie de vivre.
Robert Myles said many francophones have moved to Greenfield Park specifically because it has bilingual status.
"[They] want to be in an area where people can speak both languages," said Myles.
Opposition councillor Gilles Gregoire agreed, saying that over the decades the town has changed but remained very vibrant.
"I remember when I was young it was an English society and now it's a bilingual society," said Gregoire.
Language Minister Diane De Courcy was not impressed, saying that residents would still be able to communicate with each other even after the city would be stripped of the legal right to communicate in English.
"I do not think that a town's bilingual status has any influence on whether or not people can understand each other in both languages," said De Courcy.
That had Myles wondering why De Courcy wanted to needlessly create linguistic strife in Quebec.
"We just live in a perfect harmony. We have a great thing going in Greenfield Park. It's just our history," said Myles.
Greenfield Park mayor Caroline St-Hilaire, a former Bloc Quebecois MP, said Greenfield Park should be allowed to keep its bilingual status regardless of the actual shift in population.
"I don't think it's a matter of PQ or Liberal. It's a matter of respect."
