Higgs faces crucial test with review of languages act

Premier Blaine Higgs will soon launch a review of the Official Languages Act during one of the most linguistically fraught periods in the province's recent history.

The act contains a clause requiring it be reviewed every 10 years, forcing Higgs and his Progressive Conservative government to take on an issue that has caused them no shortage of headaches.

The PCs must announce by the end of the year how the review will unfold.

"We're looking at the requirements under the act and we're putting a plan together," Higgs said recently. "We will be announcing our plans certainly within that time frame."

For francophones who worry about the premier's commitment to minority-language rights, the review of the act is a crucial test.

"It's a mystery where Blaine Higgs is for the French community and for bilingualism," saidAlexandre Cdric Doucet, president of the Acadian Society of New Brunswick. "The next months will be important for us, and for him to show he can represent all New Brunswickers."

Until September's election, Higgs had a minority government propped up by the People's Alliance, which wants changes to the act and how it is applied.

Doucet said now that Higgs has a majority government, the premier's own vision should become clearer.

Political scientist Stphanie Chouinard, who studies language issues, said the mandatory 10-year review incorporated into the act is "a little bit like a flip of the coin.

"You don't know what government is going to be in power every 10 years and what their outlook on official languages will be."

'A number of tense moments'

Early in the Higgs government's first term, it looked at weakening the requirement for bilingual ambulance paramedics, then backtracked a month later.

More recently it faced complaints that a bilingual elected official wasn't joining the unilingual premier at COVID-19 briefings to communicate with the public in French.

New Brunswick's official languages commissioner said while that wasn't legally required and simultaneous translation was available, a French-speaking elected official would ensure "balanced use" of the two languages at the briefing.

"You're facing a government here that has had to deal with a number of tense moments and files with respect to official languages," Chouinard said.

"If the Higgs government makes good on its promise to govern for all New Brunswickers then it will want to look at this revision seriously."

The society has been lobbying for the legislature to create a permanent committee on official languages, to both review the act and take on other language issues as they come up in the future.

"It would help to depoliticize the question of official languages in New Brunswick and it would help with the linguistic tensions we have," Doucet said.

It's a mystery where Blaine Higgs is for the French community and for bilingualism.- Alexandre Cdric Doucet

Higgs hasn't committed to a committee yet nor whether its hearings would be public. "That's certainly what we're evaluating at this time," he said, adding he wants to make sure any process complies at the act.

"Then we'll look at the pros and cons of the process, based on past experiences."

The original Official Languages Act was passed in 1969. It was replaced with a new version by the PC government of Bernard Lord in 2002, following a court ruling on the bilingualism obligations of municipalities. It passed unanimously and with little controversy.

First mandatory review held in secret

A decade later when it was time for the first mandatory review, David Alward's PC government opted to hold legislative hearings in secret, despite relative calm on the language issue at the time.

Attorney-General Marie-Claude Blais said at the time that "past history" showed it was not "an easy subject" for open debate.

She was referring to language hearings in the 1980s that saw anti-French heckling and, in one case, eggs thrown at members of a commission studying bilingualism and duality.

Doucet said that this time around, any hearings must be held in public.

"With the linguistic tensions we have in New Brunswick, we have to have a public discussion of official languages," he said.

"We've got to battle the disinformation on bilingualism. I think it's a beautiful opportunity to show some leadership, and the leadership has to start with transparency."

Chouinard agreed. Closed-door hearings "make people wonder what you have to hide," she said.

The 2012 hearings ledto minor amendments to the act, including a clarification that associations that were given powers by the province to regulate certain professions, such as lawyers and doctors, are required to provide bilingual service.

Doucet saidthe society still wants to hold its own consultations before finalizing what it will ask for during the review.

In four-party negotiations in August to avert an election call, Alliance MLAs asked for the province to relax the requirement that front-line employees have a "two-plus" bilingualism classification. They wanted it reduced to a two, a lower threshold of fluency.

During the campaign, the Alliance's Michelle Conroy said "All four parties agreed that it has to be looked at" and said once the election was over, "we have something to go on."

Alliance Leader Kris Austin wasn't available to comment on the party's stance now, and Conroy was not made available for an interview.

Doucet said he thinks the Alliance position is based on misinformation, and that would make it "a pretty good subject for the permanent committee" to look at in public hearings, even though the thresholds aren't part of the act.

Green Party Leader David Coon said Austin and Conroy must have misunderstood what other MLAs told them.

He said while members of other parties want to address complaints that the language testing system for civil service jobs is inconsistent and needs to be improved, changes to the job requirement was "the People's Alliance agenda" and nothing more.

Doucet said the society has been told that details of the government's plan for the review could be in the speech from the throne that will open the new session of the legislature on Nov. 17.