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An alliance of 23 Quebec municipalities that have bilingual status will be in Quebec Superior Court starting Monday to seek the suspension of certain sections of the province’s French-language law, Bill 96.
The municipalities’ legal action, which is to be heard on Monday and Tuesday, challenges the validity and applicability of certain modifications to the Charter of the French Language introduced by Bill 96, which affect the rights and powers of municipalities with bilingual status under the charter.
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The legal action covers five areas, including contracts and communications, an obligation to adopt a resolution to maintain bilingual status, illegal searches and seizures, government grants and an obligation to discipline employees.
The municipalities want certain sections of the Act respecting French, the official and common language of Quebec — also known as Bill 96 — to be declared invalid and inoperative.
“Municipalities with bilingual status have been waiting for this hearing to ask the Superior Court to suspend the articles of the law that cause harm to our municipalities and that will impose a change that we are confident will eventually be overturned when the case is heard on its merits later on,” Côte-St-Luc Mayor Mitchell Brownstein said in a press release Friday.
“For instance, our future capital projects are at risk because of the power given to the minister of the French language to withhold funding to municipalities granted by other ministries of the government. Municipalities need to be able to plan for the future without the threat of withheld funding.”
The alliance of 23 municipalities includes: Baie d’Urfé, Beaconsfield, Blanc-Sablon, Bonne-Espérance, Chichester, Côte-St-Luc, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Dorval, Havelock, Hope Town, Kazabazua, Kirkland, L’Isle-aux-Allumettes, Montreal West, Mulgrave-et-Derry, New Carlisle, Pointe-Claire, Senneville, Sheenboro, Shigawake, Stanbridge East, Wentworth and Westmount.
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