I attended a training last week on the Charter of the French Language (“Charter”), also known as Bill 101, a provincial law that has provoked a lot of reactions in the past from both ends of the spectrum.

This legislation was first adopted in 1977 under the Parti québécois’ first mandate. However, it is incorrect to think that the issue of language only became important at this point in Quebec’s modern history. Bill 63 or An Act to promote the French language in Quebec, passed in 1969 and Bill 22 or the Official Language Act, passed in 1974, both recognized the importance of the French language in the province of Quebec.

As a labour and employment lawyer, I have had the opportunity to counsel employers as to their obligations under the Charter. However, during last week’s training, I asked myself whether litigation surrounding questions of language was a thing of the past. I quickly saw that this was not the case.

Indeed, a few weeks ago, the Commission des relations du travail, Quebec’s labour tribunal, awarded a worker $3,000 in moral and punitive damages following an earlier 2010 decision concluding that the Charter had been violated (see Pouliot c. Quality Inn & Suites Lévis, 2010 QCCRT 592 (CanLII) and Pouliot c Quality Inn & Suites Lévis, 2011 QCCRT 214 (CanLII) – the decisions are in French).

In this case, a worker had applied for a position as a maintenance man in a hotel near Quebec City. When the receptionist called him to ascertain his interest in the position, he was asked whether or not he could speak English, as the manager spoke English. The Commission des relations du travail was satisfied that his application had been rejected when he refused to accept this language requirement. A later second posting looking for a worker to fill this position specifically indicated that the worker had to speak English. At the hearing, the employer justified this requirement by explaining that the maintenance man could be called to help out an English-speaking client of the hotel.

Sections 4 and 46 of the Charter state:

4. Workers have a right to carry on their activities in French.
46. An employer is prohibited from making the obtaining of an employment or office dependent upon the knowledge or a specific level of knowledge of a language other than the official language, unless the nature of the duties requires such knowledge. 

[…]

It is incumbent upon the employer to prove to the Commission or the arbitrator that the performance of the work requires knowledge or a specific level of knowledge of a language other than French. […]

In this particular case, the Commission des relations du travail concluded that the specific tasks of the maintenance worker did not necessitate knowledge of the English language. The job description in the first posting did not allude to any duties relating to customer service and even if the maintenance man was at times called to help out an English-speaking client, this was merely an accessory duty to his essential maintenance work. In this case, the employer did not meet its burden of proving that the performance of a maintenance man’s tasks required knowledge of the English language. As such, the Commission des relations du travail concluded that the employer had not respected the objectives of the Charter.

This case shows that the Charter, even if adopted over 30 years ago, continues to play a role in maintaining its fundamental principle of prohibiting discrimination based on language and of ensuring that the spirit of the Charter’s preamble – that French is the “normal and everyday language of work” – is maintained.