___.Worth Fighting For.Nashville: World, 1999.
Quayle’s political philosophy and proposals writ-
ten when he was a candidate for the 2000 nomina-
tion for president.
Frederick B. Char y
See also Bentsen, Lloyd; Bush, George H. W.; Con-
servatism in U.S. politics; Elections in the United
States, 1980; Elections in the United States, 1988;
Reagan Revolution.
Quebec English sign ban
Identification Legislation prohibiting the use of
English on commercial signs in Quebec
Place Quebec
In the late 1970’s, Quebec made French the official language
of the province and limited the legal use of other languages.
During the 1980’s, in the midst of a national constitutional
crisis focused on the francophone province, that province’s
ban on English-language commercial signs faced legal and
constitutional challenges from its anglophone minority.
In 1977, the National Assembly of Quebec passed
the historic Charter of the French Language, which,
among other provisions, banned the use of lan-
guages other than French on commercial signs. The
charter, also known as Bill 101, recognized French as
the province’s official language for use in govern-
ment, judicial proceedings, education, commerce,
and the workplace. Section 58, the so-called English
sign ban, and section 69, a requirement that all com-
mercial firms adopt French names only, were in-
tended to promote the public use of French in
Québécois society. The Charter also designated the
Office Québécois de la Langue Française (Québé-
cois Office of the French Language) as an appropri-
ate agency to monitor compliance with the prov-
ince’s language laws and to assess fines for businesses
that contravened those laws.
Reactions to the province’s language laws were to
a large extent divided along cultural lines. While
Quebec’s francophone population generally sup-
ported the new laws governing commerce and edu-
cation, many anglophones viewed them as a viola-
tion of their freedom of expression. In February of
1984, the owners of several Montreal business firms
successfully argued before the Superior Court of
Quebec that sections 58 and 69 of the provincial lan-
guage charter were contrary to provisions contained
in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
which had been passed as part of the new constitu-
tion in 1982. The charter contained specific provi-
sions protecting the rights of English and French
speakers within the provinces where they consti-
tuted linguistic minorities. Agreeing with the defen-
dants, the court ruled that the Quebec government
could not reasonably impose its unilingual policy on
local businesses.
In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada took up the
case,Valerie Ford v. Attorney General of Quebec,onap-
peal; it upheld the lower court’s decision. In their rul-
ing, the justices reasoned that the National Assembly
of Quebec had no right to prohibit the use of English
on commercial signs, but they felt that it could re-
quire a “marked predominance of the French lan-
guage.” In response to the Supreme Court’s decision,
Quebec’s National Assembly, which had never rati-
fied the new constitution or its Charter of Rights
and Freedoms, introduced Bill 178 and invoked the
notwithstanding clause of the constitution to shelter
it from judicial review. Bill 178, which contained
amendments to the province’s language laws, main-
tained the French-only policy on outdoor signs but al-
lowed for the use of other languages including En-
glish inside commercial establishments, as long as
French remained predominant.
Impact Quebec’s language laws had a deeply polar-
izing effect on public opinion in Canada. Observers
cite Quebec’s use of the notwithstanding clause to
circumvent the Supreme Court ruling as a major
reason for the failure of the Meech Lake Accord. Be-
yond the controversy it sparked, the English sign ban
played an important role in Quebec’s history by re-
inforcing the public expression of French culture
throughout the province and by boosting the self-
esteem of the francophone population. It also stimu-
lated awareness of language issues that previous
generations of Canadians had ignored, and it con-
tributed to a progressive refinement of the nation’s
federal language policies.
Further Reading
Coulombe, Pierre A.Language Rights in French Can-
ada. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.
Larrivée, Pierre, ed.Linguistic Conflict and Language
Laws: Understanding the Quebec Question. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Jan PendergrassThe Eighties in America Quebec English sign ban 787