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PaperclipPerfector  16d ago (text post)   33189 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025

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Which part?

@Glassnoser are you referring to this section?

  1. Every employer shall respect the worker’s right to carry on his activities in French; therefore, the employer is required, in particular,
    (1) to see that any offer of employment, transfer or promotion the employer publishes is in French;
    (2) to see that any individual employment contract the employer enters into in writing is drawn up in French;
    (3) to use French in written communications, even those after termination of the employment relationship, with all or part of the staff, a worker in particular or an association of workers representing all or part of the staff; and
    (4) to see that the documents below that the employer makes available are drawn up in French and, if also available in another language, see that the French version is available on terms that are at least as favourable:
    (a) employment application forms;
    (b) documents relating to conditions of employment; and
    (c) training documents produced for the staff.
    Despite subparagraph 2 of the first paragraph, the parties to an individual employment contract that is a contract of adhesion may be bound only by its version in a language other than French if, after examining its French version, such is their express wish. In the other cases, an individual employment contract may be drawn up exclusively in a language other than French at the express wish of the parties.
    Despite subparagraph 3 of the first paragraph, the employer may communicate in writing with a worker exclusively in a language other than French if the latter has so requested. 1977, c. 5, s. 41; 2022, c. 14, s. 29.

I'm seeing:

if also available in another language...

and

Despite subparagraph 2 of the first paragraph, the parties to an individual employment contract that is a contract of adhesion may be bound only by its version in a language other than French if, after examining its French version, such is their express wish. In the other cases, an individual employment contract may be drawn up exclusively in a language other than French at the express wish of the parties. Despite subparagraph 3 of the first paragraph, the employer may communicate in writing with a worker exclusively in a language other than French if the latter has so requested.

This does not read to me as "disallowing English". In fact, I would say that it expressly allows it. Now, obviously, if an employee wants it in French, they have to do it in French, too. But then we get into details of the compelled speech doctrine, which @Glassnoser has refused to acknowledge even exists, how it interacts with commercial speech, etc. I think that because that conversation gets complicated, he'd rather just fib a bit and claim that it "disallows English", when it doesn't seem to.

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