Judge orders Élections Québec to prepare voter reminder cards in French and English
A Quebec judge has ordered Élections Québec to prepare voter information cards in both English and in French, in a civil court judgment issued Wednesday morning.
Agency to be exempted from part of the Charter of the French Language for 10 days
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A Quebec judge has ordered Élections Québec to prepare election reminder cards in English and in French, in a civil court judgment issued Wednesday morning.
The court was asked to grant a provisional interlocutory injunction and exempt the provincial agency from a section of Quebec's Charter of the French Language that makes French the only language of communication for public institutions.
In his decision, Judge Sylvain Lussier said he partially accepted the provisional interlocutory injunction, granting it for a period of 10 days.
Geoffrey Chambers is the plaintiff in the case. He's the former president of the Quebec Community Groups Network, known today as the TALQ.
Chambers filed the lawsuit after Élections Québec announced earlier this month that, for the first time in a general election, it would send out voter information cards solely in French.
Élections Québec mails out three different documents to voters ahead of provincial elections: an election guide, a notice of entry and a reminder card.
The court said ordering Élections Québec to produce and mail an English version of the first two documents at this stage was “unrealistic and extremely costly.”
For now, the judge said he can only order the agency to prepare the reminder cards. Since the mail rollout for those documents falls outside the 10-day injunction period, another judicial process will be needed to order the actual mailing of the documents.
The reminder cards will include a list of candidates in the voter’s riding as well as details on where and when to vote. Quebecers head to the polls on Oct. 5.
Anglo seniors' right to vote compromised, judge says
In his decision, written in French, Lussier said it was obvious that "a great number" of anglophone seniors would not be able to exercise their right to vote in the absence of "comprehensible information."
He pointed to the recent federal election in Terrebonne, where a single miscounted vote nullified the results.
"Is it in the public interest to urgently deprive the English-speaking community of Quebec of the right it has always enjoyed to receive election information in English?," reads Lussier's judgment.
"To ask the question is to answer it."
Earlier this month, a spokesperson for Élections Québec, Julie St-Arnaud Drolet, said the agency had pleaded to no avail with Quebec to be able to send basic voting information in both French and English.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cassandra Yanez-Leyton is a journalist for CBC News based in Montreal. You can email her story ideas at cassandra.yanez-leyton@cbc.ca.
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