What’s in Bill 96? And why is it tearing apart Quebec’s uneasy language truce?

In today’s Big Story podcast, fights over language have always been a part of Quebec politics, and of life in the province in general. For the most part, they tend to end in a begrudging compromise, with French protected and English available but not given equal billing. A new bill about to be passed by the province’s majority Coalition Avenir Quebec government is threatening to change all that.

The government says it’s necessary to protect the province’s official language. Everyone who isn’t a native French speaker, from Indigenous people to Anglophones to new immigrants hoping to make a home in Quebec, say that the bill is far too harsh and will make things like doctor-patient relationships, workplaces and institutional services far more difficult to navigate. So what’s in the bill? What does it actually mean? And what happens next?

GUEST: Christopher Reynolds, Montreal-based reporter, The Canadian Press

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