Quebec language police vs. Creole speakers: Maybe more transparency would help

Quebec’s language police appear to have found themselves on the verge of another high-profile battle after two Haitian hospital workers claimed they were reprimanded for speaking Creole to one another.

The Montreal Gazette reports that the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) warned the Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies that two employees were communicating with one another in Creole – a dialect that ironically has its origins in French.

The Charter of the French Language states that Quebeckers have the right to be served in French, although it does not imply that employees are barred from holding private conversations in other languages.

The pair claim they spoke exclusively in French while conducting their duties and dealing with patients. And yet, a complaint has been filed. The identity of the accuser is not known. And there is the rub.

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This may seem like another Pastagate – the much publicized incident in which the OQLF briefly demanded an Italian restaurant remove the word "pasta" from its menu – and in many ways it is similar.

It is also similar to a complaint into a frozen-yogurt store that used plastic spoons adorned with cutesy English phrases, or the complaint against a 17-year-old entrepreneur and his English-sounding graphics company.

In such cases, the OQLF was following up on specific complaints. But the identities of those who made the complaints were not shared with the transgressors.

Perhaps, it is time to make the identity of those complainants public, at least to those who stand accused.

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Earlier this year, the OQLF streamlined its complaint submission system, allowing complaints to be submitted online. According to the Gazette, the changes also allowed the agency to prioritize significant complaints. While anonymous complaints are not accepted, OQLF agents will follow up with the complainant and otherwise keep their identity hidden.

The way the system works right now is that anyone can submit a complaint to the OQLF and its agents decide whether an investigation is warranted. That doesn’t stop people from making scurrilous or unnecessary complaints, however.

With each high-profile investigation, criticism, derision and celebration are directed toward the system, not the person who made the complaint. And as proper as that may seem, there is something to be said for transparency.

One wonders how many complaints would still be submitted if it had to be done publicly.