This morning when I read the heading of an article in the National Post (February 5, 2011), which read: "Court orders Alberta to pay francophone's legal bills," I was a bit puzzled.
The government of Alberta will have to cover the $120,000 legal bill of the Francophone man Gilles Caron the man fighting a $54 ticket, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.
Gilles Caron, who was charged with failing to safely make a left turn in December 2008, is arguing that the ticket was not valid because Alberta traffic laws were not written in both of Canada's official languages. That is a facetious statement on the part of Gilles Caron, since Canada is ONLY federally official, and not so provincially, viz. the case of Quebec.
Under Quebec's PROVINCIAL LAW, LOI (Bill) 101 the Joual-language (French patois) is the ONLY legal language in that province from August 1977, and the English-language has no legal status in Quebec under Bill 101.
ALL traffic ticket and other documents, including government forms are thus ONLY in Joual, and there is no ENGLISH whatsoever on them. Thus Gilles Caron has attempted to throw dust in the eyes of Canadian public, by completely avoiding any mention of these laws in another province. It is abundantly clear that Gilles Caron is comparing apples and oranges when he drags FEDERAL LAW into Provincial jurisdiction, where they have no LEGALITY, whatsoever.
But that SUPREME COURT of CANADA judgment forcing the Alberta government to cover the cost of Gilles Caron's frivilous complaint will now create an anomaly, in that the Supreme Court will have to rule that it will now also apply to the province of Quebec. To not include complaints from the English-speaking minority in Quebec in similar cases, would make the Supreme Court of Canada look much like a court in South Africa during the days when APARTHEID was the LAW in that country.
So in effect Gilles Caron has only opened a CAN of WORMS, but just who is going to have to pay for it is the question? Because it is going to be the costliest CAN of Worms ever.
Kenneth T. Tellis
