Not a suitable name

Éditorial - The Parti Québécois government is considering naming the new provincial library after Camille Laurin, the late father of Quebec's language laws. We submit that a library open to all Quebecers, paid for by all taxpayers and containing the works of all linguistic groups should not be named after one of the most divisive figures in our history.

Culture Minister Diane Lemieux is making sympathetic noises about naming the $90.6 million library under construction in downtown Montreal after Dr. Laurin. The idea is being pushed by the nationalist Société St. Jean Baptiste and by Dr. Laurin's widow. Premier Bernard Landry is also said to agree.

So far, it has been left up to the library's president, Lise Bissonnette, to hit the brakes on this bandwagon before it builds any more speed. Ms. Bissonnette noted that libraries aren't usually named after a person, but also added that she's received many other suggestions for personalities deserving of recognition, including novelist-poet Anne Hébert.

We believe a name such as the Grande Bibliothèque du Québec is perfectly suitable for this institution. As we mark the 25th anniversary of the French language charter, it's important to remember that for many anglophone and allophone Quebecers, Bill 101 was seen in the 1970s as a slap in the face and an attack on fundamental rights. Dr. Laurin will forever be a symbol of a time when language laws set neighbour against neighbour and sent hundreds of thousands of people streaming down the 401 into exile.

Dr. Laurin, perhaps more than any other Péquiste of his era, incarnated what many saw as a nasty, vindicative streak running through the PQ government of the day and its policies towards the linguistic minority. After all, Dr. Laurin, a psychiatrist, once described anglophones as "a feared and dreaded paternal substitute" for French-speakers, and as a group that needed to be brought down to size.

Times have changed for both French-speaking and English-speaking Quebecers, thanks in part to the impact of Bill 101. We readily acknowledge the legislation's importance in protecting and promoting French and creating the conditions for the social harmony we now enjoy in Quebec. Under the legislation, the anglophone community has become far more bilingual and lives beside a far more confident, outward-looking francophone community.

That's not to say, of course, that Quebec's French laws are perfect, far from it. We oppose wholeheartedly, for example, the PQ's latest and mean-spirited restriction on access to English schools, contained in the recently-enacted Bill 104.

But a new library for all Quebecers needs a name that sends the message that this is a place where all those who love language and learning are welcome, instead of a name which reminds us of a time when language so bitterly divided our society.