by Graeme Hamilton
Published 12/03/13 8:13 PM ET

MONTREAL — As hearings began Tuesday into Quebec’s proposed tightening of its language law, the main union representing provincial civil servants had some horror stories to share about life on the frontlines.

The details were so shocking that employees’ names and workplaces were withheld to protect them from possible repercussions, the Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec (SFPQ) wrote in a brief tabled at the National Assembly.

There was the perfectly bilingual clerk at Revenue Quebec who frequently meets people who are more at ease discussing their tax questions in English. The clerk prefers to go along rather than turn “a tax problem into a language debate” and possibly spark a complaint.

Since February of this year, every issue of the (Pontiac) Journal has published something on the topic of the MRC Pontiac’s study on the possibility of amalgamating some of its municipalities. Whether in the countless articles, letters to the editors, advertisements, and editorials, no other single topic in the Journal’s history has occupied as much newsprint space.