Talk:Official Language Act (Quebec)

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Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved . Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 22:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Official Language Act (Quebec) → Bill 22 – This was the 1974 language law in Quebec passed by the Robert Bourassa government, superseded in 1977 by Bill 101. Rationale: Wikipedia:Article titles#Common names (the formal name is unknown to most Quebecers); it is referred to as "Loi 22" (Bill 22) in an informal historical overview by the Office québécois de la langue française, here; the current title invites confusion with the federal Official Languages Act (Canada) of 1969 or even with Bill 101, and in any case is only a translation with no official status (the only official name is in French: Loi sur la langue officielle). Theoretically, there could be a Bill 22 in any given legislative session, but there is no other rival, and if it ever arose it could be handled with the usual Wikipedia disambiguation mechanisms. P.T. Aufrette (talk) 07:23, 27 January 2012 (UTC) Update to above: "Bill 22" is the title of the article in the Canadian Encyclopedia -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 05:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose The existing title is far more comprehensible to people without a detailed knowledge of Quebecois legislation, it also seems like a reasonable translation of the official French title. Also, a bill becomes an act if it is passed. PatGallacher (talk) 21:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Bill 22" is the title of the article in the Canadian Encyclopedia (I should have cited this in the original rationale). In French, it's called "Law 22", but in conventional English usage it is still called "Bill 22" even after passage (see citations in my reply to the other commenter below). -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 05:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the fact that an odd-sounding name seems baffling to someone unfamiliar with a field does not preclude it being used as a title if it's the most commonly used name. Consider the Monstrous moonshine article (in mathematics). -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 20:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose 1. I think "Common name" must not be confused with colloquialism. 2. This is the official English name of the Act[1]. -- Mathieugp (talk) 22:13, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Article titles#Common names says "The term most typically used in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms". "Loi 22" has been used by the OQLF [2] [3]; Bilan du siècle [4][5][6]; Encyclopédie de la Francophonie [7]; in newspaper stories from the 1970s and today in Le Devoir and La Presse; by Jean Charest while speaking in the National Assembly [8] and also by Lisette Lapointe [9] and many others. "Bill 22" has been used by the Montreal Gazette, and is used as the title of the article in the Canadian Encyclopedia. I could cite many other examples. It is not a colloquialism, it is used very extensively in print. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 05:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Used extensively in print, by journalists and through them by the rest of the nation, no doubt. Nicknaming an act of legislation by its bill number is an abusive practice. This is what I meant by "colloquialism" (for lack of a better word). I think the currently established practice of naming an act of legislation by its short name should prevail. Exemples: Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament by year, Category:Canadian legislation. This practice already follows the "common name" policy standard in that it prefers, for example, Reference re Secession of Quebec over the technical Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217. -- Mathieugp (talk) 02:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is not merely used by journalists, but also by authors of encyclopedia entries (not just Canadian Encyclopedia, but the Encyclopédie Universalis entry for Robert Bourassa), and not just in print but also in speech by political figures in National Assembly debates (I cite Jean Charest and Lisette Lapointe above, I could have cited many more). It is not a valid reason to reject a widely-used common name (far more widely used and better known than the formal name) simply because you seem to have a personal distaste for it. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 05:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, I wrote by journalists and through them, not just by journalists. This was to signify how the habit of referring to laws by bill number might have happened. Secondly, you are mistaken for assuming a "personal distaste" as my reason for opposing. My reasons are stated above. I think they are pretty clear. Many other people here evaluate this case the way I do and pointed out other good reasons. The "common name" policy standard is just one out of many policies and guidelines to be considered when evaluating a case in Wikipedia. One policy or guideline cannot overrule all others, and, can never overrule common sense either. -- Mathieugp (talk) 13:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Primarily because the proposed title would create confusion. It was a Bill in 1974, but when it was passed it became an Act. Jenks24 (talk) 09:31, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The name "Bill 22" is not my own invention, it is the already widely-used common name, as per WP:COMMONNAME, and is already used as the article title in the Canadian Encyclopedia. Although it may seem unusual to people unfamiliar with Quebec, in practice this remained the common name even long after the bill became law (in French there is less of an anomaly because the word "Loi" (law) is used instead of "Bill"). Note the following quote from the website of the Université de Montréal law library:
Parfois, on s'obstine à se référer à une loi, même si adoptée il y a longtemps, par le numéro du projet de loi. ... On dirait que le numéro de projet de loi, pour certaines lois (« La loi 22 », la « Loi 101 »…) constitue une sorte de « nom populaire ». -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 05:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, for four reasons:

1. Official Language Act is in fact the official English name of the Act. Section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867 provides that all Quebec statutes must be enacted in both English and French. The Supreme Court has held that both versions of a Quebec statute are equally authoritative: Doré v. Verdun (City), [1997] 2 S.C.R. 862, para. 24.
2. "Bill 22" is an ambiguous name for an article. Every provincial and territorial legislature uses the same numbering system for their bills, and the numbers re-start with each annual session. Thus, in every calendar year there are likely thirteen bills known as "Bill 22" across the country.
3. It is no longer a bill, but an act, and its citation does not refer to "22". Its citation is S.Q. 1974, c. 6. If someone is trying to find this Act in the statute book, "Bill 22" would not be of assistance.
4. Since the article on the federal Act includes "(Canada)" in the title, there is not much chance of confusion between the two articles.
Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 10:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• a few other points: as PatGallacher noted, this title is more accessible for people who are not familiar with Quebec or Canadian language politics. Since Wikipedia has an international audience, I think it makes sense to use as informative a title as possible. As well, if you plug "official language" into the WP search engine, you get several hits, all related to the concept of an official language, including this article. However, if you put "Bill 22" in, no related articles come up. I think having an article title that makes it easier to search for all related articles on a topic is an advantage. That said, there's no doubt that "Bill 22" is a common way to refer to the law, and may be a better reference for Québécois and other Canadians familiar with language politics than the official title of the Act. What about amending the article title to include "Bill 22" to improve accessibility? For instance, how about "Official Language Act (Bill 22) (Quebec)"? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 17:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Bill 22" is already present in bold type in the lead paragraph (since septembre 2005) and searching for "Bill 22" in Wikipedia we find an article that automatically redirects to Official Language Act (Quebec). -- Mathieugp (talk) 04:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - largely per Buzfuz, most importantly the need for accuracy and the obviousness of using the official English name ("Loi 22" is not English and thus simply translating it when an official term in English is available is misleading, inaccurate, and frankly just a bizarre notion). → ROUX ₪ 16:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    You somehow seem to think that the term "Bill 22" is my own proposed neologism/translation, when in fact it is already the longstanding universally used common term among English Quebecers, since the 1970s up to today. Pretty much every reference to this legislation in, say, the Montreal Gazette calls it Bill 22. The corresponding French term "Loi 22" is the universally used common term in French. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 19:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Which has less than nothing to do with the actual name of the bill. Accuracy is important. This is an encyclopedia after all. → ROUX ₪ 20:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    See WP:COMMONNAME. It is an official Wikipedia policy to favor widely-used common names over more rarely-used formal names. In this case, the formal name is even a bit unhelpful or confusing, since this legislation was in effect for only three years before being superseded. The average person in Quebec, French or English, would very likely guess incorrectly that "Official Language Act" refers to Bill 101. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 20:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    That policy uses words like 'usually' and 'often'; it is not a hard-and-fast rule. I prefer accuracy. And, three things: 1) you're very obviously in the minority here; 2) I have already heard all your arguments and nothing you can say will make me agree with them, because 3) accuracy is important. Redir from 'Bill 22' (which of course will need to be disambiguated at some point, thus rendering its alleged utility as a title supremely useless) to this article, end of. → ROUX ₪ 20:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    It is very unlikely to ever need disambiguation, for the same reason that London is about the city in England and not a disambiguation page. See WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 01:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Given that every province numbers bills the same way, I find it astonishing you are able to predict the future. → ROUX ₪ 13:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Any new "Bill 22" article would have to meet the same WP:COMMONNAME criterion of becoming more widely known under the name "Bill 22" than under its formal name or any other name, as this one has. This is unlikely, because even in Quebec it is mostly only a handful of historic language-rights laws that are most commonly known under their "loi" number or "Bill number" names; in nearly all other cases the bill number is soon forgotten. And in order to create a disambiguation issue for the current "Bill 22" article, any new Bill 22 would have to meet the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criterion of rivaling it for name recognition under that name. For all these reasons: unlikely. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 20:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    @ P.T. Aufrette: The formal name would be something like Official Language Act, ch. 6, 1974 Que. Stat. 53. The SHORT name is Official Language Act. Think of City of New York -> New York -> Big Apple. Big Apple is certainly "common", but not prefered over "New York" in Wikipedia. The common name policy is NOT intended to overrule Wikipedia's educational mission (which has to imply use of proper language), it is intended to avoid scientific jargon winning over simple, proper language. Again, there is already a widely followed convention here: Category:United Kingdom Acts of Parliament by year, Category:Canadian legislation. -- Mathieugp (talk) 13:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Your example is not comparable. The nickname "Big Apple" is used much less often than "New York", and therefore fails the WP:COMMONNAME criterion. However "Bill 22" and "loi 22" are used much more often than any other name for this legislation. That's the whole point. Wikipedia's educational mission is not harmed by using the name that the rest of the world already uses (including other encyclopedias, as cited above); if you believe it is, you should try to add some override clause to the common names policy by editing the WP:COMMONNAME article. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 20:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Have you even read WP:COMMONNAME or are you merely using it to try and get your way? Again, it repeatedly uses words like 'should' and 'usually' and 'often,' not words like 'must' and 'always' and 'required.' → ROUX ₪ 21:13, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    "Should" is not the same as "must", but then it's up to you to justify opposing something that an official policy says "should" be done. I guess we disagree over whether you have done so. In your original reply you place great emphasis on the official name, but WP:OFFICIALNAMES states that the official name is not automatically the right name for Wikipedia. Anyways, the seven days will soon expire, so I'll let you have the final word. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 02:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    You are correct in stating that "Big Apple" is used much less often than "New York". This was not the best of examples, but it is the first one that came to mind this morning. I perform better in the afternoon, several hours after my daily dose of caffeine. ;-) Here is your "override clause", straight from the fourth sentence in the first paragraph: "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined by reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." -- Mathieugp (talk) 00:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not inaccurate (it is indeed "Bill 22", not 21 or 23 or Bell 22 ;-), so that only leaves "ambiguous". But Wikipedia routinely handles disambiguation in very standardized ways, as per WP:DISAMBIG and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Perhaps there is some other interpretation of the sentence? By the way, using your example, I was surprised to find that New York refers to New York State. I would consider the city to be better known worldwide. Nearly every other Wikipedia, including French, makes the city the primary topic. If you look in the archive pages for Talk:New York, you will see very, very long and emotional arguments about renaming that make our discussion here look like a genteel dinner party. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 02:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Just as a follow-up to this discussion: there is an ongoing political controversy about a Bill 22 in British Columbia: B.C. teachers prepared to discuss campaign of resistance to Bill 22. There's no wiki article on this yet, that I could find, but I think it illustrates why using bill numbers as the name of an article can be ambiguous. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 11:42, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Anything can potentially be ambiguous, which is why Wikipedia has very well-thought-out disambiguation mechanisms. We don't let that stop us from calling things by their actual common name. For instance, we have an article at Turkey, rather than at "Türkiye" or "Republic of Turkey" despite the potential conflict with the bird; we have an article at Mercury (element) rather than "Quicksilver" despite the conflict with Mercury (planet).
I am not advocating systematically labelling articles on legislation with their bill numbers. Most of the time, those bill numbers are temporary labels that are soon forgotten. It is a peculiarity of Quebec language legislation of the late 1960s and the 1970s that the bill numbers caught on as the permanent common names, even decades later — for whatever reason, perhaps merely an accident of history — and we should be descriptivist in recognizing that usage rather than prescriptivist. At least one encyclopedia already does, as noted above. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 14:00, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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