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In this series of columns, one-time Alliance Quebec president and media personality Royal Orr reflects on his relationship with his second language.

For a lifelong Quebecer now in my 60s, wars have come and gone, men have walked on the moon, the Berlin Wall fell and Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash, but always, alongside these headlines on the front pages of Montreal newspapers, there was the latest episode in the psycho-drama of language in Quebec.

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The young leaders who emerged out of the Duplessis era had a firm, double intention for our province — to build a more democratic society where the use of French would be enhanced. Successive Quebec governments of all parties engaged with “projet de société” and made news about it endlessly.

There’s a long list of commissions, policy papers, and legislative efforts that addressed this dual agenda, resulting in two laws important enough to be called “Charters” — the Charte québecoise des droits et libertés de la personne and the Charte de la langue française. I had a front-row seat when these foundational laws of Quebec squared off in the infamous commercial signs case in the 1980s.