For some reason, using a quote mark after a numeral makes this blog platform freak out and use a strange character that ai would prefer wasn’t here at all. Oh well!

So, this is now an old problem (by about two and a half years), but in the context of the current phase of anti-austerity struggle in Québec, it is relevant. Although Hydro-Québec and the Société de transport de Montréal have been increasing their rates for years, and tuition is still going up, there’s a lot of focus right now (somewhat problematically, in my opinion) on a law targeting the pensions of municipal employees across the province, and which will almost certainly be passed by the National Assembly – dominated as it is by the Liberal Party – in the next few months.

In English, this law is currently referred to as Bill 3, as in the following Gazette headline: “Bill 3 protesters storm City Hall“. It’s called a bill because, right now, the law hasn’t been passed – at which point it will actually be a law.

As far as ai know, there have been no English-language callouts for any of the demonstrations against Bill 3 yet. Ai have seen a few French-language callouts, though. While it would seem that French-language newscasters have been pretty good at calling this thing «projet de loi 3», at least two demonstration callouts have referred to it as simply «loi 3».

Yep! While ai have less access to the texts dating to the time of the strike, ai imagine that this is the reason that Jean Charest’s strike-killing law, passed on May 25, 2012, was so often referred to as “Law 78” in English and «loi 78» in French. It’s because francophone anti-capitalists shortened «projet de loi» to just «loi», and then anglophone anti-capitalists simply translated «loi» to “law”, as can be considered reasonable to do.

At the time, this caused a lot of confusion. Law 78, as we knew it, had come into our consciousness on May 23, and then it got rammed through the National Assembly very quickly. It was not a «projet de loi», or bill, for very long at all, but all of the public discourse, all of the flyers and stencils, used the numeral 78. This is how we had come to know the law, and how, to a large degree, we would continue to know it. But, at some point early June – after quite a lot had already taken place, this being one of the strike’s two heights, and certain names having already been burned pretty deep into our minds – there were suddenly some people in our circles talking about how, in fact, it would be better for us to refer to this ordinance by the name “Law 12” instead, since that was its actual name now.

These people were mostly ignored. It’s interesting, though, since this is one of the few occasions where ai can remember other people regularly talking about the importance of terminology other than myself.

But yes, «projet de loi 78» had become «loi 12». This is apparently not always the case, for the record. For example, the Charter of the French Language (almost certainly Québec’s most famous law) was originally «projet de loi 101» and then became «loi 101». Hilariously, though, the most common name for this law in English is “Bill 101”, despite the fact that it has been part of the law in Québec for several decades now.

Anyways, it’s no surprise that it’s difficult to keep a consistent naming style in place for all of this uselessness. Legalese of this sort is alienating! So fuck the law or whatever!