Élections Québec can’t cancel directive limiting English at polling stations without court order, lawyer says

Responded to a lawyer’s demand letter calling on the independent elections agency and the Quebec government to reverse course.

Élections Québec says only a court order suspending a specific portion of the province’s Charter of the French language would allow it to curtail a directive to polling staff to limit speaking English with voters.

Henrick Lavoie, the lawyer representing Élections Québec, responded Monday to a demand letter calling on the independent elections agency and the Quebec government to reverse course.

In his response, Lavoie said that when Élections Québec wrote to French-language Minister Jean-François Roberge’s office in April 2025 for an exemption to the law, it included “written and oral communications” during the election period. That letter went unanswered, he said.

Lavoie said the recent court ruling suspending part of the language law to allow bilingual reminder cards be mailed out to voters applies to written communications only.