to overturn the Quebec Appeal Court ruling. Former CSN leader Gérald Larose, chairman of the Conseil de la souveraineté, vilified this "undermining" of the so-called Bill 101 by an "English judge". (Larose was also the Parti Québécois–appointed president of a commission on the future of the French language and has agitated for some time that Quebec be granted unshared supremacy over language legislation, despite the Canadian constitution which divides such power between the national and provincial governments.) Jean Dorion, president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, lamented that Appeals Court judges are appointed by the national government and asserted that they should not have the power to overrule Quebec's language laws. Other commentators remonstrated that Justice Hilton had previously served as legal counsel for Alliance Quebec, an anglophone rights group. Le Devoir reported, however, that the Quebec department of justice did not ask Hilton to recuse himself from the case. Through a spokesperson, the Ministry of Justice said that such a recusal was not necessary and that the government trusts the Court of Appeal to be fair. Parti québécois leader Pauline Marois suggested the ruling could be "catastrophic" and described it as unsatisfactory. Over the 30-year life of Bill 101 "about 4,000 children have used this to get into the English network," she said, as opposed to the French network. Language of commercial signs Ford v. Quebec (Attorney General) In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled that the sections of the Charter of the French Language enforcing the exclusive use of French on outdoor commercial signs were unconstitutional. The Court-based this decision on the guarantee of freedom of expression in s. 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Supreme Court remarked that the Quebec government could legitimately require French to have "greater visibility" or "marked predominance" on exterior commercial signs, however it could not enforce the exclusive use of French. With the Act to amend the Charter of the French language, S.Q. 1988, c. 54 (also known as Bill 178), the National Assembly (under a Quebec Liberal government) made use of the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian constitution and amended the Charter by allowing English provided that the letters are no larger than half the size of the French. Ballantyne, Davidson, McIntyre v. Canada The use of the notwithstanding clause led to formal complaints by three Quebecers: John Ballantyne, Elizabeth Davidson, and Gordon McIntyre, who own businesses in