Outside Quebec, French is in decline

OTTAWA—Every coin has two sides. Last week, I punctured the myth French is in decline in Quebec, by pointing out while descendants of the original French-Canadian settlers might be declining, the French language is being taken up by new arrivals. In the rest of Canada, it’s a different story. Statistics Canada's numbers suggest there are a little more than a million mother tongue francophones outside Quebec. As the recent White Paper on Official Languages notes, as the population of the country increased, the numbers declined: 6.6 per cent in 1971, to four per cent in 2011, to 3.8 per cent in 2016. According to recent projections made by Statistics Canada, it could be three per cent by 2036. I have read the nasty comments in social media of Canadians who don’t care for French. And there are many Quebec independantistes who agree with René Lévesque’s description of francophone minorities as “dead ducks.” There is some good news, however. In 2016, the number of people able to conduct a conversation in French rose 400,000 to nearly 10.4 million people. Meanwhile, the French school boards in Ottawa are bursting, and new schools are popping up everywhere. The Montfort hospital, which was threatened with closure from 1997 to 2002, is thriving. And the Ford government’s 2018 attempts to cut French services were quelled when tens of thousands of Franco-Ontarians hit the streets. Among them were my children, who studied in French from daycare to graduation. When they first arrived from a French environment in Geneva, it was odd their school was their only source of French. Hence the need to post signs saying “Ici on parle Francais!” As they grew older, English became the language in the corridors, even if French was the language of the classroom. For them and their bilingual friends, there were no politics to language: it was just a means of communication. And English is everywhere. As new Canadians choose English, it is likely most of the francophone communities in Western Canada will shrink (Manitoba being the exception). In New Brunswick, Canada’s only officially bilingual province, a French university and colleges and an engaged Acadian community have fought assimilation. However, the new People’s Alliance Party there has encouraged reducing French services as a “cost-saving measure.” This threat to French is the underpinning of Official Languages Minister Mélanie Joly’s promotion of an “asymmetrical” approach to language, emphasizing French minority communities over English Quebecers (which I don’t support). I am often asked, “Why is French so important?” As a bilingual Quebecer, I am biased. But Canada is blessed with two global languages, spoken by hundreds of millions of people. French has been a language of Canada since Confederation, and beyond, to the Quebec Act of 1774 and Champlain’s arrival in 1608. We provide services in both languages so a unilingual Québécois can get information in Lake Louise in French. And speaking two languages has allowed us to meet, greet, and, in many cases, fall in love with one another. Speaking another language is beneficial for the pedagogical development of children, who absorb another language easily. In later life, language is a significant weapon against dementia. And it helps us identify who we are. Asked how to prove the difference between a Canadian and an American, former prime minister Lester B. Pearson replied, “Answer in French.” Sadly, politics gets in the way of this great Canadian experiment. In its fight to restrict access to English schooling, Quebec has previously joined several provincial and territorial governments to oppose French minority education. And now François Legault’s overbearing Bill 96 will declare Quebec a French “nation.” The bill will likely create a backlash against minorities, and some provinces may choose to amend their constitutions to wipe out francophone rights. It is so contrary to the ethos of Canada. The initial bargain of Confederation, that English and French would have equal status, was far beyond any of the “nation-states” of the 19th century. The need to balance religious and linguistic rights in the Constitution was not without acrimony, but it set the table for greater generosity, tolerance, and mutual respect. If pluralism is now part of our DNA, it is due to our first experiments with a bilingual society. Hiving ourselves off into closed communities would be the death of modern Canada. Or it would create something hardly resembling the Canada we know. Andrew Caddell is retired from Global Affairs Canada, where he was a senior policy adviser. He previously worked as an adviser to Liberal governments. He is a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and a principal of QIT Canada. He can be reached at pipson52@hotmail.com. The Hill Times

Outside Quebec, French is in decline

The recent White Paper on Official Languages says there were a little more than a million mother tongue francophones outside Quebec. According to Statistics Canada projections, it could be three per cent by 2036.

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Outside Quebec, French is in decline

The recent White Paper on Official Languages says there were a little more than a million mother tongue francophones outside Quebec. According to Statistics Canada projections, it could be three per cent by 2036.

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