Experts say there’s no easy solution to the issue, but efforts are needed by both anglophones and francophones.
Article content
Is French declining in Quebec? And if so, what should be done about it? Those are among the questions three experts on the topic tried to bring nuance to during a two-hour panel Thursday evening.
Titled Achieving Common Cause: Language in Quebec, the panel was hosted by the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), the Gazette and the Notre Home Foundation, and was moderated by Gazette columnist Allison Hanes. Held at Centre St Jax and streamed online, it sought to explore some of the themes touched on in a recently published book on whether French is truly in decline in the province.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Article content
“As everyone who has followed the apparently endless debates on language in Quebec knows, many numbers have been thrown around from all sides,” QCGN president Eva Ludvig said as the panel got underway, stressing she hoped the discussion could lead to a “little nation-building.”
Serving as a backdrop to the event was the latest annual survey by the Office québécois de la langue française, released on Thursday.
Among other findings, the survey suggests the proportion of those using only French in Quebec’s public places has remained stable at 79 per cent, a level essentially unchanged since 2007, and that the use of French in Montreal is 11 points below the provincial average.
Speaking Thursday evening, one of the panellists, Jean-Pierre Corbeil, said there are “entirely legitimate” concerns about the state of the French language in Quebec, especially in Montreal. But he noted the reasons why are often more complicated than those circulated by politicians and expressed in the media.
“The current dominant discourse attributes the responsibility of French’s decline to immigrants, anglophones and what many call their institutions, whereas the reality is often much more complex,” said Corbeil, an adjunct professor in the sociology department of Université Laval.
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
Corbeil said French’s minority status in Canada and North America will always leave it in a fragile and vulnerable state. There are also factors contributing to the issue in Quebec, such as an exodus of French speakers and the “very poor” planning of temporary immigration, he added.
“English-speaking Quebecers are no more responsible than French-speaking Quebecers for this poor planning … and should not have to suffer the repercussions of short-sighted policies or simplistic solutions,” he said. “There are ways of dealing with it other than adopting measures that rely on coercion or bring on discrimination or exclusion.”
Mario Polèse, a professor emeritus at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) and adjunct professor at the McGill School of Urban Planning, stressed how the idea of French declining in the province has been pushed by politicians.
“Politics is driven by perceptions, and the current Quebec government, and its policies, some of which I think we can all admit weren’t necessarily the most intelligent, are driven by perceptions,” Polèse said.
Advertisement 4
Article content
Polèse said the perceptions are likely driven by the rise of English as the universal language and have “very little to do with statistics.”
“How can we change this perception that French is fragile and thus needs to be continuously protected by new and stronger legislation?” he asked.
For Jean-Benoît Nadeau, a linguistics columnist for L’actualité magazine and author of several books on languages, part of the solution needs to come from individuals — whether French- or English-speaking.
“One of the greatest failings of Bill 101 was to put in Quebecers’ minds that the defence of the French language is up to the government,” said Nadeau. “It’s true the government has a role to play, but the first battle is at the individual level.”
Like Polèse, Nadeau said that when he shops in Quebec, he makes sure to always use French first. “I never get served in English in downtown Montreal, ever, because I say ‘bonjour’ when I enter a store,” he said.
But beyond that example, Nadeau emphasized there’s no easy answer to the issue. He noted how even if a child goes to French school, it can take generations before their family is speaking the language at home.
“The problem is complicated. And there’s a lot of magical thinking right now,” he said, adding that tackling it requires nuance, studies and a subtle understanding of the situation.
“There’s an effort to be made from all sides,” Nadeau said. “From anglophones, but also from francophones.”
jfeith@postmedia.com
Recommended from Editorial
-
Free conference looks at the question: Is French in decline?
-
Use of French in public remains stable in Quebec, OQLF survey suggests
-
Montrealers less likely to use French in the workplace, OQLF study indicates
Advertisement 5
Article content
Article content