Anglos, allophones more likely to be poor: study

2016 numbers refute notion of anglos being a well-off minority

Non-francophones in Quebec are more likely to be living in poverty than French-speakers, shows a study by the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) based on the 2016 Census.

The findings — released three weeks after Premier Philippe Couillard unveiled a $3-billion program to lift 100,000 destitute people out of poverty by the end of 2023 — contradict the deeply entrenched image of Quebec anglophones as a well-off minority, said ACS president Jack Jedwab.

“It goes against the historic notion that anglophones are privileged and francophones are more vulnerable economically,” he said.

Once stereotyped as “white Rhodesians” who enjoy disproportionate economic influence, the English-speaking minority is increasingly diverse, with significant pockets of poverty, Jedwab said.

Yet the reality still hasn’t dispelled the myth, he added.

“Underlying this there is a misunderstanding of who the anglophone community is and how it’s evolved,” Jedwab said.

One in four anglophones by mother tongue under age 17 belong to a visible minority, the study shows.

Province-wide, nearly a quarter of allophones (people whose first language learned was neither French or English) and 16 per cent of mother-tongue anglophones subsist on low incomes, compared to 13 per cent of francophones, it shows.

The higher poverty rate for anglophones applies no matter how you define that group, Jedwab said.

Quebec has 601,155 people whose mother tongue (first language learned) is English; 782,185 who speak English at home; and 964,120 whose first official language spoken (FOLS) is English. The FOLS category divides the entire population into francophones and anglophones, depending on the official language they speak best — even if they are not fluent in either French or English.

Those three categories of anglophones represent, respectively, 7.5 per cent, 10 per cent and 12 per cent of Quebec’s population.

In Montreal, 17 per cent of allophones and 13 per cent of mothertongue anglophones live in poverty, compared to 10 per cent of francophones.

“We see (anglophones are) a diverse community with a high percentage of newcomers. There is a high percentage of visible minorities, within which there is certainly more vulnerability,” Jedwab said.

Jedwab noted that immigrants in Montreal are more likely to be living in poverty than newcomers in most other Canadian cities — with 21 per cent of immigrants in Montreal living on low incomes, compared to a Canadian average of 17 per cent (after tax).

Twenty-eight per cent of anglophones as defined by FOLS are immigrants. One in five people who speak English at home are immigrants and 12 per cent of mothertongue anglos were born outside Canada.

The disparity between francophones and non-francophones is even greater outside of Montreal, where allophones are up to three times more likely to live in poverty than francophones, the study shows.

In Rouyn-Noranda, where five per cent of francophones live in poverty, 16 per cent of allophones and seven per cent of anglophones do so.

In Sherbrooke, where 7.5 per cent of francophones live below the low-income cut-off, 24 per cent of allophones and 11 per cent of anglophones do so.

In Trois-Rivières, about eight per cent of francophones and anglophones live on low incomes, while 25 per cent of allophones do so.

Poverty in minority language communities outside Montreal is also related to the aging of the English-speaking community in

rural areas and small towns, Jedwab said.

Unemployment is also higher among allophones and anglophones, the study shows, affecting 10 per cent of allophones and eight per cent of anglophones provincewide, compared to six per cent of francophones.

In Montreal, the unemployment rate approximately mirrors the provincial situation, but the disparity is greater in some regions. For example, in Sherbrooke, 12 per cent of allophones are unemployed, compared to six per cent of francophones and anglophones.In Gatineau, 10 per cent of allophones are unemployed, compared to five per cent of francophones and six per cent of anglophones.In Saguenay, 12 per cent of allophones are unemployed, compared to eight per cent of francophones and seven per cent of anglophones.

Jedwab called on Couillard to target language minorities in the anti-poverty plan by studying the causes of their economic disparities and providing them with better job training and income support.

“There is a need to better understand the relationship between language and these barriers and not make assumptions that poverty is not something that touches the English-speaking community,” he said.

“Actually, it touches it quite significantly.”