New series on Quebec's English-speaking community

English-speaking Quebecers have our own distinct society, Joan Fraser says.

Language is back in the news in Quebec. With both the provincial and federal governments contemplating reforms to language legislation early this year, the Montreal Gazette is launching a new series, Quebec Anglophones in 2021, that takes a look at our community in relation to education, health care and other key issues. We've also invited a variety of English-speaking Quebecers to write essays we are calling My Quebec. You'll find the series on our editorial pages between now and Saturday.

What is Quebec?

Obviously, this is the only place in North America where the majority language and culture are French, and the only place north of the Rio Grande where English-speakers are in the minority.

Linguistic division is not, however, our only defining feature. Quebecers also have much in common.

Start with winter, which shapes us all, whether we revel in it or flee south to escape it. Everything from our food to our architecture reflects it.

All of us, whatever our language or ethnicity, live in a belle province. From majestic Charlevoix to the serenity of the Townships and the old towns of Quebec City and Montreal, there is beauty here. We benefit from North America's best network of social support programs, from medicare to daycare, and much more.

Still, linguistic dualism remains. And for English-speaking Quebecers, being a minority within a minority can be both a burden and a blessing.

Burden first. The long, valiant struggle of francophones to protect their language, culture and community has too often, in recent years, become a drive to limit English and the anglophone community.

The late Camille Laurin once said that our language was a pollution. That hurt, just as it hurts now to see laws discriminate against ethnic and religious minorities.

Gradually, control of the institutions that our community built and paid for has been transferred to the provincial government; school boards are the last exception. Fewer than one per cent of provincial civil servants are anglophones, which limits understanding of the community's needs, priorities and diversity.

Old myths endure that anglos are wealthy oppressors of francophones. How many people realize that proportionately far more Quebec anglophones than francophones now live below the poverty line, and that anglophones are more often unemployed? How many realize that the majority of anglophones are now bilingual? Combating old perceptions can be exhausting.

But then look at the blessings. We benefit uniquely from living with two of the world's great languages and cultures. Compared to that richness, visiting unilingual places can feel like stepping into a black-and-white movie, like Dorothy returning to Kansas from Oz.

We have our own distinct society. Two examples: our English is studded with words like dépanneur and autoroute. We have a civil code, while English Canada follows common law.

Above all, we live in an enviable democracy. Liberation movements around the world are often violent, but Quebec's independence movement remains resolutely democratic. We have held two provincially controlled referendums on independence. Federalists accepted their legitimacy, and sovereignists accepted the verdicts peacefully. That is a noble achievement, not to be taken for granted.

Once at a citizenship ceremony I heard the judge speak to the proud new citizens. Around the world, he said, you may see richer countries, more populous countries, countries with more powerful armies. But you will never find a better country than Canada.

I have lived in other countries and travelled the world, and I know the judge spoke the simple truth. We make mistakes, sometimes grievous ones, but we have built something rare and good.

Central to that is Quebec. It is because Quebec, with its francophone majority, was essential to Confederation that English Canada had to learn first to accommodate and ultimately to celebrate the fact that there are many ways to be Canadian. No one knows that better than English-speaking Quebecers, or benefits more from it. We are beleaguered but blessed.

Retired senator Joan Fraser is a former editor in chief of the Montreal Gazette. She sits on the board of the Quebec Community Groups Network and is a vice-chair of APPELE-QUEBEC, the umbrella group formed to defend English school boards. This article expresses her personal opinion.