Using the English minority as a scapegoat

To the extent French is threatened in Quebec, it’s not by local anglophones, André Pratte says.

Combined with several provisions of Bill 96, recent events raise a legitimate concern that English-speaking Quebecers may be on the verge of becoming second-class citizens. Indeed, in the view of a majority of French-speaking Québécois, or at least of the politicians and commentators who shape the majority view, Anglos do not have rights any more, only “privileges.”

Let us be clear here. The current situation of Quebec's anglophones is considerably better than that of the French-speaking minorities in the rest of Canada. However, this is not so much the result of the majority's “generosity,” as claimed by the nationalists, but because over the several decades during which they dominated the province, the Anglos built large and sturdy institutions that allowed them to continue to live in English while, beginning with the Quiet Revolution, the francophones asserted their own right to live in the language of the majority.

This status quo is threatened. From now on, the English-speaking minority will be treated like all linguistic minorities, if not worse.

Again, it is important to inject some perspective into this discussion. Comparing the legislation to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia or the Quebec government's language officials to the Gestapo, as some prominent voices from the English community have done, is not only wildly exaggerated; it serves to confirm the nationalist claim that English speakers suffer from “a persecution complex.”

Without resorting to hyperbole, there are good reasons to challenge the necessity of Bill 96's bureaucratic assault on the speaking of English in Quebec. One is that this attack is based on a false premise.

Yes, because French is the language of a small minority on the continent, it needs protection and promotion. But is French set to disappear, as many assert, quoting anecdotal evidence and sloppy media reporting?

A couple of days before the demonstration, a respected demographer, Jean-pierre Corbeil, made a presentation that a fellow demographer called “masterful.” In front of a crowd of 100 or so specialists in the language issue, Corbeil demonstrated that, according to most of the available data, the French language's situation in Quebec has continued to improve in recent years.

For instance, census data show that the percentage of Quebecers whose main language spoken at home is French has not budged since 1971, remaining at 81 per cent. Meanwhile, the share of Quebecers who principally speak English at home has fallen, from 14.7 per cent to 10.7 per cent. Where is the threat to the dominance of the French language?

Nationalists are fixated on the growth of the number of non-anglophones who attend college in English. This, they say, opens the door to massive assimilation. Bill 96 attempts to prevent this by capping growth at English colleges. Yet, according to the data presented by Corbeil, the number of French-speaking Quebecers attending English colleges each year has grown only slightly over the last decade, an increase of 1,481 students. Is that the mortal threat to Quebec's French-speaking majority of 6.3 million?

Meanwhile, the proportion of Quebecers who have a mother tongue other than French or English and have chosen to study in French CEGEPS has significantly increased, from 58.2 per cent to 65.9 per cent. The old Bill 101 is working as it should to gently push newcomers to adopt French, rather than English, as their language of daily life.

The evidence clearly indicates that to the extent that the French language is threatened in Quebec, it has nothing to do with the historic rights of the English minority and everything to do with English's status as the international lingua franca, especially in business. For local politicians, this vast and complex phenomenon is difficult to counter by legal or regulatory measures. Sadly, they and the commentators who support them have chosen to revert to the easy solution, the use of the English minority as a scapegoat.