For his Canadian citizenship, Quebec resident had to pass a Parisian French test. He wonders why
When Rev. Christian Schreiner first looked into taking a mandatory French language test to obtain his Canadian citizenship, he was shocked to find out his exam would be sent to France for final evaluation.
Schreiner, dean of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Quebec City, started his application when he heard that his country of birth, Ger‐ many, had approved legisla‐ tion to end a ban on holding dual citizenship.
The longtime permanent resident of Canada had been waiting for this moment for 16 years.
When Schreiner logged onto Immigration, Refugees Citizenship Canada to start the process of pursuing a language exam and clicked on the link for the Test d'éval‐ uation de français, TEF Cana‐ da, he was brought to a web‐ site run by a Parisian organi‐ zation, the Paris Île-de-France Regional Chamber of Com‐ merce and Industry.
"I thought I had maybe clicked on the wrong link, so I went back but everything checks out. So that is the one that is authorized," said Schreiner.
Schreiner completed his French exam on March 15 at Edu-inter - a French immer‐ sion school in Quebec City where an employee informed him during the oral evalua‐ tion section that he wouldn't be the one evaluating Schreiner's performance.
"He had an iPad and he recorded the whole thing," said Schreiner.
"I asked him: 'what is that for?' He said … 'I'm only doing the test with you, but I'm not evaluating anything. I can on‐ ly send this in and then basi‐ cally it gets sent to Paris and they decide whether or not your French is sufficient.'"
Although Schreiner passed the exam, completing one of several steps toward gaining his citizenship, he's now speaking out about how the exam is based on French from France and he is ques‐ tioning why Canada has to outsource evaluations abroad.
"I think this is still kind of a leftover, like a colonial left‐ over," said Schreiner.
"If I want to become a Canadian citizen, it's France that decides whether or not I'm good enough. There's something wrong there."
Meeting French or En‐ glish language requirement
CCI Paris Île-de-France (CCIP-IDF), the organization with the Paris office, says it represents the interests of more than 840,000 French companies.
According to its website, the TEF was officially certified by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IR‐ CC) in 2004 as the "only test officially approved by Canadi‐ an authorities."
The location of the evalua‐ tion does not have any im‐ pact on the applicant, said the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, in an emailed state‐ ment.
"All language proficiency assessment tests approved for Canadian immigration purposes are administered by third-party organizations independent of IRCC," read the statement.
"Organizations must demonstrate that they meet the criteria ... including matching test results to the Canadian language bench‐ marks."
In its statement, the de‐ partment said the TEF test was put in place by the Que‐ bec government for new French-speakers moving or immigrating to the province. They said while the TEF is not a federal requirement for citi‐ zenship, it is one of several "acceptable proofs" that can be submitted to the govern‐ ment to apply for citizenship and meet the language re‐ quirement - as immigrants need to prove their abilities in either English or French.
Besides French diplomas previously submitted for im‐ migration purposes, the min‐ istry says on its website that it won't accept any other third-party test results other than those listed for citizen‐ ship, even if they're similar to the approved exams.
Rethinking the language test
"I don't think there's any‐ thing wrong with the out‐ sourcing of the test," said Taylor Ireland, president and owner of ACA-Formation Lin‐ guistique, a French language school in Quebec City.
"But there's more than enough organizations in Canada that could develop a test."
He says while there are benefits to having private or‐ ganizations test candidates because of accessibility, it is feasible to develop other op‐ tions.
"It would take some time to do … There's always a ten‐ dency to go back to a test that's already known," said Ireland.
"But we have more than enough capacity and knowl‐ edge in order to have our own Canadian-made test."
Ireland says generally, there are not going to be huge differences between an international French or French from France com‐ pared to the French spoken in Quebec, but there might be slight "regionalisms."
WATCH | Here's how Quebec's language profi‐ ciency scale works:
He says this is not the first time questions relating to the French exam have been raised.
"To have the test itself be designed and then corrected by a company in France is somewhat confusing," said Ireland.
Following his exam in March, Schreiner says he looked into the English testing options to see if the evaluation was similar to the French equivalent.
"I wanted to know, had I done the English test, would they send it to London, England? No, they don't. They send it to the offices in Toronto," said Schreiner. "Why can't Canada evaluate whether or not people speak French?"
Prometric, a test adminis‐ tration company headquar‐ tered in the U.S., develops and delivers along with other organizations the Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program (CELPIP) Test, one of three options used for immigration and citizenship. The CELPIP offices are lo‐ cated in Toronto, according to its website.
Test from France had its challenges, says Schreiner
Schreiner says the test it‐ self had its challenges. In one part, he had to listen to 40 different sound bites.
The audio, which was in a French-from-France accent, became more and more chal‐ lenging near the end of the exam, said Schreiner. He said the topic of the radio inter‐ view he had to listen was cli‐ mate change and the extinc‐ tion of species.
"It was really more vocab‐ ulary. There were words that I did not know and quite a few of them, which is some‐ thing that doesn't happen that often to me here in Que‐ bec," said Schreiner.
Schreiner, whose father was a French teacher, speaks French at home with his kids and wife - who is Québé‐ coise.
Although he passed the exam, he says he should be considered an "ideal guinea
pig" - someone who should‐ n't really struggle with an ex‐ am that is meant to test "basic competence."
Christophe Fernandez, di‐ rector general of the Edu-In‐ ter language school where Schreiner took his test, con‐ firmed in a statement that the centre is one of several in the province officially allowed to offer the test.
He confirmed the team does not give the final scores but does do some evalua‐ tions. Fernandez says the Paris office collects and dou‐ ble-checks the examinations to give a final grade.