Hire more French instructors instead

Re: “OQLF gets $5M to enforce French language charter” (Montreal Gazette, Sept. 22)

Much can be said about the government's decision to bolster the Office québécois de la langue française and the timing of its announcement during a pandemic.

We're told “the money, earmarked in last March's budget, will pay for 50 additional employees, most of whom will work in the Montreal area.”

If Simon Jolin-barrette is serious about boosting the use of French on the island of Montreal, how about spending the same money on 50 incremental language instructors and providing free or subsidized tuition services to all those who continue to struggle with the language?

At the end of 2019, Liberal MNA Greg Kelley urged the government to open the Charter of the French Language to make free instruction in French a right for anyone who resides in Quebec.

At the time, Premier François Legault and Jolin-barrette, the minister responsible for the French language, welcomed the idea and even suggested they had thought of it first.

So what happened to that plan?

Malcolm Campbell, Baie-d'urfé