The province of Quebec has never been a unilingual country. Under the French regime, not everybody chose to speak in French. The French settlers were surrounded by English traders and Indian tribes who spoke numerous languages including Abenaki, Algonquin (Anishinabe), Attikamek, Cree (Eeyou), Huron-Wendat, Innu, Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), Micmac, Mohawk (Kanien'kehà:ka), Naskapi, etc. There were English-speaking Irish Catholics and American traders who made Quebec their home. After the taking of Quebec by the British in 1759, the percentage of French speakers further declined. In the 1830s, there were more English speakers in Quebec City than French speakers due to Irish immigration. In 1831, during the cholera epidemic some 50,000 Irish immigrants arrived in Quebec City with a population of only 27,000. And Irish immigration continued for years after this. The cultural impact of the Irish can by seen by the number of taverns which increased substantially during this period. And of course, Quebec City was a military garrison up until Confederation in 1867 when there were a thousand British soldiers permanently stationed in the city.
Even today, some forty years after the English exodus from the province after Bill 101 — the charter of the French language — was passed by the Parti Québécois government , English is spoken everywhere in Montreal and in regional towns such as Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City. In Quebec City, it is estimated that 28% of the student body of Université de Laval speak English, and the percentage is even higher on the Valcartier Military base north of the city. The same goes for Montreal with its prestigious universities such McGill, Concordia, Université de Montréal, Université de Sherbrooke, Bishops, and the regional Université de Québec. English is used everywhere even though the percentage of the population with English as their mother tongue is around 13%.
Clearly, bilingualism is a dirty word in Quebec. It has become politically incorrect to even suggest that Quebec society could benefit from being anything other than an officially unilingual society. A federal Liberal backbencher for a Laval riding, Angelo Iacono, recently made the statement that he believed Quebec would be stronger if it were a bilingual province, and “not just a unilingual French-speaking province.” This raised the ire of the French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge who submitted the statement to a vote in the National Assembly whose members voted unanimously to reject any idea that Quebec would be stronger if it were an officially bilingual state. This is not the first time that the Quebec government has supported ridiculous positions on language. Remember their resolutions to condemn the use of the “Bonjour-Hi” greeting in Montreal.
Of course, Mr Iacono is right. Quebec is only going to decline both culturally and economically over the long term with its unilingual policy. By pronouncing in favour of bilingualism, Quebec would show that it has no fear of the decline of the French language. The latest census figures in 2021 shows that the share of people with French as a mother tongue fell from 77.1 per cent to 74.8 per cent while those who spoke predominantly French at home has been increasing in number but falling as a proportion of Quebec’s population since as far back as 2001, from 82.3 per cent to 77.5 per cent. What does this mean? It means that French use in the home is on the rise, not in decline as Roberge has said. There are more young anglophones and allophones using French in the home than ever before. Another piece of good news is that the percentage of Quebec residents whose first official language was English rose to 13 per cent from 12 per cent in the same period. This is great news for the economy in a province where over 50% of the population speak English.
Roberge recently launched a new government program to improve the number of people using French in the province. The program will cost $600 million and will counter what he described as the language’s decline. He told a news conference in Montreal: "We're going on the offensive, no, not against anyone, but to regain lost ground and reverse the decline of French." Of course, none of this will protect or strengthen the French language in the province. The only reason the CAQ is doing this is for political gain by showing the sovereigntists, that they can attack English rights just as well as the other parties in the province.
The use of French in Quebec is in no way declining and appears to be maintaining itself very well in spite of the bureaucratic interventions of numerous governments. Unfortunately, Quebec’s immigration laws are a shambles and it is far easier for French-speaking immigrants to move to New Brunswick or any other province in Canada because of the bureaucratic impediments in Quebec. Furthermore, Quebec has done little or nothing to attract francophone immigration from the US or other provinces. There are some 9 million Americans of French extraction, many of them living just over the border in Maine. Where is the charm offensive to attract young Americans to the province, those with francophone parents and ancestry?
Quebec has failed miserably in the teaching of French in the province. Since the pandemic, more prospective teachers have failed the French exam to become teachers than ever before. At Université de Montréal, the success rate before the pandemic was around 60 per cent, but has dropped to around 47 per cent for the past three years. At Université Laval, the success rate was around 85 percent two years ago, but has now dropped to 54 per cent of students. The failings of the Quebec government in education have long been known with high school dropout rates as high as 17 percent in Montreal
I am sure that the Quebec government will try to find a way to blame the English for the failings of Quebec’s educational policy, but the facts are against them. The English Montreal School Board appears to fare better at teaching French than other French school boards in the city. Some 70 percent of their students passed the Grade 11 French test whereas only 60 percent passed the same test in three French school boards in Montreal. So is English really the problem?
It is time to declare Quebec a bilingual province and stop trying to blame the English minority for Quebec’s failures in education and immigration.
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