Quebec’s self-defeating language fetish

The following opinion piece could be found at the national post here. It does a good job of showing the dilemmas afflicting the protection of French in Quebec.

Special to the National Post June 4, 2010 – 7:40 am

Last summer, after close to 20 years in The Netherlands running the Dutch campus of a top U.S. university, I returned home to Montreal to accept the post of Director General of Marianopolis College. Three of our children returned with me and my wife, the fourth remaining at university in Amsterdam. Bringing children ages 10 to 16 and a Dutch wife to Canada was a challenge, but I underestimated how difficult it would be to bring them to Quebec.

A year later, I am increasingly concerned about Quebec and its direction. I worry — as a father, as the leader of one of the province’s top higher-education institutions and as a global citizen — that Quebec is moving opposite to global trends.
For example, on Wednesday, the provincial government unveiled its response to the recent Supreme Court of Canada judgement declaring Bill 104 unconstitutional.

Bill 104 amended Bill 101 — Quebec’s French Language Charter — to prevent parents not educated in Canada in English from securing eligibility for their child to attend English schools after spending one year at an un-subsidized English private school. The high court gave Quebec a year to find another way to plug that loophole, while protecting Charter rights. The Quebec National Assembly’s response, Bill 103, further limits access to English schooling.

This has happened despite the fact that the English community has evolved significantly while I was abroad. There is an openness to learning French that didn’t exist when I left in 1991. Graduates of English schools are increasingly fluent in both French and English, and the bridges that have been built between different ethnic communities are remarkable.

Yet, when I speak with the university-bound students at Marianopolis, many of whom attended francophone high schools, and with the academic leaders of Quebec’s French and English colleges and universities, it is clear: The brain drain out of the province persists.

Worse still, this flight of talent and economic prowess is not being replaced by immigrants: Only 18 percent of all immigrants to Canada come to Quebec, too few for a province with almost a quarter of the nation’s population.

Quebec’s auditor-general was the latest to call attention to immigration-related shortcomings, in his May 12 report to the National Assembly. In response, no less an authority than Quebec Immigration Minister Yolande James warned that making it a priority to recruit immigrants who speak French — the current policy — limits Quebec’s options.

Meanwhile, globally minded francophone and allophone students are choosing to attend English-language Cegep (as Quebec’s unique college system is called) at English schools at the first moment they are legally allowed to, when the Bill 101 restrictions are lifted after high school. Many stay in the province due to Quebec’s unreasonably low tuition, funded by the highest taxes in North America, but eventually they pay their taxes elsewhere when their careers take them outside the province.
Despite our high taxes, which are equivalent to those in socialist Holland, the services in Quebec are far fewer and less robust than they are in Holland: Health insurance, social welfare and the general infrastructure of the province seem to be lower here. As a hockey dad, I see many parts of Montreal. Too often, I am shocked by the poverty and crumbling roads and buildings.
Quebec’s protectionism translates not just into ill-qualified immigrants, fleeing educated people, fewer services and crumbling infrastructure, but into a society that is out of synch with the rest of the world.

Keeping in mind the undeniable decline of the French language worldwide, let’s compare Quebec’s language policy with that of The Netherlands. The Dutch welcome English as the international language. U.S. and English TV shows are never dubbed, but subtitled; most music on the radio is in English; even more tellingly, universities have converted all masters programs to English-only in order to prepare the Dutch for the global economy.

Does that mean the Dutch culture or language is on the decline? On the contrary, both thrive and the Dutch enjoy a most “distinct society,” despite being surrounded by large countries.

Quebec, meanwhile, has decided that language preservation is more important than economic progress. This has many costs, and it limits the ability of young people to be global citizens.

A recent analysis by the Quebec Ministry of Finance shows the province has one of the industrialized world’s most heavily indebted economies: When considering Quebec as a nation — as some say it ought to be — it ranks a disconcerting fifth in terms of public debt as a percentage of GDP. First on the list? Greece at 102%. Canada’s debt is calculated at 69.7% of its GDP; Quebec’s is at 94%.

My sense is that we need to have the courage to admit that the world has changed since Bill 101 was introduced, as has Quebec. We need to take a fresh look at the situation, and my bet is that together we can continue to protect the French language while developing strategies to strengthen our economy and convince our young people to stay home.

Len Even
National Post

Len Even is director general of Marianopolis College in Montreal.

Decline and resistance in quebec

Many French-speaking observers of the French language in Quebec point out its decline over the last few decades. While this will be dismissed by some as a gimmick used to drum up French-Canadian resistance, studies paint the picture of an erosion that mass immigration from more or less Francophone countries hardly helps slow down.


source

En tant que président du Réseau de Résistance du Québécois (RRQ), Patrick Bourgeois tient à féliciter le citoyen Jean-Roch Villemaire pour le geste qu’il a posé contre la candidate Barbara Charlebois, elle dont l’équipe a osé poser des affiches unilingues anglaises dans le secteur d’Aylmer, en Outaouais.

Bien qu’il s’agisse ici d’une initiative personnelle de M. Villemaire, le Réseau tient à dire qu’il se sent solidaire et fier de ce patriote. Le Réseau est convaincu qu’il a bien fait de retirer une douzaine desdites affiches unilingues anglaises.

« Je partage l’opinion de M. Villemaire lorsqu’il dit que les citoyens, quand les élites politiques abdiquent, ont la responsabilité de combattre eux-mêmes les situations injustes. Lorsqu’il y aura des centaines et des milliers de Québécois qui imiteront Jean-Roch Villemaire, la question du français sera enfin réglée au Québec », a dit M. Bourgeois.

La question du français préoccupe au plus haut point la direction et les membres du Réseau de Résistance du Québécois. « Il est clair qu’il faut faire quelque chose de signifiant pour enfin renverser la tendance à laquelle on assiste depuis quelques décennies maintenant au Québec, tendance qui établit clairement le déclin de la langue française. Et la désobéissance civile est très certainement une des possibilités que nous envisageons pour assurer la pérennité du fait français au Québec », a soutenu M. Bourgeois. En cela, Jean-Roch Villemaire vient peut-être de lancer un mouvement.

More and More Franco Enrolments in Quebec's English-Language Schools

In spite of strict language laws, English retains its attraction in Quebec and many a Francophone wishes his children to become Anglos. Those who can afford the costs of private education even send them in ever greater numbers to English-language schools:

Montreal People See French Losing Ground

Mathieu Turbide
Le Journal de Montréal
18/02/2009 09h10

La langue française perd du terrain à Montréal, et l'économie se dégrade, constatent une majorité des Montréalais interrogés dans le cadre d'un sondage Léger Marketing-Le Journal de Montréal.
Trois Montréalais sur cinq trouvent que l'état de la langue Française dans leur ville se détériore.

L'opinion des Montréalais rejoint donc les conclusions de plusieurs rapports -et d'une récente enquête du Journal de Montréal -qui démontrent que l'utilisation du français recule à Montréal, particulièrement dans les commerces du centre-ville.

Le gouvernement a lancé plus tôt cet hiver une vaste campagne pour promouvoir l'usage du français dans les commerces montréalais.

Click here to read more

The Inevitable Decline of French in Quebec

Le Devoir, a Quebec media outlet, published this letter from a francophone reader, on January 2008:

For a few years, I have read, I hear and I feel that a decline of the French language is inevitable within the current Canadian institutions: many immigrants are moving to Quebec, but where they are really moving to is Canada.

English suits them better and, with French classes being now cut, all they do is mangle the language of Molière when ... they can't help using it. Many manage to avoid French school over generations (see private schools, English-speaking cégep) and continue to grow up to become Canadians first (Anglos, if you want): they gorge themselves on anglophone media, music and attitudes.

What enables me to make such statements? Simply put, my experience. I was born in Bas-de-Rivière, lived there 16 years, then I went to Quebec to study at the Cégep and the University for seven years. Until then, I had lived all my life in French; even foreign students and teachers had to speak French to become integrated, or else they would end up alone.

Yet at the Laval University Hospital (CHUL), I had my first experience of working in English, in the lab of a researcher who had recently arrived and spoke only English. Since I can speak English, I accepted this situation. However he soon had to speak French for survival, and his three daughters are now little Québécoises like any others: demographic pressure had been at work.

Things changed when I arrived in Montreal: first I worked for a Lachine company, then with the McGill university. Needless to say, virtually everything that happened there was conducted in English, even when no more than one English-speaker was present. Why? Because, at every given moment, everyone on the staff included a number of immigrants for which English was easier...

However, I started to ask myself serious questions when I had to see a doctor at the Jewish Hospital. On several instances, the staff could not utter a word of French, or even give me forms and regulations in French, except sometimes in bad French!

After six years of this, I began inverting word order («bleue porte», for example) or answering a spontaneous “What?” when asked a question. I reacted in a Draconian way to this change and I tried to reject English. Since then, I have practically stopped listening to English-speaking music or movies and I am less keen to learn new English words. Survival was somehow at stake.

Finally, we moved (with the family now) to Gatineau and have been there two years. Here, I sense a demographic crush: unilingual English-speakers are served in English by mechanics and grocers, without an "au revoir", why, the checkout clerk even treats them to a heartfelt “Have a good day!” and a broad smile.

Also, when riding the bus to Ottawa General Hospital where I work, I sometimes hear French-speaking people meet their anglophone friends (always in Gatineau) and greet them in English. As soon as the river is crossed, another country begins for me: 99% English-speaking commercials, unilingual drivers, businesses serving their customers in English only. What can French-Ontarians do about it? Some whinge a little against it but a majority of them folds, and… does so with pleasure!

More often than not, I can make out three French words in between two English sentences, or else someone speaks English and receives an answer in French. One might call it symbiosis, but English-language dominance is felt all the same.

click here to read the rest of the letter in French

Illusory Bilingualism

Mandatory bilingualism is spawning a lot of fake French in Canada:

J'ai reçu comme tous mes concitoyens l'invitation de Statistique Canada à participer au recensement.

La lecture de la phrase «veuillez remplir votre questionnaire par [sic] le 16 mai» amène la question suivante: pourquoi dépenser des fonds publics pour un recensement dont les résultats permettent principalement au lecteur aguerri de constater le déclin du français au Canada? On arrive à moindres frais à la même perception en lisant cette invitation. L'examen des enveloppes vendues par Postes Canada où l'inscription «jusqu'à» apparaît au lieu de «destinataire» est tout aussi éloquent. Ottawa aurait-il pris la relève de Toronto en matière de qualité du français?

http://www.ledevoir.com/2006/05/10/108776.html

Quebec's Lib Gov't Deceives Francos to Relax Anti-English Laws

Quebec's Franco bloggers are fuming: the team currently running the Quebec administration is more concerned with saving la Belle Province's economy than propping up what passes for French there. In order to undo the harm done by the fanatics previously in government, ministers like Christine  Saint-Pierre are seeking to surreptitiously relax the worst provisions of the infamously xenophobic Bill 101. To help Francos swallow the bitter pill and save face, government makes up figures suggesting that French-language decline has been reversed  in Montreal when the opposite is true and claims on the strength of these fake figures that Bill 101 is a success and therefore needn't be toughened. As a result, desperation pervades French online rants such as this one from earlier this year: 

Pourquoi suis-je ainsi en furie après la ministre libérale, me direz-vous? Parce qu’elle a eu le culot de dire que son gouvernement ne durcira pas la Loi 101 afin de redresser la situation du français au Québec, dossier qui a été ramené au devant de la scène par l’enquête effectuée par une journaliste du Journal de Montréal dernièrement. Les libéraux disent qu’ils comptent tout simplement faire de la sensibilisation auprès des commerces montréalais qui s’entêtent à fonctionner en anglais au Québec, dans un pays français. Quelle bande de baveux! Mais qu’y a-t-il de si étonnant à ce que les lâches que sont les libéraux ne fassent rien pour sauver la langue française, me répondront certains. Considérant leur triste bilan en la matière (enseignement de l’anglais en 1ère année, coupures importantes dans les programmes de francisation des immigrants et hausse des taux d’immigration par exemples), l’on ne pouvait après tout s’attendre à rien d’autre de leur part. Effectivement! Mais alors pourquoi suis-je autant en colère?

Je le suis, et profondément, parce que Christine-Saint-Pierre-la-traîtresse a osé balayé du revers de la main tout durcissement de la Loi 101 en arguant qu’une étude de l’Office de la langue française avait démontré à l’automne 2006 que 90% des commerces à Montréal fonctionnaient déjà en français. C’est ce que l’OLF avait fallacieusement indiqué dans un communiqué diffusé en janvier 2007 afin de convaincre les Québécois que le français se porte bien au Québec. Par conséquent, ajoute la ministre, nul besoin d’agir de manière drastique dans ce dossier.

Il faut toutefois savoir que l’étude dont se sert l’OLF pour prétendre une telle chose, il la garde secrète, la cache, la dissimule. Il ne veut pas la montrer à personne. (...)Mais ce qui devient carrément scandaleux avec cette fumisterie, c’est quand le gouvernement national des Québécois y réfère pour justifier l’orientation de ses décisions dans le dossier linguistique qui sont d’un laisser-aller navrant. Exactement comme l’a fait aujourd’hui Christine Saint-Pierre, cette grande colporteuse de mystifications, en nous proposant de ne rien faire pour empêcher le lent déclin du français au Québec, et ce, parce qu’une étude camouflée laisse faussement entendre que tout va bien à Montréal. link

15/01/2008 16:39

The Office Québécois de la Langue Francaise (OQLF), formerly used as a tool for persecuting Quebec's English speakers, is now key to the current government's efforts to cover up the decline of French in Quebec and the failure of decades-long paranoid anti-Anglo policies:

Something is rotten in the state of the Office québécois de la langue française. The chaotic sortie of its five-year report is one more sign of how disturbingly politicized it’s become over the years.

On Wednesday, OQLF president France Boucher released a 200-page report, 1,000 pages of studies and a mishmash of statistics. Although many statistics confirm data from the 2006 census showing a decline of the French language, especially on the Island of Montreal, Boucher refused to deliver any analysis or even qualify the state of the French language.

She even had the gall to ask ordinary Quebecers to read the studies themselves to make their own analysis. There was also her Soviet-style treatment of the members of the committee in charge of reviewing the report. She asked these independent academics to take a vow of silence, told them they’d be sent into a locked room to read the report with no cellphones, no computers and no documents of their own. They had to destroy their notes before they left.

The academics refused and denounced what they called the OQLF’s paranoia. The head of the committee, Simon Langlois, resigned over what he described as an abusive climate of distrust, excessive control and improvization. Boucher even refused to brief journalists before she released more than 1,000 pages of studies for them to go through in just a few hours.

In any normal government, she would have been fired on the spot for any or all of those things. But ever since Lucien Bouchard, who feared the language issue like the plague, turned the OQLF into a neutered extension of the premier’s office, Boucher’s silence and bullying tactics should assure her a long life at the head of the OQLF.

In fact, Boucher had nothing to say about French losing ground on the Island of Montreal and the suburbs, or about only 65 per cent of people working in French on the island, or about only 45.7 per cent of allophones choosing French as a second language, compared with the 54.3 per cent who choose English. No word, either, on the 40 per cent of allophone kids who went to French high school choosing to go to an English CEGEP.

Boucher is a problem. Parti Québécois language critic Pierre Curzi said Boucher is either incompetent or the victim of pressure from the premier’s office. Sorry, but it looks like both.

But the real problem behind the growing politization of the OQLF is its very nature. Contrary to what Language Minister Christine St-Pierre says, the OQLF is not independent from the government. You couldn’t tell by the power struggle between Boucher and St-Pierre, but the OQLF answers and reports to the minister by law. Part of its mandate is to monitor the language situation. So contrary to what Boucher contends, it the OQLF’s mandate to analyze.

Since it is not independent, the OQLF’s president is named by the premier’s office. This opens the door to nominations based on politicial affiliation, not competence. Such was the case for Boucher, a former Liberal aide.

Over the years, OQLF presidents learned quickly that if they want to keep their job - a lucrative five-year posting that can be terminated at any time - it’s crucial to reflect what’s politically desirable for their real boss, the premier.

It all makes one thing painfully obvious : The OQLF should be rendered as independent from the government as the auditor-general. This means making it answerable to the National Assembly and having all sitting parties choose its president based on competence, not based on the political masters he or she once served.

If the OQLF is not changed, it will continue to follow the whims of the government du jour and fail to inform Quebecers fully about the state of French.

It is absolutely irresponsible that the monitoring and analysis of what most distinguishes the Quebec nation from the rest of the continent - its language - isn’t handled by a competent and politically independent agency.

link

Josée LEGAULT
The Gazette (Montreal)
vendredi 7 mars 2008

Why French Immersion is a Failure

A quote from Why French Immersion is a Failure, by Hector Hammerly, 1995:

The fact that French Immersion (FI) is a linguistic failure may be the best-kept secret in Canadian education. But why shouldn’t it be a failure? How can a single teacher, who may not even be a native speaker of French, “immerse” 30 students?
(...)
As I have been saying for 13 years, FI students graduate speaking and writing rapidly in “Frenglish”, not French. Frenglish uses French words but mostly English structures. Frenglish might be “cute” at age six, but it is an embarrassment at age 20, as well as an impediment to holding any significant bilingual job (it would be senseless for an em-ployer to put someone who speaks or writes so poorly in charge of the telephone or correspondence). The FI/education establishment, however, has kept these facts from the public. They have acknowledged that there are serious problems with FI, but only in obscure research reports and other such publications. In public, they continue to defend and promote immersion nationally and internationally. A major scandal would have exploded a long time ago if the establishment weren’t so successful in holding a tight lid over the situation.
FI fails for many reasons, most of them related to “progressive” (really regressive) educational views. Among the progressive trends that have affected FI are the beliefs that everything should be as easy as pos-sible for the students (not much effort, no drills or systematic practice); that the correction of errors shouldn’t be stressed because it hurts self-esteem; that creativity (even with what one doesn’t control) is central to learning; and that communication, however defective, is more important than accuracy and mastery. Under such conditions, excellence is impossible, dysfunctionality inevitable.
Thus, the learning of a second language in the classroom is done in FI in the relaxed, unsystematic way in which very young children ac-quire their mother tongue at home. But the learners and the learning conditions are very different. Native language acquisition conditions cannot be recreated years later, within four classroom walls, with older children who already know a language, are more cognitively mature, and are not surrounded by native speakers of the target language. The result of this lack of fit is Frenglish.
FI is hopeless. It cannot be patched up because it is fundamentally flawed, as it is based on incorrect assumptions. FI puts the communica-tive cart before the linguistic control horse. Adding several hours a week of grammar to FI —however that may be done — won’t help, for what-ever good it might do will be destroyed by the constant encouragement of premature free communication the rest of the week.

French Losing Ground In Ontario

Technorati:Franco-Ontarians,French losing ground,Ontario

French losing ground in Ontario, despite boost from immigrants

By Yanik Dumont Baron, September 27, 2005:

(...)
Officials from the Office of Francophone Affairs spent more than a year studying responses on the 2001 census form. They conclude that the assimilation of Franco-Ontarians continues in Canada's largest province. There may be more of them in absolute numbers, but their proportion of the overall population is diminishing.

In addition, the rate of "conserving the French language" continues to slip. In 2001, the language of Molière was spoken in 56.5 per cent of homes in which at least one of the adults spoke French as a mother tongue. The rate was 59 per cent five years earlier, in 1996.

The study reveals that French skills transfer less well to children if their father is the only one speaking the language at home. If their mother's native language is French, one-third of children will learn the language -- that is to say, twice as many as those with a father who speaks to them in French.

"It is perhaps that young people don't see the added value of studying French in school," Meilleur told CBC Unlocked. (...)

The data analysis shows that French is losing influence in the more remote areas, notably in Northern Ontario, to the benefit of large urban areas, like Toronto and regions hugging the Quebec border.

In multilingual cities, the French-speaking population is geographically diluted, another factor contributing to the erosion of the number of French speakers. The study pinpoints areas in which services to the French-speaking population need to be strengthened.

(...)

The number of Franco-Ontarians originally from Africa increased by 40 per cent in five years, to more than 58,000. These new Canadians are twice as likely as non-African francophones to have a university diploma. Despite this, their wages are typically lower by $6,000 a year.

(...)

The Statistics Canada census also shows that:

Two thirds of Franco-Ontarians were born in the province.
Among the 40,000 born elsewhere, 3/5 came from Quebec.
Half of the 549,000 Franco-Ontarians live in Eastern Ontario.
One-third of French-speaking people in the Toronto area are from racial minorities.
Elderly Franco-Ontarians are poorly served by governments compared to the general population.

(...)

Language Fairness National Inc. © 2004 - 2005 All rights reserved.

French Faces Uncertain Future in Canada

Quebec,Canada

Pierre S. Pettigrew, The New Politics of Confidence, Stoddart, 1999, review by Howard Cukoff:

an independent Quebec would face a decline of prestige and presence in our (forgive me) global economy. Quebec would lose its geographical bridge to the once and future burgeoning Pacific Rim. Pettigrew is also correct to point out an often-overlooked matter. Quebec carries on an extensive interprovincial trade which would almost certainly be disrupted in the wake of secession.

(...)

Pettigrew holds that the federal system is flexible and adaptive, qualities which effectively position the country to compete in contemporary market conditions. Flexibility is enhanced by the constant squabbling between federal and provincial jurisdictions, since the levels of government compete to provide better services and a better economic climate. These advantages would be lost in the centralized model of government an independent Quebec would follow. As examples, Pettigrew mentions the bureaucratic bungling in Quebec’s manpower training department, which the province wrested from federal control a few years ago, and the short shrift municipalities get in Quebec. Pettigrew maintains that the Quebec government is inept at regional development and has been unable to arrest the decades-long decline of the city of Montreal.

As Pettigrew sees it, the sovereigntist movement is parochial and out-of-step with economic reality. Nationalism is about much more than economics, needless to say. The French fact in Canada has entered a demographic crisis. The proportion of francophones in the country is declining, and political power (in a democracy, at least) follows the demographic trend. The insecurity of francophones both in Quebec and in the Rest of Canada (where the cultural assimilation of francophone communities is a critical danger) – of which the sovereigntist movement is one expression – is real, the future of the French language and culture is not assured.

Quebec Short On Francophone Immigrants

On world-news.dxinginfo.com, october 23, 2008:

Quebec Immigration Minister Yolande James says the government won't require that candidates for immigration understand the French language before arriving in the largely French-speaking province. Mrs. James says the government will encourage them to learn Quebec's official language before arriving, but the potential numbers of francophone immigrants is too small to allow the government to achieve its immigration targets. The government wants to increase numbers of immigrants arriving yearly from 45,000 to 55,000 by 2010. Sixty-per cent of immigrants to the province are now estimated to understand French.

French Racism in Quebec

At lifeinmotion.wordpress.com, August 11, 2008;

However, I was discriminated when I was enrolled at a Quebecois school in Brossard (back then there were no Chinese people in that town). The racism was so bad at times that I decided to unlearn French when I moved to America and I still feel I can relate to those ethnic minorities who rioted in Paris and now Montreal.

More here

At the same blog:

I remember going to a “Quebecois” school in Quebec where I first learned about racial discrimination when I was younger. The difference between a “Canadian” school and a Quebecois school in Quebec is the Quebecois school generally have separatist influences, they are relatively less diverse than the Canadian schools, there is no trace of anything distinctly Canadian, and there is no assistance to students who do not speak French as a native language.

Canadian schools, on the other hand, had a diverse student body, had some programmes for non-French speaking students, and put down racism in their school by promoting multiculturalism. My early experiences were both at a Canadian and Quebecois school where I spent 2 years in each school when I was young.

The first instance of racism I experienced at a Quebec school called Ecole Samuel-De Champlain, was when I was entering the school in the morning. While I was walking to class, some French kid kept making “Ching-Chang-Chong” noises while looking at me. The kids that were around me simply ignored it as if it was normal while a handful laughed. At another instance, some French kids beat me up, trashed the things in my bookbag, and told me to “Go back to China” in French because they felt immigrants were taking his parents’ jobs or diluting the Quebecois spirit.

Then there was that second grade teacher named Sylvie. At that time she was in her late thirties, and I learned later that her husband was unemployed. I knew when I was younger I was a bit of a troublemaker, but I always thought it was strange how she would only give stern warnings to the White kids in the class while throwing me out of her class for the entire day when I did something wrong. This was strange because I did similar things to the other kids, but I got a harsher punishment and she never called me back to class once she threw me out.

I think these things were related to immigration and that’s why I get disgusted when people opposed to immigration rabidly deny that the issue has a racist element to it. I can definitely say, it has a racist element since I had the luxury of experiencing it first-hand in Quebec, Canada.

I really don’t like talking about this part of my life but it is a crude reminder of who I am. It’s also a reason why I unlearned the French language, abandoned my Catholic faith, and one of the reasons why it took several years to come to terms with myself.

My experiences in America are much better than Quebec. Although there is more ignorance than rampant racism here compared to Quebec, I want to do what I can to eliminate negative racial stereotypes and explore what it means to be Asian-American.

New Brunswick: "numbers of students dropping Core French at the secondary level are astronomical"

In QUALITY LEARNING IN FRENCH SECOND LANGUAGE IN NEW BRUNSWICK, Sally Rehorick, D.A., C.A.S., Director and Professor, Joseph Dicks, Ph.D, Professor, Paula Kristmanson, Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Fiona Cogswell, M.Ed, Faculty Associate, April 2006:

2. Core French programmes as they currently

exist are not effective in reaching the target

proficiency goal.

3. Although these statistics do not specifically

address attrition rates, we know that there is still a

problem with attrition in French Immersion at the

secondary level, a fact mirrored at the national

level (Rehorick, 2004).

4. The numbers of students dropping Core French

at the secondary level are astronomical.*

* This high attrition can be attributed to students’ perception of lack of success and courses which are “boring, irrelevant and repetitious” (APEF, 2003).

French Language Policies Have Impoverished Quebec

ADIEU, QUEBEC … AND GOOD RIDDANCE, by Robert Sauvé:

(a) in 1961, year One of the sacred Quiet Revolution, average family income in Québec lagged behind Ontario by 11 percent, (b) in 1991, year 30 of said Revolution, average family income in Québec had worsened, sliding to a 21 percent deficit with Ontario, and (c) in 2001, the situation had not improved.

Robert Sauvé
245 Augusta
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1N 8C6

First Edition, revised
February, 2004

2006 Census: Young Anglophones Forget Their French in Canada

Statistics Canada:

Given that French is generally learned at school, the bilingualism rate reaches its peak in the 15 to 19 age group. Many of these young people are completing secondary school, having been in French-as-a-second-language or immersion programs. Since 1996, bilingualism has been losing ground among Anglophones in this age group.

In the 2006 Census, 13.0% of Anglophones aged 15 to 19 outside Quebec reported or were reported bilingual, down from 14.7% in 2001 and 16.3% in 1996. It should be noted that bilingualism is slightly higher for the 10 to 14 and 5 to 9 age groups.

The ability of young Anglophones to maintain their knowledge of French as a second language appears to decline with time. In 2001, 14.7% of Anglophones aged 15 to 19 were bilingual. In 2006, when the cohort was five years older (aged 20 to 24), only 12.2% reported being bilingual. Similar trends are observed when following the rate of bilingualism over time for the cohort aged 15 to 19 in 1996 (see Figure 3).

So much French teaching is now offered to Canadian kids at taxpayers' expense, but they won't touch it. No amount of State-funded propaganda can fool them. They know French is useless in the 21st century. Those kids are smart, let me tell ya.

Quebecois Lie to Statistics Canada

A plausible explanation:

In April 2006, about one month before the Census, an anonymous e-mail written in French was circulating on the Internet. It contained false information and urged bilingual Francophones not to report, at the Census of Population, on May 16, 2006, that they knew both official languages, purportedly to ensure that the federal government would not cut services to Francophones. Francophones were encouraged to say that they knew French but not English. The e-mail spread across the country.

A note was posted on Statistics Canada's website alerting Canadians to the e-mail's erroneous contents and asking them to answer the questions accurately. Statistics Canada representatives also made a number of statements to the media in an effort to remedy the situation. In view of the data, however, it seems plausible that the e-mail influenced some Francophones in their responses to the question on knowledge of official languages. In the 2006 Census of Population results for this variable, the figures are probably low for the 'English and French' category and high for the 'French only' category, particularly for Francophones but also for the population in general. Users should therefore exercise caution in interpreting those data.

Ontario is losing ground in Core French enrolment

Ontario, July 4th, 2007:

Core French or basic French enrolment continues its downward trend, dropping by .4 % to 841,033 students. Of these, only 3.2% or 27,579 students were in Grades 10 through 12. The extremely high attrition rate for French Second Language programs in high school continues to be a major impediment to reaching the goals of Plan 2013.

French teachers fret as students flock to Spanish and Chinese

Tue, July 22, 2008
French losing ground as second language in the Ottawa Sun:

French teachers fret as students flock to Spanish and Chinese


QUEBEC — The head of the International Federation of Teachers of French says the language is losing its appeal as a second-language.

Canadian Anglophones and Allophones Less and Less Fluent in French

In the Globe and Mail, December 4, 2007:

The bilingualism rate is another indicator of the tenuous French connection.

Outside Quebec, only 5.6 per cent of allophones in 2006 reported knowing both official languages. While there was a slight increase – 7.4 per cent from 7.1 per cent – in the number of anglophones outside Quebec who said they could carry on a conversation in both official languages, the number dropped for a key demographic: young Canadians.

Because most anglophones learn French at school, the peak bilingualism rate for Canadians outside Quebec occurs in the 15-19 age range. That rate has slipped over the past decade, to 13 per cent in 2006 from 16.3 per cent in 1996.

The ability of young anglophones to maintain their knowledge of French as a second language appears to decline with time. In 2001, 14.7 per cent of anglophones aged 15 to 19 were bilingual. Five years later, only 12.2 per cent of that same cohort reported being bilingual.
(...)
for every new immigrant whose mother tongue is French, there are 10 whose mother tongue is English, and that the vast majority of newcomers adopt English upon arrival in Canada.

Cut federal funds for French, statistician urges

December 07, 2007, Kate Jaimet:

For the past decade, statistician Charles Castonguay has been predicting the demise of francophone communities outside Quebec.

Now, with census data showing a continuing slide in native French-speakers outside Quebec, he says it's time to cut off federal government life-support to the shrinking francophone outposts.

"It 's money down the drain," said Mr. Castonguay, an adjunct professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of Ottawa. "Not in Ottawa, not in [eastern] Ontario or New Brunswick, but outside of those areas, the strength of English is just overwhelming."

But the head of the organization that represents minority francophones says the government should increase its commitment, putting billions of dollars into bolstering French outside of Quebec.

"I hope that the census data sends a very clear signal to the government that we have to act, that we have to really have concrete investments, on the ground, if we want to make a difference," said Lise Routhier-Boudreau, president of the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities of Canada.

The 2006 census information released this week by Statistics Canada show that the number of people who speak mainly French at home declined between 2001 and 2006 in all anglophone provinces from Saskatchewan to Newfoundland.

In Newfoundland, the number of French speakers plummeted by 27%, followed by 12% in Saskatchewan, 10% in Nova Scotia, and smaller declines in Ontario, New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Manitoba.

Even in Alberta, where the number of French speakers grew, that increase of 3.3% did not keep pace with the province's overall 11% population growth between 2001 and 2006.

Similarly, the number of people who registered French as their mother tongue sank by 13% in Newfoundland, 10% in Saskatchewan, and also declined in P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Manitoba. Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia posted modest gains in the number of native francophones, but none kept pace with the overall population increase in those provinces.

In Newfoundland, there were only 25 babies up to the age of four whose mother tongue was registered as French on the 2006 census.

"There are places where it's almost catastrophic," Ms. Routhier-Boudreau said.

The statistics also show that, as they reach adulthood, francophones in all provinces outside of Quebec continue to switch over to living their lives mainly in English.

Looking at the critical age group between 20 and 34 -- when people typically get married and establish families -- there are 158,350 francophones outside of Quebec. But only 63% of them use French as their main language at home.

People who said they used both English and French, or French and another language at home, are not included in this figure.

The assimilation picture is rosiest for francophones in New Brunswick, where 92% of francophones aged 20-34 continue to speak French at home.

Things are bleakest in Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, where more than half of native francophones aged 20-34 no longer speak French as their main home language.