Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to speak about schooling in Quebec.
This is something I enjoy doing, after having spent some years researching the history of the Protestant school system and producing a book called, A Meeting of the People: School Boards and Protestant Communities in Quebec, 1801 -1998, if you'd like further information.
As you can tell by the word “Protestant”, this research did not cover all of what is now considered English education in Quebec and does include French Protestant education. Nevertheless, for the past quarter century or more, Protestant school boards in many regions of Quebec functioned as English boards, running an English system.
As you know, the English-speaking people of Quebec, or people who identify at some level with the English language, have been an extremely diverse group in ethnic, religious, and even linguistic terms. Nowhere has this diversity been so marked as in the domain of education. Since the Quiet Revolution, this group has more or less come to accept itself as a linguistic minority, and the creation of English school boards in 1998 was the logical, but problematic, culmination of this process.
Why was this problematic? I say so because it seems that the anglophone population in Quebec has never really had a clear sense of what it wants out of its English school system. In my experience, when anglophones are asked what it is they want their schools to do, they say, teach our kids French. When they think a little harder, most will acknowledge that they want a degree of English and a degree of French. In essence, they want their children to be bilingual: at home in Quebec and at home in North America. For them, the English school system in Quebec is a guarantee of this bilingualism.
The problem is that this English school system is in decline, and there is no way to stop the decline other than to have another baby boom. As you know, the law in Quebec prevents newcomers from outside Canada, regardless of their familiarity with the English language, from sending their children to Quebec's English school system. Now given how sensitive the issue is, most anglophones in Quebec are unwilling to challenge Bill 101, recognizing its role in protecting the French language. Yet as school populations decline, even as there are students ready and willing to enroll, and as schools continue to close down, frustration rises.
Given the current situation, it is only a matter of time before Quebec's English school system declines to the point of being unworkable. As the tax revenue shrinks, the cost of operating a system over huge territories spirals, as schools cannot be maintained, and books and other materials disappear.
What can the federal government do to alleviate this situation? Here are some suggestions.
Number one, continue to develop and publicize federal programs that schools may take advantage of, for example, Industry Canada's SchoolNet, or any program aimed at enabling schools to acquire up-to-date computers, and especially technical instruction. A great many English schools in Quebec have very limited funds for such vital tools and expertise.
Any help securing textbooks or translations of textbooks—the lack of which often deprives children in English schools of popular textbooks—through subsidies to publishers or existing literacy organizations would be most useful, as would the removal of the GST on the sale of books.
Number two, develop programs to assist in the repair and maintenance of schools, possibly through the medium of community organizations that often undertake such tasks as volunteers.
Number three, provide funds for community or parents' groups to hire extracurricular instructors, for both remedial and enriched instruction. A number of home and school associations hire additional specialists as part of a parent-sponsored program. Also, schools offering core English programs tend to attract children with special learning difficulties and are sorely in need of help.
Number four, support the English community's efforts to clarify eligibility requirements for English education. I am thinking particularly of the need to classify French immersion programs in any part of Canada as education in English. These programs are run by and for English speakers, not by French language schools or school boards, either inside or outside of Quebec. Parents who opt for French immersion do so out of a deep commitment to bilingualism and should not be penalized by having their children's rights restricted in Quebec.
Number five, negotiate a slight broadening of the terms of Bill 101 to include children from English-speaking countries and those with particular learning disabilities as eligible for admission to English schools.
I thank you for your time and look forward to your response.