Official Languages Committee on April 10th, 2008

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

This is where people are trying to scare us. I'm not targeting anyone, but they tell us that this is terrible. We must do everything to protect French, but at the same time, we don't take into account—

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

We have to conclude on this, Mr. Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

—people like me, who precisely consider themselves francophones.

I will wrap up quickly. Old stock francophones, born here, leave the island. Others, like me, arrive there very young, learn French, but that doesn't compensate for the francophones who leave, because I'm not considered a francophone. There's a bit of a distortion in this debate. Do you understand?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

I could answer very quickly.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Perhaps French is not doing as badly as they say. I don't know. I want to find out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Please be brief.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Let me answer you very quickly. As I mentioned earlier, it's quite clear that if we simply place emphasis on mother tongue, there is of course a reduction. That's normal since there is a high rise in non-francophone and non-anglophone immigration. However, in Montreal, if you examine the use of French at work, you then have a completely different picture because you're talking about a situation of language in the public sphere, which as I said is governed by different mechanisms. Over 270,000 francophones in the suburbs come to the Island of Montreal to work every morning. That changes the picture of the situation on the Island of Montreal. It's very different from Montreal at night. It's also very different if you take into account only the language spoken at home or the mother tongue.

I agree that there is a significant difference between language characteristics and language behaviour.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez and thank you to our witness.

We will now go on to the Bloc Québécois.

Mr. Nadeau, you have something to add?

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

It's too bad that Denis Coderre has left because I would have referred him to two works from the Fédération des communautés francophone et acadienne, therefore from the francophone minority. In the first instance, it's a series of documents entitled The Heirs of Lord Durham. Even in 1971, statistics gave us an idea of what the current situation would be. The same organization published another study entitled Pour ne plus être... sans pays. Before throwing barbs around like he did earlier, Denis could have taken into account the context. I think that Denis should avoid being in denial if you'll pardon the pun. The reality is what it is.

Incidentally, this whole debate on definitions is very interesting. These facts are an essential component of the studies, of the data collection. There are very important human factors here that are tangible and even emotional. This does indeed affect us; it's our identity. With the risk of repeating myself, I'd like to get back to what's demonstrated at the bottom of table 3, namely that the tangent that's been observed is extremely unfavourable for Canada's image when it comes to respecting the French fact. I don't have to draw you a picture for you to understand. Faced with that reality, solutions must be found.

Having said that, in the framework of the study on the vitality of official languages communities, I wondered at what point assimilation happened. For example, in a couple, it's possible that French could be the mother tongue and the language spoken by both people, but it's also possible that one of the two partners does not speak French — and one can suppose that that person speaks English since that's generally the case — and that the other is francophone.

At a certain age, we maintain our language because we have reference points and so on. However, the question arises when our first child reaches school age. Then we have to decide if we register our son or daughter in an immersion program, in French school or in English school. One can talk about a school in another language, according to the language the partner speaks. If there's no French school, that's too bad. It's unfortunate that this situation continues to exist today, in 2008. Parents should not have to cover the entire Canadian territory to enrol their children in a French school.

Based on studies or other knowledge, I'd like to know whether you could tell me at what point in this dynamic between parents and children assimilation comes into play and causes the loss of the first language, either by both parents or one of them.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Thank you. In the survey of the vitality of official languages communities, we observed that outside Quebec, 88% of parents whose mother tongue was French chose to send their children to French schools. We noted that in cases where one of the parents' mother tongue was French the other parent's was English, that proportion dropped to 34%. We're talking here about exogamous couples. It's often been said that the phenomenon of exogamy was the trigger that meant that French stopped being transmitted to the children and that English became dominant.

So in the course of this survey, we asked people at what age they'd started to use most often in the home a language other than their mother tongue, and we discovered that 75% of people who live with an anglophone partner today had started using English most often in their daily lives even before they met their partner. In almost 50% of cases, it was before age 15. That shows that when anglicization takes place during youth, among friends, networks and so forth, this eventually influences the choice of partner. The environment in which one lives is also a factor, of course.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Corbeil.

We will now move to the government side.

Mr. Michael Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was looking at your slides and statistics, and one of the areas you don't really address is the issue around the number of bilingual Canadians, those who can speak both official languages.

Can you tell us, broadly speaking, what the present statistics are on the number of bilingual Canadians and whether those numbers have been increasing, decreasing, or static over the last 30 to 35 years?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Thank you for your question.

We've observed that the increase in the proportion of people who report themselves as being bilingual has increased, at least up until 2001. As for anglophones in Quebec, I mentioned the proportion of those who report being able to speak two languages went from 66% in 2001 to 69% in 2006. I mentioned that the proportion of anglophones in Quebec who report being bilingual has been on the rise at least since 1971, and the increase is significant and important.

Outside Quebec it's fairly stable, although I'm talking about anglophones or non-francophones, or those who don't have French as their mother tongue. The proportion of those who report being bilingual went from 7.1% in 2001 to 7.4% in 2006. It's fairly stable at around 7% for anglophones in general and around 5% for those who don't have French or English as their mother tongue.

The problem is that we're not able to explain what happened to francophones. We've observed a decrease in the proportion of francophones reporting themselves as being bilingual, a slight decrease during the last five years.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Is that a slight decrease in the rest of Canada?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Throughout Canada, and even francophones in Quebec. There is a slight decrease. The only explanation we have is that an e-mail circulated one month prior to the census that urged or asked francophones not to report themselves as bilingual because they were afraid they would not receive services in their language. Obviously we had a lot of publicity and media interviews to counteract and to give appropriate information to say that was inaccurate. We suspect it might have had some influence.

The fact that francophones in general reported being less bilingual during the last five years influenced the global rate of bilingualism. In 2001 it was 17.7% and in 2006 it's 17.4%. This decrease is mainly due to francophones reporting themselves as being less bilingual.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

The statistics you stated of 66% in 2001 and 69% in 2006 refer to all people living in Quebec or just anglophones living in Quebec?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

As I've said, there is an increase in the level of bilingualism for non-francophones in general. It means not only those who have English as a mother tongue but also those who have another language, a third language, or allophones. It's an increase in the proportion of bilingualism for non-francophones.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

In Quebec.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

In Quebec.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

That sums up the three rounds. At this moment Mr. Gravel has shown an interest in asking a last question.

Monsieur Petit.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

It's not a question, it's a request.

Mr. Chairman, the witness referred to an email that had been sent one month before the census, according to which francophones outside Quebec were to say they weren't bilingual in order to maintain services. Could we see that email? This is an extremely important item. It's almost propaganda and I'd like to see what we're talking about. It's part of our witness's testimony. Could you ask him to table it so that I can read it, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

You're referring to an email that was...

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

It's an email that the witness mentioned.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

All right.

Mr. Corbeil.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

There is no problem, however the email is full of spelling mistakes. That said, the document released by Statistics Canada on the 4^thof last December contains a box that refers to this email — without actually including it — and this could have had an influence. Obviously we cannot be sure that the email was at issue but apparently it could have had an influence. This email travelled throughout Canada and even in Europe. I have a copy of it.