Official Languages Committee on April 29th, 2010

[Patricia Lamarre]

First, I think what I need to address here is fear for French, fear for the vitality of French and the French fact in Canada,

the French fact; a Francophone society in Quebec.

There are real fears, and they're built on a history. I think we can't undermine those fears. There are things that need to be done in and outside Quebec to keep the French fact alive and well. So if I am pro-multilingualism and I see it as a new phenomenon that has a great deal of human capital value for the future, I do not want to give the message that I don't think French needs to be taken care of.

For French to survive, whether in or outside Quebec, it means schools that are healthy and well. It also means workplaces where people are interested in using French and learning French to be able to use it. I grew up in an English bastion in Quebec City. It was possible to live in Quebec City in the sixties without learning French. That's over. I live on the West Island in Montreal now and I send my kids to a French school.

These are kids that are ayant droit. They have the right. Their parents are choosing to send them to a French school so they can live and work in Quebec. It's the attraction of French that is going to make French a language that's alive and well and that will continue to thrive into the future. So when Mr. Julian asked me what to do with other programs, I would say that school is a big, important place.

The other thing is the workplace, that there be jobs that will keep people interested and attract people to continue to use French as adults. I think we see it happening in la francophonie hors Québec—I don't even like that word—or la francophonie canadienne and the efforts to build workplaces and enterprises where you can live and work in French. Even if your website is in French, English, and Spanish, you've built yourself a place where you can live and work in French.

Those kinds of programs, I think, are what will continue to keep the French fact alive. I would not underestimate the power of the workplace and the economy.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Castonguay?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Your time is up, Mr. Weston. I'm sorry.

You will have to keep your answer for a next question.

Monsieur D'Amours.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank our witnesses for being with us this morning. I must admit that, just from the standpoint of statistics on immigrants' mother tongue, the only possible way of increasing the numbers in that area—it seems to me—is to only consider immigrant couples whose mother tongue is French.

Let us look at the situation around the world. In Belgium, as in many other countries, people do not only speak one language. In many cases, even if the mother tongue is not French, the family still speaks that language 90% of the time. So, if we do not want unilingual Francophone couples to emigrate, possibly from France, in order to start a family in Canada, then the percentages will undoubtedly change in the statistics on mother tongue.

Ms. Lamarre, you are evidence of that. You were able to speak French and live in French even though your parents were not necessarily both unilingual Francophones. If we limit ourselves to that, we will most certainly see a decline for the rest of our lives. I think we have to look a little further than that. We have to look beyond the traditional framework.

I would like to use Ms. Glover as an example. I have three nieces who attend school in Ms. Glover's riding, in Saint Boniface. Their mother tongue may not be designated as French, because they have one Anglophone parent and one Francophone parent. However, they live 75% of their life in French. It seems to me that if my sister had not moved to Saint Boniface, in Winnipeg, there would be four fewer people supporting the vitality of that Francophone community.

If we go no further than the traditional framework and leave it tightly closed, without ever opening it up, even slightly, there is no doubt that we will continue to see a problem in the statistics on mother tongue. We have to broaden our horizons. It is important to realize that immigrants coming to this country, even though they may have learned two, three, four or even five languages elsewhere before coming here and may not have French as their mother tongue, are still Francophones. Perhaps the method used is causing the problem. If we continue to do the same thing, we will continue to see problems and conclude that there is a decline happening across the country.

Ms. Lamarre, I would just like to know whether you think that what I just said may reflect the current reality, or whether you completely disagree with me.

[Patricia Lamarre]

I do not disagree. My own children are a good example. I am the fourth bilingual generation in the family of my father, who was a Quebecker whose parents were from Quebec and Acadia. I am raising my own children to be trilingual. I am married to an immigrant—in actual fact, divorced from an immigrant. My children are raised in English with me, attend a French school and speak Spanish with their father.

I am not the only person to be in that situation. In the 21st century, having skills in a number of languages is advisable.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

That would mean that your children, whose mother tongue is not French, could still be Francophones.

[Patricia Lamarre]

I have a psychologist friend who came over to my house one day. Like many of my Francophone friends, he has trouble imagining that there can be such a creature as a “Franglophone”—in other words, someone who has the sense of belonging to two different systems and having two different identities. He asked my children, who were a little younger, whether they were Francophone or Anglophone, and my little girl answered saying she was a “bilingualphone”.

It's even worse than “franglophone”.

For my children, it just made no sense to take a position one way or the other.

I have been doing ethnographic research with young immigrants in Montreal, who speak different languages. Asking them to put themselves in one linguistic category or another does not make much sense, as far as they are concerned. They speak three or four languages. So, if you ask them what is the most important language in order to live in Quebec, they will tell you it is French. If you ask them what they need to live in Quebec, they will say they need both languages. In fact, Francophones will tell you the same thing: if they want to live in Montreal and have a good job, they need both languages.

I hear French people from France saying that just because they speak French does not mean it is easy to become integrated in Montreal. It is not language that facilitates integration; it is networks, work, and so on. It is what you do every day that helps you to become integrated into a community—not the language you speak.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. D'Amours.

Ms. Guay, please.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am a Quebecker, a Francophone and very proud of my roots. However, that does not prevent me from speaking two other languages.

As I was listening to you, I was thinking to myself that you are all right, in a way, in particular when you describe your feelings. You have plenty of feeling, Ms. Lamarre, when you talk about how you perceive things. And we all do.

In terms of how Anglophones are treated in Quebec, because they are given services, that cannot be reproduced for Francophones in the rest of Canada. I do not see a day when that kind of equality will exist. I think that is where the difference lies. That difference will always be there. We are not going to start building schools. Also, as was pointed out earlier, the federal government is not investing money in Francophones outside Quebec—quite the opposite.

Personally, I have gone right across the country. I have met with Francophones outside Quebec who were having trouble keeping their community centre open—just for the chance to get with each other. We should forget about schools and everything else. I think statistics are important. Feelings are not the only thing that counts. We have to consider the numbers.

[Patricia Lamarre]

With respect to numbers, if you look at the Quebec government's numbers, you will see that there are significant nuances with respect to linguistic behaviour among immigrants, Francophones and Anglophones. Statistically, indicators with supporting numbers show that the linguistic situation is very complex. In that regard, I recommend that you read a recent piece of research by Michel Pagé that was published by the IRPP. It deals with the linguistic integration of immigrants to Quebec. If you use those numbers and “flatten” them, what you get is a binary picture based on a model where there is only room for one language in a society. I wonder about cosmopolitan cities in the 21st century. I think Quebec is part of that globalization. In order to be well positioned on that global market, Montreal must deal with languages.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

But Montreal already does.

[Patricia Lamarre]

Yes, and that cannot be prevented. Market forces are--

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Nor do we want to prevent that—quite the contrary.

[Patricia Lamarre]

I do think, though, that some of the statistics that are forever being cited in the media to alarm people have been “flattened”. I am not afraid to say that. They present an extremely unnuanced picture of reality.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

I would like to hear what Mr. Castonguay has to say in that regard.

[Patricia Lamarre]

You are going directly to the source.

[Prof. Charles Castonguay]

I am not the person who simplifies the double and triple answers equally between the declared languages; Statistics Canada does that. It is the originator of that particular work method, and I adopted it, as do most Canadian researchers, Ms. Lamarre. When you refer to your colleague, Michel Pagé, you should at least state that you worked together with him on the IRPP study, which I am well acquainted with. Having spent five years as a member of the Comité de suivi de la situation linguistique, I am also very familiar with the data collected by the Office québécois de la langue française. I am very much aware of all the statistical and qualitative nuances of that information.

I am simply asking Committee members not to confuse micro-analysis and macro-analysis. I tried to present a simplified, comprehensive vision. Statistics Canada itself simplifies these statistics. When you conduct an ethnographic study based on 12 subjects in French-language school, you are not considering those Francophones who attend English school, as opposed to that one. That is not a comprehensive vision. Do not allow yourself to be distracted by your personal experience. I do not intend to tell you how many languages I speak. That has nothing to do with the overall status of languages in Canadian society. If we consider the main language spoken at home, rather than the mother tongue, the figures show that, over the last five years, the number of Francophones in Canada has increased by 65,000, whereas it was 800,000 on the Anglophone side. In terms of language of work, which I do not discuss in my paper--

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Castonguay.

[Prof. Charles Castonguay]

I have presented all the statistics. I tried to provide an overview of the situation this morning. It is always possible to get lost in the details.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Yes, of course. This is a rather unusual situation, and I would just like to remind everyone of the procedural rules that apply in Committee. As a general rule, the questions are put by Committee members to the witnesses, and you are required to go through me to answer those questions.

While I understand that the witnesses may not agree, I would ask members to make proper use of their time by addressing their questions to the witnesses and receiving answers from them.

On that note, we will move now to Ms. Boucher.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good morning, everyone. This is a very interesting discussion. And, of course, as soon as you talk about immigration and Francophonie, people become very passionate. I am from Quebec, I am also a Quebecker and I am a pure Francophone.

When I arrived here in Ottawa, the only words I know were: yes, no, toaster. I learned to speak English, and I find now that there is a wonderful complicity between the two languages. I have never felt assimilated.

The fact is that our children are a lot more open to the rest of the world than we were. They have many more opportunities to be so, if only because of the Internet and everything else. I have daughters who speak French, English and Spanish. One of them is learning Italian, but that does not mean she is any less Francophone.

I find this debate very interesting. Often we have a certain idea in our mind. I am sorry, Mr. Castonguay, but I have a bit of a problem with the figures and the statistics. I am having trouble making sense of them. What I see on the ground is something different.

I have two questions. We often talk about Francophones, as opposed to Anglophones. I would like to begin with a question for Ms. Lamarre or Mr. Jedwab, if he would like to answer.

The criteria used to determine who is a Francophone or Anglophone immigrant vary, depending on the government. Everyone knows that.

Could you give us an overview of the various criteria that now apply? What impact do they have on the immigrant communities, your analysis and the results of your research? Are they a success in terms of immigration to OLMCs, or official language minority communities?

[Jack Jedwab]

First of all, these questions warrant far more detailed and lengthy answers. It is not easy to simplify things. Even what Mr. Castonguay raises is part of a larger debate, and it is very difficult to condense that into a short analysis. All of that to say that the context in which we are appearing as guests today does not necessarily allow us to really go into detail, in the absence of an in-depth debate on these issues.

Like Mr. Castonguay and Ms. Lamarre, I can summarize the different categories. Citizenship and Immigration Canada's website basically deals with two categories. There is the language spoken on arrival—French, English, English and French, or neither English and French. And there are the figures provided each year by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

That is not what Statistics Canada offers. It offers a different approach. First of all, it reassesses the situation every five years. There is a category for mother tongue, which is the language first learned and that you continue to understand. There is the language most often spoken at home. In 2001, there were different categories for the language most often spoken at home, which was a little confusing. There was also the language spoken regularly. So, there were three or four different categories for the language spoken at home. There is also knowledge of the official languages: do you know one or the other official language. There, again, there are several categories. There is the language spoken at work, the language most often spoken in a workplace. There are different categories, so it is easy to get lost in that data set.

Very often, the choice to emphasize one indicator or another will have an impact on how you see the status of French or other languages in a given context.

In Montreal, the status of the French language is very often measured in relation to its status on the island of Montreal. And one may wonder: why the island of Montreal? Why select that geographic area, rather than the Montreal metropolitan region? That is another question. Why not include Longueuil with the island of Montreal, and remove Dollard-des-Ormeaux? Why is it more appropriate to include Dollard-des-Ormeaux in an urban centre, as regards the status of a specific language? There are a lot of factors. And I do not think we can really reach any solid conclusions in a discussion that is limited to quick questions and answers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much. We are already coming--

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Excuse me, but I would just like--

[Jack Jedwab]

I understand why you say you are having trouble making sense of the numbers. A lot of people find them confusing.