First of all, I want to extend my sincere thanks for your invitation to appear. This is the first time I have appeared before a committee. I must apologize; I did not realize I was expected to make opening comments. I thought it was a round table, where people would be asking questions and there would be a general discussion. At the same time, I do not think this will be a problem. I can easily use the 10 minutes I have been allocated, as I always have something to say.
I work at the Centre for Ethnic Studies at the Université de Montréal. At the Centre, we focus on immigration and the integration of newcomers to Montreal and Quebec in a number of areas, including the workplace and school. I represent neither the Francophone nor the Anglophone communities. My life experience has taken me all across Canada. I have lived in both Anglophone and Francophone communities. To which group do I belong? Well, the answer to that is not clear. Was I part of a minority or a majority? I was born in Quebec City, of a Francophone father and an Anglophone immigrant mother. I went to French school, but at home, we spoke English. When I was asked, for statistical purposes, what my mother tongue was, I would answer that it was English. If I am asked what language I use in the social or school context, I say that it is French. If I am asked what my language of work is, I say that they are both French and English. If I am asked what language I love most, I say, both. I guess I consider myself to be a “Franglophone”. However, in the statistical data, I do not exist. So, it is on behalf of people in the same situation as myself that I would like to speak to you today. There are many of us. Our language practices on a daily basis are not considered—perhaps because they are too complex for the purposes of statistics, that aim to measure a linguistic reality by placing individuals in groups. When you do that, though, what are you actually doing? You are squeezing out or losing the reality for a great many Canadians, Quebeckers and immigrants.
Today I will be questioning a number of ideas. In my opinion, we are at the end of a period of accommodations between two well-defined linguistic communities. I have sensed that for a good 10 years now—since I began a research program at the University of Montreal. We are at the end of a period during which we arrived at solutions and political accommodations—the 1960s and the 1970s. That approach involves duality, the duality of two communities. Linguistic diversity is separate—it is someone else's reality, that of allophones. Eventually they will become integrated into something which is still perceived as being tightly closed—the Francophone and Anglophone communities.
The fact is, however, that these communities are transforming themselves from within. Let us take the example of the Anglophone community in Quebec. It is very multicultural, very multilingual and very bilingual. The same applies to schools that are located in Anglophone areas of Quebec. There are schools with large numbers of Francophone rights holders and large numbers of bilingual, trilingual or unilingual rights holders who are in French immersion to become bilingual in order to survive, to feel comfortable, be mobile and be able to participate in the life of Quebec.
As regards immigrants to Quebec, we have noted a marked improvement in their proficiency in French. The figures speak for themselves. In terms of the status of the French language, we can look at daily use of the language in the workplace and long-term practices in the home. They show that French is establishing itself. However, it is doing so in a context where there are other languages, including an interest in English on the part of both Francophones and immigrants. Therefore, the context is one of duality.
I lived outside Quebec for 10 years, in the Acadian community in Nova Scotia.
I witnessed the emergence of French-language school boards in British Columbia. We are not serving Francophones outside Quebec who use only that language; we are serving Francophones who want to maintain their French and their Francophone identity, while at the same time using English, and possibly other languages. We see small French-language schools in British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta taking in immigrants who are welcome there, because they help to maintain what is in place. Those small schools need a clientele. Communities outside Quebec are very happy to welcome immigrants, but what does that require them to do? It requires a redefinition of Canadian Francophonie, Quebec Francophonie and what it is to be a Francophone.
Are we going to say that a Francophone is someone who identifies very closely with the language, or will we say that a Francophone is someone who is proficient in French? In order to define this kind of social reality, which evolves quickly… We all know that the 20th century was a period of rapid transformation; in the 21st century, that transformation is occurring even more rapidly. Canada developed the concepts of linguistic duality and multiculturalism in the 1960s and 1970s. There is a need to reflect on and clarify what we are now and where we are going in the future. That means we need to change our indicators. Here I am talking to the language experts. They measured one reality in the 1960s and 1970s, based on a model of linguistic assimilation. They looked at the language spoken at home.
And yet, if we engage more with the people who speak different languages at home and ask them, not what the dominant language is at home, but rather, what languages are spoken in the home, we discover a completely different reality. There are people who speak several languages at home and want to preserve those languages, because they see those language skills as resources that are beneficial for their children's future.
Now it is up to us, in government, to see those resources and those skills as future assets that will take us a long way. We have to stop thinking in terms of language dominance. We need indicators—data and census analysis—that are more sophisticated and nuanced. We also need to consider ethnography. There are good ethnographers here in Canada. If you want to learn more about the educational realities of small French-language schools outside Quebec, talk to ethnographers. There are some. They are here in Ottawa, this week, for a symposium which is being held at the University of Ottawa. You can hear what they have to say this afternoon.
What you need is a study that captures the complexity of identity-related connections to language and of language and identity-related practices. Thank you.