Evidence of meeting #46 for Official Languages in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was questions.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Thank you very much, Mr. Landry.
That was a bit longer than we expected. We have to end the meeting at 1 p.m. So I will limit the speaking times to four minutes, and we will have four speakers.
We will begin immediately with Mr. Nater and Mr. Généreux, who will share the four minutes.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
John Nater Conservative Perth—Wellington, ON
I'll be very quick. I just have one question.
You talked a little earlier about the role of the state in legitimizing the active offer in either language. I want to get your sense very quickly on the English minority in Quebec, how it is affected by certain language laws and stuff in Quebec, and how the state might play a better role in Quebec, specifically in terms of the English minority.
12:40 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
Our institute published a book on the vitality of the English language in Quebec, and I did the same survey on anglophones in anglophone schools in Quebec that we did in the francophone schools. It's quite revealing. We published a paper recently showing that the sociolinguistic dynamic is exactly the same among anglophones in Quebec as francophones outside Quebec, except that the proportion of their population and so on has an effect on their véhicule engagé and life experiences in the language. The relationships with identity, subjective vitality, and so on are exactly the same.
That said, it's a minority that has an edge because of the strength of the English language not only in Quebec but across the world. Everybody wants to speak English.
I visited my son in Japan who was teaching English to two-year olds.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Landry, your presentation has made me realize that I have a positive exogamous family. My wife is an anglophone. I live in La Pocatière, which is probably in one of Canada's most francophone ridings. My children are bilingual and my grandchildren will be, as well, since we speak English at home. We used to speak English a lot at home. We now do it a bit less. We wanted to make sure that our children would be bilingual, despite the fact that we were living in a very francophone environment. So my conclusion is that I am a positive exogamous person. Is that right?
12:40 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
I did not use the expression “positive exogamous person”. We would have to know what that means.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
In fact, I have a solution. We will ensure that everyone in Canada marries or establishes a relationship with someone who speaks the other official language.
12:40 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
No. That's not at all what I am trying to say. I said that this is a major challenge, since the tendency is to prefer the language of the majority. If emphasis is placed on the minority language, which is somewhat of an exception, bilingualism becomes additive and excellent. Unfortunately, not all exogamous individuals do that. Only 29% of them do it. However, the number is growing, and that goes against all known sociological rules. For instance, educating rights-holders in Canada about the effects of the minority school's bilingualism would be an excellent way to inflate that figure.
Canada would be an example for the rest of the world and would prove that exogamy does not put an end to the transmission of two languages. Someone from Statistics Canada told me that a fair outcome in exogamous situations would be 50% of people choosing French and 50% of them choosing English. What would be fair for the country's human capital would be for 100% of those children to speak both mother tongues. That's very doable. Children can very easily learn two languages at a young age. I have some examples of that, as do you, no doubt.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
I also have some good examples to illustrate that.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Landry, thank you for this very thought-provoking presentation.
You said that the best way to learn French is in a French-language school run by francophones and for francophones.
12:45 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
Yes, and also to learn English well.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
You also said that the 50-50 split—a bilingual education program 50% in French and 50% in English—is probably not a good idea.
12:45 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
I have even shown that through research.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Can you comment on French immersion? Can you comment on that aspect?
12:45 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
Yes.
In my research in the 1990s, I also examined the situation of children in immersion schools. I even studied a group that was in an immersion program in Alberta. They were anglophones in total immersion. They had the equivalent of a French-language school. From kindergarten to grade 12, they were educated 80% of the time in French. To my knowledge, that experiment has not been replicated. The group could not speak French as well as francophones outside Quebec, but it was a program for anglophones.
We must not forget that the minority's school provides education for students with French as a first language with a very solid learning of the second language. Moreover, immersion is a second language program. The Alberta anglophone group, in particular, had an excellent level of bilingualism. Of the groups of children in immersion I have tested, that one had the highest level of bilingualism.
Immersion yields very good results. As Mr. Corbeil mentioned, about 15% of rights-holders enrol their children in immersion programs. We don't know whether that is because French-language schools are inexistent or because francophone parents believe that immersion provides better results than a French-language school. They talked about the 50-50 split and so forth. All that should be analyzed. That said, immersion does not produce the same level of bilingualism as a French-language school. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong. French-language school graduates are the most bilingual people in the country.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
I would like to put another question to you.
Some witnesses and members say that the census question on rights-holders underestimates their numbers in Canada. Do you have any comments on that?
12:45 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
The first question underestimates the number of multiple answers—the fact that people can speak two languages. That's fairly clear.
I don't think I have talked about that in my presentation. I probably skipped it. I have all the statistics on that with me. When Statistics Canada asks for multiple answers, it is talking about Canada in general. The figure is 1.9%, which seems to indicate that the problem is insignificant. Even when the question does not encourage indicating that two languages are spoken, 10.6% of francophones in exogamous situations say that they speak two languages. That number goes up to 19% in British Columbia.
Multiple answers exist, and there would be even more of them if the question encouraged people more to show, for instance, that we are not forced to use the second language equally often as the majority language in order to speak two mother tongues. Socio-linguistically speaking, there is no defence for that.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
I see that you played a role in the 2006 survey. Is that correct?
12:45 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
Yes. I was the chair of the advisory committee.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
According to the witness who appeared before you, it seems the survey results and the normal census results were very similar with regard to rights-holders. Is that correct?
12:45 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
He didn't say so this morning, but I've already heard him refer to about 80%. We must remember what he didn't say, which is that the survey excluded all anglophones and allophones whose first official language wasn't French. This means that all the others who became rights-holders under the other two criteria weren't taken into consideration.
Yes, we did a fairly good job of measuring the other two criteria in the post-census survey for francophones. Given their mother tongue, francophones are often already rights-holders. Therefore, the others aren't found among the francophones. They're found among the anglophones who are francophiles or among those who, through historical assimilation, became anglophones and who rediscovered French through their children. None of this is measured by the post-census survey.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Landry, for being here and for your good explanations, in particular regarding rights-holders and the importance of French education.
I believe that, in the Dion plan era, the goal was to recruit approximately 80% of the children of rights-holders for the schools. I don't remember the exact percentage you mentioned.
12:50 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
The goal set in the action plan was 80%.