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.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
At this time, you don't know whether this same type of goal is being taken into consideration. However, I suppose you think the next action plan should focus on the recruitment of a large percentage of rights-holders.
12:50 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
I'm 100% convinced.
The action plan for official languages was replaced by the roadmap, and I've read all the roadmaps. The roadmaps don't contain goals for anything. They indicate the money that will be spent here and there.
What I found impressive in the Dion plan was the very good demographic analysis conducted. If my memory serves me correctly, at the time, 56% of the children of rights-holders were estimated to be attending the minority language school. Over the next 20 years or so, the goal was to recruit 80% of those rights-holders.
It seems that we lost the scope given to this action plan for official languages in all the other plans that followed.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Also, I believe you mentioned something regarding the current questions in the census. We often say that questions must be added to reflect the other two subsections of section 23 of the charter. However, I believe that even your studies show that the current questions don't provide an accurate picture of the people affected by the first subsection of section 23.
12:50 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
I was referring to the census.
12:50 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
I think the census, as it stands, underestimates the number of multiple responses to questions that exist for the reasons I mentioned. The other two questions provide for multiple responses. The question concerning the mother tongue, which comes immediately afterward, does not provide for multiple responses. The message sent to respondents is that a choice must be made. The instruction then says that the language most often spoken must be indicated. This seems to discourage multiple responses. Also, the Statistics Canada data shows that there are two to three times more multiple responses. Remember that, until 2011, the short questionnaire contained a single question on the mother tongue. In this case, there were more multiple responses than when they're juxtaposed with the other two questions. This seems to be a discouraging factor.
12:50 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
So not only do questions need to be added, but the existing questions need to be changed.
12:50 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
I think the questions can be changed. I know that Statistics Canada will be opposed to this, since the organization can no longer compare the new data with the old data if a question is changed too much. However, there are ways to do this.
Keep in mind that, until 2001, there was only one question on the language spoken at home and it concerned the language spoken most often. There was a great deal of pressure to establish that even if people don't speak French the most often, it doesn't mean they're assimilated. In 2001, Statistics Canada added a new question regarding whether another language was spoken regularly. This helped enumerate about 40% more people who use a language. I think that if we did something similar for the first question, we could keep the question, but change the instruction. It would be the same question, but we could then ask about a second language learned at the same time as the other language and a second language that isn't spoken as often.
I could give other indicators based on the analysis of the census data for children aged four and under. Among exogamous families, there are about 30% more people who use French regularly with children aged four and under than people whose mother tongue is French. Among endogamous families, the number is exactly or almost the same. This indicator shows that respondents are not encouraged to provide information. If children regularly speak French at home and the number is even higher when it comes to knowledge of the language, meaning the ability to hold a conversation in the language, and if the language spoken by children aged four and under is not their mother tongue, then what is it?
There are many issues of this nature.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Thank you, Mr. Landry.
We'll now turn toward New Brunswick with René Arseneault.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Mr. Landry, I'll use a very Acadian expression and say that today we were “greyés”, or “well-equipped”, in terms of witnesses.
12:50 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
My questions concern two topics.
I have only four minutes and the chair is strict about time limits.
I have one burning question and it relates to Mr. Choquette's questions. Do you know what question or questions should be included in the 2021 census form?
12:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
I agree with Jean-Pierre Corbeil regarding the complexity of a census. However, I don't think we need the 10 questions from the post-census survey.
12:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
I think we can ask synthesis questions. I've started giving it some thought, and I think we can find the essential information using very few questions.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Given your knowledge and experience and your discussions with colleagues who also participated in this survey, could you send us proposals for questions that should be included in the census?
12:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
In my presentation, I forgot to say that I'm working with other people on preparing two briefs, which will provide examples of questions. The briefs will be submitted to your committee by February 21.
12:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
The report isn't completely finished.
12:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
You'll receive it. The briefs are quite long and they contain examples of questions. We certainly don't want to prepare the questions in the place of Statistics Canada.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
I prefer to be proactive.
I wonder whether the question should begin with “When selecting the language of instruction”, instead of looking for signs that this is enough and this justifies the number. The question could also be “Would you prefer to send your child to a French school or English school?” If the parents answer yes to this question, they would be asked whether they meet the three criteria. It's really two questions.
12:55 p.m.
Professor Emeritus and Associate Fellow, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, As an Individual
Like Mr. Corbeil, I have a great deal of difficulty contemplating this, but for different reasons. As I said, many rights-holders are very misinformed about the impact of attending a French-language school. In one province, up to 64% of parents believed that, if their children attended secondary school in French, they would lose their knowledge of English and they would not be able to attend university. This is false, but it's what parents believe.
If you ask parents whether they want their children to attend a francophone school, they may say they would rather their children attend an anglophone school to make sure they can study at university in English. All sorts of false beliefs can be propagated in matters of interest.
