Evidence of meeting #20 for Official Languages in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was english.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
I'll check with the clerk to make sure that the notices for these motions were filed.
Bloc
Bloc
Mario Beaulieu Bloc La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
Okay.
That the clerk inform each witness who is to appear before the Committee that the House Administration support team must conduct technical tests to check the connectivity and the equipment used to ensure the best possible sound quality; and that the Chair advises the Committee, at the start of each meeting, of any witness who did not perform the required technical tests.
Liberal
Bloc
Mario Beaulieu Bloc La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
Yes, if everyone is in agreement. Otherwise, I wouldn't want to steal any time from the guests.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Okay. I'm going to go with the hands that have been raised.
We'll begin with Ms. Lalonde.
Liberal
Marie-France Lalonde Liberal Orléans, ON
I'd like to thank my colleague for introducing this motion. However, I believe we have witnesses to hear and I wouldn't be very happy about making them wait.
We recognize the importance of your motion, Mr. Beaulieu.
Bloc
Mario Beaulieu Bloc La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC
Okay. I agree with you on that score, Ms. Lalonde.
I'll try to have the motions adopted later or at the end of the meeting.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Okay. Thank you.
We're now going to suspend the meeting for a few seconds so that we can run a few tests and welcome our witnesses.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
I now call the meeting back to order.
The committee is meeting today to discuss its study entitled "Government Measures to Protect and Promote French in Quebec and in Canada".
I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses.
Before speaking, wait until I mention your name. When you are ready to speak, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic.
I will remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.
The interpretation services available for this meeting are approximately the same as those provided during regular committee meetings. At the bottom of your screen, you can choose either Floor, English or French.
Please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.
I would now like to warmly welcome our witnesses this evening.
You will each have seven and a half minutes to give your statement. I will advise you when you have a minute left, and the red card will indicate that your time is up. The committee members are well aware of this procedure.
This evening we have, as individuals, Mr. Charles Castonguay, retired professor, and Mr. Patrick Sabourin, doctor in demography.
I will give the floor first to Mr. Castonguay for seven and a half minutes.
Mr. Castonguay, you have the floor.
Prof. Charles Castonguay Retired Professor, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Our language policies are failing to preserve both Canada's English-French linguistic duality and the French character of Quebec itself. My conclusion is based on close to a half-century of census data.
First, I'll say a word on why our language policies are failing us. The more a minority language group is concentrated within a given territory, the better it resists assimilation to the majority language. A language policy aimed at preserving the French-speaking component of Canada's population should therefore have aimed first and foremost at maintaining and promoting the French character of the province of Quebec.
Canada's Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism rejected such an approach. It opted instead for individual freedom of choice between two official languages and for the free circulation of individuals from coast to coast, unhindered by any linguistic measures that might possibly restrict such mobility. This kind of linguistic free trade principle has guided Canada's language policy ever since.
It is a striking fact that at the same time, Quebec's Gendron commission was grappling with how to ensure the free circulation of unilingual French-speaking Quebeckers within Quebec, which was gravely impeded by the domination of English in Montreal's work world. Quebec, therefore, opted for a policy with French as sole official language and with a Charter of the French Language geared to make French the default language of public communication between all Quebeckers, including at work.
Conflict was inevitable between Canada's free trade “official language of your choice” policy and Quebec's protectionist “one official and common language” approach. The outcome was equally inevitable. The courts have left precious little of Quebec's charter intact. This has had dire consequences for French in Quebec, and automatically for French in Canada as a whole.
Now I will turn to some statistics. The French mother-tongue component of Canada's population plummeted from 29% in 1951 to 21%, according to the last census, that of 2016. Since Canada's Official Languages Act, the percentage of Canadians speaking French as their main home language has declined just as rapidly. In contrast, Canada's English-speaking component has just about held its own.
The crushingly superior power of assimilation of English is the principal explanation for this. The assimilation of Canada's French mother-tongue population to English as their main home language increased steadily from less than 300,000 in 1971 to over 400,000 in 2016. At the same time, the assimilation of non-official mother-tongue Canadians to English rose from 1.2 million in 1971 to 2.7 million at the last census, whereas their assimilation to French has reached a mere quarter million, a large number of whom derive from Quebec's selection of immigrants who had adopted French as their main home language abroad before coming to Quebec.
On the whole, the overall gain that English draws from assimilation of all kinds in Canada increased from less than 1.5 million persons in 1971 to over three million in 2016. French, by contrast, still remains mired in an overall loss, due to assimilation, in the order of 180,000 at the last census.
At the level of Canada as a whole, therefore, Canada's language policy and Quebec's sorely weakened charter have, taken together, in no way stopped the erosion of Canada's French-speaking component.
Lately, things are not any rosier for French in Quebec. Indeed, between 2001 and 2016, the last 15 years, Quebec's French-speaking majority has plunged at record speed to a record low. In contrast, in Quebec, for the first time in census history, English has roughly maintained its weight in Quebec as a mother tongue, and increased its weight somewhat in terms of the main home language.
The most stunning development is on Montreal Island, where French mother tongue youth have become more bilingual than their English counterparts and are now adopting English as the main home language at the rate of 6%.
As for the rest of Canada, the anglicization rate of the French mother tongue population outside Quebec has steadily increased, from 27% in 1971 to 40% in 2016.
The most eloquent evidence of the failure of Canada's language policy is, however, the anglicization rate of Francophones in Canada's very capital. It has exactly doubled since Canada's initial Official Languages Act, rising from 17% to 34%. It even topped 40% in 2016 among the capital's younger French mother tongue adults, a proven forerunner of greater anglicization yet to come.
It is high time, therefore, to aim Canada's language policy more squarely at preventing further erosion of Canada's fading linguistic duality.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you, Mr. Castonguay, for your testimony.
We will now hear from Mr. Sabourin, doctor in demography.
Mr. Sabourin, you have the floor for seven and a half minutes.
Patrick Sabourin Doctor in Demography, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good evening to everyone. I'd like to thank the committee for having invited me.
I'd like to begin by pointing out that I'm appearing here as an individual, a scientist, a demographer and a citizen who is concerned about the future of the French language.
My comments will address the first part of the study's mandate, which is to paint an objective and detailed picture of the state of French and English in Quebec. I will therefore briefly present the outcome of my research work on the demographic future of the French language in Canada.
However, before beginning, I would like to inform the committee that the correspondence I received calling the witnesses contains some French mistakes and several examples of what Gaston Miron called "traduidu," or "translated from," which is to say sentences that look like French, but that can only be understood properly by reading the English version.
I'm not pointing this out because I'm a language purist. You'll never see me out marching on behalf of proper French or abolishing the Radio Radio group. However, the federal government, owing to its institutional status and its claims with respect to bilingualism, needs to set a proper example, particularly when dealing with the Standing Committee on Official Languages.
A living language is one that looks at reality without any filters that might be imposed by another language. If French is nothing more than a translation language, and if it can only truly remain alive within the federal government, how can the government have the moral authority to defend the cause of the French language across Canada?
As Professor Charles Castonguay has already demonstrated, French is declining in Quebec and Canada, and has been for quite a while.
The decline has been accelerating in Quebec since the early 2000s. In my brief address, I would like to place an emphasis on the causes of this decline and on future prospects.
First of all, when we speak of decline, we're talking about a reduction in the demographic weight of francophones compared to other language groups. As the comparative weight of French diminishes, the less competitive it becomes, demographically speaking, by which I mean that there will be fewer people speaking French, lower demand for services in French, fewer opportunities to work in French, fewer immigrants who have the opportunity or the desire to live alongside francophones, and other similar considerations.
In Canada, the main consideration is the relative weight of French compared to English, because these two languages are in competition with one another. The two languages are official throughout Canada, and the language choice is left up to each individual. This is called the personality principle.
There are other forms of linguistic organization that limit such competition. In Switzerland, for example, the place of residence determines what languages are used. This is called a territoriality principle. Competition between languages is limited to certain zones that are designated bilingual.
Let's move on to the decline of French and the demographic system. Demography, basically, is a rather simple discipline. In order to determine how a population is evolving, we need to know what comes in and what goes out. An inflow might be an immigrant or a birth, and an outflow might be a death or an emigrant, which means someone moving out of their region.
When we speak about a language group in demolinguistics, it can also mean entering or leaving a population by changing the language used. It's a bit like moving, but it means moving from one language to another. We call this language substitution.
To anticipate the future, we must begin by understanding the demographic system that has historically determined the language dynamics in Canada. With only seven minutes, all I can do is give a rough approximation, for which I apologize in advance.
Let's go back a bit.
Early in the 20th century, before the Second World War, the baby boom among francophones was called, rightly or not, “the revenge of the cradle”. This advantage was offset by an exodus of francophones to the United States and by cyclical, and heavily anglophone, European and British immigration, particularly outside Quebec.
The baby boom was followed by a baby bust, meaning that fertility dropped rapidly, and this definitively counterbalanced the francophone birth rate. However, the significant exodus of anglophones from Quebec that began in the 1970s contributed to maintaining the demographic weight of French. This was the period of the referendums, which continued until the mid-1990s.
As of the 1990s, immigration rates began to increase dramatically and have remained among the highest levels in the world, at approximately twice the level for the United States. Immigration is becoming less European and increasingly diversified. During this period, the fertility rate among Canadians and Quebeckers has remained well below the replacement level. Anglophones continued to move, but not to the same extent as during the referendum years. Fewer of them were leaving Quebec. As a consequence, the decline of French has been accelerating, as demonstrated by Mr. Castonguay.
The table has been set for the future. Over the coming decades, there will be a low birth rate and upward pressure on immigration thresholds. In Canada outside Quebec, the linguistic assimilation of francophones will likely continue.
Because the fertility rate for francophones is very close to the rate for anglophones, potential for growth in both groups will basically come from immigration.
To maintain the language balance, French will have to be able to recruit immigrants whose language matches its demographic weight in terms of Canada's official languages, which is approximately 90% in Quebec.
Language substitutions are distributed approximately equally. In Canada outside Quebec, all substitutions are to English, but in Quebec, they are approximately equal.
If this proportion has increased over the past few decades, it's largely due to an increase in francophone immigration. The status and appeal of French in Quebec have made little headway, and language substitutions towards French have been levelling out. The lower appeal of French in Quebec has thus been concealed by two phenomena, the strong propensity of anglophones to leave Quebec, which increased the weight of francophones, and the selection of French-speaking immigrants from abroad, which gave the impression that these immigrants were learning French locally. The impact of both of these phenomena will tend to diminish.
With due regard to all these factors, we can project that French will decline just about everywhere in Canada and Quebec in the short and medium term. There is no point to burying yourself under a mountain of numbers. I'll mention just two important facts derived from my doctoral work. First of all, outside Quebec, French is declining both relatively and absolutely. The demographic weight of francophones will diminish and there will be fewer and fewer francophones. The decline is essentially the outcome of demographic aging and linguistic assimilation.
In Quebec, the decline of French is relative, which is to say that the demographic weight of French is diminishing compared to English. Overall, there is anglicization and linguistic polarization in Canada. Anglicization is occurring because French has lost ground just about everywhere, and polarization because francophones will become increasingly concentrated in Quebec, outside the Montreal census metropolitan area.
It's also important to give consideration to the fact that the changes expected at the federal and provincial levels are hiding local changes that are even more significant. For example, the Montreal suburbs have been mutating for 10 or 15 years now, and this mutation—
Liberal
Soraya Martinez Ferrada Liberal Hochelaga, QC
Pardon me, would it be possible to ask the witness to speak a bit more slowly? It's hard for the interpreters to do their job.
Doctor in Demography, As an Individual
I'm sorry. I'll slow down. I want to get to the end of my remarks.
The changes anticipated at the federal and provincial levels obscure even more significant local changes. Suburban Montreal, for example, has been rapidly changing for the past 10 or 15 years, and that change will continue for the next few decades. We're witnessing a geographic spread of the anglicization phenomenon.
I should point out that the geographic concentration of speakers is a key factor in the survival of linguistic communities. The more geographically concentrated the speakers of a language, the greater their potential linguistic vitality.
When the percentage of francophones in a region falls below a certain threshold, the percentage of those who don't speak French and adopt English as their language of integration rises quickly.
I would like to emphasize one final point. The percentage of bilingual francophones is rising sharply in Quebec, as Mr. Castonguay mentioned. That growth will continue over the next few decades. The long-term consequences of that increase are not yet well understood. That may mean an increase in the consumption of cultural goods in English, a decline in incentives for anglophones to learn French, an increase in the use of English in the public space, a decline in support for linguistic planning measures and so on. This is an issue that we will have to explore.
May I make a final remark, in conclusion, Mr. Chair?
Doctor in Demography, As an Individual
I promise.
In conclusion, given current language planning conditions, French will inevitably decline virtually everywhere in Canada in the coming decades.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you, Mr. Sabourin.
Please send us your notes or a brief. It would be very interesting for the committee to receive them through the clerk. Thank you.
I'd also like to thank you for the comment you made at the outset concerning the correspondence you've received. I take this very seriously and I'll pay special attention to it. We'll contact you if necessary. Rest assured we feel compelled to rectify the situation.
With that, we will now go to the period of questions.
Mr. Godin, you have the floor for five minutes.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Sabourin and Mr. Castonguay, thank you for being with us at this late hour.
I find this interesting and somewhat disappointing. Your testimony is interesting, but your observation on the future of the French language is disappointing.
Here's a question I'm dying to ask. We aren't experts. We haven't conducted exhaustive research on the decline of the French language, particularly in the Montreal region. We're aware of that, and that's why we've taken action. It's why we're conducting this study today.
As a legislator, I'd like to take tangible action to slow the decline and reverse the curve so that French is restored to its rightful place. It must be understood that our ancestors have fought many battles throughout history, as a result of which we are now able to speak French in the Standing Committee on Official Languages of Canada, a country that has two official languages.
My question will be for both of you, Mr. Castonguay and Mr. Sabourin.
If you were given decision-making power in the drafting of the new act tomorrow morning, what would be your five priorities for reversing the curve?