Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee and support staff, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my experience, my observations and, above all, my very great concern about French as a first language and the language of use, what I call “natural French”.
I must admit that I find it very difficult to present the scope of the complex subject of the state of the French language in just five minutes, so I hope you will ask me questions. I also want to say that I'm going to speak to you from the heart and with a lot of emotion. I admit that what I'm about to say won't always be politically correct; it may even be crude at times.
Since 1934, my family has lived on the shores of Georgian Bay, Ontario, in the Lafontaine region. I'm Métis and French Canadian. We have always lived in French, at home and in the community, even though we were surrounded by anglophones. I've always spoken French to my children, even though my marriage is mixed. I'm very fortunate that my wife supports everything I do.
For much of my life, I worked to defend French and my culture in a very minority environment. It's not easy, but I continue to do so with determination.
I was a school board trustee for 21 years, before the French school boards arrived. I was the spokesperson and coordinator during the school crisis in Penetanguishene in 1979, when we had to fight to get our French high school. We finally got it, after multiple protests and litigation. At the same time, I also worked as a community development officer and executive director of the Centre d'activités françaises, our cultural centre, now called La Clé d'la Baie.
Even though French as a second language is rarely used, it seems to be doing quite well. My two biggest concerns are the alarming decline of French as the language of use and the fact that children who already speak French when they arrive at school are disadvantaged by French school boards because they are in a predominantly anglophone context.
I could give you hundreds of examples of how fewer and fewer people have French as their natural language. For example, I used to be able to count 37 houses on my row, or in my “concession”, as we say back home, where French was always spoken at home. There were only one or two where people didn't speak French. Now, 50 years later, it's exactly the opposite: of those 37 houses, there are barely two or three where French is still spoken.
I also see it in my own family, in my community and in the people around me. We've lost our pride in being francophone. People now think that speaking French in public or at home is bad manners. The church told us that we had to be very polite to those who didn't understand French. As a result, if an English-speaking person is 50 feet away from us, we shouldn't offend them. Sometimes, out of habit or laziness, we forget that the English speaker isn't there any more, and we continue to speak in English. French in a minority setting has become a second language, not a natural one. If it hasn't become one yet, it's rapidly becoming one.
Our French school boards, along with the homes, have a major role to play, and they have an important responsibility to preserve French as a first language or language used. However, I think French school boards are too preoccupied with the numbers, that is to say the subsidies. It's much more profitable to have predominantly anglophone students in our French-language schools, rather than predominantly francophone students.
At one time, they were referred to as schoolchildren. Then we got more sophisticated and called them pupils. Today, school boards call them “enrolments”. It doesn't sound very humane; it seems to be more about money.