Hello, everyone. Thank you for inviting me.
I am a professor emeritus in the economics department at the University of Ottawa.
I will present the findings of some of my past research that relates to the committee's concerns. The research looked at the economics of the labour market and included the links between language and immigration on the one hand, and salaries and financial status on the other. The research looked at Canada as a whole, at Quebec, and at the other provinces to some extent, including Ontario and New Brunswick. The data was drawn from various Canadian census records. I used the econometric methods that economists use to analyze the effects of certain variables on other variables.
Here is an overview of what I learned from that research.
In Quebec, the income levels and financial status of francophones have improved relative to anglophones since the 1970s.
I also did research on Ontario and made some interesting findings. Francophones in Ontario have very good incomes relative to anglophones. That is not the problem. The problem in Ontario is the reduction in the demographic weight of francophones as a result of assimilation and immigration, which is very high. As to the language spoken at home, francophones account for just 2% of Ontario's population.
The situation in New Brunswick is also interesting. In the past, francophones had lower incomes than anglophones, but they have caught up quite a bit in recent decades. The proportion of francophones in New Brunswick has dropped a bit, but it is steady. On the whole, francophone communities in New Brunswick are holding quite strong.
In Ontario, the problem is with the numbers, but francophones do quite well financially.
I also conducted a few studies on immigration and its impacts on the official languages. My recent research focused primarily on Quebec, and Montreal in particular, to determine what percentage of immigrants integrate into the francophone or anglophone community in terms of the language used at home and at work.
On the whole, my research showed that immigrants use English more than French at home and at work as compared to non-immigrants. Immigration therefore increases the prevalence of English and decreases that of French. That is the case not only in Quebec, but in the other provinces as well.
Up until about 2016, however, new immigrant cohorts in Quebec tended to use French more and more, so the impact on the prevalence of French was minimal. Unfortunately for the French language, the 2021 census showed a reversal of the trend, with recent immigrants using English much more than French, contributing to the decline of French.
My research showed that immigrants' country of origin was a determining factor in the language community they choose. Given the global prevalence of English, immigrants are likely to choose English if they have no prior ties to French. So the immigrants' country of origin plays a decisive role in the language they choose.
Other studies also looked at the effect of language of work on income, for both francophones and anglophones in Quebec and for immigrants. The results were a bit disappointing for French, as the research showed that a francophone could earn more by working in English, while an anglophone, even a bilingual one, did not earn more by working in French. The best outcome was for those who worked about 75% of the time in English and 25% of the time in French, as they earned more than those who worked in English or French only. So English is a necessity and French is just an asset. That is one conclusion.
I also conducted research on immigrants in Quebec and the results were the same: immigrants could earn more by working in English.
In conclusion, since English is the dominant language globally and immigration is the main source of population growth, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain linguistic balance in Canada.
Thank you.