Official Languages Committee on May 6th, 2024

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

In that case, I'll ask Ms. Chouinard if she has anything to add.

[Stéphanie Chouinard]

I can quickly finish answering Mr. Beaulieu's question about Laurentian University and the idea of “by and for” francophones.

The university doesn't necessarily meet the definition of “by and for” francophones, but that's the kind of question that will have to be considered when establishing the indicators to measure whether an institution is a strong performer or not.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you.

You'll have to forgive us, Mr. Zundel and Ms. Chouinard, but life on Parliament Hill means that voting takes precedence over everything else, even committee meetings. Motions can be put forward in accordance with the rules, as is the case today.

I believe you are the last witnesses we've invited to appear for the purposes of this study, apart from the government officials. Since we didn't have time for a second round, I encourage you to contact the clerk in writing with any additional information you'd like to share. Drawing on your input will be an integral part of drafting our report.

Thank you very much, and again, my apologies for the inconvenience.

We'll suspend so that members can go and vote. When we get back, we will be meeting with our panel for the second hour.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

We will now resume the meeting.

This portion of the meeting has been cut short because of voting in the House. I'd like to welcome the witnesses and apologize for the delay. That is life on Parliament Hill. Joining us now are Frédéric Lacroix, independent researcher, and Nicolas Bourdon, representative of the Regroupement pour le cégep français.

I'll start with a few rules. I will ask all participants, whether you are in the room or on the video conference, not to turn on your microphone until I have recognized you by name. Doing so will create feedback, which could cause injury to the interpreters. I am therefore asking each and every one of you to wait until I recognize you by name before speaking.

Mr. Lacroix and Mr. Bourdon, you will each have up to five minutes for your opening remarks. Every political party will then have an opportunity to ask you questions. Please note that I will be very strict on speaking time—not to be mean, mind you. I just want to make sure that everyone has ample opportunity to ask questions.

We'll start with you, Mr. Lacroix. You have a maximum of five minutes.

[Frédéric Lacroix, Independent Researcher, As an Individual]

Good afternoon.

I sent you my PowerPoint presentation, but I was told that I couldn't share it with you, unfortunately. I hope you'll still be able to follow along.

My name is Frédéric Lacroix, and I wrote a book about the failure of Bill 101. It's called Pourquoi la loi 101 est un échec. One of the things I examine in the book is the federal government's overfunding of English-language universities in Quebec, which I believe is a direct cause of the decline of French in Quebec.

As I see it, the decline of French in Quebec is now indisputable. Statistics Canada figures show that the population of people who speak predominantly French at home has declined by 3.9% since 1991, whereas we've seen the opposite trend for English. After being in decline for decades, English is on the rise in Quebec, with the number of people who speak predominantly English at home increasing by 0.5% since 2001. The same trend applies to the use of English in the workplace. In Quebec, English is on the rise and French is on the decline, and that is true for all the language indicators.

A number of factors are contributing to the decline of French. In my view, the overfunding of Quebec's English-language university system is one of them, and it's driving francophones and allophones to pursue their studies in English. As a result of pursuing their post-secondary education in English, these individuals are becoming anglicized, which is deeply impacting their language of work and cultural sphere, and causing French to decline. This is one, but not the only, cause of the decline of French.

In my book, I examine the concept of institutional completeness, developed by sociologist Raymond Breton in 1964. He posits that having institutions such as universities is a factor that contributes to the development of a minority community. Francophones are a minority in Canada, including in Quebec. As a concept, institutional completeness has stood up in Canadian courts, and Ms. Chouinard probably talked about that.

Statistics Canada has shown that, when English is the language of instruction at universities in Quebec, it has a very clear impact on the prevalence of English as the language of work. Accordingly, an allophone is 6.6 times more likely to work in English. In 2023, the Office québécois de la langue française conducted research proving that doing university studies in English significantly increases the use of English as the language of work.

Using data compiled by Statistics Canada, I studied the funding of universities in Quebec. The agency collects data on the revenues and expenses of every university in Canada, broken down by province and source. With that information, it's possible to calculate the share of federal funding each university gets. I focused on the data for 2000, 2010, 2014 and 2017, and found that the proportion of federal funding received by Quebec's English universities—so McGill, Concordia and Bishop's—varied between 34.6% and 38.4% over that 17‑year period.

Federal funding accounted for approximately 65% of French universities' funding but dropped to 61.6% in 2017. Keep in mind that francophones make up roughly 80% of Quebec's population and thus receive significantly less in federal funding than their demographic weight, whereas anglophones receive about four times their demographic weight.

When we consider this through the lens of institutional completeness, we see that anglophones benefit from institutional overfunding. In other words, the proportion that goes to English institutions significantly outweighs the size of the English-speaking community. As a result, the anglophone system is able to create spots for students and enjoys more prestige, which drives enrolment. In 2019, Quebec's English universities accounted for 25.9% of university enrolment, three times the demographic weight of the anglophone community. More than one in four university students in Quebec is enrolled in an English-language program, despite the fact that the anglophone community basically amounts to just 10% of the population. The federal government's overfunding of English-language institutions is a factor that directly contributes to anglicization and the decline of French in Quebec.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Lacroix. You're at four minutes and 40 seconds, right within your time.

We will now hear from Mr. Bourdon for five minutes.

[Nicolas Bourdon, Cegep professor, Regroupement pour le cégep français]

Good afternoon.

My name is Nicolas Bourdon, and I teach CEGEP students at Collège de Bois‑de‑Boulogne. I hope I do as good a job of sticking to my allotted time as Mr. Lacroix did.

As Mr. Lacroix and others have pointed out, French is fragile, not just in the rest of Canada, but also in Quebec. We are seeing that in CEGEPs as well. As CEGEP teachers, we found the situation very worrisome and joined forces. We came up with five devastating findings, prompting us to push for Bill 101 to be enforced in CEGEPs. The five findings appear in my PowerPoint presentation, which the clerk should have shared with you.

The first finding is that the amount of funding received by the English CEGEP system is not proportional to the anglophone community's demographic weight. English speakers make up about 8% of Quebec's population, but English CEGEPs account for 17.5% of CEGEP enrolment, just over double the size of the English population. This, too, is an example of institutional overfunding, but at the college level.

The second finding is that English CEGEPs are now attended primarily by non-English-speaking students, in other words, francophones and allophones. Those institutions were established mainly for the English-speaking community, which is entirely appropriate and fine by me. However, francophones and allophones now make up two thirds of enrolment at English CEGEPs.

The third finding is that unhealthy competition exists between English and French CEGEPs. English CEGEPs have the advantage, and as a result of this competition, we as teachers are seeing francophone CEGEPs become anglicized. In order to compete with English CEGEPs, French CEGEPs have had to develop English-language programming and bilingual college diplomas. Our group wanted to send the message that it was time to put a stop to that, because French CEGEPs, themselves, were becoming anglicized.

The fourth finding is that English CEGEPs have become colleges for the elite, chosen by students with the highest R scores. The R score is used to rank a student's academic performance in relation to their overall average. English CEGEPs attract the top students. Here is a glaring example. Montreal's Dawson College accepts only 30% of its science program applicants and can therefore pick the cream of the crop.

The fifth finding, but not the least, is that the English CEGEP system contributes significantly to the anglicization of Quebec's population overall, especially those on the island of Montreal. As Mr. Lacroix mentioned, when someone attends an English-language university, they take up their career in English. That's also true of English CEGEPs. Research on the subject reveals that students who attend English CEGEPs go on to do their university studies in English and pursue careers in English. That means there is a strong correlation between attending an English-language CEGEP and living your life in English. The reverse is also true: Attending a French-language CEGEP puts you on a much more francophone track. Students who attend French CEGEPs tend to choose French universities and enter the workforce in French.

I hope I didn't go over my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

No, your speech was shorter than Mr. Lacroix's: It lasted four minutes and twelve seconds. That's a good sign. We'll be able to conduct a full round of questions.

I know Mr. Lacroix has appeared before our committee before, but I believe this is the first time for you, Mr. Bourdon. So I'll give you a brief explanation. The first rounds of questions and answers last six minutes for each of the four political parties. Today, we'll start with the Conservatives.

Mr. Généreux, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Lacroix and Mr. Bourdon, thank you for being here today.

It's almost an existential question you're raising today. I've been married for 35 years to an English-speaking woman from Montreal. I exported her from Montreal and imported her to the Lower St. Lawrence, so my children are bilingual, as are my grandchildren, who are less than 10 years old. I'm extremely proud of that. My parents and seven brothers and sisters are all bilingual. We travel all over the world, and our French roots have never been compromised by the fact that we speak English. I want to make sure I convey that clearly.

My assistant, who is here behind me, speaks four languages: French, English, Spanish and Arabic. Today's young people are very open-minded and inclined to learn other languages. Even if French is a very important language in the world, particularly in Africa and Europe, today's technologies encourage young people to have a certain level of general knowledge. They are greatly influenced by social networks, which go beyond the borders of Quebec and Canada.

I say all this because Mr. Lacroix said that francophones are a minority in Quebec.

Did I understand you correctly, Mr. Lacroix?

[Frédéric Lacroix]

Francophones are a minority in Canada. I refute the framework of the Official Languages Act, which postulates that anglophones are a minority. In my opinion, anglophones are not a minority anywhere in Canada. That's what I said. Francophones are a minority everywhere in Canada.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

According to the rather large figures you gave us, French is declining in Quebec. Can we say that this decline is also attributable to the massive influx of immigrants in recent years, particularly in the Montreal region?

I'm from La Pocatière, in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, where we'd love to see our population grow, not decline as is currently the case. In fact, we're losing ridings, which my colleague Mr. Beaulieu is delighted about. We'll be adding a new riding north of Montreal and removing one in Bas-Saint-Laurent, to correct inequalities in representation.

Inevitably, the fact that immigrants aren't coming to our regions has consequences. We'd probably have an easier time francizing them in our regional CEGEPs, which I know well, because they're not very anglicized, unlike Montreal's CEGEPs, which Mr. Bourdon talked a lot about. Sherbrooke's may be a little anglicized, but the ones in the Lower St. Lawrence and northern Quebec aren't.

I've raised several points, so I'll let you respond.

[Frédéric Lacroix]

I didn't hear a specific question, but what I'm saying is that the English-language institutional set-up in Quebec is leading to a decline in French. For supporters of bilingualism, I'd point out that it leads to a decline in bilingualism, because people end up not speaking French and passing on English as their mother tongue to their children.

It's not a dynamic of openness to the world where you want to speak all sorts of languages and collect them. It's more a dynamic of subtractive bilingualism. The language being subtracted in Montreal is French. The number of indicators pointing in this direction is very large. It's not just happening on the island of Montreal, but throughout the Montreal region.

I believe that the federal government's overfunding of McGill, Concordia and Bishop's universities is contributing to the decline of French in Quebec and the advance of English. That's my argument.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Bourdon, what do you think?

[Nicolas Bourdon]

I would tend to agree with Mr. Lacroix, but I would like to make a clarification on CEGEPs, since you made a comment on the situation.

There's a danger for a language like French when another language, in this case English, is deemed superior and more attractive. This phenomenon is reflected in the behaviour of our CEGEP students, who see English as the language that must be mastered, which poses a problem. Our group went to several CEGEPs and we succeeded, at a union meeting, in getting 41 CEGEPs to vote in favour of applying Bill 101 to CEGEPs, to reverse this problematic phenomenon where English becomes the more attractive language.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

All right.

Quebec has recently made changes with regard to higher education, which amount to a defunding of certain English-language universities. Have these changes reassured you in any way?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

That's an excellent question, Mr. Généreux, but your time is up. You'll have a chance to come back to it.

Mr. Drouin, from the Liberal Party of Canada, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Lacroix and Mr. Bourdon, you've done studies on the effects of English or other languages on international communities, for example in France and Belgium, more specifically in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. You make some pretty extremist points, if I may say so.

For my part, I come from a French-speaking community in Ontario. Have you done any studies on the phenomena observed in other francophone communities in Africa or Europe to back up what you're saying? You can simply answer with yes or no.

[Frédéric Lacroix]

Is the word “extremist” part of parliamentary language? Is it acceptable to—

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Lacroix, if you want to fool around, I have no patience for that.

Have you done any studies on the influence of the francophonie internationally, yes or no?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Wait a moment, Mr. Drouin.

Mr. Beaulieu, do you have a point of order?

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Yes, Mr. Chair. Raising your voice and shouting at a witness is unacceptable. He called him an extremist.

Mr. Drouin, you could be called an extremist. That's not language that contributes to a logical, rational discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Mr. Beaulieu, thank you for your intervention.

Mr. Drouin, let's calm things down a bit. When you said “extremist”, I understood that you were talking about the position and not the person, but you could rephrase those words. I stopped the clock at one minute thirteen seconds, because there was a point of order. I'll let you continue.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm not accusing anyone of having such a position, I'm simply trying to understand reality. I'm president of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie and I have discussions with my colleagues in Africa and France. The problem of anglicization is real in France, even though it's a free and independent country. France faces the same problems as we do. I'm just trying to have an intelligent conversation about protecting the French language.

Do my colleagues really think that the problem of anglicization in Quebec is mainly attributable to McGill University and Dawson College? That's what I'm trying to tackle. Are we going to stick with this notion or tackle the real problem?

[Frédéric Lacroix]

Let me return to the realm of rationality to answer this question.

I took an interest in the Quebec situation. Statistics Canada, probably an extremist organization in your eyes, has proven that bilingual institutions have a very strong impact on the anglicization of francophones and allophones in Quebec. The Office québécois de la langue française has also conducted studies that corroborate this fact. So, all the data converge towards this conclusion.

I'm not aware of any state or province in the world that is in Quebec's situation. You should know that in Flanders, for example, French-language universities were closed in the 1960s, and Flemish universities in Wallonia. In Switzerland, we see the same situation: territorial bilingualism is applied.

So I think Quebec is in an abnormal situation compared to other states on the planet. If you call this position extremist, in fact, you're calling Belgium and Flanders extremist states.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

No. In principle, Mr. Lacroix, I'm telling you that if you think McGill University or Dawson College in Montreal are anglicizing the whole of Quebec because they teach in English, you're completely mistaken, and by a long shot.