Quick, what’s the one trope that Quebec politicians are guaranteed to trot out during any election?
Of course, it’s minority language rights.
As with any election campaign, the debate over whether or not Quebec is French enough appears to be heating up.
It started on Sept. 7 when Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) leader Francois Legault pledged to cut the number of immigrants Quebec accepts by 10,000 and grant a three-year window to those who are accepted to learn French or get out.
New immigrants would have to pass a basic French language test after three years in the province. If they don’t pass, Legault wants to show them the door.
It’s not clear which door Legault is proposing. Would these people be deported from the country or simply to another province?
He wasn’t clear about that. All he said is that those who didn’t pass would be considered to be in the country illegally.
What is clear is that the province doesn’t have the authority to deport people, which seems fitting for a policy that appears to be so poorly thought through.
Legault claimed that more than 50 per cent of immigrants to Quebec don’t know French. He says this forces many of them to leave or face high rates of unemployment.
He is right that those who don’t learn French in this province face a tougher slog when it comes to earning a living. But with the government so deeply involved in the policing of language, is it really necessary to threaten people with expulsion?
Since 94 per cent of Quebecers say they can speak French, it looks like the current incentives to learn are doing a good job.
Regardless, the numbers Legault cited are somewhat misleading.
While it’s true that 58 per cent of new immigrants do not speak French, among those that arrived between 2011 and 2016, 82 per cent now have a knowledge of the French language.
Legault also pointed to the fact that one in four new immigrants who arrived between 2005 and 2015 moved out of the province.
But this is a problem many other provinces – particularly maritime provinces – face as well.
Naturally, the CAQ isn’t the only party who wants to crack down on Anglophone rights, the Parti Quebecois (PQ) says it will force English CEGEP students to study at a French CEGEP for a full semester.
The party’s leader, Jean Francois Lisée, said that this policy is necessary because, as he claimed, less than 50 per cent speak it at the breakfast table.
This, despite the fact that 82 per cent of Quebecers primarily speak French at home and 94 per cent say they can speak French.
Apparently it’s now the responsibility of the government to make sure citizens are speaking the “right” language in their own homes.
Not to be outdone on the pandering front, the PQ says that it will ensure that 100 per cent of all new immigrants will be fluent in French before they arrive.
Unfortunately, what really matters to these politicians is stoking the fears of the pure laine that “the other” is going to change the province for the worse.
And who better to serve as the stand in for “the other” than, not just immigrants, but immigrants that don’t speak French.
As University of Waterloo Political Science Professor Emmett Macfarlane said on Twitter: “Immigration as a threat to the French language in Quebec has always been a myth, no matter how many generations of hair-brained nationalists cry otherwise.”
Chris Lowrey
