Quebec anglophones beware: your relationship with the province’s francophones is being tested, and clearly not with a view to strengthening linguistic harmony.
One might have hoped that the considerable rise in knowledge and use of the French language among a generation of Quebec anglophones would have reduced insecurities about the French language.
Not so. In effect, the language laws failed to make anglophones sufficiently sympathetic to the plight of French and to get them to help make it the province’s common public language – or at least that appears to be the verdict of L’Actualité columnist Jean-François Lisée in his cover story for the current edition of the magazine (April 15, 2012), entitled “Ici, on parle English: Quel avenir pour le français a Montréal?”
Lisée implies that to be integrated into Quebec society it is not enough to respect the Charter of the French Language; one also has to promote its objectives.
To do so, he argues, anglophones must acknowledge the purportedly dire situation of the French language on the island of Montreal – to which, by the way, their use of English contributes.
A survey in January of 750 Quebec anglophones by the polling firm CROP for L’Actualité provides support for the notion of anglophones’ lack of concern about the health of French.
The survey found that 54 per cent of anglophones agreed with the statement that “given the power of globalization and of the English language, it is only a question of time before most work in Montreal will be done in English.” But the answer appears to have been built into the question.
Paradoxically, in another survey question, 65 per cent of anglophones disagreed with the statement “I hope that French remains the primary language in Quebec, but I think it’s a losing battle.”
Depending on the wording of the CROP questions, a majority of anglophones appear both to agree and to disagree that the promotion of French is a losing battle.
There was widespread anger among francophones upon learning that two unilingual anglophones were employed as senior managers by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. The fact that the individuals became the object of such provincewide concern suggests that such situations are more an exception than a rule. Yet those seeking to fuel existing insecurity about the condition of the French language were quick to use their case as yet another example of the spread in the use of English.
The CROP survey found that 59 per cent of Quebec anglophones agree that “large Montreal corporations should be allowed to hire unilingual anglophones as managers, even if this means that French-speaking employees need to work in English.” Despite the continued increase in knowledge of French among non-francophones, the 2006 census reported that there are more than 300,000 Quebecers who speak English only.
To avoid a massive unemployment crisis, we have to expect that there is work for most of these individuals, some of whom are undoubtedly qualified for management jobs. Hence it is not surprising that many anglophone Quebecers think it is okay to hire unilingual anglophone managers – a situation that currently exists at, for example, Bombardier. I may not take that view, but I would not describe those anglophones who disagree with me as either non-integrated or hostile to the French language.
In fact, the survey found that 83 per cent of anglophones would tell their kids it is imperative that they be fluent in French when they get to be 18 years old, vs. 17 per cent who feel “they should focus on more important skills, as long as they know enough basic French to ask directions or order a meal.”
Yet another test of whether Quebec anglophones are integrated is the extent to which they are familiar with certain Quebec francophone musicians and TV personalities.
Lisée is disturbed by the finding that only 30 per cent of anglophones are familiar with Quebec pop singer Marie-Mai. In fact, that figure is relatively high, since Quebec anglophones listen to the majority of their music in English – as do a majority of the province’s francophone youth. If familiarity with the Marie-Mai and her music is a test of integration into Quebec society, rest assured many francophones would not pass.
I may agree that the French language is threatened, but I consider it unacceptable to label as “not integrated” those non-francophones who think otherwise. The authors of the CROP survey have formulated several survey questions in a way that sets up Quebec anglophones as hostile to both francophones and the French language. If anglophones do not acknowledge either directly or indirectly that the use of their language in Montreal represents a dire threat to francophones, they appear to fail the survey’s integration test and thus do not appear to be good Quebecers.
Some individuals seem eager to reap the possible political benefits of sowing such division. The interests of Quebecers would be better served by trying to foster dialogue between language communities. Regrettably, that is unlikely to be the lesson drawn from L’Actualité.
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Jack Jedwab is executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies in Montreal.