Posted yesterday at 9:00 a.m.
Disappointing tomorrows
I am old (77 years old), and all my life, I have fought for the quality, survival and progress of French in Quebec. I note with sadness the decline of our language. I will continue to demand it, to defend it, but its survival no longer depends on me or those of my generation, it belongs to the youngest and I am pessimistic. I also find that our governments are ineffective — if not totally indifferent and inactive (especially at the federal level) — and that our courts by defending individual rights undermine our collective rights. No, we don’t have bright tomorrows ahead of us.
Jean Bazinet
Repatriate all immigration powers
The continual loss of the weight of French (and Anglophone bilingualism), both in Quebec and in Canada, is of great concern. All immigration powers should be repatriated to the Government of Quebec. This would make the processing of applications more consistent and faster and would make it possible to really emphasize the French language among newcomers.
Mathieu Cote, Montreal
Linguistically disabled in their own territory
French is losing ground. In this bilingual (French-English) country that is Canada, French is put forward as a screen to distinguish itself from the United States. But the Head of State no longer speaks French and goes so far as to claim official bilingualism (Inuktitut-English). The screen withers. In Quebec, the erosion is also continuing, and the fact of not imposing French in CEGEP is accelerating this trend. Soon, English-language colleges and universities will need more money. The funds will come from the State of Quebec to the detriment of what? Funding for its French-language institutions. Immigration without complete control by the Quebec state is accelerating erosion. So what is the choice? Autonomy? Independence? A kind of cultural sovereignty? General de Gaulle was right to say that English Canada will never allow French to progress in Quebec! A review of relations with Canada is urgently needed for people serious about the future of French in Quebec. If nothing is done, the next generations of French-speaking Quebecers will be linguistically handicapped in their own territory.
Rita Dionne-Marsolais, minister under the governments of the Parti Québécois 1994-2002
Bilingual officials
The best way to promote the French language is to require that newly hired federal civil servants have a perfect command of spoken and written French and English. As we demand of the French speakers who work there.
Rejean Houle
Law 101 at CEGEP
We urgently need to apply Bill 101 to CEGEPs and facilitate immigrants’ access to francization programs. I don’t see any other fully effective solutions at the moment. There should also be a lot more French content in the media in order to stem the appeal of American culture as much as possible through the English language, which seems next to impossible. The most important thing is to make the government understand this, as Law 96 is clearly insufficient.
Janine Theriault, Montreal
Worrying in Montreal and Laval
Indeed, the situation of French worries me, particularly in the large regions of Montreal and Laval. As with the issue of the environment, the current Quebec government is only taking half measures to stop the bleeding. Even if it does better than the English-speaking party (Liberal Party), it is clearly insufficient. My vote in the next provincial election will go to the party that cares about these two important issues.
Michael Martin
Morose French speakers
Yes, I am concerned about the state of French in Quebec. What is currently alarming, around me, is to see a certain gloom on the part of Francophones in wanting to fight to preserve it. This is the beginning of the end. The preservation of French requires a strong and radiant culture, popular, close to people. Unfortunately, the global English-speaking steamroller is already well underway. We have to have a separate country to preserve our language and culture, and I’m not optimistic on that side either. We are facing assimilation over a few generations to come.
Richard Barrel
All powers
We absolutely must have all the levers and powers with regard to immigration, period.
Mario Fraser
Culture as a linguistic driver
I’ve been teaching literature at Cégep de Joliette since 2009. Like Brother Doe, I see that mastery of the basic rules (chords, conjugation) remains roughly the same from cohort to cohort. What regresses is the syntax and, above all, the vocabulary. In the age of “everything on demand”, school children can choose (and very often choose) the English versions of their series or listen only to English-language music on a continuous basis. Unlike past generations who heard French songs (every family had a radio on the fridge!) and watched French soap operas on television, today’s young people no longer acquire their language, its forms and its structure. , by the ambient culture. This results in a multiplication of errors in syntax (structures of English sentences with French words) and vocabulary (approximate choice of words, fraternal twins, etc.) that they no longer know how to recognize, even when the finger is pointed at them.
My solution? The implementation of vast cultural programs where artists would be honored in schools, in the school curriculum, in order to make known and give a taste of French to the younger generations. You have to hear a language to understand it, acquire it and speak it, that’s what any Spanish, English or Mandarin teacher would tell you.
Raphael Desroches, Lanaudiere