The analysis of the chapter of Bill 101 dealing with professional orders reveals an inequity towards immigrants who do not have a high school diploma from Quebec.
About twenty college programs lead to membership in a professional order, such as Nursing. Article 35 of the Charter of the French language stipulates that a person is “deemed to have [une] awareness [appropriée du français] to the exercise of [sa] profession [si] :
1. She has completed, full-time, at least three years of secondary or post-secondary education provided in French; [ou]
2. She has passed the French mother tongue exams in the fourth or fifth year of secondary school; [ou]
3. As of the 1985-1986 school year, she obtains a secondary school certificate in Quebec ”.
It is thanks to the last two criteria that French-speaking and English-speaking students with a Quebec high school diploma who attend English-speaking CEGEPs have never had to obtain “a certificate issued by the Office québécois de la langue française [OQLF] “. All other students must obtain it. In other words, many allophone students in the English-speaking college network follow the same courses as their French-speaking and English-speaking colleagues, but only they must obtain the OQLF certificate.
In the case of nurses, for example, Quebec asks them to reach level 8 on the Quebec scale of French language proficiency levels for adult immigrants, which has 12, while it considers that the others can work. in French simply because criterion 2 applies to francophones and that 3 applies to anglophones.
Level 8 of the Scale is demanding, as it requires the “appropriate” use of past tenses, subjunctive, “common relative pronouns for making complex sentences” and “begins[r] to master the usual vocabulary of his professional field or his field of study ”, among others. More than two-thirds of young people who obtained their high school diploma in English in Quebec do not meet the first two aspects of this requirement and do not have to obtain a certificate. As for the aspect of the vocabulary of their professional field, all CEGEP students (anglophones, francophones, allophones) who have learned it in English ignore it in French (pathologies, treatments, equipment, parts of the body, etc.). In short, we are giving absolution to the two main language groups on false premises and we are raising the bar above our own capacity for immigrants.
Knowledge to “maintain”
During the recent hearings of the parliamentary committee that studied Bill 96, Liberal MP Hélène David discussed an important change to section 35 with the President and CEO of the OQLF, Ginette Galarneau. The draft replaces the word “deemed”, quoted at the beginning of this text, by “to maintain a knowledge of the official language appropriate to the exercise of the profession”. This means that a professional could be called upon to demonstrate that he still has an appropriate knowledge of French several years after having obtained his certificate. MP David welcomed the fact that it would no longer be possible to be “like the lifetime winners of the lottery, earning for life to be deemed to speak French”. Mme Galarneau then confirms that “failure to maintain appropriate knowledge constitutes a breach of ethics” and that the Office may in particular “carry out an assessment” following a complaint. Moreover, if an inspector who is a member of an order considers that his peer has not maintained his knowledge of French, he could ask the office to assess him. Mme David then asks to specify if “it is the office which will decide that the person fails or does not fail in the French course throughout his life. “To which Ms. Galarneau replies:” If there was the requirement, indeed, of the certificate. “
If we want to put an end to this inequity, it will be necessary that all the professionals be subjected to this obligation of maintenance, not only the immigrants from whom we require that they obtain a certificate of the office. Otherwise, immigrants will be the only “winners for life” of the obligation to maintain their French.