45 years ago, to the day, Quebec adopted the Charter of the French language (Bill 101). To enable Québec to respond to new challenges, the An Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French (Law 96) was passed in 2022. This law is far from perfect.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
New immigrants should not be required to be able only six months after their arrival to address the government in French (art. 15).
Anglophone students (Aboriginal or otherwise) should not be required to take three French courses at the college level (s. 60).
It was not necessary to resort to the notwithstanding provision with regard to the first 38 articles of our Charter of human rights and freedoms (art. 121 and art. 216).
Was this law still necessary?
An increasingly difficult situation
With the massive arrival of 50,000 new permanent residents per year in Quebec, it is normal to see a drop in the number of people with French as their mother tongue or as the language spoken at home.
The important thing is that French is the common public language of Quebec, which implies the predominance of French in the public space.
To get closer to an estimate of the presence of French in the public space, René Houle and Jean-Pierre Corbeil brought in a new indicator. It is French as the first official language spoken (FOLS) which includes, in addition to Francophones, allophones who speak French at home or who mainly speak French in the public space.
Houle and Corbeil established in 2017 that across Quebec, in 2011, 85% of the Quebec population had French as their FOLS. However, they predict a fall of around four points, or 81%, for 2036. The 2021 census confirms their prediction. From 2016 to 2021, we went from 83.7% to 82.2%. In the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) of Montreal (including the island, Longueuil, Laval and Terrebonne), the proportion of citizens with French as their FOLS will drop significantly, from 75% in 2011 to 71% in 2036. The 2021 census indicates that this floor has already been reached (71.3%).
Several factors explain this drop: natural population growth, language transfers, interprovincial migration and international immigration.
The integration of immigrants into the French language has improved markedly in recent years, but any percentage of Francophone or francized immigrants below 85% will reduce the overall proportion of citizens having French as their FOLS.
It’s even worse than expected
The decline predicted by Houle and Corbeil in 2017 was calculated taking into account only economic immigration. It is indeed difficult to predict anything about the third of Quebec immigration, which is made up of refugees and family reunification. Nor could the numbers take into account the federal government’s recent drive to increase the number of new annual permanent residents to Canada from 250,000 to 450,000 per year.
Nor could the authors take into account the recent presence of 170,000 non-permanent residents per year holding provisional work or study permits in Quebec.
According to Pierre Fortin, 85% of the selection within the economic category itself was filled in 2021 by candidates from federal temporary immigration programs.
The massive acceptance of study permit applications from India (mainly English-speaking students) and the massive refusal of these permits for students from Africa (mainly French-speaking) in colleges and universities has made matters worse. However, students constitute more than half of the immigrants holding temporary permits.
Real reasons for concern
Major trends already observable are accentuated despite the progress made thanks to Bill 101. If nothing is done, the proportion of citizens whose FOLS is French will drop to 60% in the Montreal CMA in 2036.
Law 96 aims to seek to meet some of these challenges.
In section 57, it requires any worker holding a provisional work or study permit to send his children to French-language schools after three years. Section 60 caps the maximum proportion of students enrolled in Anglophone colleges at 17.5%. A maximum share of 11.7% is reserved in these colleges for any increase in student numbers in the network.
The number of Anglophones taking courses in English in French-language colleges must not exceed 2%. Admissions exceeding departmental estimates will not be funded. Finally, businesses with 25 or more employees will have to be francized (section 83).
Real reasons for concern justify state intervention. In this sense, Bill 96 meets several requirements that are becoming pressing. To make its contribution, the Canadian state should impose knowledge of French as a condition for granting permanent residence in Quebec.