In 2018, the success of Québec solidaire during the election campaign suddenly made François Legault discover the urgency of tackling climate change. This time, we have the impression that the speech of the Parti Québécois on the decline of French has provoked the same kind of illumination.
The inaugural address is rarely very exciting, especially when a government is reappointed after campaigning on continuity. And by dint of multiplying the priorities, we end up giving the impression of not having any.
The Prime Minister nevertheless felt the need to catch up on the language issue. From the outset, he evoked the “improbable fate” of the companions of Champlain, landed on American soil more than four centuries ago, who had “succeeded in holding on”, which imposed on their descendants the obligation to continue.
His “first duty”, he said, is to halt the decline of French and even reverse the trend. At the same time, he recognized that what was done during his first mandate was still insufficient, even if it takes time for Bill 96 to produce its full effect.
The Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, had set the table 24 hours earlier. “Quebecers will really have to understand that right now, we’re not walking, we’re running towards the wall! We have a real problem. The decline of French is greater in the last 20 years than in the previous century,” he said.
However, there will be no “national awakening”, unless the government sets the example itself. Of course, everyone must act, whether in the choice of cultural products they consume or even in demanding to be served in French, but it is up to elected officials to define the legal framework within which the fight for survival of the only French-speaking majority state in North America could perhaps still be won.
If French continues to decline as a language of work, can the Minister seriously think that the responsibility lies with Francophones, who are not demanding enough of their employers? When they go to a hospital in the Montreal area where they are unable to be treated in French, should they slam the door and go elsewhere?
If it is possible to run a business or work in a public service without being able to speak the language of the majority, or even refusing to do so, it is obviously because nothing prevents it.
Mr. Legault still excludes extending the provisions of Bill 101 to the college level, believing that this would not have a major effect on the francization of immigrants. He never seemed to understand that a language policy is a whole, each of whose elements is not necessarily decisive, but whose combination makes it possible to achieve the desired result.
The Prime Minister now says he is betting on almost 100% French-speaking immigration, and he is now discovering that a lot could be done without the new powers he has been asking the federal government for years.
The new Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, wanted to calm her boss’s frenzy a little, who has always had trouble mastering this file, by saying that we should rather “tend towards” this objective and that Simply “Francotropic” immigrants, whether their mother tongue is Arabic, Creole or Swahili, could do the trick.
The Superminister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, has also hastened to make reservations and is already calling for exceptions, in particular for the development of the battery sector, pending the other projects which are sure to come to him. spirit. “That would be thefun to have 100%, but you have to be realistic and balance that with the needs,” he explained.
Mr. Fitzgibbon can always remind the Prime Minister that this is exactly what he said himself not so long ago. In February 2019, Mr. Legault had clearly expressed his vision of things during the presentation of Bill 9 on immigration. “The PQ prefers to say: we will require French before the arrival. Personally, I think that would not help to respond well to the needs of the labor market, ”he said.
There is no doubt that Mr. Legault would like Quebec to be as French as possible, but his priority, not to say his obsession, has always been first to enrich it and catch up with Ontario, a theme to which he returned more than once in the inaugural speech. Mr. Fitzgibbon will no doubt point out to him that it is always risky to chase two hares at the same time.