A 20-year-old French policeman years of experience, who came here in the hope of being able to work in French in Quebec, can’t get over seeing the doors close because he doesn’t speak enough English.
“When you don’t speak English, you are left out of a conversation. You are sidelined from a job”, confides to the Log Olivier (fictitious name), who prefers to remain anonymous, given the sensitive nature of his work.
“If I was trusted for 20 years in a country, I don’t see why we can’t do it here,” continues the Montrealer by adoption.
A broken dream
Like other French people, Olivier was conquered by “the Quebec dream”. He left everything to come and live with us, but when he arrived, he became disillusioned.
“I chose Quebec because it’s a French-speaking province, and I’m not the only one like that,” he breathes.
When Olivier is asked why he is not going to settle far from the big city, he replies that his wife has a job in the metropolis.
“I don’t want my children to have anxiety about English. On the contrary, I encourage them to learn it. It is important. What is unfortunate is to have to flee perhaps because of English, ”he says.
Fired because he is unilingual
After waiting more than three years for his permanent residence, Olivier expected things to settle down, but he came up against a new closed door: the requirement of English at work.
“I was fired because I wasn’t fully bilingual,” sighs the man who had managed to find a good job in a financial institution while starting the process to become a police officer here.
More English at work
Today, at the end of his resources, Olivier finds it hard to grasp that Quebec is unable to offer him at least one role in business involving fraud detection.
“Over the past few years, it has gotten worse. When I arrived, we still found positions where it was okay not to speak English well, we were tolerant, but today there are English tests, ”he laments.
Even if in Quebec the language used most often at work remains French, its weight has melted since 2016 to settle at 79.7% in 2021, according to the Quebec Office of the French language (OQLF).
In comparison, for the same period, English jumped to reach 13.9% in 2021 across the territory.
“The decrease in the proportion of people using French most often at work is a trend observed for several censuses already. In 2001, for example, this proportion was 82%,” notes the OQLF.
Much worse on the island of Montreal
On the island of Montreal, the phenomenon is even more marked. While French stagnates at 56.7% as the most used language, English has gone from 27.1% in 2016 to 31.3% in 2021, up 4.2% in just five years.
“We are told: we need French workers. But once here, everything gets complicated,” concludes Olivier, who no longer rules out having to return to France.
In the crown of Montreal, the proportion of people who use French at work is 81.1%, or 24.4% higher, than on the island, according to the Office québécois de la langue française.