Worried about the adoption of Bill 96 aimed at strengthening the protection of French in Quebec, the Association Québécoise des Orthophonistes et Audiologistes (AQOA) fears that this new legislation will further penalize immigrants. What’s more, the regulation of the language of work leads them into harmful “ethical dilemmas”, they claim.
These language disorder specialists denounce in an open letter the incompatibility of this law with their profession.
“It’s not realistic to work like that,” explains the To have to Manar Jaber, AQOA board member.
“When I have to explain the results of an assessment to the parents of a Vietnamese child, for example, and I don’t have access to an interpreter, and I don’t have the means to speak with them either in Vietnamese or in French, it becomes impossible. »
Health services will be exempt from this law, according to the Prime Minister, François Legault, but “education affects our profession just as much”, underlines Manar Jaber. “We would ideally like to exempt the health system and the education system. »
At the very least, exemptions should apply for third languages, she says. “I speak Arabic and I speak regularly bilingually — in French and Arabic. […] It allows me to use my full potential as a professional. This fluidity creates a bond of trust. »
“Unrealistic” deadlines
Law 96 stipulates that from May 2023, immigrants who have been settled in Quebec for more than six months will receive communications from the State exclusively in French.
This deadline is unrealistic in Ms. Jaber’s eyes, because “even educated and privileged people in life cannot learn French in six months”.
“According to studies, it takes a minimum of two years of increased exposure to be able to express oneself in a language. If we are talking about psychology or the legal field, it takes several years to know this vocabulary. And we talk about people without language problems, ”she notes.
The challenge of learning French may even prove impossible as you get older, adds the speech therapist, making the precariousness more acute for these immigrants. “The ease of learning a language becomes more difficult with age. This further isolates the elderly. »