The Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) defends its study which concludes that the use of French in public spaces is stable in Quebec, but recognizes that the survey does not necessarily depict the current reality in the province.
The OQLF recognized that the portrait of Quebec painted in its study, entitled Language of public space in Quebec in 2022, is out of step with today’s socio-demographic reality. In a press release released Friday, the Office added, however, that “carrying out such a study requires significant resources and takes two to three years.”
The study, published in early April, concluded that the use of French was stable: 79% of Quebecers used French most often in 2022, the year the survey was carried out. This proportion was the same in 2016 and 2007. The survey also reveals that 73% of Quebecers say they have either good or excellent command of spoken French.
Optimistic results, which contrast with the gloomy portrait painted in other studies.
According to Statistics Canada 2021 census data, the proportion of people who use French as their first official language spoken, an indicator that measures the place of French in the public space, had decreased since 2016, from 83 .7% to 82.2%.
In 2021, two OQLF studies documented a significant decline in French as the language of use in Quebec. According to one of them, one in two Quebecers used English or a language other than French at work.
Against a current
The recent OQLF study raised eyebrows among some, including demographer Guillaume Marois, who suggested taking the study “with a large grain of salt” in a Facebook post. The holder of a doctorate from the National Institute of Scientific Research (INRS) particularly highlighted the “relatively small” sample of 7,000 respondents, and the silence of the OQLF regarding the non-response rate of its survey, while it was 54%, in 2016. “Normally, we will consider the sample as unreliable when the figure exceeds 30%,” wrote Guillaume Marois.
In its press release, the Office made some corrections to the methodological section of its recent study, but did not address the question of the participation rate.
“Contrary to what was mentioned by the Office following the release of the study, the weighting was carried out using data from the 2021 census,” specified the OQLF. In the methodological section of the document, the OQLF mentioned that it was data from the 2016 census that was used.
“Current socio-demographic realities will obviously be taken into consideration in the reflections which will lead to the Office’s next research programming,” added the OQLF in its press release.