(Laval) Less than a year after adopting Bill 96, which was presented as “the greatest advance for the French language in Quebec since the adoption of Bill 101”, the Legault government believes that the decline of French remains alarming and that there is an “urgent” need to reverse the trend.
The Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, announced on Friday the formation of a group of ministers who will consult experts and citizens over the coming months in order to table an action plan by the fall of 2023. to “slow down, stop and reverse the decline of the French language”. An advertising campaign that promotes French will also be spread over several years.
“The situation of French is worrying. The statistics are unequivocal. Our language is losing ground, often to the benefit of English. This is true on all fronts, ”he said on the sidelines of the pre-sessional caucus of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) in Laval.
“Quebecers are at a crossroads. There is an urgent need to significantly improve the quality and proficiency of French. It is urgently necessary to ensure its vitality,” he added.
Mr. Roberge will bring together in his committee the Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, the Minister of Culture, Mathieu Lacombe, the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, and the Minister of International Relations and La Francophonie, Martine Biron.
new data
During the study of Bill 96, which modernized the Charter of the French language through its adoption last June, experts and opposition MPs criticized the Legault government’s approach, saying that it would not achieve its goal of arresting the decline of French.
The Minister of the French Language, a ministry moreover created by the new law, now defends that new data published in August by Statistics Canada shook the CAQ government. This report affirmed that the weight of French continued to decline in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada.
“When we received the information for the month of August 2022, there was an awareness in the government. [On] wish a great national awakening and that everyone appropriates this information [qui] call for more action,” said Mr. Roberge.
He also added that the committee he is setting up will define indicators to measure the evolution of French in Quebec. It should be noted that Bill 96 also provides for the creation of a position of French language commissioner, whose function is to monitor the evolution of the linguistic situation in Quebec by in turn establishing indicators.
Mother tongue
Jean-François Roberge is not in a position to indicate when the government of Quebec will be able to reverse the decline of French in the province. However, he said that this objective will be clarified when the report of his action group is tabled. “When the action plan is tabled, of course there will be a timetable,” he said.
The Minister intends to monitor several indicators with the members of his committee to define the state of health of French in Quebec: “the language of consumption of culture, the language spoken at home and the language spoken at work”.
“One of the indicators we have is the mother tongue. To change the mother tongue indicator, which is a heavy demographic measure, it will take years. But there may be areas where it can move faster,” he said.
To this end, Mr. Roberge is concerned about the decreasing weight of Montrealers who have French as the language spoken at home. However, he assured that the government will not try to “go Frenchify it [les citoyens] in [leur] how to butter sandwiches in the morning”.
” A [statistique] which is very worrying is that on the island of Montreal, at the moment, 48% of Montrealers use French as the language spoken at home. We know that the language spoken at home is the language with [laquelle] we talk to our friends. It’s very much the language in which we consume culture, the series we listen to, the music we listen to. So it can also be worrying for Quebec culture, ”said the Minister of the French Language.
“The Government of Quebec will not send an inspector to see what language people speak at home, but it is a definitive indicator of the vitality of the language. […] The language we use at home is also an indicator of the language we use to consume cultural goods,” added Mr. Roberge.
In a militant cocktail party Thursday in Laval, Premier François Legault said his goal is to have his government written into the history books as the one that “stopped the decline of French in Quebec”.
“We will ensure that the percentage of Francophones who make up our immigration is significantly increased,” he added, when he declared a few weeks ago that he was aiming for 100% Francophone or Francotropic immigration. by 2026.