The anger of many Anglophones after the CAQ reform of Bill 101 this spring has brought back to the news the question of the exodus of Anglophones over the years. The figure of 600,000, between 1971 between 2015, has been circulating. Possible ?
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
This figure actually refers to a 2016 report by the Fraser Institute according to which 600,000 Quebecers left Quebec between 1971 and 2015. But these are not necessarily Anglophones.
So, how much is the exodus of this community precisely? The brotherhood of historians was called in to help answer this much more complicated question than it seems.
In The Quebec condition – An exotic storya book published in 2020, historian Jocelyn Létourneau writes that between 1966 and 1986, approximately 300,000 Anglophones – most of them from the Montreal area – left Quebec.
Two out of three migrants claiming to leave because of the shock felt by the election of the Parti Québécois in 1976 and the adoption a year later of Bill 101.
Historian Jocelyn Létourneau, in his book
“Without doubting the word of those concerned, it must be recognized that Toronto, at the same time, was attracting from across the country and around the world tens of thousands of men and women attracted by the extraordinary growth of the city. , which then rises without competition to the rank of Canadian metropolis. »
On the phone, he persists and signs. He highlights how, starting in the 1950s, Toronto has been a hub for people of all backgrounds. “The Anglophones who moved there did so primarily for economic reasons – to improve their financial situation – but also, in some cases, yes, for cultural reasons. »
Other assumptions
In “The exodus of the Anglo-Quebec community: the necessary accountability” (text published in the book Reply to critics of Quebec sovereigntyunder the direction of Alain-G Gagnon and François Rocher), Josée Legault and Gary Caldwell say that 131,500 Anglophones left Quebec between 1976 and 1981, compared to 94,000 from 1971 to 1976.
In 1983, in the scientific article “L’émigration des anglophones québécois”, the demographer Robert Maheu wrote for his part that between 1976 and 1981, “the departure rate for Anglophones was 17.5% against only 1% for Francophones. For the periods 1966 and 1971, 1971-1976 and 1976-1981, the propensity of Anglophones to leave Quebec was respectively 13, 15 and 17.5% higher than that of Francophones.
Examination of historical data from Canadian censuses shows that the propensity of Anglophones to leave Quebec has always been higher than that of Francophones.
Demographer Robert Maheu, in his article
“An administrative file, that of family allowances, has made it possible to reconstruct departures from Quebec since 1974. If the number of English speakers and their proportion among those leaving were indeed higher than normal between 1977 and 1979, during the four following years the situation has again become comparable to that observed in the past, even if Bill 101 is still in force,” wrote Mr. Maheu.
As Jonathan Livernois, professor of literature with a doctorate in the history of ideas, points out, it is increasingly difficult to attribute departures from Quebec to a specific cause. “New Quebecers often tend to enter Canada through Quebec and then settle in Toronto. »
The Quebec Institute of Statistics referred us to Statistics Canada, which did not contact us again.