Let’s break down together this amazing graphic, developed by Frédéric Lacroix, recent author of the excellent book A free choice?, on the linguistic situation in higher education.
Permanent immigration. It’s the solid line that shows that, year after year, before the pandemic, between 50,000 and 55,000 immigrants became residents of Quebec. The whole debate focuses on this given of the “immigration thresholds”. We already know that at this level, Quebec receives more immigrants per capita than the United States, France or the United Kingdom, but less than Australia, Germany and Canada. (The drop in 2019 will be offset by a catch-up, to 70,000, this year.)
Temporary immigration. It is the dotted line which rises inexorably and which renders obsolete — pointless or laughable, as you wish — the debate on thresholds. This immigration, managed by the federal government, is made up for more than half of foreign students, the rest being temporary workers from all sectors. Some of them will become permanent immigrants (thus one day counted among the 55,000), but the number of permits issued is constantly increasing. So if you thought that Quebec welcomed around 55,000 people a year, you were underestimating the number of 150,000.
Arriving, the French? No thanks! On the graph, the blue space represents the proportion of all immigrants who say they know French, the red space those who say they do not know it. In detail, the proportion of permanent staff who admit not having mastered it at the point of entry has gone from 42% in 2015 to almost 50% in 2019. This data is certainly underestimated, because each check carried out a posteriori, by the Auditor General or immigration officials, reveals that there is always less French than what is posted. Among foreign students, ignorance of French increased from 35% in 2014 (44.5) to 43% (45.2) in 2019. Among temporary workers in the international mobility program (let’s not talk about the main -of agricultural work, massively Spanish-speaking), 37% declared in 2019 that they did not know the language of Molière and for 40% of them, we do not know! Should we even believe these numbers? No proof is required. More broadly, the Legault government’s objective is to increase the number of temporary workers by 15% within 18 months.
Once arrived, always no thanks! Perhaps foreign students fall in love with French, once immersed in our French-speaking metropolis? A study by Statistics Canada has just quenched our hopes and undeceived us: “Despite their initial intentions to learn French, most students have not really improved their language skills due to time constraints, a lack of motivation, or because they mainly interact with English-speaking students. »
The impact on Montreal. The graph shows annual entries, but — except for international students — not the cumulative number. To put it simply, if we count for 2019 only those who say they speak only English and who are in Montreal, at least 26,500 young foreigners are fueling Montreal’s anglicization. Add those who speak only English among English-Canadian students (5,363), temporary managers and professionals (9,300) and permanent immigrants (8,860), and that makes 50,000 people. This is the equivalent of more than twice the Ontario city of Brockville. This is the low assumption. As Frédéric Lacroix writes, speaking of English-speaking public and private schools, Canadian temporary immigration policy is creating, “centered on McGill, Dawson, Concordia, Matrix, Herzing, etc., a city-state anglophone in the heart of Montreal”.
But Bill 96? I would like to be able to say that, faced with this influx, the CAQ project will offer a bulwark. But there is not the beginning of an attempt at correction. The Legault government, which authorizes the expansions of Dawson and McGill, does not provide for anything to claim, for example, a prior knowledge of French in the selection of foreign students or an obligation of training in French during their stay. Worse: the PLQ had accustomed us to setting, for permanent immigration, targets for knowledge of French that it failed to reach. Prime Minister Legault, his ministers, his caucus no longer even have a target. They observe this decline, this linguistic engulfment of the city center, as disinterested spectators.
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