“There is a before and after Camille Laurin, that’s for sure. » And it fits precisely into this after. More than 45 years after the adoption of the Charter of the French Language, the French Language Commissioner, Benoît Dubreuil, describes himself as a “general auditor” of language policies. Twenty-five years after the death of Camille Laurin, The duty wanted to better understand what it means to defend the language.
Asylum seekers, temporary workers, foreign students, English-speaking universities, dominant language in science, attraction of English among young people: Mr. Dubreuil, who took office a year ago, is not sailing in calm waters.
From Camille Laurin, he rightly salutes the courage to have acted even while facing “a lot of adversity”. While many recognize today that Bill 101 was “probably the right thing to do,” it was never entirely consensual.
There is always “urgency to act”, he repeats, faithful to his message and to the conclusions of the reports he has published, the most recent of which, on temporary immigrants, has caused much ink to be spilled. .
Appointed by the National Assembly in a “non-consensual” manner between the different parties, he himself indicates, he does not however believe that linguistic questions can be resolved “once and for all”.
The increase in temporary immigration is certainly the result of “a set of independent decisions”, as he calls it in an interview in the offices of the Duty. It was also driven by government policies, established in particular to encourage recruitment from abroad.
And it is now also up to the government to act within its possibilities, he said, with avenues that he detailed in depth.
Better match expectations
Of the 140 pages of his most recent report, we mainly retained those where he recommended that asylum seekers be better “distributed” between the different provinces, without an exact mechanism being detailed.
The reflection surrounding the distribution and management of asylum seekers is only just beginning, Mr. Dubreuil maintains in an interview, without returning specifically to this recommendation. The phenomenon has long been “fairly marginal”, to the point where even the “statistical system is still not up to par”.
He also fought to obtain the “right figures” in the preparation of this report, he admits. The portrait still leads to the conclusion that francization is not going fast enough and not far enough, he says in substance.
The costs of improving it for temporary immigrants are “colossal,” he continues. Please note, the $10 to $13 billion that his team calculated does not constitute a net cost of francization that the government must pay tomorrow morning. This calculation includes the “opportunity cost”, that is to say the money that immigrants could not earn during the hours they devote to learning French.
The total cost is therefore shared between the immigrant, the employer — if he has one — or the educational establishment and the government, and it should be better distributed, according to Mr. Dubreuil. It therefore recommends that the government put in place allowances for the Frenchization of asylum seekers, like those that exist for other categories of immigrants, and for the Frenchization of workers even before their arrival in Quebec.
Choosing this way of calculating aimed to “also make decision-makers aware” of the considerable commitment that learning French requires. Part-time for four hours per week, it takes around seven years to reach level 8, synonymous with good language autonomy, he wrote.
He therefore admits that it is “not very realistic to think that a person who is going to be here, for example, on a two-year or three-year permit will manage to free up the time, by working, to master French” .
Commissioner Dubreuil nonetheless recommends that Quebec require in the future a beginner’s level of oral knowledge of French upon arrival, except for agricultural workers. Temporary workers should then continue to progress to reach, before renewing their permit, an intermediate level, therefore higher than that which the CAQ government intends to require.
At the same time, he does not deny the “human cost” of this type of recommendation. What to do with people already here subject to linguistic criteria which change throughout their stay? “This is a problem that is going to get worse. The longer people stay, the more connections they form, the more their future is here” and the more difficult “turning around” is.
This situation creates “a potential tension between the host society and the person,” he continues.
In the way
Regarding Camille Laurin, he also mentions his “great listening skills”, which he seemed to have inherited from his profession as a psychiatrist, he suggests. Commissioner Dubreuil values his space of independence, including from the politicians who appointed him, and at the same time, he tries not to alienate anyone: “I try to maintain dialogue, including with the English-speaking community . I also try to have the phone open. »
A balancing act in the current climate, where immigration and French arouse passions. This trained philosopher, senior civil servant and self-proclaimed “cerebral” finds himself in a war of numbers where the debate quickly takes an emotional turn.
Moving towards “a common vision” is certainly not a fierce struggle between different points of view, he believes. But how do you stay out of the mud that is sometimes thrown around, especially on X? “Yes, in a context where people feel very strongly attacked, everyone is a little on edge,” says Mr. Dubreuil, who sometimes feels his identity “wounded” himself.
In 2011, he already wrote that it is difficult to “criticize policies” without being accused of directly denigrating people or stigmatizing immigrants. “I try to stay on the facts, then having a language and a way of approaching people that prevents them from feeling legitimate in who they are. »
Can the government manage to walk on this thin ice? He will not comment on politics. “I think everyone can improve to ensure this effort. »