“Sometimes, I just want to say that I am French Canadian,” says Pascal Justin Boyer with a smile. Born in Quebec, the actor grew up in Ontario. Is he the last of the French Canadians, as the writer James Fenimore Cooper presented us with the last of the Mohicans? He asks himself this in a light-hearted documentary, called The last French Canadian.
The actor is not without knowing — since everyone will repeat it to him — that this name of French Canadian refers to a collective existence shaped by religion and based on a narrow conception of origins which does not agree well with social views. of today.
Marcel Martel, professor of history at York University, observes that the use of the term “French Canadian” has been buried for decades. At the end of the 1960s, the Estates General of French Canada “put the final nail in the coffin of French Canada,” he said. On the occasion of this meeting of the different authorities of the Canadian Francophonie, Quebec took off. It now intended to conceive itself according to its capacity, as a modern State, to assume its self-determination, to be master of its destiny and to use this lever to elevate, in French, an entire society.
While Quebecers rely on this French national state, the other French-speaking realities of Canada are left to redefine themselves according to the provincial territories where they are located. No more French Canadians. Here come the Franco-Ontarians, the Franco-Manitobans, the Franco-Albertans, etc.
Pascal Justin Boyer says he doesn’t have “much time to write about the history of the Francophonie in the country.” “Basically, French speakers arrived in North America in the 16the century. And today, in Canada — and here, I know that there are many people who will be surprised — there are French speakers everywhere in the country. Worse no, it’s not just Quebecers who have moved. That’s pretty much all you need to understand going forward. » This is probably a little short to navigate properly.
A guided visit
From one end of the Canadian federation to the other, Pascal Justin Boyer works to introduce us to French-speaking groups. Most of them are young people that he interviews. Many are linked, like him, to the world of performing culture. Individual testimony takes precedence here over political and socio-economic considerations.
Comedian Katherine Levac sets the tone. She wonders why, in the fight for French, Quebecers do not form a united front with Franco-Ontarians. “Why aren’t we in this together?” I don’t know,” she said. Is language first and foremost a love affair with a culture, as she suggests in the rest of her remarks?
Pascal Justin Boyer takes us to visit the Francophonie of the Yukon. Total population: 34,000 inhabitants. Of this number, only 5.5% say they have French as their mother tongue.
In British Columbia, journalist Julie Landry does not hide being discouraged at times. She believed in a French school for her children. Now, she wonders if her grandchildren will one day be able to benefit from a French school. French education has been systematically underfunded by the province. The situation was denounced even before the Supreme Court thanks to determined activists. Will the law be enough to repair the worst?
From hope to hope
Both education and immigration are essential to ensure the future of the Francophonie in Canada, repeats Pascal Justin Boyer. However, despite epic struggles in favor of the preservation of French on all fronts, the results are far from meeting hopes, he suggests half-heartedly.
Outside of Quebec, explains Professor André Samson of the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa, the offer of university programs in French is poor. Which leads the young French-speaking generation to become anglicized. That a new French university finally opens its doors in Toronto is not enough to turn things around, partly due to the poverty of the programs. This university, the documentary observes without complacency, is only very rarely attended by Franco-Ontarians. But that’s without mentioning Laurentian University, several programs of which have been sacrificed in the name of austerity.
Born in Montreal, Moussa Sangaré-Ponce, singer-songwriter, is presented as a “Blackadian” from Halifax. Identity is first and foremost a personal matter, he says. He still adds this: “You can’t be French-speaking in Nova Scotia and not learn English. »
“We sometimes present our communities as places where it is possible to live in French,” says Marc-André LeBlanc, a young Acadian from Moncton. According to him, this is not entirely true: it is difficult to integrate into the local world without speaking English.
At the start of his sparkling documentary, Pascal Justin Boyer presents his parents. With them, he looks through an album of family photos. What is the belonging that we all have to a large common family album, in the name of a shared language?